The Sleepwalkers (123 page)

Yet
the Notes to this chapter contain two remarks in a different key:

"If
my
false
figures
came
near
to
the
facts,
this
happened
merely
by
chance...
These
comments
are
not
worth
printing.
Yet
it
gives
me
pleasure
to
remember
how
many
detours
I
had
to
make,
along
how
many
walls
I
had
to
grope
in
the
darkness
of
my
ignorance
until
I
found
the
door
which
lets
in
the
light
of
truth...
In
such
manner
did
I
dream
of
the
truth."
²²

By
the
time
he
had
finished
with
his
Notes
to
the
second
edition
(which
amount
to
approximately
the
same
length
as
the
original
work)
the
old
Kepler
had
demolished
practically
every
point
in
the
book
of
the
young
Kepler
–
except
its
subjective
value
to
him
as
the
starting-point
of
his
long
journey,
a
vision
which,
though
faulty
in
every
detail,
was
"a
dream
of
truth":
"inspired
by
a
friendly
God".
The
book
indeed
contained
the
dreams,
or
germs,
of
most
of
his
later
discoveries
–
as
by-products
of
its
erroneous
central
idea.
But
in
later
years,
as
the
Notes
show,
this
idée
fixe
was
intellectually
neutralized
by
so
many
qualifications
and
reserves,
that
it
could
do
no
harm
to
the
working
of
his
mind;
while
his
irrational
belief
in
its
basic
truth
remained,
emotionally,
the
motive
power
behind
his
achievements.
The
harnessing
to
a
rational
pursuit
of
the
immense
psychic
energies
derived
from
an
irrational
obsession
seems
to
be
another
secret
of
genius,
at
least
of
genius
of
a
certain
type.
It
may
also
explain
the
distorted
view
of
their
own
achievements
so
frequently
found
among
them.
Thus
in
Kepler
Notes
to
the
Mysterium
he
proudly
refers
to
some
minor
discoveries
in
his
later
works,
but
there
is
not
one
single
mention
of
the
first
and
second
of
his
immortal
Laws,
which
every
schoolboy
associates
with
his
name.
The
Notes
are
chiefly
concerned
with
the
planetary
orbits,
yet
the
fact
that
these
are
ellipses
(Kepler's
First
Law)
is
nowhere
mentioned;
it
was
as
if
Einstein,
in
his
old
age,
had
been
discussing
his
work
without
mentioning
relativity.
Kepler
set
out
to
prove
that
the
solar
system
was
built
like
a
perfect
crystal
around
the
five
divine
solids,
and
discovered,
to
his
chagrin,
that
it
was
dominated
by
lopsided
and
undistinguished
curves;
hence
his
unconscious
taboo
on
the
word
"ellipse",
his
blind
spot
for
his
greatest
achievement,
and
his
clinging
to
the
shadow
of
the
idée
fixe
.
²³
He
was
too
sane
to
ignore
reality,
but
too
mad
to
value
it.

A
modern
scholar
remarked
about
the
scientific
revolution:
"One
of
the
most
curious
and
exasperating
features
of
this
whole
magnificent
movement
is
that
none
of
its
great
representatives
appears
to
have
known
with
satisfying
clarity
just
what
he
was
doing
or
how
he
was
doing
it."
²⁴
Kepler,
too,
discovered
his
America,
believing
that
it
was
India.

But
the
urge
that
drove
him
on
was
not
aimed
at
any
practical
benefit.
In
the
labyrinth
of
Kepler's
mind,
the
thread
of
Ariadne
is
his
Pythagorean
mysticism,
his
religious-scientific
quest
for
a
harmonious
universe
governed
by
perfect
crystal
shapes
or
perfect
chords.
It
was
this
thread
that
led
him,
through
abrupt
turns
and
dizzy
gyrations,
in
and
out
of
culs-de-sac
,
to
the
first
exact
laws
of
nature,
to
the
healing
of
the
millennial
rift
between
astronomy
and
physics,
to
the
mathematization
of
science.
Kepler
said
his
prayers
in
the
language
of
mathematics,
and
distilled
his
mystic
faith
into
a
mathematician's
Song
of
Songs:

"Thus
God
himself
/
was
too
kind
to
remain
idle
/
and
began
to
play
the
game
of
signatures
/
signing
his
likeness
unto
the
world:
therefore
I
chance
to
think
/
that
all
nature
and
the
graceful
sky
are
/
symbolised
in
the
art
of
Geometria...
/
Now,
as
God
the
maker
play'd
/
he
taught
the
game
to
Nature
/
whom
he
created
in
his
image:
/
taught
her
the
selfsame
game
/
which
he
played
to
her..."
²⁵