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Galileo’s telescope reveals too much

Galileo: His telescope reveals too much:

“During the year 1608 one Lippershey, a Hollander, discovered that, by looking through two glass lenses, combined in a certain manner together, distant objects were magnified and rendered very plain. He had invented the telescope.

In the following year Galileo, a Florentine, greatly distinguished by his mathematical and scientific writings, hearing of the circumstance, but without knowing the particulars of the construction, invented a form of the instrument for himself. Improving it gradually, he succeeded in making one that could magnify thirty times.

Examining the moon, he found that she had valleys like those of the earth, and mountains casting shadows. It had been said in the old times that in the Pleiades there were formerly seven stars, but a legend related that one of them had mysteriously disappeared. On turning his telescope toward them, Galileo found that he could easily count not fewer than forty.

In whatever direction he looked, he discovered stars that were totally invisible to the naked eye.

On the night of January 7, 1610, he perceived three small stars in a straight line, adjacent to the planet Jupiter, and, a few evenings later, a fourth. He found that these were revolving in orbits round the body of the planet, and, with transport, recognized that they presented a miniature representation of the Copernican system.

The announcement of these wonders at once attracted universal attention. The spiritual authorities were not slow to detect their tendency, as endangering the doctrine that the universe was made for man. In the creation of myriads of stars, hitherto invisible, there must surely have been some other motive than that of illuminating the nights for him.”

History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science. By John William Draper. Published 1875 by D. Appleton and company, New York.. Ch. VI.

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Full of misgivings as to what might be the result

Copernicus Publishes his theory that the Earth goes around the Sun

‘Full of misgivings as to what might be the result, he refrained from publishing his book for thirty-six years, thinking that “perhaps it might be better to follow the examples of the Pythagoreans and others, who delivered their doctrine only by tradition and to friends.” At the entreaty of Cardinal Schomberg he at length published it in 1543. A copy of it was brought to him on his death-bed. Its fate was such as he had anticipated. The Inquisition condemned it as heretical. In their decree, prohibiting it, the Congregation of the Index denounced his system as “that false Pythagorean doctrine utterly contrary to the Holy Scriptures.”

Astronomers justly affirm that the book of Copernicus, “De Revolutionibus,” changed the face of their science. It incontestably established the heliocentric theory. It showed that the distance of the fixed stars is infinitely great, and that the earth is a mere point in the heavens. Anticipating Newton, Copernicus imputed gravity to the sun, the moon, and heavenly bodies, but he was led astray by assuming that the celestial motions must be circular. Observations on the orbit of Mars, and his different diameters at different times, had led Copernicus to his theory.’

History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science. By John William Draper. Published 1875 by D. Appleton and company, New York.. Ch. VI.

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Christianity had been in existence fifteen hundred years…

Christianity had been in existence fifteen hundred years, and had not produced a single astronomer.

Although written well over a hundred years ago, John Draper’s History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science took a clear-eyed and caustic view of traditional Catholicism.

Reference to Authority

“The Ptolemaic system is, therefore, essentially a geocentric system. It left the earth in her position of superiority, and hence gave no cause of umbrage to religious opinions, Christian or Mohammedan. The immense reputation of its author, the signal ability of his great work on the mechanism of the heavens, sustained it for almost fourteen hundred years—that is, from the second to the sixteenth century.

In Christendom, the greater part of this long period was consumed in disputes respecting the nature of God, and in struggles for ecclesiastical power. The authority of the Fathers, and the prevailing belief that the Scriptures contain the sum, of all knowledge, discouraged any investigation of Nature. If by chance a passing interest was taken in some astronomical question, it was at once settled by a reference to such authorities as the writings of Augustine or Lactantius, not by an appeal to the phenomena of the heavens. So great was the preference given to sacred over profane learning that Christianity had been in existence fifteen hundred years, and had not produced a single astronomer.”

History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science. By John William Draper. Published 1875 by D. Appleton and company, New York.. Ch. VI.

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Geocenticity – Primitive Concept of Nature

Geocenticity – Primitive Concept of Nature

“An uncritical observation of the aspect of Nature persuades us that the earth is an extended level surface which sustains the dome of the sky, a firmament dividing the waters above from the waters beneath; that the heavenly bodies—the sun, the moon, the stars—pursue their way, moving from east to west, their insignificant size and motion round the motionless earth proclaiming their inferiority.

