The heliocentric doctrine had for a century been making its way into the minds of thoughtful men, on the general ground of its simplicity and symmetry. Galileo appears to have thought that now, when these original recommendations of the system had been reinforced by his own discoveries and reasonings, it ought to be universally acknowledged as a truth and a reality. And when arguments against the fixity of the sun and the motion of the earth were adduced from the expressions of Scripture, he could not be satisfied without maintaining his favorite opinion to be conformable to Scripture as well as to Philosophy; and he was very eager in his attempts to obtain from authority a declaration to this effect. The ecclesiastical authorities were naturally averse to express themselves in favor of a novel opinion, startling to the common mind, and contrary to the most obvious meaning of the words of the Bible; and when they were compelled to pronounce, they decided against Galileo and his doctrines. He was accused before the Inquisition in 1615; but at that period the result was that he was merely recommended to confine himself to the mathematical reasonings upon the system, and to abstain from meddling with the Scripture. Galileo's zeal for his opinions soon led him again to bring the question under the notice of the Pope, and the result was a declaration of the Inquisition that the doctrine of the earth's motion appeared to be contrary to the Sacred Scripture. Galileo was prohibited from defending and teaching this doctrine in any manner, and promised obedience to this injunction. But in 1632 he published his **"_Dialogo delli due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo, Tolemaico e Copernicano_:" and in this he defended the heliocentric system by all the strongest arguments which its admirers used. Not only so, but he introduced into this _Dialogue_ a character under the name of Simplicius, in whose mouth was put the defence of all the ancient dogmas, and who was represented as defeated at all points in the discussion; {283} and he prefixed to the _Dialogue_ a Notice, _To the Discreet Reader_, in which, in a vein of transparent irony, he assigned his reasons for the publication. "Some years ago," he says, "a wholesome edict was promulgated at Rome, which, in order to check the perilous scandals of the present age, imposed silence upon the Pythagorean opinion of the motion of the earth. There were not wanting," he adds, "persons who rashly asserted that this decree was the result, not of a judicious inquiry, but of a passion ill-informed; and complaints were heard that counsellors, utterly unacquainted with astronomical observations, ought not to be allowed, with their undue prohibitions, to clip the wings of speculative intellects. At the hearing of rash lamentations like these, my zeal could not keep silence." And he then goes on to say that he wishes, by the publication of his _Dialogue_ to show that the subject had been fully examined at Rome.