Dialogue concerning the Two Chief World Systems

Several years ago there was published in Rome a salutary edict which, in order to obviaie the dangerous tendencies of our present age, imposed a seasonable silence upon the Pythagorean opinion that the earth moves There were those who impudently asserted that this decree had its origin not injudicious inquire, but in passion none too well informed Complaints were to be heard that advisers who were totally unskilled at astronomical observations ought not to clip the wings of reflective intellects by means of rash prohibitions.