Of the various organic forms surrounding man none rival him in dignity, and hence he seems justified in concluding that every thing has been created for his use—the sun for the purpose of giving him light by day, the moon and stars by night.

Comparative theology shows us that this is the conception of Nature universally adopted in the early phase of intellectual life. It is the belief of all nations in all parts of the world in the beginning of their civilization: geocentric, for it makes the earth the centre of the universe; anthropocentric, for it makes man the central object of the earth. And not only is this the conclusion spontaneously come to from inconsiderate glimpses of the world, it is also the philosophical basis of various religious revelations, vouchsafed to man from time to time.

These revelations, moreover, declare to him that above the crystalline dome of the sky is a region of eternal light and happiness—heaven—the abode of God and the angelic hosts, perhaps also his own abode after death; and beneath the earth a region of eternal darkness and misery, the habitation of those that are evil. In the visible world is thus seen a picture of the invisible.

On the basis of this view of the structure of the world great religious systems have been founded, and hence powerful material interests have been engaged in its support. These have resisted, sometimes by resorting to bloodshed, attempts that have been made to correct its incontestable errors—a resistance grounded on the suspicion that the localization of heaven and hell and the supreme value of man in the universe might be affected.”

History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science. By John William Draper. Published 1875 by D. Appleton and company, New York.. Ch. VI.

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Although astrology was never taught formally in English universities…

“Although astrology was never taught formally in English universities either, and was also regarded with suspicion by the majority of the clergy, it nevertheless began to enjoy a popular reception there during the later half of the sixteenth century. This sixteenth century renewal in England of interest in astrology, indeed to a level of interest that surpassed that of the middle ages, is attributed mainly to the mathematical revival brought about by the most famous Elizabethan astrologer John Dee (1527-1608), along with the help of Leonard Digges and his son Thomas, both astrologers and mathematicians as well.

Dee and the Digges’s practiced and advocated rigorous mathematical calculations in the study of astronomy as it applied to astrology, and in doing so raised the standard for the English astrological community from that time on.

John Dee was a long-time consultant of Queen Elizabeth I, and was commissioned for everything from the proper time for her coronation in 1559 to drawing an accurate map of the world in I580.”

….

“The revival of astrology in England then, began during the reign of Elizabeth I with Dee and the Digges’s, but was practiced at first mainly among the upper classes, only slowly trickling down to the rest of society. Such was the state of astrology in England at the beginning of the seventeenth century.”

From: Kemp, David (2003) The scientific revolution’s axiomatic rejection of magical thinking : the case of astrology in England (1600-1700). Masters thesis, Concordia University.

Pasted from <http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/2327/>

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Simplicissimus the vagabond

Simplicissimus the vagabond
that is – the life of a strange adventurer named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim … given forth by German Schleifheim von Sulsfort in the year MDCLXIX translated by A.T.S. Goodrick; with an introd. by William Rose.
Published 1912 by Routledge in London .

Pasted from <https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23332527M/Simplicissimus_the_vagabond>





http://www.archive.org/stream/simplicissimusva00grim#page/n33/mode/2up
p. xxix

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Simplicissimus and the Witches’ Dance….

Simplicissimus and the Witches’ Dance.

Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1621 – August 17, 1676) wrote a very popular “picaresque” novel Simplicius Simplicissimus in 1669. A picaresque is a story following the adventures of a low caste heroic rogue or trickster who uses his wits to survive precarious times among a corrupt society.

Following is an excerpt in which Simplicissimus stumbles upon a witches’ dance while robbing a farmer’s larder:


Chap. xvii.: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS WAS PRESENT AT A DANCE OF WITCHES
During these my wanderings there met me once and again in the woods different country-folk, who at all times fled from me. I know not if the cause was that they were by reason of the war turned so timid and were so hunted, and never left in peace in one place, or whether the highwaymen had spread abroad in the land the adventure they had had with me, so that all which saw me thereafter believed the evil one was of a truth prowling about in that part. But for this reason I must needs fear lest my provisions should fail and so I be brought to the uttermost misery; for then must I begin again to eat roots and herbs, to which I was no longer accustomed. As I pondered on this I heard two men cutting of wood, which rejoiced me mightily. So I followed the sound of the blows, and when I came in sight of the men I took a handful of ducats out of my pouch and, creeping nearer to them, shewed them the alluring gold and cried, “My masters, if ye will but wait for me I will give you this handful of gold.” But as soon as they saw me and my gold, at once they took to their heels, and left their mallets and wedges together with their bag of bread and cheese; with this I filled my knapsack, and so betook myself back to the wood, doubting if in my life I should ever come to the company of men again. So after long pondering thereupon, I thought, “Who knoweth what may chance to thee? Thou hast money, and if thou comest in safety with it to honest folk, thou canst live on it a long while.” So it came into my head to sew it up; and to that end I made, out of my asses’ ears which made the folk so fly from me, two armlets, and companying my Hanau ducats with those of the banditti, I packed all together into these armlets and bound them on mine arms above the elbow. And now, as I had thus secured my treasure, I attacked the farms again, and got from them what I needed and what I could snap up. And though I was but simple, yet I was sly enough never to come a second time to a place where I had stolen anything; and therefore was I very lucky in my thefts and was never caught pilfering.

