LET. VI.

Kepler and Galileo.

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1 " Soutenir qui le soleil immobile & sans

\ mouvement local, occupe le centre du monde;j est une proposition absurde, fausse en philoso-phic, & heretique, puisqu’elle est contraire auj temoignage de l’ecriture. II est egalement ab-surde & faux en philosophic de dire que la terren’est point immobile au centre du monde; &cette proposition consideree theologiquement,est au moins erronnee dans la foi.” After

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this, the following abjuration was dictated tohim, which he was obliged to sign. " MoiGalilee, a la soixante-dixieme annee de monage, constitue personnellement en justice, etanta genoux, & ayant devant les yeux les saintsevangiles, que je touche de mes propres mains,

‘ d’un cœur & d’une foi sinceres, j'abjure, je■j maudis & je detest e les absurdites, erreui's, he-' resies, &c.

' I For a venerable old man, who had enlighten-| ed Europe by his discoveries, to be seen upon hisj knees before an assembly of haughty, ignorant] bigots, renouncing, by their compulsion, thoseJ truths which nature and his own conscience1 affirmed to be incontrovertible, was a spectacle} that cannot be thought of without indignations and abhorrence. Cardinal Bellarmin, one of hisjudges, had before threatened him with thevengeance of the church, if he fliould presumeto propagate his heretical opinions any longer,II 3 either