[108] under which it was possible to hide one's critical attitude. Around 1450, the modern development starts. And it starts with the two great names, Copernicus^a and Galileo^b. It is of greatest interest to know what happened, when they started the new astronomical worldview, and the new method of dealing mathematically with nature. Interesting is Luther's reaction against Copernicus. He denied it in the name of biblicism, which he sometimes had in a rather primitive way, while in other cases he was one of the critics of biblical literalism^c. And Galileo's trial before the Inquisition^d is common knowledge. What was so terrifying for these men, Protestants as well as Catholics, in the new scientific astronomic world view? It was the end of the central position of the earth. In the whole Middle Ages and in the ancient world, with one exception, the earth was the center and everything else was moving around it. In the later development of the Pythagorean school^e, there was an attack on this. The Pythagoreans SAW that the earth moves around the sun. But this idea was rejected under the guidance of Aristotle^f. There was a kind of conference of astronomers in which Pythagoreanism was rejected. So, during the whole Middle Ages, the Aristotelian worldview, with the central situation of the earth, was preserved. Of course, this was also the mythological worldview and the biblical worldview. And now the earth is out of this central position. It is one star like the others. The meaning of this was immense, and we must have a little empathy for the Church^g of the 16th and 17th centuries, for which Pascal^h is the great witness--the feeling of lostness in the new universe, and the tremendous catastrophes this had for the emotional life. In this moment,