those which were not true!  What power of guessing, even to hit upon theories which could be established by elaborate calculations,—­all from the primary thought, the grand axiom, which Kepler was the first to propose, that there must be some numerical or geometrical relations among the times, distances, and velocities of the revolving bodies of the solar system!  It would seem that although his science was deductive, he invoked the aid of induction also:  a great original genius, yet modest like Newton; a man who avoided hostilities, yet given to the most boundless enthusiasm on the subjects to which he devoted his life.  How intense his raptures!  “Nothing holds me,” he writes, on discovering his great laws; “I will indulge in my sacred fury.  I will boast of the golden vessels I have stolen from the Egyptians.  If you forgive me, I rejoice.  If you are angry, it is all the same to me.  The die is cast; the book is written,—­to be read either now, or by posterity, I care not which.  It may well wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.”

We do not see this sublime repose in the attitude of Galileo,—­this falling back on his own conscious greatness, willing to let things take their natural course; but rather, on the other hand, an impatience under contradiction, a vehement scorn of adversaries, and an intellectual arrogance that gave offence, and impeded his career, and injured his fame.  No matter how great a man may be, his intellectual pride is always offensive; and when united with sarcasm and mockery it will make bitter enemies, who will pull him down.

Galileo, on his transfer to Padua, began to teach the doctrines of Copernicus,—­a much greater genius than he, and yet one who provoked no enmities, although he made the greatest revolution in astronomical knowledge that any man ever made, since he was in no haste to reveal his discoveries, and stated them in a calm and inoffensive way.  I doubt if new discoverers in science meet with serious opposition when men themselves are not attacked, and they are made to appeal to calm intelligence, and war is not made on those Scripture texts which seem to controvert them.  Even theologians receive science when science is not made to undermine theological declarations, and when the divorce of science from revelation, reason from faith, as two distinct realms, is vigorously insisted upon.  Pascal incurred no hostilities for his scientific investigations, nor Newton, nor Laplace.  It is only when scientific men sneer at the Bible because its declarations cannot always be harmonized with science that the hostilities of theologians are provoked.  And it is only when theologians deny scientific discoveries that seem to conflict with texts of Scripture, that opposition arises among scientific men.  It would seem that the doctrines of Copernicus were offensive to churchmen on this narrow ground.  It was hard to believe that the earth revolved around the sun, when the opinions of the learned for two thousand years were unanimous that the sun revolved around the earth.  Had both theologian and scientist let the Bible alone, there would not have been a bitter war between them.  But scientists were accused by theologians of undermining the Bible; and the theologians were accused of stupid obstinacy, and were mercilessly exposed to ridicule.