man. He had vowed a
year before that he would indulge in no trivial conversation about
persons or things--only the great and noble themes should interest him
and occupy his attention.

With commonplace or ignorant people he held no converse. He had
remarkable beauty of person and great dignity, and his presence at
Bologna won immediate respect for him.

Men accept other men at the estimate they place upon themselves.

In listening to lectures by Novarra, he perceived at once how
mathematics could be made valuable in calculating the movement of stars.

Novarra taught the Ptolemaic theory of astronomy for the esoteric few.
The Church is made up of men, and while priests for the most part are
quite content to believe what the Church teaches, yet it has ever been
recognized that there was one doctrine for the Few, and another for the
Many--the esoteric and the exoteric. The esoteric is an edged tool, and
only a very few are fit to handle it. The charge of heresy is only for
those who are so foolish as to give out these edged tools to the
people. You may talk about anything you want, provided you do not do it;
and you may do anything you want, provided you do not talk about it.

The proposition that the earth was flat, had four corners, and the stars
were jewels hung in the sky as "signs," and were moved about by angels,
was all right for the many, but now and then there were priests who were
not content with these child-stories--they wanted truth--and these
usually accepted the theories of Ptolemy.

Novarra believed that the earth was a globe; that this globe was the
center of the universe, and that around the earth the sun, moon and
certain stars revolved. The fixed stars he still regarded as being hung
against the firmament, and that this firmament was turned in some
mysterious way, en masse.

Copernicus listened silently, but his heart beat fast. He had found
something upon which he could exercise his mathematics. He and Novarra
sat up all night in the belfry of the cathedral and watched the stars.

They saw that they moved steadily, surely and without caprice. It was
all natural, and could be reduced, Copernicus thought, to a mathematical
system.

Astrology and astronomy were not then divorced. It was astrology that
gave us astronomy. The angel that watched over a star looked after all
persons who were born under that star's influence, or else appointed
some other angel for the purpose. Every person had a guar