Next, as to the question whether the Inquisition declared the doctrine heretical. That, so far as its authority extended, and in its own usual sense and meaning of the word, it did do so, is clear enough from what precedes. But, as may be supposed, a general word which belongs to an extensive system of law has many uses. The argument about the stylus curies seems to us unanswerable. In our Court of Queen's Bench, peaceful persons were adjudged to have done many things by force and arms, because the court, originally instituted for matters connected with the Queen's peace, had no other way of widening its jurisdiction for the relief of the subject except by interpreting one class of injuries after another as acts of violence. The Inquisition, instituted for the suppression of heresy, and having no choice but to determine all causes sent before it by the Pope (as was that of Galileo), was as much coin pelled by its forms to consider every point with nominal reference to heresy and orthodoxy, as the Court of Queen's Bench to decide actions for breach of contract on a supposition of money detained by force. Whether the maxim of our law—in fictions furls sempersulaistit trquitas —can be applied to the Office called Holy; whether the high authority which Roman Catholics reckon to be infallible when it does pronounce a decision was not culpably negligent in withholding its power from the scene of action, and in allowing an inferior tribunal to assume the function of interpretation which it asserts to belong peculiarly to itself —are questions on which Roman Catholics themselves are likely enough to be divided in opinion. But however this may be, to require them to admit that their church has decided against time motion of the earth, as a matter of faith, and in its asserted infallible character, is to ask them to yield more than the opponents of the disputed doctrine ever thought they could claim as having been done for them. On this point we can cite a most unwilling contemporary witness, Fromond of Louvain, whose 'Antariatarchus,' written against the motion of the earth, was published at Antwerp in 1631. Fromond was a very zealous Roman Catholic, an ardent opponent of the Copernican doctrine, and a firm believer in the fact of the sacred writers having intended to declare the stability of the earth. One of his chapters is thus headed, "Is the Copernican opinion now to be held heretical!" This of itself is some thing, for it is to be remembered that the work had passed through the hands of the united censure of Philip IV. of Spain and the ecclesi astical authorities. What would these examiners have said to a work on the Nicene Council with a chapter headed "Are the followers of Arius to be considered as heretics ?" But to proceed :—Fromond, who wants to get all the condemnation that he can for his opponents, begins by citing Roman Catholics who have expressed opinions on the subject : and it is remarkable how mild tho censure is, even of those who wrote after the decree of the cardinals. Tanner says the opinion is "con demned, and cannot any longer be safely held ;" Mersenne, that "any one may justly think it rash,* particularly after the manner in which the cardinals have expressed themselves." The author goes on to state, with a slight, but very slight, tone of reproach, that there aro men, both learned and Catholic, in Italy, France, Germany, and Belgium, who care little for the opinion of the cardinals, and who say that the power of these dignitaries is not supreme and pontifical, and that until this last-named power is exerted, they are safe and not within the limits of heresy. But Fromond doubts whether they are "safe enough." He points out that the books which are in the Index are condemned (according to the bull of Sextus V., which modelled both the Index and the Inquisition into time form which they had when Galileo was silenced) by the authority of the pope, expressly delegated for that purpose ; and he then feels justified in drawing time following inference. " lf," says he, " the general opinion of tho Catholics of our time be correct, namely, that the pope speaking e cathedra cannot err, though not supported by a general council, then it Is all up with Copernicus, and his paradox (to use a gentle word) appears rash, and next thing to heresy, ay, even more." !raving thus, as it were, made his utmost point, and still not got quite so far as heresy infallibly pro nounced, ho checks himself thus : "This is what a severe judge might think. But when I consider how circumspect and free from haste pontiffs generally are in their decrees on matters of faith a cathedra, and also their practice of making those decrees in their own names and not in those of others, and since Sextus V., in the diploma which established the fifteen congregations of cardinals expressly says, 'Of those decrees which relate to the dogmas of the faith, we reserve the interpretation to ourselves '—it seems necessary to mitigate time censure a little, and right to suppose that the authority of the Congregation of the Index is not equal, but inferior, to that of the pope." He ends by
saying that though the Copernican has (unless the pope should other wise decide) one foobinside the door of heresy, yet he would not dare to pronounce him an open heretic, without something more express from the head of the church. The bull of Sextus V., as we see, con tains an express limitation of the power of the several congregations ; and the language and arguments of Fromond (to whom we might join other writers, but not of so satisfactory a character, as being themselves Copernicans) prove that this renunciation of the charge of heresy, this declaration that the asserted infallible power never showed itself, is no subterfuge of modern Romanists, but was the argument of the time when Galileo was under the ban ; was held, among others, by a distin guished opponent of the Copernican doctrine, the very last person who was likely to have had any bias towards such reasoning; and was allowed to pass a strict censorship of the press.
