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 COPERNICUS

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COPERNICUS

>tiiland, makes it probable that, at least in later life,

r I Kid entered the priesthood. After the death of

is uncle, in 1512, Copernicus went to Frauenbiirg for

iic election of the new bishop, and remained there until

.'>lii, when he was nominated administrator of the

iniosan castle of AUenstein. His term of four years

iiiii: over, he returned to the chapter in Frauenburg.

liii'e years later the bishop died, and Copernicus be-

inic administrator of the diocese. While the quiet

iV at Heilsberg had left him enough leisure to pub-

^li a Latin translation of the Greek letters of Theo-

hylactus (1509), his public offices gradually drew

im into the study of finance. In 1522 he wrote a

lorandum on monetary reforms, which five years

grew into a Latin treatise. It was so highly

NL;ht of that the King of Poland substantially ac-

I'li'd it (152S), and Copernicus was nominated

'|nity counsellor on the financial regulations of

riissi'a (1522-29).

Those various offices, however, could not distract

le ijenius of Copernicus from the main thought of his

U'. The towers of Heilsberg, of AUenstein, and of

raiienburg became so many observatories, and his

tat work "On the Revolutions of the Celestial

■ niies" bears testimony to his unremitting observa-

iis of sun, moon, and planets. His reputation was

i< 'i that a.s early as 1514 the Lateran Council, con-

iki',1 by Leo X. a.sked through Bishop Paul of Fos-

iiiil>rone, for his opinion on the reform of the eccle-


 * i>iical calendar. His answer was, that the length

the year and of the months and the motions of the

111 and moon were not yet sufficiently known to at-

iiipt a reform. Tlie incident, however, spurred him

I as he himself writes to Paul III, to make more

riirate observations; and these actually served,

\iiity years later, as a basis for the working out of

!■ (Iregorian calendar. Twenty-five years after his

i!\ersity career, he had finished his great work, at

t<t in his own mind, but hesitated a long time,

J ether to publish it or to imitate the Pythagoreans,

liM transmitted the mysteries of their philosophy

ily orally to their owTi disciples for fear of exposing

I ■ni to the contempt of the multitude. His friends

iin had become interested in the new theory pre-

)ilrd on him to write at least an abstract for them,

iiiu.script copies of which have been discovered in

hiia (187.3) and Stockholm (1878). In this com-

jarj^ Copernicus stated his theorj' in the form of

II axioms, reserving the mathematical part for the

ipal work. This was in 15.31, or twelve years

ri- his death. From this on the doctrine of the

iientric system began to spread. In 1533 Albert

Imanstadt lectured before Pope Clement VII on

I ujiernican solar system. His reward consisted

< Ircek codex which is preserved in the State li-

! y of Munich. Three years later Copernicus was

i by Cardinal Schonberg, then Archbishop of

la, in a letter, dated at Rome, 1 November, 1536,

il)li.sh his discoverj', or at least to have a copy

I ■ at the cardinal's expense. But all the urging

I riends was in vain, until a younger man was

identlally sent to hLs side.

1 was George Joachim Rheticus who quitted his

r of mathematics in Wittenberg in order to spend

' years at the feet of the new master (1539-41).

irdly ten weeks after his arrival in Frauenburg he

lit a "First Narration" of the new solar .system to

scientific friend Schoner in Nuremberg, in the

' 1 of a let ter of sixty-six pages, which was soon after

i'd in Danzig (1540) and Basle (1541). Rheticus

■.I obtained for publication the manuscript of a

■litninary chapter of the great work on plane and

lnrical trigonometrj-. Finally Copernicus, feeling

weight of his sixty-eight years, yielded, as he

•s to Paul III, to the entreaties of Cardinal

'iil)crg, of Bishop Giese of Culm, and of other

iriied men to surrender his manuscripts for publica-

IV— 23

tion. Bishop Giese charged Rheticus, as the ablest disciple of the great master, with the task of editing the work. The intention of the latter was to take the manuscript to A\ittenberg and have it published at the university; but owmg to the hostility prevailing there against the Copernican system, only the chapter on trigonometrj' was printed (1542). The two copies of the "First Narration" and of the treatise on trig- onometry, which Rheticus presented to his friend Dr. Gasser, then practising medicine in Feldkirch, may be seen in the Vatican Library (Palat. IV, 585). Rheticus then turned to Schoner in Nuremberg, who, together with Osiander, accepted the charge and en- gaged the printing-house of Petreius in the same city. In the meanwhile Rheticus tried to resume his chair in Wittenberg, but on account of his Copernican views had to resign (1542) and turned to Leipzig (1543). He was thus prevented from giving his per- sonal attention to the edition, nor was the author him- self able to superintend it. Copernicus became par- alyzed on the right side and \\eakened in memory and mind many days before his death. The first copy of the " Six Books on the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbits" was handed to him the very day he died. Fortunately for him, he could not see what Osiander had done. This reformer, knowing the attitude of Luther and Melanchthon against the heliocentric .sys- tem, introduced the word "Hypothesis" on the title page, and without adding his own name, replaced the preface of Copernicus by another strongly contrasting in spirit with that of Copernicus. The preface of Osi- ander warns the reader not to expect anything certain from astronomy, nor to accept its hypothesis as true, ne slullior ab liac disciplind discedat, quam accessenl. The dedication to Pope Paul III was, however, re- tained, and the text of the work remained intact, as was ascertained later when access was had to the original manuscript, now in the family library of the Counts Nostitz in Prague.

Opposition was first raised against the Copernican system by Protestant theologians for Biblical reasons, and strange to say it has continued, at least sporadic- ally, to our own days. A list of many of their pamph- lets is enumerated by Beckmann. On the Catholic side opposition only commenced seventy-three years later, when it was occasioned by Galileo. On 5 March, 1616, the work of Copernicus was forbidden by the Congregation of the Index "until corrected", and in 1620 these corrections were indicated. Nine sen- tences, by which the heliocentric system was repre- sented as certain, had to be either omitted or changed. This done, the reading of the book was allowed. In 1758 the book of Copernicus disappeared from the revised Index of Benedict XIV. New editions were issued in Basle (1566) by Rheticus; in Amsterdam (1617) by Miiller of Gottingen; in Warsaw (18.54) an Edition de luxe with Polish translation and the real preface of Copernicus; and the latest (5th) in Thorn (1873) by the Copernicus Society, on the four hun- dredth anniversary of the author's birthday, with all the corrections of the text, made by Copernicus, given as foot-notes. A monument by Thorwaldsen was erected to Copernicus in Warsaw (1830), and another by Tieck at Thorn (1853). Rheticus, Cla- vius, and others called Copernicus the second Ptolemy, and his book the second '.Vlmagest". His genius appears in the fact that he grasped the truth centuries before it could be proved. If he had precursors, they are to be compared to those of Columbus. What is most significant in the character of Copernicus is this, that while he did not shrink from demolishing a scien- tific system consecrated by a thousand years' univer- sal acceptance, he set his face against the reformers of religion. For supplementary information see the article Galileo.