The Life of Galileo Galilei, with Illustrations of the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy. John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune

The Life of Galileo Galilei, with Illustrations of the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy - John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune


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at wherever he went.

      When forwarding this telescope to Cosmo in the first instance, Galileo adds, with a very natural feeling—"I send it to his highness unadorned and unpolished, as I made it for my own use, and beg that it may always be left in the same state; for none of the old parts ought to be displaced to make room for new ones, which will have had no share in the watchings and fatigues of these observations." A telescope was in existence, though with the object glass broken, at the end of the last century, and probably still is in the Museum at Florence, which was shewn as the discoverer of Jupiter's satellites. Nelli, on whose authority this is mentioned, appears to question its genuineness. The first reflecting telescope, made with Newton's own hands, and scarcely possessing less interest than the first of Galileo's, is preserved in the library of the Royal Society.

      By degrees the enemies of Galileo and of the new stars found it impossible to persevere in their disbelief, whether real or pretended, and at length seemed resolved to compensate for the sluggishness of their perception, by its acuteness when brought into action. Simon Mayer published his "Mundus Jovialis" in 1614, in which he claims to have been an original observer of the satellites, but, with an affectation of candour, allows that Galileo observed them probably about the same time. The earliest observation which he has recorded is dated 29th December, 1609, but, not to mention the total want of probability that Mayer would not have immediately published so interesting a discovery, it is to be observed, that, as he used the old style, this date of 29th December agrees with the 8th January, 1610, of the new style, which was the date of Galileo's second observation, and Galileo ventured to declare his opinion, that this pretended observation was in fact a plagiarism.

      Scheiner counted five, Rheita nine, and other observers, with increasing contempt for Galileo's imperfect announcements, carried the number as high as twelve.[54] In imitation of Galileo's nomenclature, and to honour the sovereigns of the respective observers, these supposed additional satellites were dignified with the names of Vladislavian, Agrippine, Urbanoctavian, and Ferdinandotertian planets; but a very short time served to show it was as unsafe to exceed as to fall short of the number which Galileo had fixed upon, for Jupiter rapidly removed himself from the neighbourhood of the fixed stars, which gave rise to these pretended discoveries, carrying with him only his four original attendants, which continued in every part of his orbit to revolve regularly about him.

      Perhaps we cannot better wind up this account of the discovery of Jupiter's satellites, and of the intense interest they have at all times inspired, than in the words of one who inherits a name worthy to be ranked with that of Galileo in the list of astronomical discoverers, and who takes his own place among the most accomplished mathematicians of the present times. "The discovery of these bodies was one of the first brilliant results of the invention of the telescope; one of the first great facts which opened the eyes of mankind to the system of the universe, which taught them the comparative insignificance of their own planet, and the superior vastness and nicer mechanism of those other bodies, which had before been distinguished from the stars only by their motion, and wherein none but the boldest thinkers had ventured to suspect a community of nature with our own globe. This discovery gave the holding turn to the opinions of mankind respecting the Copernican system; the analogy presented by these little bodies (little however only in comparison with the great central body about which they revolve) performing their beautiful revolutions in perfect harmony and order about it, being too strong to be resisted. This elegant system was watched with all the curiosity and interest the subject naturally inspired. The eclipses of the satellites speedily attracted attention, and the more when it was discerned, as it speedily was, by Galileo himself, that they afforded a ready method of determining the difference of longitudes of distant places on the earth's surface, by observations of the instants of their disappearances and reappearances, simultaneously made. Thus the first astronomical solution of the great problem of the longitude, the first mighty step which pointed out a connection between speculative astronomy and practical utility, and which, replacing the fast dissipating dreams of astrology by nobler visions, showed how the stars might really, and without fiction, be called arbiters of the destinies of empires, we owe to the satellites of Jupiter, those atoms imperceptible to the naked eye, and floating like motes in the beam of their primary—itself an atom to our sight, noticed only by the careless vulgar as a large star, and by the philosophers of former ages as something moving among the stars, they knew not what, nor why: perhaps only to perplex the wise with fruitless conjectures, and harass the weak with fears as idle as their theories."[55]

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