bject of ridicule and scorn. I should certainly venture to publish
my speculations if there were more people like you. But this not
being the case, I refrain from such an undertaking."

Kepler urged him to publish his arguments in favour of the Copernican
theory, but he hesitated for the present, knowing that his declaration
would be received with ridicule and opposition, and thinking it wiser to
get rather more firmly seated in his chair before encountering the
storm of controversy.

The six years passed away, and the Venetian Senate, anxious not to lose
so bright an ornament, renewed his appointment for another six years at
a largely increased salary.

Soon after this appeared a new star, the stella nova of 1604, not the
one Tycho had seen--that was in 1572--but the same that Kepler was so
much interested in.

Galileo gave a course of three lectures upon it to a great audience. At
the first the theatre was over-crowded, so he had to adjourn to a hall
holding 1000 persons. At the next he had to lecture in the open air.

He took occasion to rebuke his hearers for thronging to hear about an
ephemeral novelty, while for the much more wonderful and important
truths about the permanent stars and facts of nature they had but deaf
ears.

But the main point he brought out concerning the new star was that it
upset the received Aristotelian doctrine of the immutability of the
heavens. According to that doctrine the heavens were unchangeable,
perfect, subject neither to growth nor to decay. Here was a body, not a
meteor but a real distant star, which had not been visible and which
would shortly fade away again, but which meanwhile was brighter than
Jupiter.

The staff of petrified professorial wisdom were annoyed at the
appearance of the star, still more at Galileo's calling public attention
to it; and controversy began at Padua. However, he accepted it; and now
boldly threw down the gauntlet in favour of the Copernican theory,
utterly repudiating the old Ptolemaic system which up to that time he
had taught in the schools according to established custom.

The earth no longer the only world to which all else in the firmament
were obsequious attendants, but a mere insignificant speck among the
host of heaven! Man no longer the centre and cynosure of creation, but,
as it were, an insect crawling on the surface of this little speck! All
this not set down in crabbed Latin in dry folios for a few learned
monks, as i