From this position,
therefore, the assailants retreated.[78]
[78] The invention of the "contumacy" quibble seems due to
Monsignor Marini, who appears also to have manipulated the
original documents to prove it. Even Whewell was evidently
somewhat misled by him, but Whewell wrote before L'Epinois had
shown all the documents, and under the supposition that Marini
was an honest man.
The next rally was made about the statement that the persecution
of Galileo was the result of a quarrel between Aristotelian
professors on one side and professors favouring the experimental
method on the other. But this position was attacked and carried
by a very simple statement. If the divine guidance of the Church
is such that it can be dragged into a professorial squabble, and
made the tool of a faction in bringing about a most disastrous
condemnation of a proved truth, how did the Church at that time
differ from any human organization sunk into decrepitude, managed
nominally by simpletons, but really by schemers? If that argument
be true, the condition of the Church was even worse than its
enemies have declared it; and amid the jeers of an unfeeling
world the apologists sought new shelter.
The next point at which a stand was made was the assertion that
the condemnation of Galileo was "provisory"; but this proved a
more treacherous shelter than the others.
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