“Methinks, that in the Discussion of Natural Problemes we ought not to begin at the authority of places of Scripture; but at Sensible Experiments and Necessary Demonstrations. For ... Nature being inexorable and immutable, and never passing the bounds of the Laws assigned her, as one that nothing careth, whether her abstruse reasons and methods of operating be or be not exposed to the capacity of men; I conceive that that concerning Natural Effects, 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 Texts of Scripture, which may under their words, couch senses seemingly contrary thereto.”[73]
126. Meanwhile his enemies had become so active that Galilei thought it well to go to Rome at the end of 1615 to defend his cause. Early in the next year a body of theologians known as the Qualifiers of the Holy Office (Inquisition), who had been instructed to examine certain Coppernican doctrines, reported:—
“That the doctrine that the sun was the centre of the world and immoveable was false and absurd, formally heretical and contrary to Scripture, whereas the doctrine that the earth was not the centre of the world but moved, and has further a daily motion, was philosophically false and absurd and theologically at least erroneous.”
In consequence of this report it was decided to censure Galilei, and the Pope accordingly instructed Cardinal Bellarmine “to summon Galilei and admonish him to abandon the said opinion,” which the Cardinal did.[74] Immediately afterwards a decree was issued condemning the opinions in question and placing on the well-known _Index of Prohibited Books_ three books containing Coppernican views, of which the _De Revolutionibus_ of Coppernicus and another were only suspended “until they should be corrected,” while the third was altogether prohibited. The necessary corrections to the _De Revolutionibus_ were officially published in 1620, and consisted only of a few alterations which tended to make the essential principles; of the book appear as mere mathematical hypotheses, convenient for calculation. Galilei seems to have been on the whole well satisfied with the issue of the inquiry, as far as he was personally concerned, and after obtaining from Cardinal Bellarmine a certificate that he had neither abjured his opinions nor done penance for them, stayed on in Rome for some months to shew that he was in good repute there.