Nor was this the only defence of the Copernican system which issued from the bosom of the Church. Thomas Campanella, a Calabrian monk, published, in 1622, "_An Apology for Galileo_," and he even dedicates it to D. Boniface, Cardinal of Cajeta. Nay, it appears from the dedication, that he undertook the work at the command of the Cardinal, and that the examination of the question had been entrusted to the Cardinal by the Holy Senate. After an able defence of his friend, Campanella refers, at the conclusion of his apology, to the suppression of Galileo's writings, and justly observes, that the effect of such a measure would be to make them more generally read, and more highly esteemed. The boldness of the apologist, however, is wisely tempered with the humility of the ecclesiastic, and he concludes his work with the declaration, that in all his opinions, whether written or to be written, he submits himself to the opinions of the Holy Mother Church of Rome and to the judgment of his superiors. By these proceedings of the dignitaries, as well as the clergy of the Church of Rome, which had been tolerated for more than a century, the decrees of the pontiffs against the doctrine of the earth's motion were virtually repealed; and Galileo might have pleaded them with success in arrest of judgment. Unfortunately, however, for himself and for science, he acted otherwise. By admitting their authority, he revived in fresh force these obsolete and obnoxious enactments; and, by yielding to their power, he riveted for another century the almost broken chains of spiritual despotism. It is a curious fact in the annals of heresy and sedition, that opinions maintained with impunity by one individual, have, in the same age, brought others to the stake or to the scaffold. The results of deep research or extravagant speculation seldom provoke hostility, when meekly announced as the deductions of reason or the convictions of conscience. As the dreams of a recluse or of an enthusiast, they may excite pity or call forth contempt; but, like seed quietly cast into the earth, they will rot and germinate according to the vitality with which they are endowed. But, if new and startling opinions are thrown in the face of the community--if they are uttered in triumph or in insult--in contempt of public opinion, or in derision of cherished errors, they lose the comeliness of truth in the rancour of their propagation; and they are like seed scattered in a hurricane, which only irritates and blinds the husbandman. Had Galileo concluded his _System of the World_ with the quiet peroration of his apologist Campanella, and dedicated it to the Pope, it might have stood in the library of the Vatican, beside the cherished though equally heretical volume of Copernicus.