correctly with a problem of which the vastly more powerful resources of modern science can only give an imperfect solution (cf. chapter xi., § 248, and chapter xiii., § 292).
131. The book as a whole was in effect, though not in form, a powerful—indeed unanswerable—plea for Coppernicanism. Galilei tried to safeguard his position, partly by the use of dialogue, and partly by the very remarkable introduction, which was not only read and approved by the licensing authorities, but was in all probability in part the composition of the Roman censor and of the Pope. It reads to us like a piece of elaborate and thinly veiled irony, and it throws a curious light on the intelligence or on the seriousness of the Pope and the censor, that they should have thus approved it:—
"Judicious reader, there was published some years since in Rome a salutiferous Edict, that, for the obviating of the dangerous Scandals of the present Age, imposed a reasonable Silence upon the Pythagorean Opinion of the Mobility of the Earth. There want not such as unadvisedly affirm, that the Decree was not the production of a sober Scrutiny, but of an informed passion; and one may hear some mutter that Consultors altogether ignorant of Astronomical observations ought not to clipp the wings of speculative wits with rash prohibitions. My zeale cannot keep silence when I hear these inconsiderate complaints. I thought fit, as being thoroughly acquainted with that prudent Determination, to appear openly upon the Theatre of the World as a Witness of the naked Truth. I was at that time in Rome, and had not only the audiences, but applauds of the most Eminent Prelates of that Court; nor was that Decree published without Previous Notice given me thereof. Therefore it is my resolution in the present case to give Foreign Nations to see, that this point is as well understood in Italy, and particularly in Rome, as Transalpine Diligence can imagine it to be: and collecting together all the proper speculations that concerne the Copernican Systeme to let them know, that the notice of all preceded the Censure of the Roman Court; and that there proceed from this Climate not only Doctrines for the health of the Soul, but also ingenious Discoveries for the recreating of the Mind. . . . I hope that by these considerations the world will know, that if other Nations have Navigated more than we, we have not studied less than they; and that our returning to assert the Earth's stability, and to take the contrary only for a Mathematical Capriccio, proceeds not from inadvertency of what others have thought thereof, but (had one no other
