![]() First among these was Nicolaus Schonberg, Cardinal of Capua,distinguished in all branches of learning. My friends, however, in spite of long delay and even resistance on my part, withheld me 2from this decision. Therefore, when I considered this carefully, the contempt which I had to fearbecause of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view, nearly induced me to abandonutterly the work I had begun. They did this, it seems to me, not as some think,because of a certain selfish reluctance to give their views to the world, but in order thatthe noblest truths, worked out by the careful study of great men, should not be despisedby those who are vexed at the idea of taking great pains with any forms of literatureexcept such as would be profitable, or by those who, if they are driven to the study ofPhilosophy for its own sake by the admonitions and the example of others, nevertheless,on account of their stupidity, hold a place among philosophers similar to that of dronesamong bees. Accordingly, when I considered in myown mind how absurd a performance it must seem to those who know that the judgmentof many centuries has approved the view that the Earth remains fixed as center in themidst of the heavens, if I should, on the contrary, assert that the Earth moves I was for along time at a loss to know whether I should publish the commentaries which I havewritten in proof of its motion, or whether it were not better to follow the example of thePythagoreans and of some others, who were accustomed to transmit the secrets ofPhilosophy not in writing but orally, and only to their relatives and friends, as the letterfrom Lysis to Hipparchus bears witness. For I am not so much in love with my conclusions as not to weigh what otherswill think about them, and although I know that the meditations of a philosopher are farremoved from the judgment of the laity, because his endeavor is to seek out the truth in allthings, so far as this is permitted by God to the human reason, I still believe that one mustavoid theories altogether foreign to orthodoxy. Dedication of the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies to Pope Paul IIINicolaus Copernicus (1543) I CAN easily conceive, most Holy Father, that as soon as some people learn that in thisbook which I have written concerning the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, I ascribecertain motions to the Earth, they will cry out at once that I and my theory should berejected.
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