The Essential Galileo (21 page)

I have written much more than is appropriate in view of my slight illness. So I end by reminding you that I am at your service, and I kiss your hands and pray the Lord to give you happy holidays and all you desire.

Florence, 21 December 1613.

To Your Very Reverend Paternity.

Your Most Affectionate Servant,
Galileo Galilei.

§4.2
Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina
(1615)
⁶

[309] To the Most Serene Ladyship the Grand Duchess Dowager:
⁷

[§4.2.1] As Your Most Serene Highness knows very well, a few years ago I discovered in the heavens many particulars which had been invisible until our time. Because of their novelty, and because of some consequences deriving from them which contradict some physical propositions commonly accepted in philosophical schools, they roused against me no small number of such professors, as if I had placed these things in heaven with my hands in order to mess up nature and the sciences. These people seemed to forget that a multitude of truths contribute to inquiry and to the growth and strength of disciplines rather than to their diminution or destruction, and at the same time they showed greater affection for their own opinions than for the true ones; thus they proceeded to deny and to try to nullify those novelties, about which the senses themselves could have rendered them certain, if they had wanted to look at those novelties carefully. To this end they produced various matters, and they published some writings full of useless discussions and sprinkled with quotations from the Holy Scripture, taken from passages which they do not properly understand and which they inappropriately adduce. This was a very serious error, and they might not have fallen into it had they paid attention to St. Augustine's very useful advice [310] concerning how to proceed with care in reaching definite decisions about things which are obscure and difficult to understand by means of reason alone. For, speaking also about a particular physical conclusion pertaining to heavenly bodies, he writes this (
On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis
, book 2, at the end):
⁸
“Now then, always practicing a pious and serious moderation, we ought not to believe anything lightly about an obscure subject, lest we reject (out of love for our error) something which later may be truly shown not to be in any way contrary to the holy books of either the Old or New Testament.”

Then it developed that the passage of time disclosed to everyone the truths I had first pointed out, and, along with the truth of the matter, the difference in attitude between those who sincerely and without envy did not accept these discoveries as true and those who added emotional agitation to disbelief. Thus, just as those who were most competent in astronomical and in physical science were convinced by my first announcement, so gradually there has been a calming down of all the others whose denials and doubts were not sustained by anything other than the unexpected novelty and the lack of opportunity to see them and to experience them with the senses. However, there are those who are rendered ill-disposed, not so much toward the things as much as toward the author, by the love of their first error and by some interest which they imagine having but which escapes me. Unable to deny them any longer, these people became silent about them; but, embittered more than before by what has mellowed and quieted the others, they divert their thinking to other fictions and try to harm me in other ways. These would not really worry me any more than I was disturbed by the other oppositions, which I always laughed off, certain of the result that the business would have; I should not worry if I did not see that the new calumnies and persecutions are not limited to matters of greater or less theoretical understanding, which are relatively unimportant, but that they go further and try to damage me with stains which I do abhor and must abhor more than death. Nor can I be satisfied that these charges be known as false only by those who know me and them; their falsity must be known to every other person. These people are aware that in my [311] astronomical and philosophical studies, on the question of the constitution of the world's parts, I hold that the sun is located at the center of the revolutions of the heavenly orbs and does not change place, and that the earth rotates on itself and moves around it. Moreover, they hear how I confirm this view not only by refuting Ptolemy's and Aristotle's arguments, but also by producing many for the other side, especially some pertaining to physical effects whose causes perhaps cannot be determined in any other way, and other astronomical ones dependent on many features of the new celestial discoveries; these discoveries clearly confute the Ptolemaic system, and they agree admirably with this other position and confirm it. Now, these people are perhaps confounded by the known truth of the other propositions different from the ordinary which I hold, and so they may lack confidence to defend themselves as long as they remain in the philosophical field. Therefore, since they persist in their original self-appointed task of beating down me and my findings by every imaginable means, they have decided to try to shield the fallacies of their arguments with the cloak of simulated religiousness and with the authority of the Holy Scriptures, unintelligently using the latter for the confutation of arguments they neither understand nor have heard.

At first, they tried on their own to spread among common people the idea that such propositions are against the Holy Scriptures, and consequently damnable and heretical. Then they realized how by and large human nature is more inclined to join those ventures which result in the oppression of other people (even if unjustly) than those which result in their just improvement, and so it was not difficult for them to find someone who with unusual confidence did preach even from the pulpit that it is damnable and heretical; and this was done with little compassion and with little consideration of the injury not only to this doctrine and its followers, but also to mathematics and all mathematicians. Thus, having acquired more confidence and with the vain hope that that seed which first took root in their insincere mind would grow into a tree and rise toward the sky, they are spreading among the people the rumor that it will shortly be declared heretical by the supreme authority. They also know that such a declaration not only would uproot these two conclusions, but also would render damnable all the other astronomical and physical observations and propositions [312] which correspond and are necessarily connected with them; hence, they alleviate their task as much as they can by making it look, at least among common people, as if this opinion were new and especially mine, pretending not to know that Nicolaus Copernicus was its author, or rather its reformer and confirmer.

