<810 EPOCHS IN THE HISTOEY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP 



to the Chaldeans, the Earth rests immoveably in the centre, 

 and the Sun revolves round it as a planet, while Mercury 

 and Yenus accompany, and revolve round the Sun as hid 

 satellites. Such a view of the structure of the Universe 

 might tend to prepare the way for that of the Sun's central 

 force. There is nothing either in the Almagest, or in the 

 writings of the Ancients generally, or in the work of 

 Copernicus " de Revolutionibus," to justify Gassendi'g 

 decided assertion as to the perfect similarity of the System 

 of Tycho Brahe with that of Apollonius of Perga. After 

 Bockh's complete investigation, nothing more need be said 

 respecting the confusion of the System of Copernicus with 

 that of the Pythagorean Philolaus, in which the non-rotating 

 Earth (the Antichton or opposite earth is not itself a planet, 

 but only the opposite hemisphere of our planet,) moves, as 

 well as the sun, round the " hearth of the world/' the central 

 fire or flame of life of the entire planetary system. 



The scientific revolution commenced by Copernicus had 

 the rare good fortune (setting aside a brief retrograde 

 movement in Tycho Brahe's hypothesis), of proceeding 

 uninterruptedly forward to its object, the discovery of 

 the true structure of the universe. The rich supply of 

 e,xact observations which were furnished by Tycho Brahe 

 himself, the zealous opponent of Copernicus, laid the 

 foundation of the discovery of those unchanging laws of 

 the planetary movements, which prepared for Kepler im- 

 perishable fame, and which, when interpreted by Newton> 

 and shewn by him to be theoretically necessary, were 

 transferred to the bright domain of thought, and became 

 the " intelligent recognition of nature." It has been 

 ingeniously said,. ( 475 ) though perhaps with too -feeble an 



