sun-spot had been seen by earlier observers, and by them mistaken
for the transit of an inferior planet. Kepler himself had made
this mistake. Before the day of the telescope, he had viewed the
image of the sun as thrown on a screen in a camera-obscura, and
had observed a spot on the disk which be interpreted as
representing the planet Mercury, but which, as is now known, must
have been a sun-spot, since the planetary disk is too small to
have been revealed by this method. Such observations as these,
however interesting, cannot be claimed as discoveries of the
sun-spots. It is probable, however, that several discoverers
(notably Johann Fabricius) made the telescopic observation of the
spots, and recognized them as having to do with the sun's
surface, almost simultaneously with Galileo. One of these
claimants was a Jesuit named Scheiner, and the jealousy of this
man is said to have had a share in bringing about that
persecution to which we must now refer.

There is no more famous incident in the history of science than
the heresy trial through which Galileo was led to the nominal
renunciation of his cherished doctrines. There is scarcely
another incident that has been commented upon so variously. Each
succeeding generation has put its own interpretation on it. The
facts, however, have been but little questioned. It appears that
in the year 1616 the church became at last aroused to the
implications of the heliocentric doctrine of the universe.
Apparently it seemed clear to the church authorities that the
authors of the Bible believed the world to be immovably fixed at
the centre of the universe. Such, indeed, would seem to be the
natural inference from various familiar phrases of the Hebrew
text, and what we now know of the status of Oriental science in