The Sleepwalkers (130 page)

4.
Waiting for Tycho

Had
Kepler
not
succeeded
in
getting
hold
of
Tycho's
treasure,
he
could
never
have
discovered
his
planetary
laws.
Now
Newton
was
born
only
twelve
years
after
Kepler's
death,
and
without
the
planetary
laws
he
could
not
have
arrived
at
his
synthesis.
No
doubt
somebody
else
would
have
done
so,
but
it
is
at
least
possible
that
the
scientific
revolution
would
have
carried
different
metaphysical
undertones
if
it
had
been
fathered
not
by
an
English
empiricist,
but,
say,
a
Frenchman
with
Thomist
inclinations,
or
a
German
mystic.

The
point
of
such
idle
speculation
is
merely
to
insert
a
question
mark
here
and
there
against
the
supposed
logical
inevitability
and
cast-iron
determinism
of
the
evolution
of
scientific
thought.
The
shape
of
Cleopatra's
nose
influences
not
only
wars,
but
ideologies.
The
mathematics
of
the
Newtonian
universe
would
have
been
the
same
whoever
worked
them
out,
but
its
metaphysical
climate
might
have
been
quite
different.
¹⁸

Yet
it
was
touch
and
go
whether
Kepler's
laws
would
be
ready
for
Newton.
¹⁹
They
could
only
be
discovered
with
Tycho's
help;
and
by
the
time
Kepler
met
him,
Tycho
had
only
eighteen
months
left
to
live.
If
it
was
divine
providence
which
timed
their
meeting,
it
chose
a
rather
perverse
method:
Kepler
was
hounded
out
of
Gratz
and
into
the
arms
of
Tycho,
by
religious
persecution.
Though
he
always
endeavoured
to
read
the
thoughts
of
God,
he
never
offered
his
thanks
for
this
Machiavellian
stratagem.

That
last
year
in
Gratz
–
the
last
of
the
century
–
was
indeed
not
easy
to
endure.
The
young
Archduke
Ferdinand
of
Hapsburg
(later
Emperor
Ferdinand
II)
was
determined
to
cleanse
the
Austrian
provinces
of
the
Lutheran
heresy.
In
the
summer
of
1598,
Kepler's
school
was
closed
down,
and
in
September
all
Lutheran
preachers
and
schoolmasters
were
ordered
to
leave
the
Province
within
eight
days
or
forfeit
their
lives.
Only
one
among
them
received
permission
to
return,
and
that
was
Kepler.
His
exile,
the
first,
lasted
less
than
a
month.

The
reasons
why
an
exception
was
made
with
him
are
rather
interesting.
He
himself
says
²⁰
that
the
Archduke
was
"pleased
with
my
discoveries"
and
that
this
was
the
reason
for
his
favour
at
his
court;
besides,
as
a
mathematicus
he
occupied
a
"neutral
position"
which
set
him
apart
from
the
other
teachers.
But
it
was
not
as
simple
as
that.
Kepler
had
a
powerful
ally
behind
the
scenes:
the
Jesuit
order.

Two
years
previously
the
Catholic
Chancellor
of
Bavaria,
Herwart
von
Hohenburg,
amateur
philosopher
and
patron
of
the
arts,
had
asked
Kepler
–
among
other
astronomers,
for
his
opinion
on
certain
chronological
problems.
It
was
the
beginning
of
a
life-long
correspondence
and
friendship
between
the
two
men.
Herwart
tactfully
advertized
his
protective
interest
in
the
Protestant
mathematicus
by
sending
his
letters
to
Kepler
via
the
Bavarian
envoy
at
the
Emperor's
court
in
Prague,
who
forwarded
them
to
a
Capuchin
father
at
Ferdinand's
court
in
Gratz;
and
he
instructed
Kepler
to
use
the
same
channels.
In
his
first
letter
to
Herwart,
²¹
Kepler
wrote
delightedly:
"Your
letter
so
impressed
some
men
in
our
Government
that
nothing
more
favourable
to
my
reputation
could
have
happened."

It
was
all
done
with
great
subtlety;
yet
on
later
occasions
Catholic
and
especially
Jesuit
influences
were
more
openly
active
on
behalf
of
Kepler's
welfare.
There
seem
to
have
been
three
reasons
for
this
benevolent
cabal.
Firstly,
a
scholar
was
still,
to
some
extent,
regarded
as
a
sacred
cow
amidst
the
turmoil
of
religious
controversy
–
one
remembers
how
Rheticus
was
fêted
in
Catholic
Ermland
at
the
time
of
Bishop
Dantiscus'
edicts
against
the
Lutheran
heresy.
Secondly,
the
Jesuits,
following
in
the
steps
of
the
Dominicans
and
Franciscans,
were
beginning
to
play
a
leading
part
in
science
and
specially
in
astronomy
–
quite
apart
from
the
fact
that
it
enabled
their
missionaries
in
distant
countries
to
make
a
great
impression
by
predicting
eclipses
and
other
celestial
events.
And
lastly,
Kepler
himself
disagreed
with
certain
points
of
Lutheran
doctrine,
which
made
his
Catholic
friends
hope
–
though
in
vain
–
that
he
might
become
a
convert.
He
was
repelled
by
the
clerics
of
both
warring
churches
who,
from
their
pulpits,
screamed
at
each
other
like
fishwives
–
or
like
his
parents
and
kin
in
old
Sebaldus'
house.
His
attitude
was
the
same
as
the
gentle
Bishop
Giese's:
"I
refuse
the
battle";
and
he
also
did
a
certain
amount
of
fence-straddling.
Yet
he
refused
to
change
sides,
even
when
he
was
excommunicated
by
his
own
Church,
as
we
shall
hear;
and
when
he
suspected
that
Herwart
was
counting
on
his
conversion,
Kepler
wrote
to
him: