D. HARVEY'S DEDICATION OF HIS WORK ON THE MOTION OF THE HEART AND THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD (1628) TO HIS VERY DEAR FRIEND, DOCTOR ARGENT, THE EXCELLENT AND ACCOMPLISHED PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, AND TO OTHER LEARNED PHYSICIANS, HIS MOST ESTEEMED COLLEAGUES

I have already and repeatedly presented you, my learned friends, with my new views of the motion and function of the heart, in my anatomical lectures; but having now for more than nine years confirmed these views by multiplied demonstrations in your presence, illustrated them by arguments, and freed them from the objections of the most learned and skilful anatomists, I at length yield to the requests, I might say entreaties, of many, and here present them for a general consideration in this treatise.

Were not the work indeed presented through you, my learned friends, I should scarce hope that it could come out scatheless and complete; for you have in general been the faithful witnesses of almost all the instances from which I have either collected the truth or confuted error. You have seen my dissections, and at my demonstrations of all that I maintained to be objects of sense, you have been accustomed to stand by and bear me out with your testimony. And as this book alone declares the blood to course and revolve by a new route, very different from the ancient and beaten pathway trodden for so many ages, and illustrated by such a host of learned and distinguished men, I was greatly afraid lest I might be charged with presumption did I lay my work before the public at home, or send it beyond seas for impression, unless I had first proposed the subject to you, had confirmed its conclusions by ocular demonstrations in your presence, had replied to your doubts and objections, and secured the assent and support of our distinguished President. For I was most intimately persuaded, that if I could make good my proposition before you and our College, illustrious by its numerous body of learned individuals, I had less to fear from others. I even ventured to hope that I should have the comfort of finding all that you had granted me in your sheer love of truth, conceded by others who were philosophers like yourselves. True philosophers, who are only eager for truth and knowledge, never regard themselves as already so thoroughly informed, but that they welcome further information from whomsoever and from wheresoever it may come; nor are they so narrow minded as to imagine

any of the arts or sciences transmitted to us by the ancients, in such a state of forwardness or completeness, that nothing is left for the ingenuity and industry of others. On the contrary, very many maintain that all we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown; nor do philosophers pin their faith to others' precepts in such wise that they lose their liberty, and cease to give credence to the conclusions of their proper senses. Neither do they swear such fealty to their mistress Antiquity that they openly, and in sight of all, deny and desert their friend Truth. But even as they see that the credulous and vain are disposed at the first blush to accept and believe everything that is proposed to them, so do they observe that the dull and unintellectual are indisposed to see what lies before their eyes, and even deny the light of the noon-day sun. They teach us in our course of philosophy to sedulously avoid the fables of poets and the fancies of the vulgar, as the false conclusions of the sceptics. And then the studious and good and true, never suffer their minds to be warped by the passions of hatred and envy, which unfit men duly to weigh the arguments that are advanced in behalf of truth, or to appreciate the proposition that is even fairly demonstrated. Neither do they think it unworthy of them to change their opinion if truth and undoubted demonstration require them to do so. They do not esteem it discreditable to desert error, though sanctioned by the highest antiquity, for they know full well that to err, to be deceived, is human; that many things are discovered by accident and that many may be learned indifferently from any quarter, by an old man from a youth, by a person of understanding from one of inferior capacity.

My dear colleagues, I had no purpose to swell this treatise into a large volume by quoting the names and writings of anatomists, or to make a parade of the strength of my memory, the extent of my reading, and the amount of my pains; because I profess both to learn and to teach anatomy, not from books but from dissections; not from the positions of philosophers but from the fabric of nature; and then because I do not think it right or proper to strive to take from the ancients any honor that is their due, nor yet to dispute with the moderns, and enter into controversy with those who have excelled in anatomy and been my teachers. I would not charge with wilful falsehood anyone who was sincerely anxious for truth, nor lay it to anyone's door as a crime that he had fallen into error. I avow myself

the partisan of truth alone; and I can indeed say that I have used all my endeavors, bestowed all my pains on an attempt to produce something that should be agreeable to the good, profitable to the learned, and useful to letters.

Farewell, most worthy Doctors,

And think kindly of your Anatomist

WILLIAM HARVEY.

