198 CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE. 



The work which expounded the new doctrine, the " De Revolu- 

 tionibus," lay unpublished in the study of its author for thirty- 

 six years ; and even then remained unnoticed for more than fifty 

 years longer. The fact was, the theory of Copernicus was only 

 an hypothesis. It could lay no claim to being an inductive dis- 

 covery, and, until Galileo took hold of it, was no more a proved 

 fact than were the absurdities of Ptolemy's Almagest. The dis- 

 coverer himself, so said Kepler, did not seem to know the worth 

 or extent of his own discovery. He gave the earth's axis an 

 extra revolution to maintain its parallelism among the fixed stars. 

 He retained the cumbrous notion of epicycles and eccentrics ; 

 and only differed from the old masters in idealizing their solid 

 superstructures, in removing the center of operations and enlarg- 

 ing their boundaries. He took great credit to himself for so 

 arranging his running gear as to do away with one set of 

 Ptolemy's balancing wheels known as the equants. Evidently 

 the time had not yet arrived for the new school of science. 



Fifty years after the death of Copernicus, Kepler* had com- 

 menced his Herculean labors. Through a mass of figures that 

 would have terrified a score of other men, he brought to light the 

 three primary laws of planetary motion. Seemingly simple and 

 easy of discovery, these laws, which have been of such inesti- 

 mable service in the advance of knowledge, were yet arrived at 

 through severer toil and more disheartening failures than have 

 characterized the establishment of whole sciences since that time. 

 The only method of calculation that Kepler knew anything 

 about was, like the process of the school-boy ciphering by " trial 

 and error," to guess at the answer and then work out the sum as 

 if it were the true one, then guess again, mayhap a little nearer 

 correct. Thus did this man of indomitable perseverance, but of 

 moderate mathematical talents, erect for himself a most stupen- 

 dous monument of figures and of errors. Thirty ponderous 

 volumes record his blunders arid their proof. A few choice 

 pages establish the most fortunate discoveries of science. 



And in this I would not be understood to say anything derog- 

 atory of the remarkable genius of Kepler ; but simply to imply 



* Born in 1571 Died, 1630. Wiirtemburg, Germany. 



