The Essential Galileo (23 page)

It is thus obvious that, because these authors had not grasped the true meaning of Scripture, if they had commanded much authority they would have obliged it to compel others to hold as true conclusions repugnant to manifest reasons and to the senses. This is an abuse which I hope God will prevent from taking root or gaining influence, because it would in a short time require the prohibition of all ratiocinative sciences. In fact, the number of men ill-suited to understand adequately the Holy Scripture and the sciences is by nature much greater than the number of intelligent ones; thus the former, by superficially glancing through Scripture, would arrogate to themselves the authority of decreeing over all questions about nature in virtue of some word ill-understood by them and written by the sacred authors for some other purpose; nor could the small [323] number of the intelligent ones restrain the furious torrent of the others, who would find all the more followers, inasmuch as it is sweeter to be considered wise without study and labor than to wear oneself out unrelentingly in the pursuit of very arduous disciplines. However, we can render infinite thanks to the blessed God, whose benevolence frees us from this fear while it strips such persons of any authority. The deliberating, deciding, and decreeing about such important issues can be left to the excellent wisdom and goodness of very prudent Fathers and to the supreme authority of those who, guided by the Holy Spirit, can only behave in a holy manner and will not permit the irresponsibility of those others to gain influence. These sorts of men are, in my opinion, those toward whom serious and saintly writers become angry, not without reason. For instance, referring to the Holy Scripture, St. Jerome writes: “The chatty old woman, the doting old man, and the wordy sophist, one and all take in hand the Scriptures, rend them in pieces and teach them before they have learned them. Some with brows knit and bombastic words, balanced one against the other, philosophize concerning the sacred writings among weak women. Others— I blush to say it—learn of women what they are to teach men; and as if this were not enough, they boldly explain to others what they themselves by no means understand. I say nothing of persons who, like myself, have been familiar with secular literature before they have come to the study of the Holy Scriptures. Such men when they charm the popular ear by the finish of their style suppose every word they say to be a law of God. They do not deign to notice what prophets and apostles have intended but they adapt conflicting passages to suit their own meaning, as if it were a grand way of teaching— and not rather the faultiest of all—to misinterpret a writer's views and to force the Scriptures reluctantly to do their will” (Letter No. 53, to Paulinus).
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[§4.2.3] Among such lay writers should not be numbered some theologians whom I regard as men of profound learning and of the holiest lifestyle, and whom I therefore hold in high esteem and reverence. However, I cannot deny having some qualms, which I consequently wish could be removed; for in disputes about natural phenomena they seem to claim the right to force others by means of the authority of Scripture to follow the opinion which they think is most in accordance with its statements, and at the same time they believe they are not obliged to [324] answer observations and reasons to the contrary. As an explanation and a justification of this opinion of theirs, they say that theology is the queen of all the sciences and hence must not in any way lower herself to accommodate the principles of other less dignified disciplines subordinate to her; rather, these others must submit to her as to a supreme empress and change and revise their conclusions in accordance with theological rules and decrees; moreover, they add that whenever in the subordinate science there is a conclusion which is certain on the strength of demonstrations and observations, and which is repugnant to some other conclusion found in Scripture, the practitioners of that science must themselves undo their own demonstrations and disclose the fallacies of their own observations, without help from theologians and scriptural experts; for, as stated, it is not proper to the dignity of theology to stoop to the investigation of the fallacies in the subordinate sciences, but it is sufficient for it to determine the truth of a conclusion with absolute authority and with the certainty that it cannot err. Then they say that the physical conclusions in regard to which we must rely on Scripture, without glossing or interpreting it in nonliteral ways, are those of which Scripture always speaks in the same way, and which all the Holy Fathers accept and interpret with the same meaning. Now, I happen to have some specific ideas on these claims, and I shall propose them in order to receive the proper advice from whoever is more competent than I in these subjects; I always defer to their judgment.

To begin with, I think one may fall into something of an equivocation if one does not distinguish the senses in which sacred theology is preeminent and worthy of the title of queen. For it could be such insofar as whatever is taught in all the other sciences is found explained and demonstrated in it by means of more excellent methods and of more sublime principles, in the way that, for example, the rules for measuring fields and for accounting are better contained in Euclid's geometry and arithmetic than they are [325] in the practices of surveyors and accountants; or else insofar as the topic on which theology focuses surpasses in dignity all the other topics which are the subject of the other sciences, and also insofar as its teaching proceeds in more sublime ways. I do not believe that theologians who are acquainted with the other sciences can assert that theology deserves the royal title and authority in the first sense; I think no one will say that geometry, astronomy, music, and medicine are treated more excellently and exactly in the sacred books than in Archimedes, Ptolemy, Boethius, and Galen. So it seems that the royal preeminence belongs to it in the second sense, namely, because of the eminence of the topic, and because of the admirable teaching of divine revelation in conclusions which could not be learned by men in any other way, and which concern chiefly the gaining of eternal bliss. So theology does deal with the loftiest divine contemplations, and for this it does occupy the royal throne and command the highest authority; and it does not come down to the lower and humbler speculations of the inferior sciences but rather (as stated above) it does not bother with them inasmuch as they are irrelevant to salvation. If all this is so, then officials and experts of theology should not arrogate to themselves the authority to issue decrees in the professions they neither exercise nor study; for this would be the same as if an absolute prince, knowing he had unlimited power to issue orders and to compel obedience, but being neither a physician nor an architect, wanted to direct medical treatment and the construction of buildings, resulting in serious danger to the life of the unfortunate sick and in the obvious collapse of structures.

