Priestley. Sir Joseph Banks had especially invited
him. But the clergy of Oxford and Cambridge interfered. Priestley
was considered unsound in his views of the Trinity; it was
evidently suspected that this might vitiate his astronomical
observations; he was rejected, and the expedition crippled.
The orthodox view of astronomy lingered on in other branches of the
Protestant Church. In Germany even Leibnitz attacked the Newtonian
theory of gravitation on theological grounds, though he found some
little consolation in thinking that it might be used to support the
Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation.
In Holland the Calvinistic Church was at first strenuous against
the whole new system, but we possess a comical proof that Calvinism
even in its strongholds was powerless against it; for in 1642 Blaer
published at Amsterdam his book on the use of globes, and, in order
to be on the safe side, devoted one part of his work to the
Ptolemaic and the other to the Copernican scheme, leaving the
benevolent reader to take his choice.
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