Now, Copernicus was not only a Catholic, but also a clergyman
⁹
and a canon, and he was so highly regarded that he was called to Rome from the remotest parts of Germany
¹⁰
when under Leo X the Lateran Council was discussing the reform of the ecclesiastical calendar; at that time this reform remained unfinished only because there was still no exact knowledge of the precise length of the year and of the lunar month. Thus he was charged by the Bishop of Fossombrone,
¹¹
who was then supervising this undertaking, to try by repeated studies and efforts to acquire more understanding and certainty about those celestial motions; and so he undertook this study, and, by truly Herculean labor and by his admirable mind, he made so much progress in this science and acquired such an exact knowledge of the periods of celestial motions that he earned the title of supreme astronomer; then in accordance with his doctrine not only was the calendar regularized, but tables of all planetary motions were constructed. Having expounded this doctrine in six parts, he published it at the request of the Cardinal of Capua
¹²
and of the Bishop of Kulm;
¹³
and since he had undertaken this task and these labors on orders from the Supreme Pontiff, he dedicated his book
On Heavenly Revolutions
to the successor of the latter, Paul III. Once printed this book was accepted by the Holy Church, and it was read and studied all over the world, without anyone ever having had the least scruple about its doctrine. Finally, now that one is discovering how well-founded upon clear observations and necessary demonstrations this doctrine is, some persons come along who, without having even seen the book, give its author the reward of so much work by trying to have him declared a heretic; this they do only in order to satisfy their special animosity, groundlessly conceived [313] against someone else who has no greater connection with Copernicus than the endorsement of his doctrine.

Now, in matters of religion and of reputation I have the greatest regard for how common people judge and view me; so, because of the false aspersions my enemies so unjustly try to cast upon me, I have thought it necessary to justify myself by discussing the details of what they produce to detest and to abolish this opinion, in short, to declare it not just false but heretical. They always shield themselves with a simulated religious zeal, and they also try to involve Holy Scripture and to make it somehow subservient to their insincere objectives; against the intention of Scripture and of the Holy Fathers (if I am not mistaken), they want to extend, not to say abuse, its authority, so that even for purely physical conclusions which are not matters of faith one must totally abandon the senses and demonstrative arguments in favor of any scriptural passage whose apparent words may contain a different indication. Here I hope to demonstrate that I proceed with much more pious and religious zeal than they when I propose not that this book should not be condemned, but that it should not be condemned without understanding, examining, or even seeing it, as they would like. This is especially true since the author never treats of things pertaining to religion and faith, nor uses arguments dependent in any way on the authority of the Holy Scriptures, in which case he might have interpreted them incorrectly; instead, he always limits himself to physical conclusions pertaining to celestial motions, and he treats of them with astronomical and geometrical demonstrations based above all on sense experience and very accurate observations. He proceeded in this manner not because he did not pay any attention to the passages of the Holy Scripture, but because he understood very well that [314] if his doctrine was demonstrated it could not contradict the properly interpreted Scripture. Hence, at the end of the dedication, speaking to the Supreme Pontiff, he says: “There may be triflers who though wholly ignorant of mathematics nevertheless abrogate the right to make judgments about it because of some passage in Scripture wrongly twisted to their purpose, and will dare to criticize and censure this undertaking of mine. I waste no time on them, and indeed I despise their judgment as thoughtless. For it is known that Lactantius, a distinguished writer in other ways, but no mathematician, speaks very childishly about the shape of the Earth when he makes fun of those who reported that it has the shape of a globe. Mathematics is written for mathematicians, to whom this work of mine, if my judgment does not deceive me, will seem to be of value to the ecclesiastical Commonwealth over which Your Holiness now holds dominion.”
¹⁴

Of this sort are also those who try to argue that this author should be condemned, without examining him; and to show that this is not only legitimate but a good thing, they use the authority of Scripture, of experts in sacred theology, and of sacred Councils. I feel reverence for these authorities and hold them supreme, so that I should consider it most reckless to want to contradict them when they are used in accordance with the purpose of the Holy Church; similarly, I do not think it is wrong to speak out when it seems that someone, out of personal interest, wants to use them in a way different from the holiest intention of the Holy Church. Thus, while also believing that my sincerity will become selfe-evident, I declare not only that I intend to submit freely to the correction of any errors in matters pertaining to religion which I may have committed in this essay due to my ignorance, but I also declare that on these subjects I do not want to quarrel with anyone, even if the points are debatable. For my purpose is nothing but the following: if these reflections, which are far from my own profession, should contain (besides errors) anything that may lead someone to advance a useful caution for the Holy Church in her deliberations about the [315] Copernican system, then let it be accepted with whatever profit superiors will deem appropriate; if not, let my essay be torn up and burned, for I do not intend or pretend to gain from it any advantage that is not pious or Catholic. Moreover, although I have heard with my own ears many of the things which I mention, I freely grant to whoever said them that they did not say them, if they so wish, and I admit that I may have misunderstood them; thus what I answer should not apply to them, but to whoever holds that opinion.

So the reason they advance to condemn the opinion of the earth's mobility and sun's stability is this: since in many places in the Holy Scripture one reads that the sun moves and the earth stands still, and since Scripture can never lie or err, it follows as a necessary consequence that the opinion of those who want to assert the sun to be motionless and the earth moving is erroneous and damnable.

[§4.2.2] The first thing to note about this argument is the following. It is most pious to say and most prudent to take for granted that Holy Scripture can never lie, as long as its true meaning has been grasped; but I do not think one can deny that this is frequently recondite and very different from what appears to be the literal meaning of the words. From this it follows that, if in interpreting it someone were to limit himself always to the pure literal meaning, and if the latter were wrong, then he could make Scripture appear to be full not only of contradictions and false propositions, but also of serious heresies and blasphemies; for one would have to attribute to God feet, hands, eyes, and bodily sensations, as well as human feelings like anger, contrition, and hatred, and such conditions as the forgetfulness of things past and the ignorance of future ones. Since these propositions dictated by the Holy Spirit were expressed by the sacred writers in such a way as to accommodate the capacities of the very unrefined and undisciplined masses, therefore for those who deserve to rise above the common people it is necessary that wise interpreters [316] formulate the true meaning and indicate the specific reasons why it is expressed by such words. This doctrine is so commonplace and so definite among all theologians that it would be superfluous to present any testimony for it.