He accordingly
proceeded with the preparation of the chief work of his life, "The
Dialogue of the two Systems." It was submitted for inspection by the
constituted authorities. The Pope himself thought that, if a few
conditions which he laid down were duly complied with, there could be
no objection to the publication of the work. In the first place, the
title of the book was to be so carefully worded as to show plainly
that the Copernican doctrine was merely to be regarded as an
hypothesis, and not as a scientific fact. Galileo was also
instructed to conclude the book with special arguments which had been
supplied by the Pope himself, and which appeared to his Holiness to
be quite conclusive against the new doctrine of Copernicus.
Formal leave for the publication of the Dialogue was then given to
Galileo by the Inquisitor General, and it was accordingly sent to the
press. It might be thought that the anxieties of the astronomer
about his book would then have terminated. As a matter of fact, they
had not yet seriously begun. Riccardi, the Master of the Sacred
Palace, having suddenly had some further misgivings, sent to Galileo
for the manuscript while the work was at the printer's, in order that
the doctrine it implied might be once again examined.
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