The Sleepwalkers (93 page)

It
was
this
almost
hypnotic
submission
to
authority
which
became
Copernicus'
undoing,
both
as
a
man
and
a
scientist.
As
Kepler
was
to
remark
later
on,
"
Copernicus
tried
to
interpret
Ptolemy
rather
than
nature".
His
absolute
reliance
not
only
on
the
physical
dogmata,
but
on
the
astronomic
observations
of
the
ancients
was
the
main
reason
for
the
errors
and
absurdities
of
the
Copernican
system.
When
the
Nuremberg
mathematician
Johannes
Werner
published
a
treatise
"On
the
Motion
of
the
Eighth
Sphere"
,
in
which
he
permitted
himself
to
question
the
reliability
of
certain
observations
by
Ptolemy
and
Timocharis,
Copernicus
attacked
him
with
venom:

"...
It
is
fitting
for
us,"
he
wrote,
"to
follow
the
methods
of
the
ancients
strictly
and
to
hold
fast
to
their
observations
which
have
been
handed
down
to
us
like
a
Testament.
And
to
him
who
thinks
that
they
are
not
to
be
entirely
trusted
in
this
respect,
the
gates
of
our
Science
are
certainly
closed.
He
will
lie
before
that
gate
and
spin
the
dreams
of
the
deranged
about
the
motion
of
the
eighth
sphere;
and
he
will
get
what
he
deserved
for
believing
that
he
can
lend
support
to
his
own
hallucinations
by
slandering
the
ancients."
¹⁸

This
was
not
the
outburst
of
a
youthful
fanatic
–
Copernicus
wrote
this
in
1524,
when
he
was
past
fifty.
Departing
from
his
habitual
caution
and
restraint,
the
unexpected
vehemence
of
language
stems
from
a
desperate
need
to
cling
to
his
faith
in
the
ancients
which
was
already
shaken.
Ten
years
later
he
was
to
confide
to
Rheticus
that
the
ancients
had
cheated
him,
that
"they
had
not
shown
disinterestedness,
but
had
arranged
many
observations
to
fit
their
personal
theories
about
the
movements
of
the
planets."
¹⁹

Apart
from
the
twenty-seven
observations
of
his
own,
the
entire
Copernican
system
was
based
on
the
observational
data
of
Ptolemy,
Hipparchus
and
other
Greek
and
Arab
astronomers,
whose
statements
he
had
uncritically
accepted
as
Gospel
truth,
never
pausing
to
consider
the
possibility
of
errors
committed
by
careless
scribes
and
translators
in
those
notoriously
corrupt
texts,
nor
of
mistakes
and
the
doctoring
of
figures
by
the
ancient
observers
themselves.
When,
at
last,
he
realized
the
unreliability
of
the
data
on
which
he
had
built,
he
must
have
felt
that
the
bottom
had
fallen
out
of
his
system.
But
by
then
it
was
too
late
to
do
anything
about
it.
²⁰
Apart
from
his
fear
of
ridicule,
it
must
have
been
this
realization
of
its
basic
unsoundness
which
made
him
so
reluctant
to
publish
the
book.
He
did
believe
that
the
earth
really
moved.
But
he
could
no
longer
believe
that
either
the
earth,
or
the
other
planets,
really
moved
in
the
manner,
and
along
the
orbits,
which
his
book
assigned
to
them.

The
tragedy
of
blind
faith
in
ancient
authority,
which
makes
Copernicus
such
a
pathetic
figure,
is
illustrated
by
a
curious
example.
The
point
is
highly
technical,
and
I
must
simplify
it.
Trusting
a
handful
of
very
precarious
data
on
alleged
observations
by
Hipparchus,
Menelaus,
Ptolemy
and
Al
Battani,
dispersed
over
two
thousand
years,
Copernicus
was
led
to
believe
in
a
phenomenon
that
does
not
exist
–
a
periodic
change
in
the
rate
of
the
wobble
of
the
earth's
axis.
²¹
In
reality
the
wobble
goes
on
at
the
same,
steady
rate;
the
figures
of
the
ancients
were
simply
wrong.
As
a
result,
Copernicus
felt
obliged
to
construct
an
incredibly
laborious
theory,
which
attributed
two
independent
oscillatory
motions
to
the
earth's
axis.
But
oscillations
along
a
straight
line
are
"violent"
motions
forbidden
by
Aristotelian
physics;
hence
Copernicus
devotes
a
whole
chapter
²²
to
show
how
this
motion
in
a
straight
line
can
be
produced
by
a
combination
of
two
'natural",
that
is
circular,
motions.
The
result
of
this
phantom-chase
was
that
he
had
to
ascribe
four
more
circular
motions
to
the
earth,
in
addition
to
the
already
existing
five.