Note 183 — Chapter XIII · THE RISE OF MODERN FREETHOUGHT—(Continued)

The great performance of Copernicus (Nicolaus Koppernigk, 1473–1543), given to the world with an editor’s treacherous preface as he lay paralysed on his deathbed, did not become a general possession for over a hundred years. The long reluctance of its author to let it be published, despite the express invitation of a cardinal in the name of the pope, was well founded in his knowledge of the strength of common prejudice; and perhaps partly in a sense of the scientific imperfection of his own case.183 Only the special favour accorded to his first sketch at Rome—a favour which he had further carefully planned for in his dedicatory epistle to Pope Paul—saved his main treatise from prohibition till long after its work was done.184 It was in fact, with all its burden of traditional error, the most momentous challenge that had yet been offered in the modern world to established beliefs, alike theological and lay, for it seemed to flout “common sense” as completely as it did the cosmogony of the sacred books. It was probably from scraps of ancient lore current in Italy in his years of youthful study there that he first derived his idea; and in Italy none had dared publicly to propound the geocentric theory. Its gradual victory, therefore, is the first great modern instance of a triumph of reason over spontaneous and instilled prejudice; and Galileo’s account of his reception of it should be a classic document in the history of rationalism.