The Sleepwalkers (178 page)

Apart
from
its
strategical
importance
in
the
cosmological
battle,
the
Conversation
with
the
Star
Messenger
is
without
much
scientific
value;
it
reads
like
a
baroque
arabesque,
a
pattern
of
amusing
doodles
around
the
hard
core
of
Galileo's
treatise.
It
starts
with
Kepler
voicing
his
hope
that
Galileo,
whose
opinion
matters
to
him
more
than
anybody's,
would
comment
on
the
Astronomia
Nova
,
and
thereby
renew
a
correspondence
"laid
aside
twelve
years
ago".
He
relates
with
gusto
how
he
had
received
the
first
news
of
the
discoveries
from
Wackher
–
and
how
he
had
worried
whether
the
Jupiter
moons
could
be
fitted
into
the
universe
built
around
the
five
Pythagorean
solids.
But
as
soon
as
he
had
cast
a
glance
at
the
Star
Messenger
,
he
realized
that
"it
offered
a
highly
important
and
wonderful
show
to
astronomers
and
philosophers,
that
it
invited
all
friends
of
true
philosophy
to
contemplate
matters
of
the
highest
import...
Who
could
be
silent
in
the
face
of
such
a
message?
Who
would
not
feel
himself
overflow
with
the
love
of
the
Divine
which
is
so
abundantly
manifested
here?"
Then
comes
his
offer
of
support
"in
the
battle
against
the
grumpy
reactionaries,
who
reject
everything
that
is
unknown
as
unbelievable,
and
regard
everything
that
departs
from
the
beaten
track
of
Aristotle
as
a
desecration...
Perhaps
I
shall
be
considered
reckless
because
I
accept
your
claims
as
true
without
being
able
to
add
my
own
observations.
But
how
could
I
distrust
a
reliable
mathematician
whose
art
of
language
alone
demonstrates
the
straightness
of
his
judgement?
..."

Kepler
had
instinctively
felt
the
ring
of
truth
in
the
Star
Messenger
,
and
that
had
settled
the
question
for
him.
However
much
he
may
have
resented
Galileo's
previous
behaviour,
he
felt
committed
"to
throw
himself
into
the
fray"
for
Truth,
Copernicus
and
the
Five
Perfect
Solids.
For,
having
finished
the
Promethean
labours
of
the
New
Astronomy
,
he
was
again
steeped
in
the
mystic
twilight
of
a
Pythagorean
universe
built
around
cube,
tetrahedra,
dodecahedra,
and
so
on.
They
are
the
leitmotif
of
his
dialogue
with
the
Star
Messenger
;
neither
the
elliptical
orbits,
neither
the
First
nor
the
Second
Law,
are
mentioned
even
once.
Their
discovery
appeared
to
him
merely
as
a
tedious
detour
in
the
pursuit
of
his
idée
fixe
.

It
is
a
rambling
treatise,
written
by
a
hurried
pen
which
jumps
from
one
subject
to
another:
astrology,
optics,
the
moon's
spots,
the
nature
of
the
ether,
Copernicus,
the
habitability
of
other
worlds,
interplanetary
travel:

"There
will
certainly
be
no
lack
of
human
pioneers
when
we
have
mastered
the
art
of
flight.
Who
would
have
thought
that
navigation
across
the
vast
ocean
is
less
dangerous
and
quieter
than
in
the
narrow,
threatening
gulfs
of
the
Adriatic,
or
the
Baltic,
or
the
British
straits?
Let
us
create
vessels
and
sails
adjusted
to
the
heavenly
ether,
and
there
will
be
plenty
of
people
unafraid
of
the
empty
wastes.
In
the
meantime,
we
shall
prepare,
for
the
brave
sky-travellers,
maps
of
the
celestial
bodies
–
I
shall
do
it
for
the
moon,
you
Galileo,
for
Jupiter."

Living
in
an
atmosphere
saturated
with
malice,
Professors
Magini,
Horky,
and
even
Maestlin,
could
not
believe
their
ears
when
they
heard
Kepler
singing
Galileo's
praises,
and
tried
to
discover
some
hidden
sting
in
the
treatise.
They
gloated
over
a
passage
in
which
Kepler
showed
that
the
principle
of
the
telescope
had
been
outlined
twenty
years
before
by
one
of
Galileo's
countrymen,
Giovanni
Della
Porta,
and
by
Kepler
himself
in
his
work
on
optics
in
1604.
But
since
Galileo
did
not
claim
the
invention
of
the
telescope,
Kepler's
historical
excursion
could
not
be
resented
by
him;
moreover,
Kepler
emphasized
that
Della
Porta's
and
his
own
anticipations
were
of
a
purely
theoretical
nature

"and
cannot
diminish
the
fame
of
the
inventor,
whoever
it
was.
For
I
know
what
a
long
road
it
is
from
a
theoretical
concept
to
its
practical
achievement,
from
the
mention
of
the
antipodes
in
Ptolemy
to
Columbus'
discovery
of
the
New
World,
and
even
more
from
the
two-lensed
instruments
used
in
this
country
to
the
instrument
with
which
you,
O
Galilee,
penetrated
the
very
skies."