History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [299]
Apart from the revolutionary effect on cosmic imagination, the great merits of the new astronomy were two: first, the recognition that what had been believed since ancient times might be false; second, that the test of scientific truth is patient collection of facts, combined with bold guessing as to laws binding the facts together. Neither merit is so fully developed in Copernicus as in his successors, but both are already present in a high degree in his work.
Some of the men to whom Copernicus communicated his theory were German Lutherans, but when Luther came to know of it, he was profoundly shocked. 'People give ear,' he said, 'to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.' Calvin similarly, demolished Copernicus with the text: 'The world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved' (Psa. xciii. 1), and exclaimed: 'Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?' Protestant clergy were at least as bigoted as Catholic ecclesiastics; nevertheless there soon came to be much more liberty of speculation in Protestant than in Catholic countries, because in Protestant countries the clergy had less power. The important aspect of Protestantism was schism, not heresy, for schism led to national Churches, and national Churches were not strong enough to control the lay government. This was wholly a gain, for the Churches, everywhere, opposed as long as they could practically every innovation that made for an increase of happiness or knowledge here on earth.
Copernicus was not in a position to give any conclusive evidence in favour of his hypothesis, and for a long time astronomers rejected it. The next astronomer of importance was Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), who adopted an intermediate position: he held that the sun and moon go round the earth, but the planets go round the sun. As regards theory he was not very original. He gave, however, two good reasons against Aristotle's view that everything above the moon is unchanging. One of these was the appearance of a new star in 1572, which was found to have no daily parallax, and must therefore be more distant than the moon. The other reason was derived from observation of comets, which were also found to be distant. The reader will remember Aristotle's doctrine that change and decay are confined to the sublunary sphere; this, like everything else that Aristotle said on scientific subjects, proved an obstacle to progress.
The importance of Tycho Brahe was not as a theorist, but as an observer, first under the patronage of the king of Denmark, then under the Emperor Rudolf II. He made a star catalogue, and noted the positions of the planets throughout many years. Towards the end of his life Kepler, then a young man, became his assistant. To Kepler his observations were invaluable.
Kepler (1571–1630) is one of the most notable examples of what can be achieved by patience without much in the way of genius. He was the first important astronomer after Copernicus to adopt the heliocentric theory, but Tycho Brahe's data showed that it could not be quite right in the form given to it by Copernicus. He was influenced by Pythagoreanism, and more or less fancifully inclined to sun-worship, though a good Protestant. These motives no doubt gave him a bias in favour of the heliocentric hypothesis. His Pythagoreanism also inclined him to follow Plato's Timaeus in supposing that cosmic significance must attach to the five regular solids. He used them to suggest hypotheses to his mind; at last, by good luck,