How did Galileo respond to the edict? What did he do to protect himself? The original 1616 edict was not taken entirely seriously: "The Sun-Centered universe still remained an unproven idea -- without, [Pope] Urban believed, any proof in its future" (Sobel 138). However, Galileo still undertook steps to protect himself, defending his writings as a way: "to show Protestants to the north…that Catholics understood more about astronomy" (Sobel 140).

On orders of Pope Paul V, Galileo is ordered not to hold or defend the Copernican theory. Later, in 1624, Galileo was allowed to write about the Copernican theory provided that he treated it as a mathematical hypothesis. When Galileo published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems in1630, comparing the Ptolemaic and Copernican models, the Church stopped its distribution and condemned Galileo to house arrest for the rest

Two of the most important proponents were the French philosophes, Montesquieu and Jean Jacques Rousseau, whose great contributions to the Enlightenment lead to the development of liberal democracy characterized among modern societies at present. Montesquieu's discourse, entitled, "The Spirit of the Laws," provided objective and insightful propositions for reforms as societies change from being traditional to modern. According to him, the process towards social progress should be accompanied with material progress,

Many inquiries were made into the universe, from how it worked to its creation, as well as the construction of a workable calendar and an understanding of numerous illnesses. These collective areas of discussion fall under the term of natural philosophy, or philosophy of nature. Before modern science was developed and widely used, natural philosophy was the prominent method of gaining knowledge. So dominant and involved was natural philosophy

A a) Describe the personal traits and talents of Napoleon which place him in a unique position in world history. Napoleon Bonaparte was the leader of the French army that defeated the revolution. He ultimately became the dictator ruler of France and succeeded in conquering various parts of Europe. However his methods are frowned upon, Napoleon the First and Emperor of France remains unique personality in the history of the world. As

middle ages, scholastic thinking was structurally limited by the Catholic Church, which considered itself the arbiter of such matters. However, thanks to changes in the sciences and in the methodologies used to approach them, the sheer weight of evidence was able to defeat some of the old dogmas that restricted thinking. Changes in science took on mathematical, experimental, and political dimensions and eventually gave enlightenment thinkers the objectivity needed