Galileo’s was a sadder tale. A Florentine of noble birth, he turned his attention early to science as the needle turns to the north, and before the age of twenty-seven he already occupied a foremost position as mathematical lecturer at Pisa. There it was that he direfully offended the philosophers of the day by proving Aristotle to be in the wrong. For Aristotle was the great master of the schoolmen. His philosophy and theories were accepted as final, and whatsoever could not be proved in accordance with them was regarded as untrue. Aristotle had declared that if two weights--the one being ten times as heavy as the other--were dropped together from a height, the heavier weight would reach the ground ten times as quickly as the lighter. Everybody believed this, and nobody had ever thought of putting it to the test of actual trial. Aristotle had said so, and Aristotle was indorsed as a whole by all the schools of Europe; and what more could possibly be wanted by any reasonable human being? But Galileo was not so easily satisfied. He looked into the matter independently, bent upon finding out, not what Aristotle had thought or what the Church might support, but simply what actually _was_. [Illustration: PROMINENT ASTRONOMERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.] Then, in view of many observers, called together for the occasion, he dropped, at the same instant, from the top of the leaning tower of Pisa, a shot weighing one pound and another shot weighing a hundred pounds. And, behold! both reached the ground simultaneously. There was not a fraction of difference between the two. To prove Aristotle wrong was to prove everybody wrong, the authorities of the Church included. Men calmly declined to believe their own eyes, and Galileo was in very evil odor. From falling bodies he went on to subjects of yet wider interest to people in general. He read about and eagerly embraced the Copernican system. Not only did he accept it himself, but he vigorously set to work to teach and convince others also. This, as might only be expected, aroused vehement opposition. But Galileo was still in the heyday of his powers, and he was not to be easily silenced. In those days he could afford to press onward in the teeth of resistance, and to laugh at men who would not listen. When at Venice, a report reached him of a certain optician in Holland who had happened to hit upon a curious “combination of lenses,” through which objects afar off could be actually seen as if they were near. Galileo promptly seized upon the notion, and within twenty-four hours he had rigged up a small, rough telescope out of an old organ-pipe and two spectacle-glasses.