In 1651 the theologian Riccioli, the most learned of astronomers, and the strongest of the anti-Copernicans, writes as follows :—" The sacred congregation of cardinals, taken apart from the supreme pontiff, does not make propositions to be of faith, even though it should actually define them to be of faith, or the contrary ones heretical. Wherefore, since no definition upon this matter has as yet issued from the supreme pontiff, nor from any council directed and approved by him, it is not yet of faith that the sun moves and the earth stands still, by force of the decree of the congregation ; but at most, and alone, by the force of the sacred Scripture, to those to whom it is morally evident that God has revealed it. Nevertheless, Catholics are bound, in prudence and obedience, at least so far as not to teach the contrary. But of this subtility* of theology I have treated ha my treatise De " But not only do Roman Catholic writers thus express themselves, but contemporary Protestants, the most staunch opponents of Rome, accept the interpretation. Thus Bishop Wilkins, a decided Puritan, writing in 1610, after stating that some individuals, as Senorita, expressly condemn the Copernican doctrine as a heresy, proceeds as follows : "And since him, it hath bin called in [question ?] by two Sessions of the Cardinals as being an opinion both absurd and dangerous. And therefore likewise doe they punish it, by casting the Defenders of it into the Pope's truest Purgatorie, the Inquisition : by yet neither these Councels, nor any (that I know of) since them, have proceeded to such a peremptorie censure of it, as to conclude it a ' fearing, per haps, lest a more exact examination, and the discoverie of future times, finding it to bee an undeniable Truth, it might redound to the prejudice of their church, and its infallibilitie." It is moreover to be remembered that the Inquisition, and even the Congregation of the Index, was a local authority, incompetent to legis late for the faith of all Roman Christians. There was nothing in what was done by the Italian to hinder the Spanish Inquisitors from declaring in favour of Copernicus, if such had been their pleasure : and, in fact, we have searched the Spanish Index of 1667 in vain for the name of Copernicus, though some of his followers are in the list.
Lastly, if we remember the controversy which has always existed in the Roman world as to the character of decrees emanating from the Roman See alone, without a general council, we shall see that it would have been very unlikely that a pope should have raised this question in France, Spain, and Germany, upon a matter which might any day be settled against him by absolute demonstration. Tirabosehi looks upon it as a special Providence that the Church was not allowed to commit itself ; and we apprehend that most Roman Catholics will be of his opinion. But they must admit, as they have had to do in many other cases, that their earthly head used his power in a most unworthy manner, and found agents who were the subservient creatures of his irritated feelings. Protestants, on the other hand, should beware how they weaken the general argument against the infallibility of the Roman church, by practically owning that it cannot be successfully attacked except by denying to those who maintain it the right to be the inter preters of the sense in which they use their own words.
Though we differ entirely from the article in the Dublin Review; tho substance of which we have quoted, yet it is right to say that we find in it a large quantity of collateral information, put together in a manner which strikingly exhibits the under current of favour which was setting towards the doctrines of Copernicus, when its imprudent advocates began to mix theological with their physical arguments. Had we intended this comment to be a biographical one, we should have had to make use of its details ; and we should be very glad to see tho numerous interesting citations which it contains worked into truer history, supported by fuller reference, and dignified by milder language towards opponents.