Part 15 (1/2)
German writers, whether Lutherans or not, appear to have opposed the system more often in the last century than have the writers of other nationalities. Besides those already mentioned, one proposed an ingenious scheme in which the sun moves through s.p.a.ce followed by the planets as a comet is by its tail, the planets revolving in a plane perpendicular to that of the sun's path. A diagram of it would be cone-shaped. He included in this pamphlet, besides a list of his own books, (all published in Leipsic), a list of twenty-six t.i.tles from 1758 to 1883, books and pamphlets evidently opposed in whole or in part to the modern astronomy, and seventeen of these were in German or printed in Germany.[434] In this country at St. Louis was issued an _Astronomische Unterredung_ (1873) by J.C.W.L.; according to the late President White, a bitter attack on modern astronomy and a decision by the Scriptures that the earth is the princ.i.p.al body of the universe, that it stands fixed, and that the sun and the moon only serve to light it.[435]
[Footnote 434: Tischner: _Le Systeme Solaire se Mouvant_. (1894).]
[Footnote 435: White: I, 151.]
Such statements are futile in themselves nowadays, and are valuable only to ill.u.s.trate the advance of modern thought of which these are the little eddies. While modern astronomers know far more than Copernicus even dreamed of, much of his work still holds true today.
The world was slow to accept his system because of tradition, authority, so-called common sense, and its supposed incompatibility with scriptural pa.s.sages. Catholic and Protestant alike opposed it on these grounds; but because of its organization and authority, the Roman Catholic Church had far greater power and could more successfully hinder and delay its acceptance than could the Protestants. Consequently the system won favor slowly at first through the indifference of the authorities, then later in spite of their active antagonism. Scholars believed it long before the universities were permitted to teach it; and the rationalist movement of the 18th century, the revolt against a superst.i.tious religion, helped to overturn the age-old conception of the heavens and to bring Newtonian-Copernicanism into general acceptance.
The elements of this traditional conception are summarized in the fifth book of Bodin's _Universae Naturae Theatrum_, a scholar's account of astronomy at the close of the sixteenth century.[436] Man in his terrestrial habitation occupies the center of a universe created solely to serve him, G.o.d presides over all from the Empyrean above, sending forth his messengers the angels to guide and control the heavenly bodies. Such had been the thought of Christians for more than a thousand years. Then came the influence of a new science. Tycho Brahe ”broke the crystal spheres of Aristotle”[437] by his study of the comet of 1572; Galileo's telescopes revealed many stars. .h.i.therto unknown, and partly solved the mysteries of the Milky Way; Kepler's laws explained the courses of the planets, and Newton's discovery of the universal application of the forces of attraction relieved the angels of their duties among the heavens. Thinkers like Bruno proposed the possibility of other systems and universes besides the solar one in which the earth belongs. And thus not only did man shrink in importance in his own eyes; but his conception of the heavens changed from that of a finite place inexplicably controlled by the mystical beings of a supernatural world, to one of vast and infinite s.p.a.ces traversed by bodies whose density and ma.s.s a man could calculate, whose movements he could foretell, and whose very substance he could a.n.a.lyze by the science of today. This dissolution of superst.i.tion, especially in regard to comets was notably rapid and complete after the comet of 1680.[438] Thus the rationalist movement with the new science opened men's minds to a universe composed of familiar substances and controlled by known or knowable laws with no tinge remaining of the supernatural. Today a man's theological beliefs are not shaken by the discovery of a new satellite or even a new planet, and the appearance of a new comet merely provides the newspaper editor with the subject of a pa.s.sing jest.
[Footnote 436: See translated sections in Appendix C.]
[Footnote 437: Robinson: 107.]
[Footnote 438: Ibid: 119.]
Yet it was fully one hundred and fifty years after the publication of the _De Revolutionibus_ before its system met with the general approval of scholars as well as of mathematicians; then nearly a generation more had to elapse before it was openly taught even at Oxford where the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches had no control.
During the latter part of this period, readers were often left free to decide for themselves as to the relative merits of the Tychonic and Copernican or Copernican-Cartesian schemes. But it took fully fifty years and more, besides, before these ideas had won general acceptance by the common people, so wedded were they to the traditional view through custom and a superst.i.tious reverence for the Bible. Briefly then, the _De Revolutionibus_ appeared in 1543; and quietly won some supporters, notably Bruno, Kepler and Galileo; the Congregations of the Index specifically opposed it in 1616 and 1633; however it continued to spread among scholars and others with the aid of Cartesianism for another fifty years till the appearance of Newton's _Principia_ in 1687. Then its acceptance rapidly became general even in Catholic Europe, till it was almost a commonplace in England by 1743, two hundred years after its first formal promulgation, and had become strong enough in Europe to cause the Congregations in 1757 to modify their stand. Thereafter opposition became a curiosity rather than a significant fact. Only the Roman Church officially delayed its recognition of the new astronomy till the absurdity of its obsolete position was brought home to it by Canon Settele's appeal in 1820.
Fifteen years later the last trace of official condemnation was removed, a little over two hundred years after the decrees had first been issued, and just before Bessel's discovery of stellar parallax at length answered one of the strongest and oldest arguments against the system. Since then have come many _apologias_ in explanation and extenuation of the Church's decided stand in this matter for so many generations.
