Because Anaxagoras taught that the sun and stars were not deities, but masses of corruptible matter, he was tried and condemned in Greece. Accusations of a similar nature contributed to the death of Socrates. Copernicus, in consequence of the threats of bigots and the fear of persecution, was prevented from publishing, during his life time, his discovery of the true system of the world; and it is well known, that the great Galileo was imprisoned a year, and then obliged to renounce the motion of the earth, because he asserted it. In 1742, a commentary on Newton's _Principia_, one of the first productions of human genius, was not allowed to be printed at Rome, in consequence of its promulgation of this doctrine; and, in the true spirit of _priest-craft_, the commentators were obliged to prefix to their work a declaration, _that on this point, they submitted to the decisions of the supreme pontiffs_! Such are the results of bigotry, ignorance, superstition, and especially of civil and ecclesiastical governments, that consider learning a curse, and ignorance a blessing! Happily for the people of the United States, their co-equal rights and enlightened reason, will ever guarantee them against tyranny on the one hand, and fanaticism on the other. Superstition has always been an engine of oppression, and wherever it prevails, the powerful are sure to make use of it to oppress and destroy the weak. Another instance of the assumed prerogative of the holy fathers may be found in their conduct towards the house of Medici; for the pontiffs, it is known, induced the house of Medici, by granting it the cardinalship, to suppress the academy del Cimento. The reason of this step is obvious to all; for they were sensible, that, if the people became once enlightened, they would lose their weight, their influence, and authority. But as jugglers are conscious of their gross deceptions, working on the imagination and credulity of the multitude, they in this respect appear at least to know themselves. Like the juggler mentioned in Xenophon, who requested the gods to allow him to remain in places, where there was much money and abundance of simpletons, they acted as the prototype. We might enumerate, if it were not irrelevant to our subject, a number of facts concerning these impostors.[9]