202 



COPERNICUS. 



Copernicus. of Frauenberg, by his uncle the Bishop of Ermeland, 

 *- - " "»""•■- and the inhabitants of his native town had nominated 

 him archdeacon of the church of St John. His princi- 

 pal residence, however, was at Frauenberg, and in this 

 sequestered retreat he devoted himself with zeal to the 

 duties of his office, and to the study of astronomy. The 

 house which he inhabited as one of the sixteen canons 

 was situated on the brow of a mountain, and as it com- 

 manded a most extensive view, it was particularly fa- 

 vourable for astronomical observations. 



The immobility of the earth in the centre of the sys- 

 tem was a doctrine universally received among astro- 

 nomers; and, independently of its coincidence with vul- 

 gar observation, it received no small support from the 

 authority of Scripture, and from the still more imposing 

 sanction of Plato and Aristotle. It required, therefore, 

 no ordinary degree of courage to assail a doctrine so 

 strongly entrenched among the prejudices and supersti- 

 tions of the human mind, and no ordinary degree of ge- 

 nius and abstraction to establish the true system of the 

 world by direct reasoning and observation. Coperni- 

 cus was particularly struck with the disorder and con- 

 fusion which prevailed in the Ptolemaic system, and 

 with the absurdity of supposing the planets to revolve 

 uniformly round a centre different from the centre of 

 their orbits ; and with the view probably of defending 

 himself by authority as well as by argument, he ap- 

 pears to have begun his inquiry into the true system of 

 the world, by an historical examination of the various 

 opinions which were held by ancient authors. 



The opinions of the ancient Egyptians, of Pytha- 

 goras, of Philolaus, Aristarchus, Apollonius Pergseus, 

 Nicetas, Heraclides, and Martianus Capella, all counte- 

 nanced the general notion which he had formed; but it 

 appears* that he attended principally to the system ex- 

 plained by Martianus Capella, + a Roman author of the 

 fifth century, who placed the Sun between Mars and 

 the Moon, and made Mercury and Venus revolve round 

 him as their proper centre ; and to the still more com- 

 plete hypothesis of Apollonius Pergseus, who made the 

 superior as well as the inferior planets revolve round 

 the Sun, while the Sun and Moon revolved round the 

 Earth in the centre of the world. 



Guided by these opinions, and by the general princi- 

 ples which he had early entertained respecting the sim- 

 plicity and harmony of the system, Copernicus was gra- 

 dually led to the opinion, that the Sun was immoveable 

 in the centre of the universe ; that his apparent motion 

 arose from the annual motion of the Earth, which, like 

 all the other planets, revolved round the Sun as their 

 centre ; and that all the diurnal phenomena of the hea- 

 vens were owing solely to the rotation of the Earth 

 about its axis every 24 horns. 



After completing this beautiful system, which he had 

 begun to form about the year 1 507, he resolved to esta- 

 blish it by the evidence of actual observation. With 

 this view, he determined to make a series of observa- 

 tions upon all the planets, and to construct tables of 



their motion more correct than those of Ptolemy, or the Coperuk 

 Alphonsine Tables. He accordingly constructed a qua- -"""V 

 drant with moveable radii like that of Ptolemy, and al- 

 so a parallactic instrument, the largest moveable radius 

 of which was divided into 1414 parts, in order to form 

 the hypothenuse of a right-angled isosceles triangle, 

 whose sides were four feet long, and were divided into 

 1000 parts. £ With the aid of these instruments, Co- 

 pernicus made an immense number of observations, 

 which were published along with those of Tycho in 

 1 666, and by means of which he computed his new ta- 

 bles of the planets, and brought to a conclusion, in 1 530, 

 his great work on the revolutions of the celestial bodies. 

 Afraid of alarming the prejudices of the public, 

 Copernicus declined to publish his great work, and re- 

 sisted the most pressing solicitation of his friends. The 

 Cardinal Nicolas Schonberg, Bishop of Capoua, wrote 

 to Copernicus in 1.534, inviting him to publish his 

 new system, and Tydeman Gyse, Bishop of Culm, 

 who appears to have been formerly one of the ca- 

 nons at Frauenberg, made a similar application, in the 

 strongest and most urgent manner. In the year 1539, 

 George Joac. Rheticus, who was Professor of Mathe- 

 matics at Wittenberg, resigned his chair in that uni- 

 versity, and repaired to Frauenberg, for the purpose 

 of making himself master of the discoveries of Coper- 

 nicus, and they appear to have arranged a method of 

 laying them before the world, without communicating 

 any violent shock to the public mind. In order to 

 pave the way for the work of Copernicus, Rheticus pub- 

 lished in the year 1 510, but without his name, and un- 

 der the disguise of a student of 'mathematics, a general 

 account of the new system. This book was entitled, 

 Ad claris.simi, v. d. Io. Schonerum, de Libris revohdi- 

 onum erudilissimi viri ct midhemal/ci excellent '.issimi, re- 

 verendi Docforis Nicolai Copernici Torunncvi, Canonici 

 Varmiensis, per quendam juvenem midhcmalnce sturhosum 

 narrntio prima. Gedani, 4to. The public having re- 

 ceived this work without any marks of disapprobation, 

 Rheticus ventured a step farther, and published a se- 

 cond edition of it at Basle in 1541, with Ins own name, 

 entitled, Dr Libris i evolutionum Nic. Copernici nar ratio 

 prima per M. Georg. Joac. Rheticum. Item, Borussiae 

 Encomium, ah eodem. Basilise, 8vo. 



In the same year the discoveries of Copernicus were 

 noticed in the most flattering manner by Erasmus 

 Rheinhold, in an edition of Purbachius's 1 heoricce No- 

 va; Plauetarum, which he published at Wittenberg. He 

 speaks of a second Ptolemy being wanted to restore 

 the degenerate science of the age ; and, alluding to Co- 

 pernicus, he expresses a hope that such a person will 

 be found in Prussia, whose divine genius posterity will 

 justly admire. § 



Encouraged by the success of these publications, Co- 

 pernicus at last ventured to put his own work into the 

 hands of Rheticus, which was printed at Noremberg in 

 1 543, at the expence of Cardinal Schonberg, and with 

 the following title, Nicolai Copernici Tonnensis de 



lure deliberation. In the dedication, however, of his work to Pope Paul III. he says, that after he received the application from the 

 Bibhop of Fossombrona, he set himself to determine the length of the year and of the month, and the other motions of the Sun and 

 Moon that were necessary for this purpose. 



• Copernicus De lievotutionibus Oriium Celestium, lib. i. cap. x. 



+ This author wrote a book in A. D 410, entitled, De Artibus I.iberalibus, in the 8th book of which he treats of Astronomy. 



% This instrument was presented by Hannof, canon of lirmeland, to Tycho Brahe, who set a great value upon it. 



§ " Tametsi video," says Rheinhold, speaking of Copernicus, " quendam rerentiorem, pi<estantis«inr.im artijicem (qui magnum de xe 

 upnd omnes concitavit expectationem restitueudiB estronomiee et jam udornat editionem suorum labnrum) sicat in aliis uslrortomuc parttbus, 

 ita ft/'am in line varietate matus Lurne explicandu ? 'unit ai at dissentire a forma Ptolemaiva." And in another place, " Itaque cum ha 

 artesjamdiv desiderant aliquem Ptulemceum, qui lal-enlcs disci/ilinas revocct ; spero eum nobis tandem ex Prussia obtigisse, cujua dtvinum 

 ingenium tuta posteritas nan immsrito admirabhur." 



