NOTES. Cxi 



but had rather served him as a point of transition to his own system, appears 

 to me well founded." 



(W) p. 310. Schubert, Astronomic, Th. i. S. 124. Whewell has given, 

 in the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. ii. p. 282, an Inductive 

 Table of Astronomy, which presents an exceedingly good and complete tabular 

 riew of the astronomical contemplation of the structure of the universe, 

 from the earliest times to Newton's system of gravitation. 



(^ 6 ) p. 311. Plato inclines, in the Phsedrus, to the system of Philolaus; 

 but in the Timseus, to that which represents the earth as immoveable in the 

 centre, subsequently called the Hipparchian or the Ptolemaic system (Bockh, 

 de Platonico Systemate Coelestium Globorum, et de vera indole Astronomise 

 Philolaicse, p. xxvi. xxxii. ; also the same author in the Philolaos, S. 104 

 108. Compare also Fries, Geschichte der Philosophic, Bd. i. S. 325347, with 

 Martin's Etudes sur Timee, T. ii. p. 64 92). The astronomical vision in 

 whiofe the structure of the universe is veiled, at the end of the Book of the 

 Republic, reminds one at once of the planetary systems of intercalated spheres, 

 and of the concord of tones (the music of the spheres) "the voices of the 

 Sirens winging their flight with the revolving orbs." (See, on the discovery of 

 the true system of the universe, the fine and comprehensive work of Apelt, 

 Epochen der Gesch. der Menscheit, Bd, i. 1845, S. 205305 and 379 

 445.) 



( 477 ) p. 311. Kepler, Harmonices Mundi, libri quinque, 1619, p. 189. 

 "On the 8th of March, 1618, Kepler, after many unsuccessful attempts, 

 came upon the thought of comparing the squares of the times of revolution 

 of the planets with the cubes of the mean distances ; but he made an error of 

 calculation, and rejected the idea. On the 15th of May, 1618, he came back 

 upon it, and calculated correctly. The third Keplerian law was now disco- 

 vered." This discovery, and those related to it, coincide with the distressing 

 period when this great man, exposed from early childhood to the hardest 

 strokes of fate, was labouring, in a trial for witchcraft which lasted six years, 

 to save his aged mother, 70 years old, accused of poison-mixing, incapacity of 

 shedding tears, and sorcery, from the torture and the stake. The suspicion 

 was strengthened by her own son, the wicked Christopher Kepler a worker 

 in tin, being his mother's accuser ; and by her having been brought up by an 

 aunt who was burnt at Weil as a witch. See an exceedingly interesting 

 work, but little known in foreign countries, drawn from newly discovered 

 manuscripts by Baron von Breitschwert, entitled, " Johann Ktppler's Leben 

 tad Wirken," 1831, S. 12, 97147, and 196. According to this work, 