Furthermore, to require astronomers to endeavor to protect themselves against their own observations and demonstrations, namely, to show that these are nothing but fallacies and sophisms, is to demand they do the impossible; for [326] that would be to require not only that they should not see what they see and not understand what they understand, but also that in their research they should find the contrary of what they find. That is, before they can do this, they should be shown how to manage having the lower faculties of the soul direct the higher ones, so that the imagination and the will could and would believe the contrary of what the intellect thinks (I am always speaking of purely physical propositions which are not matters of faith, rather than of supernatural propositions which are articles of faith). I should like to ask these very prudent Fathers to agree to examine very diligently the difference between debatable and demonstrative doctrines. Keeping firmly in mind the compelling power of necessary deductions, they should come to see more clearly that it is not within the power of the practitioners of demonstrative sciences to change opinion at will, choosing now this now that one; that there is a great difference between giving orders to a mathematician or a philosopher and giving them to a merchant or a lawyer; and that demonstrated conclusions about natural and celestial phenomena cannot be changed with the same ease as opinions about what is or is not legitimate in a contract, in a rental, or in commerce. This difference has been completely recognized by the Holy and very learned Fathers, as shown by their having made [327] a great effort to confute many philosophical arguments or, to be more exact, fallacies, and may be explicitly read in some of them. In particular, we read the following words in St. Augustine (
On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis
, book 1, chapter 21): “There should be no doubt about the following: whenever the experts of this world can truly demonstrate something about natural phenomena, we should show it not to be contrary to our Scriptures; but, whenever in their books they teach something contrary to the Holy Writ, we should without any doubt hold it to be most false, and also show this by any means we can; and in this way we should keep the faith of our Lord, in whom are hidden all the treasures of knowledge, in order not to be seduced by the verbosity of false philosophy or frightened by the superstition of fake religion.”

These words imply, I think, the following doctrine: in the learned books of worldly authors are contained some propositions about nature which are truly demonstrated and others which are simply taught; in regard to the former, the task of wise theologians is to show that they are not contrary to Holy Scripture; as for the latter (which are taught but not demonstrated with necessity), if they contain anything contrary to the Holy Writ, then they must be considered indubitably false and must be demonstrated such by every possible means. So physical conclusions which have been truly demonstrated should not be given a lower place than scriptural passages, but rather one should clarify how such passages do not contradict those conclusions; therefore, before condemning a physical proposition, one must show that it is not conclusively demonstrated. Furthermore, it is much more reasonable and natural that this be done not by those who hold it to be true, but by those who regard it as false; for the fallacies of an argument can be found much more easily by those who regard it as false than by those who think it is true and conclusive, and indeed here it will happen that the more the followers of a given opinion thumb through books, examine the arguments, repeat the observations, and check the experiments, the more they will be testing [328] their belief. In fact, Your Highness knows what happened to the late mathematician of the University of Pisa:
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in his old age he undertook an examination of Copernicus' doctrine with the hope of being able to refute it solidly, since he considered it false, even though he had never examined it; but it so happened that as soon as he understood its foundations, procedures, and demonstrations he became convinced of it, and he turned from opponent to very strong supporter. I could also name other mathematicians (e.g., Clavius
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) who, influenced by my recent discoveries, have admitted the necessity of changing the previous conception of the constitution of the world, since it can no longer stand up in any way.

It would be very easy to remove from the world the new opinion and doctrine if it were sufficient to shut the mouth of only one person; this is perhaps the belief of those who measure the judgments of others in terms of their own, and who thus think it is impossible that such an opinion can stand up and find followers. However, this business proceeds otherwise. For in order to accomplish that objective, it would be necessary not only to prohibit Copernicus' book and the writings of the other authors who follow the same doctrine, but also to ban all astronomical science completely; moreover, one would have to forbid men to look toward the heavens, so that they would not see that Mars and Venus are sometimes very close to and sometimes very far from the earth (the difference being that the latter sometimes appears forty times greater than at other times, and the former sixty times greater); nor should they be allowed to see the same Venus appear sometimes round and sometimes armed with very sharp horns
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and many other observable phenomena which can in no way be adapted to the Ptolemaic system but provide very strong arguments for Copernicanism. At the moment, because of many new [329] observations and because of many scholars' contributions to its study, one is discovering daily that Copernicus' position is truer and truer and his doctrine firmer and firmer; so to prohibit Copernicus now, after being permitted for so many years when he was less widely followed and less well confirmed, would seem to me an encroachment on the truth and an attempt to step up its concealment and suppression in proportion to how much more it appears obvious and clear. Not to ban the whole book in its entirety, but to condemn as erroneous only this particular proposition, would cause greater harm to souls, if I am not mistaken; for it would expose them to the possibility of seeing the proof of a proposition which it would then be sinful to believe. To prohibit the entire science would be no different than to reject hundreds of statements from the Holy Writ, which teach us how the glory and the greatness of the supreme God are marvelously seen in all of His works and by divine grace are read in the open book of the heavens. Nor should anyone think that the reading of the very lofty words written on those pages is completed by merely seeing the sun and the stars give off light, rise, and set, which is as far as the eyes of animals and of common people reach; on the contrary, those pages contain such profound mysteries and such sublime concepts that the vigils, labors, and studies of hundreds of the sharpest minds in uninterrupted investigations for thousands of years have not yet completely fathomed them. Even idiots realize that what their eyes see when they look at the external appearance of a human body is very insignificant in comparison to the admirable contrivances found in it by a competent and diligent philosopheranatomist when he investigates how so many muscles, tendons, nerves, and bones are used; when he examines the function of the heart and of the other principal organs; when he searches for the seat of the vital faculties; when he observes the wonderful structures of the senses; and, with no end to his astonishment and curiosity, when he studies the location of the imagination, of memory, [330] and of reason. Likewise, what the unaided sense of sight shows is almost nothing in comparison to the sublime marvels which the mind of intelligent investigators reveals in the heavens through long and accurate observations. This is all I can think of in regard to this particular point.