Catholic Churchmen in Science. First Series. James Joseph Walsh
are carried from the port, and the land and the cities recede'?" This passage was to be modified as follows: "Why not, then, admit a certain mobility of the earth corresponding to its form, since the whole universe of which we know the bounds is moved, producing appearances which recall to the mind the well-known saying of AEneas in Virgil, 'The land and the cities recede'?"
Toward the end of the same chapter Copernicus, continuing the same train of thought, says: "I do not fear to add that it is incomparably more unreasonable to make the immense vault of the heavens revolve than to admit the revolution of our little terrestrial globe." This passage was to be modified as follows: "In one case as well as in the other–that is, whether we admit the rotation of the earth or that of the heavenly spheres–we encounter the same difficulties."
The ninth chapter of the first book begins with these words: "There being no difficulty in admitting, then, the mobility of the earth, let us proceed to see whether it has one or a number of movements, and whether, therefore, our earth is a simple planet like the other planets." The following words were to be substituted: "Supposing, then, that the earth does move, it is necessary to examine whether this movement is multiple or not."
Toward the middle of the tenth chapter Copernicus declares: "I do not hesitate to defend the proposition that the earth, accompanied by the moon, moves around the sun;" while the wording of this proposition had to be changed so as to substitute the term "admit" for "defend." The title of the eleventh chapter, "Demonstration of the Triple Movement of the Earth," was modified to read as follows: "The Hypothesis of the Triple Movement of the Earth, and the Reasons Therefor." The title of the twentieth chapter of the fourth book originally read: "On the Size of the Three Stars [Sidera], the sun, the moon, and the earth." The word "stars" was removed from this title, the earth not being considered as a star. The concluding words of the tenth chapter of the first book, "So great is the magnificent work of the Omnipotent Artificer," had to be cancelled, because they expressed an assurance of the truth of his system not warranted by knowledge. With these few unimportant changes, any one might read and study Copernicus's work with perfect freedom.
Traditions to the contrary notwithstanding, Galileo, because of the friendship and encouragement of the churchmen in Italy, had been placed in conditions eminently suited for study and investigation. Several popes and a number of prominent ecclesiastics were his constant friends and patrons. The perpetual secretary of the Paris Academy of Sciences, M. Bertrand, himself a great mathematician and historian, declares that the long life of Galileo was one of the most enviable that is recorded in the history of science. "The tale of his misfortunes has confirmed the triumph of the truth for which he suffered. Let us tell the whole truth. This great lesson was learned without any profound sorrow to Galileo; and his long life, considered as a whole, was one of the most serene and enviable in the history of science."
Copernicus, like Galileo, had clerical friends to thank for an environment that proved the greatest possible aid to his scientific work. His position as Canon of the Cathedral of Frauenburg provided him with learned leisure, while his clerical friends took just enough interest in his investigations and the preliminary announcements of his discoveries to make his pursuit of astronomical studies to some definite conclusion a worthy aim in life. It was this assistance that enabled him to publish his book eventually and bring his great theory before the world.
Copernicus, far from having any leanings toward the so-called "reform" movement (as has often been asserted), was evidently a staunch supporter of his friend and patron Bishop Maurice Ferber, of Ermland, who kept his see loyal to Rome at a time when the secularization of the Teutonic order and the falling away of many bishops all around him make his position as a faithful son of the Church and that of his diocese noteworthy in the history of that time and place. It may well be said that under less favorable conditions Copernicus's work might never have been finished. As it was, his book met with great opposition from the Reformers, but remained absolutely acceptable even to the most rigorous churchmen until Galileo's unfortunate insistence on the points of it that were opposed to generally accepted theories.
During all his long life Copernicus remained one of the simplest of men. Genius as he was, he could not have failed to realize how great was the significance of the discoveries he had made in astronomy. In spite of this he continued to exercise during a long career the simple duties of his post as Canon of the Cathedral of Frauenberg, nor did he fail to give such time as was asked of him for the medical treatment of the poor or of his friends, the ecclesiastics of the neighborhood. These duties–as he seems to have considered them–must have taken many precious hours from his studies, but they were given unstintingly. When he came to die, his humility was even more prominent than during life. It was at his own request that there was graven upon his tombstone simply the prayer, "I ask not the grace accorded to Paul, not that given to Peter: give me only the favor Thou didst show to the thief on the cross." There is perhaps no better example in all the world of the simplicity of true genius nor any better example of how sublimely religious may be the soul that has far transcended the bounds of the scientific knowledge of its own day.
The greatness of Copernicus's life-work can best be realized from the extent to which he surpassed even well-known contemporaries in astronomy and from his practical anticipation of the opinions of some of his greatest successors. Even Tycho Brahe, important though he is in the history of astronomical science, taught many years after Copernicus's death the doctrine that the earth is the center of the universe. Newton had in Copernicus a precursor who divined the theory of universal gravitation; and even Kepler's great laws, especially the elliptical form of the orbits of the planets, are at least hinted at in Copernicus's writings. He is certainly one of the most original geniuses of all times; and it is interesting to find that the completeness of his scholarly career, far from being rendered abortive by friction with ecclesiastical superiors, as we might imagine probable from the traditions that hang around his name, was rather made possible by the sympathy and encouragement of clerical friends and Church authorities. Copernicus, the scholar, astronomer, physician, and clergyman, is a type of the eve of the Reformation period, and his life is the best possible refutation of the slanders with regard to the unprogressiveness of the Church and churchmen of that epoch which have unfortunately been only too common in the histories of the time.
III.
BASIL VALENTINE, FOUNDER OF MODERN CHEMISTRY
Let us, then, banish into the world of fiction that affirmation so long repeated by foolish credulity which made monasteries an asylum for indolence and incapacity, for misanthropy and pusillanimity, for feeble and melancholic temperaments, and for men who were no longer fit to serve society in the world. Monasteries were never intended to collect the invalids of the world. It was not the sick souls, but on the contrary the most vigorous and healthful the human race has ever produced, who presented themselves in crowds to fill them.–MONTALEMBERT, Monks of the West.
III.
BASIL VALENTINE, FOUNDER OF MODERN CHEMISTRY
The Protestant tradition which presumes a priori that no good can possibly have come out of the Nazareth of the times before the Reformation, and especially the immediately preceding century, has served to obscure to an unfortunate degree the history of several hundred years extremely important in every department of education. Strange as it may seem to those unfamiliar with the period, it is in that department which is supposed to be so typically modern the–physical sciences–that this neglect is most serious. Such a hold has this Protestant tradition on even educated minds that it is a source of great surprise to most people to be told that there were in many parts of Europe original observers in the physical sciences all during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries who were doing ground-breaking work of the highest value, work that was destined to mean much for the development of modern science. Speculations and experiments with regard to the philosopher's stone and the transmutation of metals are supposed to fill up all the interests of the alchemists of those days. As a matter of fact, however, men were making original observations of very profound significance, and these were considered so valuable by their contemporaries that, though printing had not yet been invented, even the immense labor involved in copying large folio volumes by hand did not suffice to deter them from multiplying the writings of these men and thus preserving them for future generations, until the printing-press came to perpetuate