nature did both alike proceed, and I conceive that, concerning natural effects, that which either sensible experience sets before our eyes, or necessary demonstrations do prove unto us, ought not upon any account to be called into question, much less condemned, upon the testimony of Scriptural texts, which may under their words couch senses seemingly contrary thereto. "Again, to command the very professors of astronomy that they of themselves see to the confuting of their own observations and demonstrations, is to enjoin a thing beyond all possibility of doing; for it is not only to command them not to see that which they do see, and not to understand that which they do understand, but it is to order them to seek for and to find the contrary of that which they happen to meet with. I would entreat these wise and prudent fathers, that they would with all diligence consider the difference that is between opinionative and demonstrative doctrines: to the end that well weighing in their minds with what force necessary inferences urge us, they might the better assure themselves that it is not in the power of the professors of demonstrative sciences to change their opinions at pleasure, and adopt first one side and then another; and that there is a great difference between commanding a mathematician or a philosopher, and the disposing of a lawyer or a merchant; and that the demonstrated conclusions touching the things of nature and of the heavens cannot be changed with the same facility as the opinions are touching what is lawful or not in a contract, bargain, or bill of exchange. Therefore, first let these men apply themselves to examine the arguments of Copernicus and others, and leave the condemning of them as erroneous and heretical to whom it belongeth; yet let them not hope to find such rash and precipitous determinations in the wary and holy fathers, or in the absolute wisdom of him who cannot err, as those into which they suffer themselves to be hurried by some particular affection or interest of their own. In these and such other positions, which are not directly articles of faith, certainly no man doubts but His Holiness hath always an absolute power of admitting or condemning them, but it is not in the power of any creature to make them to be true or false, otherwise than of their own nature, and in fact they are." We have been more particular in extracting these passages, because it has been advanced by a writer of high reputation, that the treatment which Galileo subsequently experienced was solely in consequence of his persisting in the endeavour to prove that the Scriptures were reconcileable with the Copernican theory[74], whereas we see here distinctly that, for the reasons we have briefly stated, he regarded this as a matter altogether indifferent and beside the question.