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A snow-white table-cloth was spread, having been routed out from the deepest recesses of my chest, where it, in company with others, had lain in undisturbed repose since the commencement of the voyage, and upon it was spread a variety of dainties of various kinds, the produce of our raid upon the Copernicus's provision lockers; and, of all things in the world, a plentiful supply of delicious little cakes, smoking hot, which Miss Ella's own dainty hands had prepared.

1. The former, which is called Non-observation, is a case, not of a positive mis-estimate of evidence, or of the proper faculties (whether the senses or reason) not having been employed, but simply of the non-employment of any of the faculties. It arises ([Greek: a]) from neglect of instances. Sometimes this is when there is a stronger motive to remember the instances on the one side, and the observers have neglected the principle of the Elimination of Chance. Hence (the mind, as Bacon says, being more moved by affirmative than by negative instances) the belief in predictions, e.g. about the weather, because they occasionally turn out correct; and the credit of the proverb, that 'Fortune favours fools, since the cases of a wise man's success through luck are forgotten in his more numerous successes through genius. But a preconceived opinion is the chief cause why opposing instances are overlooked. Hence originate the errors about physical facts (e.g. of Copernicus's foes, and friends, too, about the falling stone), and

In fact, the excellence of Copernicus's book helped to prolong the life of the epicyclical theories in opposition to Kepler's teaching. All of the best theories were compared by him with observation. These were the Ptolemaic, the Copernican, and the Tychonic.

But the Inquisition now took up the matter as heretical and contrary to the express words of Scripture; and in 1616, Copernicus's work, "De Revolutionibus," Kepler's "Epitome," and some of Galileo's own letters, were placed on the list of prohibited books; and he himself, being then in Rome, received formal notice not to teach that the earth revolves round the sun.

He supports these views by quotations from the ancient fathers; and he refers to the dedication of Copernicus's own work to the Roman Pontiff, Paul III., as a proof that the Pope himself did not regard the new system of the world as hostile to the sacred writings.

On the other hand, whenever I interrogated the Peripatetics and the Ptolemeans and, out of curiosity, I have interrogated not a few respecting their perusal of Copernicus's work, I perceived that there were few who had seen the book, and not one who understood it.

But in Kepler's case the obviously implied physical theory of the planetary motions, even before Newton explained the simplicity of conception involved, made astronomers quite ready to waive the claim for a rigid proof of the earth's motion by measurement of an annual parallax of stars, which they had insisted on in respect of Copernicus's revival of the idea of the earth's orbital motion.

The inquisitors had determined to put down the new opinions; and they now inserted among the prohibited books Galileo's letters to Castelli and the Grand Duchess, Kepler's epitome of the Copernican theory, and Copernicus's own work on the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. Notwithstanding these proceedings, Galileo had an audience of the Pope, Paul V., in March 1616.

Copernicus's vast ramparts formed a perfect circle or rather a pair of concentric circles. All around the mountain extended a dark grayish plain of savage aspect, on which the peak shadows projected themselves in sharp relief.

All we should aim at is the most convenient way of looking at a thing the way that most sensible people are likely to find give them least trouble for some time to come. It is not true that the sun used to go round the earth until Copernicus's time, but it is true that until Copernicus's time it was most convenient to us to hold this.