In a startling reinterpretation of the evidence, Stillman Drake advances the hypothesis that Galileo´s trial and condemnation by the Inquisition was caused not by his defiance of the Church, but by the hostility of contemporary philosophers. Galileo´s own beautifully lucid arguments are used to show how his scientific method was utterly divorced from the Aristotelian approach to physics in that it was based on a search not for causes but for laws. Galileo´s method was of overwhelming significance for the development of modern physics, and led to a final parting of the ways between science and philosophy.