Magnetismus Planetarum

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SECTION II. A refutation of Kepler's arguments. And while I consider these things, indeed I cannot sufficiently marvel at the wretched perverseness of some men, and a certain violent propensity for new and portentous ideas, while that true and sincere and candid Philosophy, which is the true perfection of our souls, is neglected, uncertain, spurious, deceptive, sophistical. I say, they pursue ostentation with such ardor: and indeed I find no other reason for the affection of this forerunner, except that by the novelty of the Theorems, and by some unusual device of philosophic phantasm, they think that they can attract the minds of the rude astonishment to themselves in order to obtain the eternal glory of the name, and that they think that they can be regarded by all as judges of nature. when, however, while the rest, eager for empty glory, are at last confronted with themselves and the truth, they are so far from attaining their end, rather, they are immersed in inextricable labyrinths of difficulties, execrable to all lovers of truth, and so much so that the adultery of all men of letters should be made more famous than it should be said, r iα, νιαiα n s. Would that our Kepler, the Caesarian Mathematician, could not be reckoned among these also with his followers, of whom it may be said deservedly, that there is no Mathematician better and more precise than him, and no one worse than he is a Physicist; for I am deeply sorry that such an excellent man of the divine καρααα has so shamefully tarnished by the physics of his tormentors, which he shows sufficiently in others, as well as in this present Copernicus-Pythagorean device. For here, when he saw that Gilbert's opinion that so many and so various phenomena could not be saved from the revolution of the earth alone, on account of his genius's license to any new, foreign, exotic proclivities, a new physics in his commentaries, into the Star of Mars, for in his Copernican Epitome he was architected, in which a certain work, while keeping accidents out of his grasp, destroys the whole substance, and while he violently twists the heavenly phenomena to his incongruous ideas, overturns the whole of nature, not paying attention to what the real thing is , which he debates, but what he wants it to be according to his own imagination. Which might have been refuted in this place, but since they had done it elsewhere, it seemed to be our only duty to show in this place, that this magnetic device, by no means exists

to be sterile; and this not so much to be proved by reason as by experience itself. Kepler, therefore, thinks that the Sun is a great magnet, or that it is a magnetic body revolved above its own center by a diurnal motion, which by virtue, or by some kind of diffusion, consequently attracts all the happy Spheres of the Planets by virtue of the power emanating from the solar source, like the swiftest vortex, or by attracting the sling of a stone. And by repelling, let him hold back, and by holding back, lead him round; and the order of the Magnetic bodies is as follows: The center of the universe is occupied by the Sun, which is surrounded by as many concentric circles, then follows the earth with the Moon at its foot. This is followed by Spheres &4 & B, closing at last the immovable column of support. And Kepler thinks that this whole host of the Planets is surrounded by the attractive power of the Sun, for thus fol. 173. He philosophizes about the motions of the star Mars: "For it can be seen that the divine body hides in the body of the Sun, and can be compared to our soul, from which flows that species that surrounds the planet, as from the soul of one who throws pebbles, the species of movement adheres to the pebbles, by which those are advanced, even when, who he was shot, he withdrew his hand from them. Indeed, who will give us an Oedipus in this darkness of words, who will explain the strange things to us? For what does it mean that I should make it divine and compare it to our soul? does he want to be a part of his mind this stone, or a great solar magnet, by which he snatches the other planets so attracted to him? I seem to have touched the matter with the needle, although it fluctuates about this in the various tides of thought. well you speak soberly, for if you do this, I hope it will happen

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