308 COSMOS. 



tern which bears his immortal name as an hypothesis con- 

 venient for making astronomical calculations, and one which 

 might be devoid of foundation. " By no other arrangement," 

 he exclaims with enthusiasm, " have I been able to find so ad- 

 mirable a symmetry of the universe, and so harmonious a con- 

 nection of orbits, as by placing the lamp of the world {lucer- 

 nam onitndi), the Sun, in the midst of the beautiful temple of 

 nature as on a kingly throne, ruling the whole family of cir- 

 cling stars that revolve around him {circumagentei7i guberman^ 

 astroru/ii familiam).''''* Even the idea of universal gravita- 

 tion or attraction {cippetentia qiKxdam naturalh 'partihus, in- 

 ditci) toward the sun as the center of the world {ceiitruni 

 mundi), and which is inferred from the force of gravity in 

 spherical bodies, seems to have hovered before the mind of 

 this great man, as is proved by a remarkable passage in the 

 9th chapter of the 1st book De Revolutionibiis.] 



* Quis euim in hoc pulcherrirao tempio lampadem hanc in alio vel 

 meliori loco poneret, quam uude totum simul possit illuminare? Siqui- 

 dem non inepte quidam luceruam mundi, alii mentem, alii rectorem 

 vocant. Trismegistus visibilem Deum, Sophoclis Electra iutueutem 

 omnia. Ita pi'ofecto tanquam in solio regali Sol residens circumagen- 

 tem gubernat Astrorum familiam : Tellus qiioque miuime fraudatur lu- 

 nari ministerio, sed ut Aristoteles de animalibus ait, maximam Luna 

 cum terra cognationem liabet. Concepit interea a Sole terra, et im- 

 pregnatur annuo partu. Invenimus igitur sub hac ordiuatione admi- 

 randam mundi symmetriam ac certum harmonise nexum motus et mag- 

 nitudiuis orbium; qnalis alio modo reperiri non potest. (Nicol. Copern,, 

 De Revol. Orbmm Ccelestium, lib. i., cap. 10, p. 9, b.) In this passage, 

 which is not devoid of poetic grace and elevation of expression, we rec 

 ognize, as in all the works of the asti'onomers of the seventeenth ceu 

 tury, traces of long acquaintance with the beauties of classical antiquity 

 Copernicus had in his mind Cic, Somn. Scip., c. 4; Plin., ii., 4; and 

 Mercur. Trismeg., lib. v, (ed. Cracov., 1586), p. 195 and 201. The al- 

 kision to the Electra of Sophocles is obscure, as the sun is never any 

 where expressly termed "all-seeing," as in the Iliad and the Gdyssey, 

 and also in the Choephorce of iEschylus (v. 980), which Copernicus 

 would not probably have called Electra. According to Bockh's con* 

 jecture, the allusion is to be ascribed to an imperfect recollection of 

 verse 8G9 of the CEdipus Colo-neus of Sophocles. It very singularly 

 happens that quite lately, in an otherwise instructive memoir (Czynski, 

 Kopernik et ses Travaux, 1847, p. 102), the Electra of the tragedian ia 

 confounded with electric currents. The passage of Copernicus, quoted 

 above, is thus rendered : "■ If we take the sun for the torch of the uni- 

 verse, for its spirit and its guide — if Trismegistes call it a god, and if 

 Sophocles consider it to be an electrical power which animates and 

 contemplates all that is contained in creation — " 



t Pluribus ergo existentibus centris, de centro quoque mundi non 

 temere quis dubitabit, an videlicet fuerit istud gravitatis terrensD, au 

 aliud. Equidem existimo, gravitatem non aliud esse, quam appeten- 

 liam quandam naturalem partibus inditam a divina providentia offici* 



