94 LIFE AND WORKS OF KEPLER. 



him, strives to reconstruct the words and ideas which they express. Foi 

 the i)hiloh)gist as for the astronomer the problem is indeterminate, and 

 it might be assumed tliat its solution is arbitrary ; what assurance is 

 there in fact that those strange tigures are not simply decorative 

 designs, capriciously traced without order and without object? And 

 if they have in reality a meaning, no train of rigorous deductions 

 can reveal it by leading us from the known to the unknown thi^ough a 

 logical and sure chain of reasoning. It is necessary in such an inquiry 

 to proceed tentatively, to accept conjectures founded on fugitive and 

 remote analogies, to establish systems which the further study of facts 

 will often overthrow, to frame hypotheses which Avill presently be re- 

 jected, but which will be patiently replaced by others, and to do this 

 without discouragement, because the true solution, we may be certain in 

 advance, will, when once detected and in whatsoever manner obtained, 

 offer such a character of certainty that no further place will be left for 

 doubt. The same is the case with the true astronomical systems ; it is 

 impossible to establish it by a series of rigorous deductions, and 

 successively to demonstrate its different parts according to the method 

 of the geometers. But, when a man of genius shall have divined, in 

 whatever w^ay it may be, the principles which reconcile the uniform and 

 simple reality with the complex and variable appearances, judicious 

 minds will at once recognize the truth of the hypothesis, without scruti- 

 nizing the means which have led to it, and without waiting for the 

 solid and luminous proofs which, accumulating from age to age, will at 

 length convert the most refractory by enlightening even the blindest. 

 It is not my purpose to retrace, here, the history of the efforts succes- 

 sively made in this direction, which would be the history- of astronomy. 

 From among the great men who, withdrawing the veils which hide it, 

 have by degrees revealed the universe in its " full and sublime majesty," 

 I have simply selected, in order to sketch the part which he performed, 

 the most intrepid, persevering", and inspired of them all ; by these terms 

 I designate Kepler. 



John Kepler was born at Weil, in Wiirtemberg, 27th of December, 

 1571, twenty-eight years after the death of Copernicus. His father, 

 Henry Kepler, who belonged to the noble family of Keppel, was not 

 worthy of such a son ; he several times abandoned his wife, who herself 

 was of evdl reputation, and scarcely gave nnj attention to his four 

 children. The early education of John w*as, therefore, much neglected ; 

 his mother, who could not read, sent him, it is true, to school, but kept 

 him at home whenever his services could be turned to account in the 

 inn, which reverse of fortune had reduced her to the necessity of keep- 

 ing. The boy's weak constitution, fortunately, rendered him but little 

 fit for such employments, and it was decided that he should studj' theol- 

 ogy. At the age of thirteen he was gratuitously admitted into the 

 Protestant seminary of Maulbroun ; a favor easily obtained, for instruc- 

 tion was at that time propagated throughout Protestant Germany with 

 a zeal equally liberal and enlightened. " It is the head and not the arm 

 which governs the world," said the rector of the University of Maul- 

 broun, in 1578 5 " there is need, then, of educated men, and such fruit 

 does not grow upon trees." 



From Maulbroun, Kepler, who advanced rapidly in his studies, passed 

 to the seminary of Tiibingen, where he applied himself to theology, but 

 without giving to it his whole attention. He here composed some Latin 

 verses on the ubiquity of the body of Christ, the elegant precision of 

 which attracted the admiration of the secretary of the national depu- 

 ties. Yet, when he quitted, at the age of twenty-two, the school of Tii- 



