According to these legends, Galileo languishes during the trial in the prisons of the Inquisition; when brought before his judges, he proudly defends the doctrine of the double motion; he is then seized by the executioners of the Holy Office, and subjected to the horrors of torture; but even then—as heroic fable demands—he for a long time remains steadfast; under pain beyond endurance he promises obedience, that is, the recantation of the Copernican system. As soon as his torn and dislocated limbs permit, he is dragged before the large assembly of the Congregation, and there, kneeling in the penitential shirt, with fierce rage in his heart, he utters the desired recantation. As he rises he is no longer able to master his indignation, and fiercely stamping with his foot, he utters the famous words: “E pur si muove!” He is, therefore, thrown into the dank dungeons of the dreaded tribunal, where his eyes are put out! The blinding of Galileo is a creation of the lively popular mind, which, with its love of horrors, embellishes tragical historical events by fictitious additions of this kind, just suited to the palates of people accustomed to coarse diet. Galileo’s subsequent loss of sight may have given rise to the fable, which first appeared in the “History of Astronomy” by Estevius.[421] It is not known who was the inventor of the assumed exclamation, “E pur si muove,” which sounds well, and has become a “winged word;” but besides not being historic, it very incorrectly indicates the old man’s state of mind; for he was morally completely crushed. Professor Heis, who has devoted a treatise to the origin of this famous saying, thinks that he has discovered its first appearance in the “Dictionnaire Historique,” Caen, 1789;[422] Professor Grisar tells us, however, in his studies on the trial of Galileo, that in the “Lehrbuch der philosophischen Geschichte,” published at Würzburg, 1774, fifteen years earlier, by Fr. N. Steinacher, the following edifying passage occurs:— “Galileo was neither sufficiently in earnest nor steadfast with his recantation; for the moment he rose up, when his conscience told him that he had sworn falsely, he cast his eyes on the ground, stamped with his foot, and exclaimed, ‘E pur si muove.’”[423] Besides the fact that these words are not attributed to Galileo by any of his contemporaries, not even the best informed, the fallacy of the whole story is obvious; for the witnesses of this outbreak, his judges, in fact, would assuredly not have allowed so audacious a revocation of his recantation to escape unpunished; it is, indeed, impossible to conjecture what the consequences would have been; the recusant would certainly not have been released two days afterwards from the buildings of the Holy Office.