228 THE WORLD MACHINE 



in any way correct, the sun must needs show a parallax of at 

 least three minutes of an astronomical degree. But the sur- 

 prising accuracy attained by his friend and patron, the great 

 Tycho, made it clear that no such parallax existed. So did he 

 perfect his instruments, that Tycho was able to reduce the 

 possible errors of observation to a single minute. As no ap- 

 parent displacement even of this slender amount could be 

 found, it followed that the distance of the sun must be at least 

 three times that computed by the ancients. 



But even the ancients had been able to fix with a fair degree 

 of certainty the distance of the moon, and this, on the ancient 

 calculations, had already spaced the sun at five million miles 

 away, and given it a volume three hundred times greater than 

 that of the massy earth. Scant wonder is it that even in Cop- 

 pernicus* time these estimates should have been deemed simply 

 absurd. 



Now, however, Kepler would set the sun not at four or five, 

 not at a lower limit of thirteen million miles ; he would give 

 it a diameter, not six or seven, but at the least eighteen or 

 twenty times the diameter of the earth ; he would compute 

 the dimensions of this glowing ball in the sky, not at three 

 hundred, but at seven or eight thousand times our globe. The 

 thought was grotesque. It was only by a sort of acrobatic leap 

 of the imagination, by an immense and violent somersault of 

 the mind, that men could reach belief in such unbelievable 

 things. 



Consider that the most enlightened people of that time had 

 not left off their credulous trust in astrology ; that such as were 

 dabbling in the chemic art were still in search of the philosopher's 

 stone and the elixir of life ; consider that throughout all Europe 

 the most advanced of nations were still hanging, burning, 

 torturing miserable wretches for witches (almost without 

 exception, be it observed, from among the outcast poor), 

 and it will not be difficult to understand why it was that a 

 true conception of the world should have such difficulty in 

 battling against the prejudices and superstitions which still 

 dominated the great body of mankind. 



But the telescope with its disturbing revelations had effected 

 a breach ; bit by bit it widened. In free and heroic little 

 Holland, where Descartes had found a refuge, there were men 

 of a mind to attack the problem anew. One of these was the 



