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Secondary sourceBook1872

The Congregation of the Index, on Copernicus

Augustus De Morgan · 1872

An 1872 essay by mathematician Augustus De Morgan discussing the Catholic Church's 1616 decree against Copernicus's book.

A later essay examining the Church's censorship of Copernicus's astronomical theory.

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About this source

What it is

This is a chapter from Augustus De Morgan's 1872 book A Budget of Paradoxes, in which he examines the Church's Index of Forbidden Books and its 1616 decree against Copernicus's work on the Sun-centred universe.

Why it matters

De Morgan, a 19th-century mathematician, looked back at how the Catholic Church's Congregation of the Index tried to suppress Copernicus's astronomical ideas decades after his death. The essay shows how later generations judged the clash between science and religious authority.

Look closer

  • Why might a 19th-century mathematician care about a 17th-century church decree?
  • What does this tell you about how long it took for Copernicus's ideas to be fully accepted?
  • How might a Victorian writer's view of censorship differ from a 17th-century one?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Nicolaus Copernicus on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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