Chapter 10 flock of chickens

one Galileo was born three days before Michelangelo's death, as if deliberately connecting an era: the Renaissance was basically completed, and modern science began to lay the foundation. In the coffins of celebrities in the Santa Croce Church in Florence, Michelangelo is the first on the right and Galileo is the second on the left. It also seems to be a close echo and handover. Strictly speaking, Galileo should be regarded as a Pisa.Born in Pisa, studied in Pisa, and taught at the University of Pisa.It is said that he once conducted a free fall experiment on the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Now some people believe that this experiment has not been done after research, but travelers from all over the world are still willing to regard the Leaning Tower as his monument.My hometown is also willing, willing to be so big, willing to be so slanted, to let the world see that a mechanical structure of life that has been slanted due to long-term injustice can be so magnificent.

However, his coffin was placed in Florence.Not only that, at an important crossing on the banks of the Arno River in Florence, I saw his sculpture standing above a set of traffic lights directing traffic with a smile on his face, as if he had to do a little duty to this city, even if it was to direct traffic. transportation. I think there is a reason for this. That year, the Holy See notified the 70-year-old Galileo to stand trial in Rome. Galileo was unable to take a long-distance carriage due to severe arthritis, and requested to be tried in Florence, but the Holy See refused. The young Tuscany (and Florence) ) Archduke Ferdinand II sent a sedan chair to send Galileo there, and the first person to greet the sinner in Rome was the Florentine ambassador to Rome, Nicolini, who also invited Galileo to live in his in the apartment.

Under such a dangerous situation, it was not easy for Florence to protect Galileo in its own territory. Unexpectedly, it stretched out its long arms and followed this protection to Rome where the Holy See was located.This cannot but make Galileo re-evaluate the weight of friendship. The old scientist was naive about the world. He asked Niccolini in confusion: Why did many of my friends support me before, but now they attack me vigorously when they see that the limelight is not right?Am I doing something wrong with them? Nicolini replied with a smile: Your understanding of human nature is far less than that of celestial bodies.Your reputation is too big, here's why.

Galileo was puzzled, and Niccolini said: When I was a child, I saw a group of chickens pecking at a bloody chicken. I was terrified and asked the nurse what was going on. The nurse said that chickens are the same as people. When they got into trouble again, they teamed up to peck it to death. Galileo listened with his eyes wide open, bewildered and yet enlightened. The central activity of the siege was to get Galileo to read a confession.Even his daughter persuaded him to repent out of concern for his father's life, but he refused; but in the end, after the severe test of the Inquisition, he still repented.

Confession was in Rome, but in Florence, Ferdinand II said: I have only one Galileo. With all this, Galileo was willing to stand on the streets of Florence for a thousand years.But he knew that it was Ferdinand II's unique evaluation that caused unhappiness in many people's hearts and caused traffic jams.Pecking around is the instinct of the chickens to clear the blockage in their hearts.In order not to have such a tragedy, even if he is asked to direct the traffic, he is willing. two Galileo's confession was done on his knees.The central content of the confession is that he once believed in his works that the earth is not the center of the universe and is in motion.It must have been difficult for this ancient man with severe arthritis to kneel down, and when he finally got down on his knees, he felt the earth again.According to his student Vincenzo Biviani, after reading the confession, he murmured like a sigh: But the earth is still spinning at this moment!

Of course, a scientist will not completely give up the conclusions he has drawn after a long period of research in his heart, but whether he really said this sentence at that time and place, we have not seen other evidence other than Biviani's memory .The confession we can see was read aloud verbatim by the old man, and was then distributed throughout the Christian world. The saddest passage in the confession is that he not only admits that he is suspected of heresy, but also promises to the Holy See: When I hear that anyone who is deceived by heresy is suspected of heresy, I promise to report to the Holy Court, the Inquisitor or the place. Most recent bishop report.

Such words are undoubtedly the cruelest kind of self-inflicted suicide, because the Galileo described here is no longer a penitent, but a hawk who voluntarily wants to become a whistleblower. The Western Inquisition has always been known for its cruelty, sending a group of people suspected of heresy to the stake at every turn, but I think what is worse than the stake is the popularization of a personality disaster. Encourage people to inform, expose, bite back, besiege, and sell friends without any scruples because of an invisible and intangible so-called conceptual doubt.As long as they do such evil things, not only can they protect themselves, but they can also divide up the inheritance of the victims; if they refuse to do so, disaster will be imminent sooner or later.This cultivates the evil deep in human nature in a way that ultimately threatens life, makes it spread and expand, and subverts the personality system of the entire society.At this point, you can do whatever you want, and if you see some people still have personality, they will rush in and destroy it with all their strength until the person who still has personality gives up his personality in public.

Galileo gave up his personality in public, except that the assurance of being willing to become an informer must be related to specific physical threats, but the confession is real.Why did Galileo make this choice?There have been many painful discussions in the ideological circles of various countries throughout the history. The French thinker Voltaire has a puzzling statement: Galileo had to ask for forgiveness because he was right. German dramatist Brecht wrote the scientist's confession as a personality paradox in "Biography of Galileo", that is, he was a giant in science but not great in personality; but Brecht believed that there were other There are many possibilities. For example, one of his students proved with a book he wrote that the teacher probably deliberately avoided the straight line of life and followed a curve, because there is no later work without previous confessions.

Regardless of whether Galileo was self-righteous or deliberately bent, the consequences of confession were generally dire.Personally speaking, he was imprisoned for many years and monitored for life. His daughter died nine years before him, and he later went blind and spent the last five years in total darkness; overall, as the British philosopher Russell said The case, he said, ended science in Italy, where science had failed to recover for centuries. It's a big deal, but I always feel that Galileo's mental breakdown has something to do with Nicolini telling him the principle of flock pecking.

As a diplomat, Nicolini has his own vast room for circulation even though he has explored the world. He did not know that Galileo, as a scientist, did not have this kind of room. Since the friendship is so false, he would rather face the enemy and punish the betrayed chickens and himself with a self-deprecating confession.This is equivalent to smearing the face with mud to seek loneliness and tranquility.He did this not to preserve his life to continue to study science, but to deliberately let himself die completely as a part of a social being.Later, he had new scientific works, which were just a kind of inertial action of the remaining life.

It was incidents like this that made it impossible for me to miss the Inquisition wherever I went during my stay in Europe.After reading a lot, I understand that although the Renaissance raised the question of human beings in an ideal way, it is far from establishing a basic personality environment. Therefore, the modernization of science and culture has no way to start, and even people like Galileo are useless. It has raised difficult issues for future generations of humanist masters.The hundreds of years of efforts they have made on human rights and the rule of law all started from the negative actions of the Inquisition. At that time, Florence was no longer dazzling, it just guarded the relics of its wronged sons, quietly waiting for history to return justice.