out caprice. It was all natural, and could be reduced, LITTLE 

 Copernicus thought, to a mathematical system. JOURNEYS 



Astronomy and astrology were not then divorced. 

 It was astrology that gave us astronomy. The angel 

 that watched over a star looked after all persons who 

 were born under that star's influence, or else ap- 

 pointed some other angel for the purpose. Every per- 

 son had a guardian angel to protect him from the evil 

 spirits that occasionally broke out of hell and came up 

 to earth to tempt men. 



Mathematics knows nothing of angels it only knows 

 what it can prove. Copernicus believed that if certain 

 stars moved, they moved by some unalterable law of 

 their own. In riding on a boat he observed that the 

 shores seemed to be moving past, and he concluded 

 that a part, at least, of the seeming movements of the 

 planets might possibly be caused by the moving of the 

 earth jfi ^ 



In talking with astrologers he perceived that very 

 seldom did they know anything of mathematics. And 

 this ignorance on their part caused him to doubt 

 them entirely. His faith was in mathematics the 

 thing that could be proved, and he came to the con- 

 clusion that astronomy and mathematics were one 

 thing, and astrology and child-stories another. 

 He remained at Bologna long enough to turn the 

 astrologers out of the society of astronomers. 

 Novarra's lectures on astronomy were given in Latin, 

 and in truth all learning was locked up in this tongue. 

 But astrology and the theological fairy tales of the 



17 



