VI NOTES. 



loci incidit sub zonam torridam, quippe in.occursum suum quacunque in 

 verticein loci incidit, insensibiliter in maribus inclusis, seusibiliter ibi ubi 

 sunt latissimi alvei oceani propinqui, aquisque spaciosa reciprocationis 



libertas" (Kepler, 1. c.) " Undas a Luna trahi ut ferrum a magnete " 



Kepleri Harmonices Mundi libri quinque, 1619, lib. iv. cap. 7, p. 162. 

 This same work, which contains so much that is admirable, and even the 

 basis of the important " third law " (according to which the squares of the 

 periods of revolution of two planets are to each other as the cubes of the 

 mean distances), is disfigured by the wildest fancies : respiration, nutrition, 

 and vital heat of the Earth as an animal ; on a soul possessed by this animal ; 

 its memory (memoria animse Terrse) ; and even its imaginative powers 

 (animse Telluris imaginatio). Kepler was so much attached to these reveries 

 that he even had a serious dispute with the mystic author of the Macrocosmos 

 Robert Fludd. of Oxford, (said to have had a share in the invention of the 

 thermometer) respecting the right of priority in these views of the Earth as 

 a living creature (Harm. Mundi, p. 252). The attraction of mass is often 

 confounded in Kepler's writings with magnetic attraction. " Corpus Solis 

 esse magneticum. Virtutem, quse planetas niovet, residere in corpore Solis," 

 (Stella Martis, Pars iii. cap. 32 and 34). He gives to every planet a mag- 

 netic axis, which is always directed to the same quarter of the heavens (Apelt, 

 Joh. Keppler's a*tron. Weltansicht, 1849, S. 73). 



P) p. 19. Comp. Kosmos, Bd. ii. S. 364 and 512, Note 55 (English 

 edition, Vol. ii. p. 323, and Note 495). 



(34) p i9._La Vie de M. Des-Cartes (par Baillet), 1691, P. i. p. 197 ; 

 and (Euvres de Descartes publiees par Victor Cousin, T. i. 1824, p. 101. 



(35) IK 20. Lettres de Descartes au P. Mersenne du 19 Nov. 1633 et du 

 5 Janvier 1634 (Baillet, P. i. p. 244247). 



( 36 ) p. 20. The Latin translation is entitled, Mundus, sive Dissertatio de 

 Lumine ut et de aliis Sensuum Objectis primariis. See R. Descartes, Opuscula 

 posthurna physica et mathematica, Amst. 1704. 



(ST) p. 21. "Lunam aquis carere et acre : marium similitudinem in Luna 

 nullam reperio. Nam regiones planas quse montosis multo obscuriores sunt, 

 quasque vulgo pro maribus haberi video et oceanorum nominibus insiguiri, in 

 his ipsis, longiore telescopic inspectis, cavitates exiguas inesse comperio 

 rotundas, urnbris intus cadentibus ; quod maris superficiei convenire nequit 

 turn ipsi campi illi latiores non prorsus sequabilem superficiem prseferunt, cum 

 diligentius eas intuemur. Quodcirca maria esse non possuut, sed materia 

 constare debent minus candicante, quam quse est partibus asperioribus, in 