E. GALILEO BEFORE THE INQUISITION (1633)

I. HIS CONDEMNATION

We, GASPARO del titolo di S. Croce, in Gierusalemme Borgia;
FRA FELICE CENTINO del titolo di S. Anastasia, detto d'Ascoli;
GUIDO del titolo di S. Maria del Popolo Bentivoglio;

FRA DESIDERIO SCAGLIA del titolo di S. Carlo, detto di Cremona ;
FRA ANTONIO BARBERINO, detto di S. Onofrio;

LAUDIVIO ZACCHIA del titolo di S. Pietro in Vincolo, detto di S. Sisto;
BERLINGERO del titolo di S. Agostino, Gessi;

FABRICIO del titolo di S. Lorenzo in pane e perna, Verospi, chiamato
Prete;

FRANCESCO di S. Lorenzo, in Damaso Barberino; e

MARTINO di S. Maria Nuova, Ginetti Diaconi;

by the Grace of God, Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Inquisitors-General throughout the whole Christian Republic, Special Depu ties of the Holy Apostolical Chair against heretical depravity,

Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei of Florence, aged seventy years, were denounced in 1615 to this Holy Office, for holding as true the false doctrine taught by many, namely, that the sun is immovable in the centre of the world, and that the earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; also for having pupils whom you instructed in the same opinions; also for maintaining a correspondence on the same with some German mathematicians; also for publishing certain letters on the solar spots, in which you developed the same doctrine as truth; also for answering the objections which were continually produced from the Holy Scriptures, by glozing the said Scriptures according to your own meaning; and whereas thereupon was produced the copy of a writing, in form of a letter, confessedly written by you to a person formerly your pupil, in which, following the hypotheses of Copernicus, you include several propositions contrary to the true sense and authority of the Holy Scripture:

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Therefore this holy tribunal being desirous of providing against the disorder and mischief thence proceeding and increasing to the detriment of the holy faith, by the desire of His Holiness, and of the Most Eminent Lords Cardinals of this supreme and universal Inquisition, the two propositions of the stability of the sun, and the motion of the earth, were qualified by the Theological Qualifiers as follows: The proposition that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable from its place is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to the Holy Scripture.

The proposition that the earth is not the centre of the world, nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is also absurd, philosophically false, and, theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith.

But whereas being pleased at that time to deal mildly with you, it was decreed in the Holy Congregation, held before His Holiness on the 25th day of February, 1616, that His Eminence, the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine, should enjoin you to give up altogether the said false doctrine; if you should refuse, that you should be ordered by the Commissary of the Holy Office to relinquish it, not to teach it to others, not to defend it, nor ever mention it, and in default of acquiescence that you should be imprisoned; and in execution of this decree, on the following day at the palace, in presence of His Eminence the said Lord Cardinal Bellarmine, after you had been mildly admonished by the said Lord Cardinal, you were commanded by the acting Commissary of the Holy Office, before a notary and witnesses to relinquish altogether the said false opinion, and in future neither to defend nor teach it in any manner, neither verbally nor in writing, and upon your promising obedience, you were dismissed.

And in order that so pernicious a doctrine might be altogether rooted out, nor insinuate itself further to the heavy detriment of the Catholic faith, a decree emanated from the Holy Congregation of the Index prohibiting the books which treat of this doctrine; and it was declared false and altogether contrary to the Holy and Divine Scripture. And whereas a book has since appeared, published at Florence last year, the title of which showed that you were the author, which is: The Dialogue of Galileo Galilei, on the Two Principal Systems of the World, the Ptolemaic and Copernican; and whereas the Holy Congregation has heard that, in consequence of the printing of the said book, the false opinion of the earth's motion and stability of the

sun is daily gaining ground; the said book has been taken into careful consideration, and in it has been detected a glaring violation of the said order, which had been intimated to you; inasmuch as in this book you have defended the said opinion, already in your presence condemned; although in the said book you labor with many circumlocutions to produce the belief that it is left by you undecided, and in express terms probable; which is equally a very grave error, since an opinion can in no way be probable which has been already declared and finally determined contrary to the Divine Scripture:

Therefore by our order you were cited to this Holy Office, where, on your examination upon oath, you acknowledged the said book as written and printed by you. You also confessed that you began to write the said book ten or twelve years ago, after the order aforesaid had been given; also, that you demanded licence to publish it, but without signifying to those who granted you this permission that you had been commanded not to hold, defend or teach the said doctrine in any manner.

You also confessed that the style of the said book was, in many places, so composed that the reader might think the arguments adduced on the false side to be so worded as more effectually to entangle the understanding than to be easily solved, alleging in excuse, that you have thus run into an error, foreign (as you say) to your intention, from writing in the form of a dialogue, and in consequence of the natural complacency which everyone feels in regard to his own subtilities, and in showing himself more skilful than the generality of mankind in contriving, even in favor of false propositions, ingenious and apparently probable arguments.

And, upon a convenient time having been given to you for making your defense, you produced a certificate in the handwriting of His Eminence the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine, procured as you said, by yourself, that you might defend yourself against the calumnies of your enemies, who reported that you had abjured your opinions, and had been punished by the Holy Office; in which certificate it is declared that you had not abjured, nor had been punished, but merely that the declaration made by His Holiness, and promulgated by the Holy Congregation of the Index, had been announced to you, which declares that the opinion of the motion of the earth, and the stability of the sun, is contrary to the Holy Scriptures, and, therefore, cannot be held or defended. Wherefore, since no mention is there made of