VUI

INTRODUCTION.

sanguine expectations.It is now eighteen months since I got the

first glimpse of light, three months since the dawn; very few days sincethe unveiled sun, most admirable to gaze on, burst out upon me. No-thing holds me; I will indulge in my sacred fury; I will triumph overmankind by the honest confession that I have stolen the golden vases ofthe Egyptians* to build up a tabernacle for my God far away from theconfines of Egypt . If you forgive me, I rejoice: if you are angry, I canbear it: the die is cast, the book is written; to be read either now or byposterity, I care not which: it may well wait a century for a reader, asGod lias waited six thousand years for an interpreter of his works.” j-

This great man was harassed with poverty throughout his whole career,lie filled the office of imperial astronomer, to which a munificent salarywas attached; but he found by sad experience that the remuneration wasrather nominal than real; for only a miserable pittance of his claims wasdoled out to him at distant intervals ; and, in order to prevent Iris familyfrom starving, he was compelled to publish a low prophesying almanack,for which he entertained the utmost contempt. In hopes of recoveringthe arrears due to him, he resolved to proceed to Ratisbon and representhis claims to the Diet . Pursuant to this design, he set out upon liis jour-ney in the month of November, 1630, and arrived in Ratisbon worn outwith ill health and anxiety. In this last appeal to his country he was un-happily unsuccessful; and the disappointment lie felt in consequence,reacting upon his debilitated frame, threw him into a violent fever, whichcarried him off a few days afterwards, in the sixtieth year of liis age.

Kepler was one of those exalted geniuses who appear from time to timeon the theatre of the world to give an impulse to the progress of physicalscience. In acuteness and sagacity he is equalled among modern philoso-phers only by Galileo and Newton. He did not indeed exhibit thewariness of these illustrious sages in his researches, but he compensated byliis daring adventure for bis want of stratagetic skill. Gifted with an ar-dent imagination, which revelled in the formation of theories, and possess-ing indomitable powers of application, lie threw the whole strength ofliis intellectual faculties into his researches, and continued to prosecutethem with unceasing energy, until he assured himself of the truth orfalsehood of the principles on "which they were founded. He was no doubtfrequently induced, by the specious illusions which conjured themselvesup before his mind, to waste his powers on a mere phantom; but, even inliis wildest aberrations, we discern flashes of genius which threw a brightgleam upon many obscure points of nature, and served like so many guid-ing stars to succeeding philosophers. His candour in dismissing hy-potheses as soon as he found them untenable, was no less remarkable thanthe aptitude he evinced in their formation ; and to these valuable qualities,combined with the fertility of liis inventive powers and his unconquer-able perseverance, may be ascribed the brilliant success with which liislabours were rewarded.

The advantages which accrued to the science of Astronomy from Kep-

* Kepler alludes in this allegory to Ptolemy , who had fixed with remarkable accuracythe ratio of the orbit of each planet to the earth’s orbit, or, in the language of the AccentAstronomy, the ratio of the deferent to the epicycle. These ratios, slightly corrected byTycho Brahe , formed the data by means of which Kepler was conducted to his greatdiscovery.

f Harmonices Mundi , p. 178. See also Life of Kepler , Library of Useful Know-ledge.