Note 185 — Chapter XIII · THE RISE OF MODERN FREETHOUGHT—(Continued)

It was when he was a student in his teens that there came to Pisa one Christianus Urstitius of Rostock, a follower of Copernicus, to lecture on the new doctrine. The young Galileo, being satisfied that “that opinion could be no other than a solemn madness,” did not attend; and those of his acquaintance who did made a jest of the matter, all save one, “very intelligent and wary,” who told him that “the business was not altogether to be laughed at.” Thenceforth he began to inquire of Copernicans, with the result inevitable to such a mind as his. “Of as many as I examined I found not so much as one who told me not that he had been a long time of the contrary opinion, but to have changed it for this, as convinced by the strength of the reasons proving the same; and afterwards questioning them one by one, to see whether they were well possessed of the reasons of the other side, I found them all to be very ready and perfect in them, so that I could not truly say that they took this opinion out of ignorance, vanity, or to show the acuteness of their wits.” On the other hand, the opposing Aristoteleans and Ptolemeans had seldom even superficially studied the Copernican system, and had in no case been converted from it. “Whereupon, considering that there was no man who followed the opinion of Copernicus that had not been first on the contrary side, and that was not very well acquainted with the reasons of Aristotle and Ptolemy, while, on the contrary, there was not one of the followers of Ptolemy that had ever been of the judgment of Copernicus, and had left that to embrace this of Aristotle,” he began to realize how strong must be the reasons that thus drew men away from beliefs “imbibed with their milk.”185 We can divine how slow would be the progress of a doctrine which could only thus begin to find its way into one of the most gifted scientific minds of the modern world. It was only a minority of the élite of the intellectual life who could receive it, even after the lapse of a hundred years.