He declared
that it was lawful for an astronomer to indulge his imagination,
and that this was what Copernicus had done.
Thus was the greatest and most ennobling, perhaps, of scientific
truths--a truth not less ennobling to religion than to
science--forced, in coming before the world, to sneak and
crawl.[46]
[46] Osiander, in a letter to Copernicus, dated April 20, 1541,
had endeavored to reconcile him to such a procedure, and ends by
saying, "Sic enim placidiores reddideris peripatheticos et
theologos quos contradicturos metuis." See Apologia Tychonis in
Kepler's Opera Omnia, Frisch's edition, vol. i, p. 246. Kepler
holds Osiander entirely responsible for this preface. Bertrand,
in his Fondateurs de l"astronomie moderne, gives its text, and
thinks it possible that Copernicus may have yielded "in pure
condescension toward his disciple." But this idea is utterly at
variance with expressions in Copernicus's own dedicatory letter
to the Pope, which follows the preface. For a good summary of
the argument, see Figuier, Savants de la Renaissance, pp. 378,
379; see also citation from Gassendi's Life of Copernicus, in
Flammarion, Vie de Copernic, p. 124. Mr. John Fiske, accurate as
he usually is, in his Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy appears to
have followed Laplace, Delambre, and Petit into the error of
supposing that Copernicus, and not Osiander, is responsible for
the preface.
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