The Sleepwalkers (128 page)

Opinions
were
divided,
according
to
the
philosophy
of
the
scholars.
The
modern
and
empirically
minded,
such
as
Galileo
in
Padua
and
Praetorius
in
Altdorf,
rejected
Kepler's
mystical
a
priori
speculations
and
with
them
the
whole
book,
without
realizing
the
explosive
new
ideas
hidden
among
the
chaff.
Galileo,
especially,
seems
to
have
been
prejudiced
from
the
beginning
against
Kepler,
of
which
we
shall
hear
more
later
on.

Those,
however,
who
lived
on
the
other
side
of
the
watershed,
who
believed
in
the
ageless
dream
of
an
a
priori
deduction
of
the
cosmic
order,
were
enthusiastic
and
delighted.
Most
of
all,
of
course,
the
endearing
Maestlin,
who
wrote
to
the
Tuebingen
Senate:

"The
subject
is
new
and
has
never
before
occurred
to
anybody.
It
is
most
ingenious
and
deserves
in
the
highest
degree
to
be
made
known
to
the
world
of
learning.
Who
has
ever
dared
before
to
think,
and
much
less
to
try
to
expose
and
explain
a
priori
and,
so
to
speak,
out
of
the
hidden
knowledge
of
the
Creator,
the
number,
order,
magnitude
and
motion
of
the
spheres?
But
Kepler
has
undertaken
and
successfully
done
just
this...
Henceforth
[astronomers]
shall
be
freed
from
the
necessity
of
exploring
the
dimensions
of
the
spheres
a
posteriori
,
that
is
by
the
method
of
observations
(many
of
which
are
inexact
and
not
to
say
doubtful)
after
the
manner
of
Ptolemy
and
Copernicus,
because
now
the
dimensions
have
been
established
a
priori
...
Whereby
the
computation
of
the
movements
will
become
much
more
successful..."
¹¹

In
a
similar
vein
enthused
Limneus
in
Jena,
who
congratulated
Kepler,
all
students
of
astronomy
and
the
whole
learned
world
that
"at
last
the
old
and
venerable
[Platonic]
method
of
philosophy
had
been
resurrected".
¹²

In
a
word,
the
book
which
contained
the
seeds
of
the
new
cosmology
was
welcomed
by
the
"reactionaries"
who
did
not
see
its
implications,
and
rejected
by
the
"moderns",
who
did
not
see
them
either.
Only
one
man
took
a
middle
course
and,
while
rejecting
Kepler's
wild
speculations,
immediately
realized
his
genius:
the
most
outstanding
astronomer
of
the
day,
Tycho
de
Brahe.

But
Kepler
had
to
wait
for
three
years
until
he
met
Tycho,
became
his
assistant,
and
started
on
his
true
lifework.
During
these
three
years
(1597-99)
he
at
last
got
down
to
a
serious
study
of
mathematics,
of
which
he
had
still
been
shockingly
ignorant
when
he
wrote
the
Mysterium
,
and
undertook
a
motley
variety
of
scientific
and
pseudo-scientific
researches.
It
was
a
kind
of
limbering
up
before
the
great
contest.

The
first
task
he
set
himself
was
to
find
direct
confirmation
of
the
earth's
motion
round
the
sun
by
proving
the
existence
of
stellar
parallax,
that
is,
a
shift
in
the
apparent
position
of
the
fixed
stars
according
to
the
earth's
position
on
its
annual
journey.
He
pestered,
in
vain,
all
his
correspondents
to
help
him
with
observations,
and
at
last
decided
to
take
a
peep
for
himself;
but
his
"observatory"
consisted
of
a
self-made
staff
suspended
on
a
rope
from
the
ceiling:
"it
comes
from
a
workshop
like
the
huts
of
our
forebears
–
hold
your
laughter,
friends,
who
are
admitted
to
this
spectacle."
¹³
Even
so,
it
would
have
been
sufficiently
precise
to
show
the
variation
of
half
a
degree,
which
Kepler
expected,
in
the
positions
of
the
polar
star
as
seen
from
extreme
points
of
the
earth's
path.
But
there
was
no
variation;
the
starry
sky
remained
immutable,
poker-faced.
This
meant
either
that
the
earth
stood
still,
or
that
the
size
of
the
universe
(that
is,
the
radius
of
the
sphere
of
fixed
stars)
was
much
larger
than
previously
assumed.
To
be
precise,
its
radius
must
be
at
least
five
hundred
times
the
distance
of
the
earth
from
the
sun.
This
works
out
at
2,400
million
miles,
a
trifle
by
our,
but
not
a
lot
even
by
Kepler's,
standards;
only
about
five
times
more
than
he
had
expected.
¹⁴
However,
assuming
that
even
much
better
instruments
failed
to
show
a
parallax,
meaning
that
the
stars
are
quite
inconceivably
distant,
in
the
eyes
of
God
the
universe
would
still
have
a
reasonable
size,
only
man's
physical
stature
would
shrink.
But
this
would
not
diminish
his
moral
stature,
"otherwise
the
crocodile
or
the
elephant
would
be
nearer
to
His
heart
than
man,
because
they
are
larger.
With
the
help
of
this
and
similar
intellectual
pills,
we
shall
perhaps
be
able
to
digest
this
monstrous
bite."
¹⁵
In
fact,
no
pill
has
been
discovered
since
to
digest
the
lump
of
infinity.