The Sleepwalkers (113 page)

The
successful
prophecies
of
the
first
calendar
contributed
more
to
the
popularity
of
the
new
mathematicus
than
his
enthusiastic
and
garbled
lectures
before
an
empty
class-room.
As
always
in
times
of
crisis,
belief
in
astrology
was
again
on
the
increase
in
the
sixteenth
century,
not
only
among
the
ignorant,
but
among
eminent
scholars.
It
played
an
important,
and
at
times
a
dominant
part
in
Kepler's
life.
His
attitude
to
it
was
typical
of
the
contradictions
in
his
character,
and
of
an
age
of
transition.

He
started
his
career
with
the
publication
of
astrological
calendars,
and
ended
it
as
Court
Astrologer
to
the
Duke
of
Wallenstein.
He
did
it
for
a
living;
with
his
tongue
in
his
cheek,
called
astrology
"the
step-daughter
of
astronomy",
popular
prophecies
"a
dreadful
superstition"
and
"a
sortilegous
monkeyplay".
¹⁴
In
a
typical
outburst
he
wrote:
"A
mind
accustomed
to
mathematical
deduction,
when
confronted
with
the
faulty
foundations
[of
astrology]
resists
a
long,
long
time,
like
an
obstinate
mule,
until
compelled
by
beating
and
curses
to
put
its
foot
into
that
dirty
puddle."
¹⁵

But
while
he
despised
these
crude
practices,
and
despised
himself
for
having
to
resort
to
them,
he
at
the
same
time
believed
in
the
possibility
of
a
new
and
true
astrology
as
an
exact
empirical
science.
He
wrote
a
number
of
serious
treatises
on
astrology
as
he
would
understand
it,
and
the
subject
constantly
intrudes
even
in
his
classic
scientific
works.
One
of
these
treatises
carries,
as
a
motto,
"a
warning
to
certain
Theologians,
Physicians
and
Philosophers
...
that,
while
justly
rejecting
the
stargazers'
superstitions,
they
should
not
throw
out
the
child
with
the
bathwater."
¹⁶
For
"nothing
exists
nor
happens
in
the
visible
sky
that
is
not
sensed
in
some
hidden
manner
by
the
faculties
of
Earth
and
Nature:
[so
that]
these
faculties
of
the
spirit
here
on
earth
are
as
much
affected
as
the
sky
itself."
¹⁷
And
again:
"That
the
sky
does
something
to
man
is
obvious
enough;
but
what
it
does
specifically
remains
hidden."
¹⁸
In
other
words,
Kepler
regarded
the
current
astrological
practices
as
quackery,
but
only
to
the
extent
to
which
a
modern
physician
distrusts
an
unproven
slimming
diet,
without
doubting
for
a
moment
the
influence
o
diet
on
health
and
figure.
"The
belief
in
the
effect
of
the
constellations
derives
in
the
first
place
from
experience,
which
is
so
convincing
that
it
can
be
denied
only
by
people
who
have
not
examined
it."
¹⁹

We
have
seen
that
in
his
self-analysis,
in
spite
of
its
astoundingly
modern
introspective
passages
and
acute
characterizations
of
his
family,
all
main
events
and
character-attributes
were
derived
from
the
planetary
constellations.
But
on
reflection,
what
other
explanation
was
there
available
at
the
time?
To
a
questing
mind
without
an
inkling
of
the
processes
by
which
heredity
and
environment
shape
a
man's
character,
astrology,
in
one
form
or
another,
was
the
obvious
means
of
relating
the
individual
to
the
universal
whole,
by
making
him
reflect
the
all-embracing
constellation
of
the
world,
by
establishing
an
intimate
sympathy
and
correspondence
between
microcosmos
and
macrocosmos:
"The
natural
soul
of
man
is
not
larger
in
size
than
a
single
point,
and
on
this
point
the
form
and
character
of
the
entire
sky
is
potentially
engraved,
even
if
it
were
a
hundred
times
larger."
²⁰
Unless
predestination
alone
were
to
account
for
everything,
making
further
inquiry
into
the
Book
of
Nature
pointless,
it
was
only
logical
to
assume
that
man's
condition
and
fate
were
determined
by
the
same
celestial
motions
which
determine
the
weather
and
the
seasons,
the
quality
of
the
harvest,
the
fertility
of
animal
and
plant.
In
a
word,
astrological
determinism,
to
a
scientific
mind
like
Kepler's,
was
the
forerunner
of
biological
and
psychological
determinism.

Already
as
a
child
he
was
fascinated
by
the
problem:
why
he
had
become
what
he
had
become.
We
remember
the
passage
in
his
self-analysis:
"In
theology
I
started
at
once
on
predestination
and
fell
into
the
Lutheran
view
of
the
absence
of
free
will".
But
he
quickly
repudiated
it.
When
he
was
thirteen,
"I
wrote
to
Tuebingen
asking
that
a
certain
theological
treatise
be
sent
to
me,
and
one
of
my
comrades
upbraided
me
thus:
'Bachelor,
does't
thou
too
suffer
from
doubts
about
predestination?'"
²¹
The
mystery
of
"why
am
I
what
I
am?"
must
have
been
experienced
with
particular
intensity
by
a
precocious
and
unhappy
adolescent
in
that
century
of
awakening,
when
individual
consciousness
was
emerging
from
the
collective
consciousness
of
the
medieval
beehive-hierarchy,
where
queens
and
warriors,
workers
and
drones,
had
all
inhabited
their
ordained
cubby-holes
in
existence.
But
if
there
was
no
predestination,
how
was
one
to
explain
the
differences
in
character
and
personality,
talent
and
worth,
between
members
of
the
same
race,
all
descended
from
Adam;
or
between
young
Johannes
himself,
the
infant
prodigy,
and
his
epileptic
brother?
Modern
man
has
an
explanation
of
sorts
in
terms
of
chromosomes
and
genes,
adaptive
responses
and
traumatic
experiences;
sixteenth-century
man
could
only
search
for
an
explanation
in
the
state
of
the
universe
as
a
whole
at
the
moment
of
his
conception
or
birth,
as
expressed
by
the
constellation
of
earth,
planets
and
stars.