The Copernican doctrine had lain semidormant for a half-century after Copernicus. Without the telescope the heliocentric theory might long have remained an interesting but unpersuasive hypothesis. Now the telescope made all the difference. What he saw persuaded Galileo of the truth of what he had read. And he was not alone. Until the telescope, the defenders of Christian orthodoxy felt no need to ban Copernican ideas. But this new device, which spoke directly to the senses, short-circuited the priests’ appellate jurisdiction over the heavens. Astronomy was transformed from a preserve of arcane
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