ingly that nearly all present, even the Grand Duke and his consort, took his side, and the Duchess dowager alone made any opposition. Boscaglia, however, who had been the cause of the unedifying scene, took no part whatever in the discussion.
Castelli hastened to apprise Galileo of this incident, but remarked expressly in his striking letter that it appeared to him that the Grand Duchess Christine had merely persisted in opposition, in order to hear his replies.[1]
This then was the provocation to that famous letter of Galileo's to his friend and pupil Castelli, in which for the first time theological digressions occur, and which therefore, although by no means intended for publication, was to be eagerly turned to account by his opponents, and to form the groundwork of the subsequent trial. From what has been related it will be seen that the reproach often brought against Galileo that it was he who first introduced the theological question into the scientific controversy about the two systems is entirely unwarranted. On the contrary, these explanations to Castelli, of 21st December, bear telling testimony to the indignation which Galileo felt in seeing the Scriptures involved in a purely scientific discussion, and that the right of deciding the question should even be accorded to them. He sharply defines the relation in which the Bible stands to natural science, marking the limits which it can only pass at the expense of the healthy understanding of mankind. As a good Catholic he fully admits that the Scriptures cannot lie or err, but thinks that this does not hold good of all their expositors. They will involve themselves in sad contradictions, nay, even in heresies and blasphemy, if they always interpret the Bible in an absolutely literal sense. Thus, for instance, they must attribute to God hands, feet, and ears, human feeling such as anger, repentance, hatred, and make Him capable of forgetfulness and ignorance of the future.
"As therefore," continues Galileo, "the Holy Scriptures in
- ↑ Op. viii. pp. 291-293.