Though Galileo himself was forced to his knees, unable to withstand his antagonists, his work lived on after him; he and Copernicus, together with Kepler and Newton stand out both as scientists and as leaders in the advance of intellectual enlightenment. The account of their work and that of their less well-known supporters, compared with that of their antagonists, proves the truth of the ancient Greek saying which Rheticus used as the motto for the _Narratio Prima_, the first widely known account of the Copernican system: ”One who intends to philosophize must be free in mind.”
APPENDIX A.
PTOLEMY: _Syntaxis Mathematica (Almagest)_
”That the earth has no movement of rotation,” in _Opera Quae Exstant Omnia_, edidit Heiberg, Leipsic, 1898, Bk. I, sec.
7: (I, 21-25); compared with the translation into French by Halma, Paris, 1813.
By proofs similar to the preceding, it is shown that the earth cannot be transported obliquely nor can it be moved away from the center.
For, if that were so, all those things would take place which would happen if it occupied any other point than that of the center. It seems unnecessary to me, therefore, to seek out the cause of attraction towards the center when it is once evident from the phenomena themselves, that the earth occupies the center of the universe and that all heavy bodies are borne towards it; and this will be readily understood if it is remembered that the earth has been demonstrated to have a spherical shape, and according to what we have said, is placed at the center of the universe, for the direction of the fall of heavy bodies (I speak of their own motions) is always and everywhere perpendicular to an uncurved plane drawn tangent to the point of intersection. Obviously these bodies would all meet at the center if they were not stopped by the surface, since a straight line drawn to the center is perpendicular to a plane tangent to the sphere at that point.
Those who consider it a paradox that a ma.s.s like the earth is supported on nothing, yet not moved at all, appear to me to argue according to the preconceptions they get from what they see happening to small bodies about them, and not according to what is characteristic of the universe as a whole, and this is the cause of their mistake. For I think that such a thing would not have seemed wonderful to them any longer if they had perceived that the earth, great as it is, is merely a point in comparison to the surrounding body of the heaven. They would find that it is possible for the earth, being infinitely small relative to the universe, to be held in check and fixed by the forces exercised over it equally and following similar directions by the universe, which is infinitely great and composed of similar parts. There is neither up nor down in the universe, for that cannot be imagined in a sphere. As to the bodies which it encloses, by a consequence of their nature it happens that those that are light and subtle are as though blown by the wind to the outside and to the circ.u.mference, and seem to appear to us to go _up_, because that is how we speak of the s.p.a.ce above our heads that envelops us. It happens on the other hand that heavy bodies and those composed of dense parts are drawn towards the middle as towards a center, and appear to us to fall _down_, because that it is the word we apply to what is beneath our feet in the direction of the center of the earth. But one should believe that they are checked around this center by the r.e.t.a.r.ding effect of shock and of friction. It would be admitted then that the entire ma.s.s of the earth, which is considerable in comparison to the bodies falling on it, could receive these in their fall without acquiring the slightest motion from the shock of their weight or of their velocity. But if the earth had a movement which was common to it and to all other heavy bodies, it would soon seemingly outstrip them as a result of its weight, thus leaving the animals and the other heavy bodies without other support than the air, and would soon touch the limits of the heaven itself. All these consequences would seem most ridiculous if one were only even imagining them.
There are those who, while they admit these arguments because there is nothing to oppose them, pretend that nothing prevents the supposition, for instance, that if the sky is motionless, the earth might turn on its axis from west to east, making this revolution once a day or in a very little less time, or that, if they both turn, it is around the same axis, as we have said, and in a manner conformable to the relations between them which we have observed.
It has escaped these people that in regard to the appearances of the planets themselves, nothing perhaps prevents the earth from having the simpler motion; but they do not realize how very ridiculous their opinion is in view of what takes place around us and in the air. For if we grant them that the lightest things and those composed of the subtlest parts do not move, which would be contrary to nature, while those that are in the air move visibly more swiftly than those that are terrestrial; if we grant them that the most solid and heavy bodies have a swift, steady movement of their own, though it is true however that they obey impelling forces only with difficulty; they would be obliged to admit that the earth by its revolution has a movement more rapid than the movements taking place around it, since it would make so great a circuit in so short a time. Thus the bodies which do not rest on it would appear always to have a motion contrary to its own, and neither the clouds, nor any missile or flying bird would appear to go towards the east, for the earth would always outstrip them in this direction, and would antic.i.p.ate them by its own movement towards the east, with the result that all the rest would appear to move backwards towards the west.
If they should say that the atmosphere is carried along by the earth with the same speed as the earth's own revolution, it would be no less true that the bodies contained therein would not have the same velocity. Or if they were swept along with the air, no longer would anything seem to precede or to follow, but all would always appear stationary, and neither in flight nor in throwing would any ever advance or retreat. That is, however, what we see happening, since neither the r.e.t.a.r.dation nor the acceleration of anything is traceable to the movement of the earth.
APPENDIX B.
”TO HIS HOLINESS, PAUL III, SUPREME PONTIFF,