theory; and finally, by the writing of the famous “Dialogues” themselves, in which he made every endeavour not to come into collision with the published decree of 1616, while the very authorship of the work would have infringed an absolute command to silence on the Copernican system. We now go back to the first hearing of Galileo. Although his statements, in spite of his submissiveness, obviously contradict the assertion of the Inquisitor, that he had, in 1616, received an injunction not to hold, teach, or defend the Copernican opinions in any way, the Inquisitor does not take the least pains to solve the enigma. Everything is also omitted on the part of the judges which might have cleared up the point; for example, to summon the witnesses, whose names are on the note of 26th February, 1616, and confront them with the accused. And as no attempt is made to account for his ignorance of the prohibition, and it is simply taken for granted, it must be allowed that Galileo’s judges, to say the least, were guilty of a great breach of judicial order, in using, without any close examination, a paper as a valid document on the trial, which was destitute of nearly all the characteristics of one, namely, the signatures of the accused, of the notary and witnesses, and in spite of three contradictory depositions of the accused. No special arguments are needed to prove that this breach of order did not proceed from mere carelessness. And so, immediately after the accused has declared that he does not remember any command but that intimated to him by Cardinal Bellarmine, we find the Inquisitor asking him: Whether, after the aforesaid command was issued to him, he had received any permission to write the book which he had acknowledged to be his, and which he afterwards had printed? _Galileo_: “After receiving the command aforesaid, I did not ask permission to write the book acknowledged by me to be mine, because I did not consider that in writing it I was acting contrary to, far less disobeying, the command not to hold, defend, or to teach the said opinion.” The Inquisitor now asks to be informed whether, from whom, and in what way, Galileo had received permission to print the “Dialogues.” Galileo briefly relates the whole course of the negotiations which preceded the printing. As his narrative agrees entirely with what we know, it is not reproduced here. The Inquisitor then asks: Whether, when asking permission to print his book, he had told the Master of the Palace about the command aforesaid, which had been issued to him by order of the Holy Congregation?