er which
it was not competent to exercise. The fact that this was practically
the only time that this was done serves to show that it was an
unfortunate incident, but not a policy. The mistake has been to
conclude that this was a typical case--one of many, more flagrant than
the others. This single incident has indeed made it impossible that
anything of the same kind should ever occur again. It was rather
because of the way in which Galileo urged his truths than because of
the truths themselves that he was condemned. Even Professor Huxley, in
a letter to Professor St. George Mivart, November 12th, 1885, said: "I
gave some attention to the case of Galileo when I was in Italy, and I
arrived at the conclusion that the Pope and the College of Cardinals
had rather the best of it."

Before as well as after Galileo's time scientific research was carried
on ardently in the universities, especially in Italy. In the chapter
on Science at the Medieval Universities, we call attention to the many
advances then made with regard to scientific questions in which the
world is very much interested at the present time. A hundred years
before Galileo's time Copernicus went down to Italy to study astronomy
and medicine, and {18} when his book was published it was dedicated to
a Pope. Copernicus himself was a faithful churchman all his life, came
near being made a bishop once, and kept the diocese in which he lived,
and in which his personal friend was bishop, in the fold of the Church
in spite of Luther and the religious revolt all around it in Germany.
One of the great scientists of the seventeenth century whose name is
stamped deeply on the history of science, Father Kircher, the Jesuit,
was invited to Rome the very year after Galileo's condemnation, and
for thirty years continued to _experiment_ and write in all branches
of science, not only with the approbation of his own order, the
Jesuits, which helped him in every way by the collection of specimens
for his museum, but also with the hearty good will of many cardinals
who were his personal friends, and with the constant patronage of the
Popes, whose generous liberality enabled him to make Rome the greatest
centre of scientific interest during this century.

At this time and during the preceding century the Roman University had
the greatest medical school in the world. The names of its professors
during the preceding century need only be mentioned in order to
emphasize this. They incl