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In 1607 Kepler rushed into print with an alleged observation of Mercury crossing the sun, but after Galileo's discovery of sun-spots, Kepler at once cheerfully retracted his observation of "Mercury," and so far was he from being annoyed or bigoted in his views, that he warmly adopted Galileo's side, in contrast to most of those whose opinions were liable to be overthrown by the new discoveries.
Professor Benjamin Peirce of Harvard University immediately followed with a demonstration, on abstract grounds, of their non-solidity. Streams of some fluid denser than water were, he maintained, the physical reality giving rise to the anomalous appearance first disclosed by Galileo's telescope.
The endeavor of Galileo's parents had been to keep him ignorant of mathematics and practical life, that he might blossom forth as a saint who would sing and play and make pictures like those of Leonardo, and carve statues like Michelangelo, only better. But parents plan, and Fate disposes.
In a very different spirit did the Aristotelians receive the "Sidereal Messenger" of Galileo. The principal professor of philosophy at Padua resisted Galileo's repeated and urgent entreaties to look at the moon and planets through his telescope; and he even laboured to convince the Grand Duke that the satellites of Jupiter could not possibly exist.
And Labouchere says that one of the four brothers of Shakespeare used to explain that he wasn't the play-actor who wrote "Hamlet" and "Othello," lest, mayhap, his name should be smirched. Galileo's mother had that beautiful dream which I believe all good mothers have: that her son might be the savior of the world. As he grew to manhood, her faith in him did not relax.
Yet in the case of the flat body it is not altogether inappropriate to say that the water resists penetration and thus supports the body. The modern physicist explains the phenomenon as due to surface-tension of the fluid. Of course, Galileo's disquisition on the mixing of air with the floating body is utterly fanciful.
Just as Galileo's first lens had resolved the Milky Way into stars, just as Herschel had resolved nebulae that resisted all instruments but his own, so Lord Rosse's even greater reflector resolved others that would not yield to Herschel's largest mirror.
He stated that, from his great age and infirmities, Galileo's career was near its close; that he possessed many valuable ideas, which the world might lose if they were not matured and conveyed to his friends; and that Galileo was anxious to make these communications to Father Castelli, who was then a stipendiary of the Court of Rome.
The ecclesiastical mind of those days astutely fastened on the charge of impugning the sacred record of Moses itself a phenomenal instance of incompetent infallibility but the real explanation of Galileo's persecution lies in the fact that, with this earth in a dependent position and in ceaseless motion, the whole system of theology suffered a serious shock.
The situation of master of the palace was, fortunately for Galileo's designs, filled by Nicolo Riccardi, a friend and pupil of his own. This officer was a sort of censor of new publications, and when he was applied to on the subject of printing his work, Galileo soon found that attempts had previously been made to thwart his views.
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