THE UNIVEKSE. DISCOVERIES IN THE CELESTIAL SPACES. 305 



nicus and his scholars, Bhseticus, Reinhold, and Mostlin, so 

 also did these (though divided from them by a longer inter- 

 val of time) exert a similar influence on the labours of 

 Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. This is the connecting link 

 which, in the enchainment of ideas, unites the 16th and 

 17th centuries, and requires that, in describing the en- 

 larged astronomical views of the later of these two periods, 

 we should allude to the incitements which descended to it 

 from the former. 



An erroneous, and unhappily still recently prevailing 

 opinion, ( 463 ) regards Copernicus as having, through 

 timidity and fear of priestly persecution, represented the 

 earth's planetary movement, and the sun's position in the 

 centre of the whole planetary system, as a mere ' hypo- 

 thesis," which fulfilled the astronomical object of subjecting 

 the orbits of the heavenly bodies to convenient calculation, 

 " but which need not be regarded as true, or even as 

 probable." These singular words ( 464 ) are indeed found 

 in the anonymous preface placed at the commencement 

 of Copernicus's work, and entitled " De Hypothesibus 

 hujus operis;" but they do not belong to Copernicus, 

 and are in direct contradiction to his dedication to the 

 Pope, Paul III. The author of this preliminary notice 

 was, as Gassendi says most distinctly in his life of Coperni- 

 cus, a mathematician named Andreas Osiander, then living 

 at Nuremberg, who, conjointly with Schoner, superintended 

 the printing of the book "De Revolutionibus," and who, 

 although he does not make express mention of any religious 

 scruples, would appear to have thought it advisable to term 

 the new views an hypothesis, and not, like Copernicus, a 

 demonstrated truth. The founder of our present system of 



