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CHAPTER I.

THE "DIALOGUES" ON THE TWO SYSTEMS.

Origin of the "Dialogues."—Their Popular Style.—Significance of the name Simplicius.—Hypothetical treatment of the Copernican System.—Attitude of Rome towards Science.—Thomas Campanella.—Urban VIII.’s Duplicity.—Galileo takes his MS. to Rome.—Riccardi’s Corrections.—He gives the Imprimatur on certain Conditions.—Galileo returns to Florence to complete the Work.

It is a curious fact that the very work which was destined to be one of the most powerful levers in obtaining general recognition for the true order of the universe originated in what we now know to be an erroneous idea. The famous book, "Dialogues on the Two Principal Systems of the World, the Ptolemaic and Copernican,"^[1] arose out of the treatise on the tides which Galileo wrote at Rome, in 1616, at the suggestion of Cardinal Orsini.^[2] The important influence of these "Dialogues," both on science and the subsequent fate of the author, obliges us to discuss them more particularly.

The book contains a great deal more than is promised by the title; for the author included in it, in connection with the discussion of the two systems, nearly all the results of his researches and discoveries in science, extending over nearly fifty years. He also endeavoured to write in a style which

1. "Dialogo di Galileo: dove nei congressi di quattro giornate si discorre sopra i due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo Tolemaico e Copernicano, proponendo indeterminatamente le ragioni filosofiche e naturali tanto per l'una parte, che par l'altra."
2. Comp. Galileo’s letters of 7th Dec., 1624, and 12th Jan., 1630, to Cesare Marsili (Op. vi. pp. 300 and 355); also Cesi's letter to Galileo, 12th Oct., 1624 (Op. ix. p. 71).