The Sleepwalkers (189 page)

"The
heavenly
motions
are
nothing
but
a
continuous
song
for
several
voices
(perceived
by
the
intellect,
not
by
the
ear);
a
music
which,
through
discordant
tensions,
through
sincopes
and
cadenzas,
as
it
were
(as
men
employ
them
in
imitation
of
those
natural
discords),
progresses
towards
certain
pre-designed,
quasi
six-voiced
clausuras,
and
thereby
sets
landmarks
in
the
immeasurable
flow
of
time.
It
is,
therefore,
no
longer
surprising
that
man,
in
imitation
of
his
creator,
has
at
last
discovered
the
art
of
figured
song,
which
was
unknown
to
the
ancients.
Man
wanted
to
reproduce
the
continuity
of
cosmic
time
within
a
short
hour,
by
an
artful
symphony
for
several
voices,
to
obtain
a
sample
test
of
the
delight
of
the
Divine
Creator
in
His
works,
and
to
partake
of
his
joy
by
making
music
in
the
imitation
of
God."
¹⁵

The
edifice
was
complete.
Kepler
finished
the
book
on
27
May,
1618,
in
one
of
the
most
fateful
weeks
of
European
history:

"In
vain
does
the
God
of
War
growl,
snarl,
roar
and
try
to
interrupt
with
bombards,
trumpets,
and
his
whole
tarantantaran...
¹⁶
Let
us
despise
the
barbaric
neighings
which
echo
through
these
noble
lands,
and
awaken
our
understanding
and
longing
for
the
harmonies."
¹⁷

Out
of the murky abyss he soared to heights of orphic ecstasies:

"The
thing
which
dawned
on
me
twenty-five
years
ago
before
I
had
yet
discovered
the
five
regular
bodies
between
the
heavenly
orbits
...;
which
sixteen
years
ago
I
proclaimed
as
the
ultimate
aim
of
all
research;
which
caused
me
to
devote
the
best
years
of
my
life
to
astronomical
studies,
to
join
Tycho
Brahe
and
to
choose
Prague
as
my
residence
–
that
I
have,
with
the
aid
of
God,
who
set
my
enthusiasm
on
fire
and
stirred
in
me
an
irrepressible
desire,
who
kept
my
life
and
intelligence
alert,
and
also
provided
me
with
the
remaining
necessities
through
the
generosity
of
two
Emperors
and
the
Estates
of
my
land,
Upper
Austria
–
that
I
have
now,
after
discharging
my
astronomical
duties
ad
satietatum
,
at
long
last
brought
to
light...
Having
perceived
the
first
glimmer
of
dawn
eighteen
months
ago,
the
light
of
day
three
months
ago,
but
only
a
few
days
ago
the
plain
sun
of
a
most
wonderful
vision
–
nothing
shall
now
hold
me
back.
Yes,
I
give
myself
up
to
holy
raving.
I
mockingly
defy
all
mortals
with
this
open
confession:
I
have
robbed
the
golden
vessels
of
the
Egyptians
to
make
out
of
them
a
tabernacle
for
my
God,
far
from
the
frontiers
of
Egypt.
If
you
forgive
me,
I
shall
rejoice.
If
you
are
angry,
I
shall
bear
it.
Behold,
I
have
cast
the
dice,
and
I
am
writing
a
book
either
for
my
contemporaries,
or
for
posterity.
It
is
all
the
same
to
me.
It
may
wait
a
hundred
years
for
a
reader,
since
God
has
also
waited
six
thousand
years
for
a
witness..."
¹⁸

6.
The Third Law

This
last
quotation
is
from
the
Preface
to
the
Fifth
Book
of
the
Harmonice
Mundi
,
which
contains,
almost
hidden
among
the
luxuriant
growth
of
fantasy,
Kepler's
Third
Law
of
planetary
motion.

It
says,
put
into
modern
terms,
that
the
squares
of
the
periods
of
revolution
of
any
two
planets
are
as
the
cubes
of
their
mean
distances
from
the
sun.
¹⁹
Here
is
an
illustration
of
it.
Let
the
earth's
distance
from
the
sun
be
our
unit
measure,
then
Saturn's
distance
from
the
sun
will
be
a
little
over
nine
units.
The
square
root
of
1
is
1;
the
square
root
of
9
=
3.
The
cube
of
1
is
1,
the
cube
of
9
is
27.
Thus
a
Saturn
year
will
be
a
little
over
twenty-seven
earth
years;
in
fact
it
is
thirty
years.
Apologies
for
the
coarse
example
–
it
is
Kepler's
own.
²⁰

Unlike
his
First
and
Second
Laws,
which
he
found
by
that
peculiar
combination
of
sleepwalking
intuition
and
wide-awake
alertness
for
clues
–
a
mental
process
on
two
levels,
which
drew
mysterious
benefits
out
of
his
apparent
blunderings
–
the
Third
Law
was
the
fruit
of
nothing
but
patient,
dogged
trying.
When
after
endless
trials,
he
had
at
last
hit
on
the
square-to-cube
ratio,
he
of
course
promptly
found
a
reason
why
it
should
be
just
that
and
none
other;
I
have
said
before
that
Kepler's
a
priori
proofs
were
often
invented
a
posteriori
.