The Sleepwalkers (99 page)

I
have
tried
to
reconstruct
the
process
from
its
starting
point
–
Copernicus'
discontent
with
Ptolemy's
equants,
which
he
regarded
as
an
imperfection
–
to
his
re-shaping
of
the
Ptolemaic
system
with
the
aid
of
an
ancient
idea
which
was
being
revived
during
his
student
days.
But
if
it
was
really
as
simple
as
that,
then
the
equally
simple
question
arises:
why
nobody
before
him
had
worked
out
a
heliocentric
system?
It
would
be
meaningless
to
ask
why
nobody
before
Shakespeare
had
written
Hamlet;
but
if
Copernicus
was
really
as
devoid
of
originality
and
imagination
as
I
tried
to
make
him
out,
then
it
is
legitimate
to
ask
why
the
task
of
"crystallizing"
fell
to
him
–
whereas,
for
instance,
the
intellectually
more
flexible,
and
"modern"
Regiomontanus
left
it
at
a
few
hints,
but
never
developed
a
systematic
sun-centred
theory.

The
key
to
the
answer
is
perhaps
Kepler's
already
quoted
remark
that
Copernicus
was
interpreting
Ptolemy
(and
Aristotle)
rather
than
nature.
To
a
fifteenth
century
"modern"
mind
such
an
undertaking
must
have
appeared
partly
impossible,
and
partly
a
waste
of
time.
Only
a
conservative-minded
person
such
as
Copernicus
could
devote
himself
to
the
task
of
reconciling
the
irreconcilable
doctrines
of
Aristotelian
physics
and
Ptolemaic
wheel-geometry
on
the
one
hand,
with
a
sun-centred
universe
on
the
other.
To
arrive
at
a
self-consistent,
and
physically
plausible
heliocentric
system,
it
was
necessary
first
to
wrench
the
mind
free
of
the
hold
of
Aristotelian
physics,
to
shake
off
the
obsession
with
circles
and
spheres,
to
smash
up
the
whole
jarring
machinery
of
fictitious
wheels-on-wheels.
The
great
discoveries
of
science
often
consist,
as
we
saw,
in
the
uncovering
of
a
truth
buried
under
the
rubble
of
traditional
prejudice,
in
getting
out
of
the
cul-de-sacs
into
which
formal
reasoning
divorced
from
reality
leads;
in
liberating
the
mind
trapped
between
the
iron
teeth
of
dogma.
The
Copernican
system
is
not
a
discovery
in
this
sense,
but
a
last
attempt
to
patch
up
an
out-dated
machinery
by
reversing
the
arrangement
of
its
wheels.
As
a
modern
historian
put
it,
the
fact
that
the
earth
moves
is
"almost
an
incidental
matter
in
the
system
of
Copernicus
which,
viewed
geometrically,
is
just
the
old
Ptolemaic
pattern
of
the
skies,
with
one
or
two
wheels
interchanged
and
one
or
two
of
them
taken
out."
42
There
is
a
well-known
saying
that
Marx"turned
Hegel
upside
down".
Copernicus
did
the
same
to
Ptolemy;
in
both
cases,
the
reversed
authority
remained
the
bane
of
the
disciple.

From
Roger
Bacon
in
the
thirteenth
century
to
Peter
Ramus
in
the
sixteenth,
there
had
been
outstanding
individuals
and
schools
who
realized,
more
or
less
consciously,
more
or
less
articulately,
that
Aristotelian
physics
and
Ptolemaic
astronomy
had
to
be
put
out
of
the
way
before
a
new
departure
could
be
made.
That
may
be
the
reason
why
Regiomontanus
built
himself
an
observatory
instead
of
building
himself
a
system.
When
he
had
completed
the
commentaries
on
Ptolemy
which
Peurbach
had
begun,
he
realized
the
need
to
put
astronomy
on
a
new
basis
by
"ridding
posterity
of
ancient
tradition".
In
Copernicus'
eyes,
such
an
attitude
amounted
to
blasphemy.
If
Aristotle
had
stated
that
God
created
only
birds,
Canon
Koppernigk
would
have
described
homo
sapiens
as
a
bird
without
feathers
and
wings
who
hatches
his
eggs
before
laying
them.

The
Copernican
system
is
precisely
that
kind
of
construction.
Apart
from
the
inconsistencies
which
I
have
mentioned
before,
it
did
not
even
succeed
in
remedying
the
specific
faults
of
Ptolemy
which
it
had
set
out
to
remedy.
True,
the
"equants"
had
been
eliminated,
but
rectilinear
motion,
which
Copernicus
called
"worse
than
a
disease",
had
to
be
imported
in
their
stead.
In
his
Dedication,
he
had
mentioned,
beside
the
equants,
as
the
chief
reason
for
his
enterprise,
the
uncertainty
of
existent
methods
to
determine
the
length
of
the
year;
but
the
Revolutions
shows
no
progress
in
this
specific
respect.
Ptolemy's
orbit
of
Mars
disagreed
conspicuously
with
the
observed
data,
but
in
the
Copernican
system
it
was
equally
faulty
–
so,
much
so,
that
later
on
Galileo
was
to
speak
with
admiration
of
Copernicus'
courage
in
defending
his
system,
although
it
was
so
evidently
contradicted
by
the
observed
motions
of
Mars!