第2章 コペルニクス的革命(コペルニクス的転回) n.15 - 1642年 ガリレオ死→ニュートン生
教会(カトリック教会)は,支配下にある全ての学術及び教育機関において,コペルニクスの体系(地動説)を真理として教えることを禁止した。(そうして)1835年に至るまで,地動説を説く著作は禁書日録に載せられていた。1829年に,トルヴァルセン(Bertel Thorvaldsen、1770頃~1844:デンマークの彫刻家)のコペルニクス像(銅像)がワルシャワで除幕された時,この天文学者(コペルニクス)を称えるために多くの人々が集まったが,カトリック教会の司祭はほとんど現われなかった。200年間に渡って,カトリック教会は,ひとつの理論に対しいやいや反対を弱めつつも反対を維持したが,その期間(200年間)を通じて、ほぼ全ての有能な天文学者たちによって当該理論(コペルニクス説)は受け入れられていたのである。 |
Chapter 2: The Copernican Revolution, n.15The comparative mildness of this sentence was conditional upon recantation. Galileo, accordingly, publicly and on his knees, recited a long formula drawn up by the Inquisition, in the course of which he stated : “I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies. ... and I swear that I will never more in future say or assert anything, verbally or in writing, which may give rise to a similar suspicion of me.” He went on to promise that he would denounce to the Inquisition any heretics whom he might hereafter find still maintaining that the earth moved, and to swear, with his hands on the Gospels, that he himself had abjured this doctrine. Satisfied that the interests of religion and morals had been served by causing the greatest man of the age to commit perjury, the Inquisition allowed him to spend the rest of his days in retirement and silence, not in prison, it is true, but controlled in all his movements, and forbidden to see his family or his friends. He became blind in 1637, and died in 1642 -- the year in which Newton was born.The Church forbade the teaching of the Copernican system as true in all learned and educational institutions that it could control. Works teaching that the earth moves remained on the Index till 1835. When, in 1829, Thorvaldsen's statue of Copernicus was unveiled at Warsaw, a great multitude assembled to do honour to the astronomer, but hardly any Catholic priests appeared. Throughout two hundred years the Catholic Church maintained a reluctantly weakening opposition to a theory which, during almost the whole of that period, was accepted by all competent astronomers. |