egard of future works, he enjoys in him a twofold
benefit, the perfect imputation of righteousness, which attends him
to the grave, and the commencement of sanctification, which he daily
increases, till at length he completes it at the day of regeneration
or resurrection of the body, so that in eternal life and the heavenly
inheritance his praises are celebrated for such stupendous mercy.

DEDICATION OF THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES

BY NICOLAUS COPERNICUS (1543)[A]

TO POPE PAUL III

I can easily conceive, most Holy Father, that as soon as some
people learn that in this book which I have written concerning the
revolutions of the heavenly bodies, I ascribe certain motions to
the Earth, they will cry out at once that I and my theory should be
rejected. For I am not so much in love with my conclusions as not to
weigh what others will think about them, and although I know that the
meditations of a philosopher are far removed from the judgment of the
laity, because his endeavor is to seek out the truth in all things, so
far as this is permitted by God to the human reason, I still believe
that one must avoid theories altogether foreign to orthodoxy.
Accordingly, when I considered in my own mind how absurd a performance
it must seem to those who know that the judgment of many centuries has
approved the view that the Earth remains fixed as center in the midst
of the heavens, if I should, on the contrary, assert that the Earth
moves; I was for a long time at a loss to know whether I should
publish the commentaries which I have written in proof of its
motion, or whether it were not better to follow the example of the
Pythagoreans and of some others, who were accustomed to transmit the
secrets of Philosophy not in writing but orally, and only to their
relatives and friends, as the letter from Lysis to Hipparchus bears
witness. They did this, it seems to me, not as some think, because of
a certain selfish reluctance to give their views to the world, but
in order that the noblest truths, worked out by the careful study of
great men, should not be despised by those who are vexed at the idea
of taking great pains with any forms of literature except such as
would be profitable, or by those who, if they are driven to the study
of Philosophy for its own sake by the admonitions and the example
of others, nevertheless, on account of their stupidity, hold a place
among philosophers similar to that of drones among bees.