very seldom, on great occasions or
to a few crowned heads.

His position was in fact analogous to that of Tycho Brahe in his island
of Huen.

Misfortune overtook both. In Tycho's case it arose mainly from the death
of his patron. In Galileo's it was due to a more insidious cause, to
understand which cause aright we must remember the political divisions
of Italy at that date.

Tuscany was a Papal State, and thought there was by no means free.
Venice was a free republic, and was even hostile to the Papacy. In 1606
the Pope had placed it under an interdict. In reply it had ejected every
Jesuit.

Out of this atmosphere of comparative enlightenment and freedom into
that hotbed of mediaevalism and superstition went Galileo with his eyes
open. Keen was the regret of his Paduan and Venetian friends; bitter
were their remonstrances and exhortations. But he was determined to go,
and, not without turning some of his old friends into enemies, he went.

Seldom has such a man made so great a mistake: never, I suppose, has one
been so cruelly punished for it.

[Illustration: FIG. 51.--Map of Italy.]

We must remember, however, that Galileo, though by no means a saint, was
yet a really religious man, a devout Catholic and thorough adherent of
the Church, so that he would have no dislike to place himself under her
sway. Moreover, he had been born a Tuscan, his family had lived at
Florence or Pisa, and it felt like going home. His theological attitude
is worthy of notice, for he was not in the least a sceptic. He quite
acquiesces in the authority of the Bible, especially in all matters
concerning faith and conduct; as to its statements in scientific
matters, he argues that we are so liable to misinterpret their meaning
that it is really easier to examine Nature for truth in scientific
matters, and that when direct observation and Scripture seem to clash,
it is because of our fallacious interpretation of one or both of them.
He is, in fact, what one now calls a "reconciler."

It is curious to find such a man prosecuted for heresy, when to-day his
opinions are those of the orthodox among the orthodox. But so it ever
is, and the heresy of one generation becomes the commonplace of the
next.

He accepts Joshua's miracle, for instance, not as a striking poem, but
as a literal fact; and he points out how much more simply it could be
done on the Copernican system by stopping the earth's rotation for a
short time, than by stopping th