one inspired. His battle is severe. He is sometimes abused, sometimes ridiculed, sometimes imprisoned. Protestants in Styria and at Tübingen, Catholics at Rome press upon him,[1] but Newton, Huyghens and the other great leaders follow, and to science remains the victory.
And yet the war did not wholly end. During the seventeenth century, in all France, no one dared openly teach the Copernican theory, and Cassini, the great astronomer, never declared it.[2] In 1672, Father Riccioli, a Jesuit, declared that there were precisely forty-nine arguments for the Copernican theory and seventy-seven against it; so that there remained twenty-eight reasons for preferring the orthodox theory.[3] Toward the end of the seventeenth century also, even Bossuet, the "eagle of Meaux," among the loftiest of religious thinkers, declared for the Ptolemaic theory as the Scriptural theory,[4] and in 1746 Boscovich, the great mathematician of the Jesuits, used these words: "As for me, full of respect for the Holy Scriptures and the decree of the Holy Inquisition, I regard the earth as immovable; nevertheless, for simplicity in explanation, I will argue as if the earth moves, for it is proved that of the two hypotheses the appearances favor that idea."[5]
The Protestantism of England was no better. In 1772 sailed the famous English expedition for scientific discovery under Cook. The greatest by far of all the scientific authorities chosen to accompany it was Dr. Priestley. Sir Joseph Banks had especially invited him; but the clergy of Oxford and Cambridge intervened. Priestley was considered unsound in his views of the Trinity; it was declared that this would vitiate his astronomical observations; he was rejected and the expedition crippled.[6]
Nor has the opposition failed even in our own time. On the 5th of May, 1826, a great multitude assembled at Thorn to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of Kopernik, and to unveil Thorwaldsen's statue of him.
Kopernik had lived a pious. Christian life. He was well known
- ↑ Fromundus, speaking of Kepler's explanation, says: "Vix teneo ebullientem risum." It is almost equal to the New York Church Journal, speaking of John Stuart Mill as "that small sciolist," and of the preface to Dr. Draper's recent work as "chippering." How a journal generally so fair in its treatment of such subjects can condescend to use such weapons is one of the wonders of modern journalism. For Protestant persecution of Kepler, see vol. i., p. 392.
- ↑ For Cassini's position, see Henri Martin, "Hist. de France," vol. xiii., p. 175.
- ↑ Daunou, "Études Historiques," vol. ii., p. 439.
- ↑ Bossuet, see Bertrand., p. 41.
- ↑ Boscovich. This was in 1746, but in 1785 Boscovich seemed to feel his position in view of history, and apologized abjectly. Bertrand, pp. 60, 61. See also Whewell's notice of Le Sueur and Jacquier's introduction to their edition of Newton's "Principia." For the most recent proofs of the Copernican theory, by discoveries of Bunsen, Bischoff, Benzenburg, and others, see Jevons, "Principles of Science."
- ↑ See Weld, "History of the Royal Society," vol. ii., p. 56, for the facts and the admirable letter of Priestley upon this rejection.
