192 THE WORLD MACHINE 



Still, it is the old story. He is a generation ahead of his 

 time. His ideas must wait. It does not seem as if his publica- 

 tions made any considerable impress. They were, in truth, so 

 written as to repel more sober minds. Amid his wild flights 

 and mystical fancies, the great truths they contained were 

 almost lost. His Epitome of the Coppernican Theory is a 

 sane and admirable work, long used as a textbook. His Optics 

 was one of Newton's earliest treasures. The Inquisition does him 

 the honour to put his books on the Index, but this is simply 

 because the Church is then engaged in suppressing the whole 

 Coppernican heresy, which has been stirred to a dangerous 

 flame by the discoveries of Galileo. The Grand Duke of Tuscany 

 sends him a golden chain ; but this was probably at Galileo's 

 instigation. 



But not one mind among all his contemporaries, not even 

 Galileo's, sees the importance of his discoveries. Galileo, perhaps 

 from a deeper weakness, quite ignores them. Descartes will be 

 busy in a few years constructing the universe out of the simple 

 ingredients of matter and motion. He is devising a mechanism, 

 and he has need of every scrap of help he can get, for as yet 

 the facts are scant ; but he does not appear ever to have read 

 a line of Kepler's works. The Novum Organum appears eleven 

 years after the New Astronomy, in which Kepler gives the 

 first two of his immortal laws, two years after the Harmonies 

 of the World, in which the third and final law is announced ; 

 but for the whole Coppernican scheme Bacon has only a sneer, 

 for Kepler no word. 



Almost the whole of Kepler's life was passed in bitter poverty. 

 Now he is getting old, his salary is long in arrears, the pinch 

 grows tighter ; his child had died of smallpox, his wife of a 

 slow fever, and he had scarce money enough to pay for their 

 burial. 



At last, exhausted by a journey to Prague to plead for the 

 payment of his due, his slender meed of strength depleted by 

 days and nights of tireless research, disheartened by failure, worn 

 out by the vicissitudes of an existence for the most part wretched 

 enough, he too takes a fever and dies at fifty-nine. He had 

 struggled up from a pot-boy in a country tavern, struggled 

 through lifelong ill- health, through difficulty and misfortune. 

 But he did not live to enjoy his fame. The Golden Fleece for 

 which he sought, time laid upon his bier in after years. 