It fell out at the end of May, as I sought to replenish my store by my customary yet forbidden tricks, and to that end had crept into a farmyard, that I found my way into the kitchen, but soon perceived that there were people still awake (and here note that where dogs were I wisely stayed away); so I set the kitchen door, which opened into the yard, ajar, that if any danger threatened I could at once escape, and stayed still as a mouse till I might expect the people would go to bed. But meanwhile I took note of a crack that was in the kitchen-hatch that led to the living-room; thither I crept to see if the folk would not soon go to rest; but my hopes were deceived, for they had but now put on their clothes, and in place of a light there stood a sulphurous blue flame on a bench, by the light of which they anointed sticks, brooms, pitchforks, chairs, and benches, and on these flew out of the window one after another. At this I was horribly amazed, and felt great terror; yet, as being accustomed to greater horrors, and, moreover, in my whole life having never heard nor read of witches, I thought not much of this, and that chiefly because ’twas all so done in such stillness; but when all were gone I betook myself also to the living-room, and devising what I could take with me and where to find it, in such meditation sat me down straddle-wise upon a bench; whereon I had hardly sat down when I and the bench together flew straight out of the window, and left my gun and knapsack, which I had laid aside, as pay for that magical ointment. Now my sitting down, my departure, and my descent were all in one moment, for I came, methought, in a trice to a great crowd of people; but it may be that from fear I took no count how long I took for this long journey. These folk were dancing of a wondrous dance, the like of which I saw never in my life, for they had taken hands and formed many rings within one another, with their backs turned to each other like the pictures of the Three Graces, so that all faced outwards. The inmost ring was of some seven or eight persons; the second of as many again: the third contained more than the first two put together, and so on, so that in the outermost ring there were over two hundred persons; and because one ring danced towards the right and the next towards the left, I could not see how many rings they formed, nor what was in the midst around which they danced. Yet all looked monstrous strange, because all the heads wound in and out so comically. My bench that brought me alighted beside the minstrels which stood outside the rings all round the dancers, of which minstrels some had, instead of flutes, clarinets and shawms, nothing but adders, vipers and blind-worms, on which they blew right merrily: some had cats into whose breech they blew and fingered on the tail; which sounded like to bagpiper: others fiddled on horses’ skulls as on the finest violins, and others played the harp upon a cow’s skeleton such as lie in the slaughter-house yards: one was there, too, that had a bitch under his arm, on whose tail he fiddled and fingered on the teats; and throughout all the devils trumpeted with their noses till the whole wood resounded therewith: and when the dance was at an end, that whole hellish crew began to rave, to scream, to rage, to howl, to rant, to ramp, and to roar as they were all mad and lunatic. And now can any man think into what terror and fear I fell.

In this tumult there came to me a fellow that had under his arm a monstrous toad, full as big as a kettledrum, whose guts were dragged out through its breech and stuffed into its mouth, which looked so filthy that I was fit to vomit at it. “Lookye, Simplicissimus,” says he, “I know thou beest a good lute-player: let us hear a tune from thee.” But I was so terrified (because the rogue called me by name) that I fell flat: and with that terror I grew dumb, and fancied I lay in an evil dream, and earnestly I prayed in my heart I might awake from it. Now the fellow with the toad, whom I stared at all the time, went on thrusting his nose out and in like a turkey-cock, till at last it hit me on the breast, so that I was near choked. Then in a wink ’twas all pitch-dark, and I so dismayed at the heart that I fell on the ground and crossed myself a good hundred times or more.

Pasted from <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33858/33858-h/33858-h.htm>


See also:


http://www.archive.org/stream/simplicissimusva00grim#page/114/mode/2up