The Sleepwalkers (166 page)

And
that
was
the
end
of
it,
though
Kepler
persisted
in
the
onesided
correspondence,
and
also
in
his
miscellaneous
requests
–
Maestlin
should
make
inquiries
about
the
suitor
of
Kepler's
sister;
Maestlin
should
find
him
an
assistant,
and
so
forth
–
which
the
old
man
steadfastly
ignored.

The
most
detailed
letters
about
the
progress
of
the
New
Astronomy
Kepler
wrote
to
David
Fabricius,
a
clergyman
and
amateur
astronomer
in
Friesland.
Some
of
these
letters
cover
over
twenty,
and
up
to
forty
foolscap
pages.
Yet
he
could
never
persuade
Fabricius
to
accept
the
Copernican
view;
and
when
Kepler
informed
him
of
his
discovery
of
the
First
Law,
Fabricius'
reaction
was:

"With
your
ellipse
you
abolish
the
circularity
and
uniformity
of
the
motions,
which
appears
to
me
the
more
absurd
the
more
profoundly
I
think
about
it...
If
you
could
only
preserve
the
perfect
circular
orbit,
and
justify
your
elliptic
orbit
by
another
little
epicycle,
it
would
be
much
better."
⁵

As
for
the
patrons
and
wellwishers,
they
tried
to
encourage
him,
but
were
unable
to
comprehend
what
he
was
up
to.
The
most
enlightened
among
them,
the
physician
Johannes
Brengger,
whose
opinion
Kepler
particularly
valued,
wrote:

"When
you
say
that
you
aim
at
teaching
both
a
new
physics
of
the
sky
and
a
new
kind
of
mathematics,
based
not
on
circles
but
on
magnetic
and
intelligent
forces,
I
rejoice
with
you,
although
I
must
frankly
confess
that
I
am
unable
to
imagine,
and
even
less
to
comprehend,
such
a
mathematical
procedure."
⁶

This
was
the
general
reaction
of
Kepler's
contemporaries
in
Germany.
It
was
summed
up
by
one
of
them:

"In
trying
to
prove
the
Copernican
hypothesis
from
physical
causes,
Kepler
introduces
strange
speculations
which
belong
not
in
the
domain
of
astronomy,
but
of
physics."
⁷
.

Yet
a
few
years
later
the
same
man
confessed:

"I
no
longer
reject
the
elliptical
form
of
the
planetary
orbits
and
allowed
myself
to
be
persuaded
by
the
proofs
in
Kepler's
work
on
Mars."
⁸

The
first
to
realize
the
significance
and
implications
of
Kepler's
discoveries,
were
neither
his
German
compatriots,
nor
Galileo
in
Italy,
but
the
British:
the
traveller
Edmund
Bruce,
the
mathematician
Thomas
Harriot,
tutor
of
Sir
Walter
Raleigh;
the
Reverend
John
Donne,
the
astronomical
genius
Jeremiah
Horrocks,
who
died
at
twenty-one;
and
lastly,
Newton.

3.
Anticlimax

Delivered
from
his
monumental
labours,
the
usual
anticlimax
set
in
for
Kepler.

He
turned
back
to
his
persistent
dream,
the
harmony
of
the
spheres,
convinced
that
the
whole
New
Astronomy
was
merely
a
stepping-stone
towards
that
ultimate
aim
in
his
"sweating
and
panting
pursuit
of
the
Creator's
tracks".
⁹
He
published
two
polemical
works
on
astrology,
a
pamphlet
on
comets,
another
about
the
shape
of
snow
crystals,
conducted
a
voluminous
correspondence
on
the
true
date
of
the
birth
of
Christ.
He
continued
with
his
calendars
and
weather
predictions:
on
one
occasion,
when
a
violent
thunder-storm
darkened
the
sky
at
noon,
as
he
had
predicted
a
fortnight
earlier,
the
people
in
the
streets
of
Prague
yelled,
pointing
at
the
clouds:
"It's
that
Kepler
coming."

He
was
by
now
an
internationally
famous
scholar,
a
member
of
the
Italian
Accadémia
dei
Lincei
(a
forerunner
of
the
Royal
Socicty),
but
even
more
pleased
about
the
distinguished
society
in
which
he
moved
in
Prague:

"The
Imperial
Counsellor
and
First
Secretary,
Johann
Polz,
is
very
fond
of
me.
[His
wife
and]
the
whole
family
are
conspicuous
here
in
Prague
for
their
Austrian
elegance
and
their
distinguished
and
noble
manners;
so
that
it
would
be
due
to
their
influence
if
on
some
future
day
I
made
some
progress
in
this
respect,
though,
of
course,
I
am
still
far
away
from
it...
Notwithstanding
the
shabbiness
of
my
household
and
my
low
rank
(for
they
are
considered
to
belong
to
the
nobility),
I
am
free
to
come
and
go
in
their
house
as
I
please."
¹⁰