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Updated: May 29, 2025
In addition to Kepler's prediction and the indications of Bode's Law, there was a general reason for thinking that a planetary body of some kind should occupy the space between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The mean distance of Mars from the sun is about 141,500,000 miles; that of Jupiter, is about 483,000,000 miles. The distance from one orbit to the other is therefore about 341,500,000 miles.
The extraordinary way in which Kepler's views on celestial matters were associated with the wildest speculations, is well illustrated in the work in which he propounded his splendid discovery just referred to.
The years of Kepler's middle life were sorely distracted by a trouble which, though not uncommon in those days, is one which we find it difficult to realise at the present time. His mother, Catherine Kepler, had attained undesirable notoriety by the suspicion that she was guilty of witchcraft.
Maestlin and others of Kepler's friends took the opposite view.
Now it is said that Kepler's third law is a necessary consequence of Newton's law of gravitation, and that since it is based on pure observation it therefore establishes the truth of Newton's conception.
It is a curious mixture of saga and fairy tale with a little science in the way of astronomy studied from the moon, and cast in the form of a dream to overcome the practical difficulties of the hypothesis of visiting the moon. Other writings in large numbers were left unpublished. No attempt at a complete edition of Kepler's works was made for a long time.
Kepler's laws of the motions of the planets, showing them to revolve in ellipses instead of circles, removed the last defect of the Copernican system, and left no room for its rejection. But both the world and the Church clung to tradition, and some visible demonstration was urgently needed. This was supplied by Galileo through his invention of the telescope.
From the consideration of Kepler's astrological opinions, it is an agreeable transition to proceed to the examination of his high merits as an astronomer and a philosopher. As an experimental philosopher, or as an astronomical observer, Kepler does not lay claim to our admiration.
That which I see is not a thing or a person, but nevertheless what I feel towards it can be called by no other name than love. Although the object of this love is not thing or person it is not indefinite, it is this only which is definite; 'thing' and 'person' are abstract and unreal. There was a love to God in Kepler's heart when the three laws were revealed to him.
We read respectfully of Cutter's rules, which are to the librarian even as Kepler's laws to the astronomer. We have also heard of Poole's index. We bow our heads. Both Cutter and Poole are Americans. The parish of St. Pancras has just, by an overwhelming majority, declined to have a free library, and consequently a librarian. Brutish St. Pancras!
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