DEFENSE FOR GALILEO.

...Aristotle [says] in the first book On the Soul original: "Aristot. in 1. de anima", it is better to know a little about great things through probability than to know many small things with demonstration. From this, the Egyptians found more in the heavens after the Chaldeans The Chaldeans were ancient Babylonian astronomers famous for their star catalogs.; later the Greeks found more; and now the Germans and Italians find even more. From this, it is a cause for wonder how many scenes Galileo unfolds, in which God represents the riches of His wisdom, power, and love. And Saint Leo, Anthony, Bernard, Chrysostom, and others say that the world is God’s book, over which we ought to toil. Hence, in a certain sermon, Bernard teaches that to those for whom the grace of inquiring into God through supernatural things is not given, He must be sought in natural things; for from these we are raised up to those higher things. Richard of Saint Victor A 12th-century mystical theologian. proves the same brilliantly in his books on Benjamin, in the sermon on contemplation.

Reason also persuades us of this. For if God created these things for His own glory, as Solomon says, He surely wants us to admire, praise, and celebrate the Author, God, because of them; just as a wise painter or poet wants their own paintings and poems to be read, so that the excellence of the art may be recognized and the craftsman praised. Add to this that the divinity of the soul is shown more in these things, and is acquired through them, as has been said. Therefore, this is not a vain inquiry.

Wherefore they are envious, or small in their intellect and faith in God, who think we should rest with Aristotle and other ancient philosophers and seek no further—especially after the light of the Gospel and the discovery of the New World The Americas. and the stars, which the ancients lacked just as they lacked the light of faith. Faith perfects nature within us rather than depressing us beneath the yoke of the ancients; since their philosophy is a catechism Basic introductory instruction. and our doctrine is the perfected teaching, according to the testimony of Cyril. Thus we will be better able to read in the world—which is the book and wisdom of God—if we do not neglect the grace that is within us; and I say this all other things being equal. For we do not claim the intellect of a Christian peasant is equal to the genius of Plato; but we show that geniuses can be born now, such as was in Plato and others, who are able to progress further in the sciences after the Gospel than Plato and the others could. And Plato also said this in his Hippias, that the moderns do not yield to the ancients except because of the envy toward the living and the veneration for the dead.

And that we must not stop is proved again by the fact that God is good to the one who seeks Him, as Jeremiah says; and He always reveals new things, as was seen above. And He said to Saint Bernard: while you hold onto those things, you shall not receive another.