Copernicus had been a professor at Rome, and even as early as 1500
had announced his doctrine there, but more in the way of a
scientific curiosity or paradox, as it had been previously held by
Cardinal de Cusa, than as the statement of a system representing a
great fact in Nature. About thirty years later one of his
disciples, Widmanstadt, had explained it to Clement VII; but it
still remained a mere hypothesis, and soon, like so many others,
disappeared from the public view. But to Copernicus, steadily
studying the subject, it became more and more a reality, and as
this truth grew within him he seemed to feel that at Rome he was
no longer safe. To announce his discovery there as a theory or a
paradox might amuse the papal court, but to announce it as a
truth--as _the_ truth--was a far different matter. He therefore
returned to his little town in Poland.
To publish his thought as it had now developed was evidently
dangerous even there, and for more than thirty years it lay
slumbering in the mind of Copernicus and of the friends to whom he
had privately intrusted it.
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