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CHAPTER VII.

 

KEPLER.

 

"His celebrated laws were the outcome of a lifetime of speculation, for the most part vain and groundless. . . . But Kepler's name was destined to be immortal, on account of the patience with which he submitted his hypotheses to comparison with observation, the candour with which he acknowledged failure after failure, and the perseverance and ingenuity with which he renewed his attack upon the riddles of nature."

Jevons.

135. John Kepler, or Keppler,^[1] was born in 1571, seven years after Galilei, at Weil in Würtemberg; his parents were in reduced circumstances, though his father had some claims to noble descent. Though Weil itself was predominantly Roman Catholic, the Keplers were Protestants, a fact which frequently stood in Kepler's way at various stages of his career. But the father could have been by no means zealous in his faith, for he enlisted in the army of the notorious Duke of Alva when it was engaged in trying to suppress the revolt of the Netherlands against Spanish persecution.

John Kepler's childhood was marked by more than the usual number of illnesses, and his bodily weaknesses, combined with a promise of great intellectual ability, seemed to point to the Church as a suitable career for him. After attending various elementary schools with great irregularity —due partly to ill-health, partly to the requirements of

1. The astronomer appears to have used both spellings of his name almost indifferently. For example, the title-page of his most important book, the Commentaries on the Motions of Mars (§ 141), has the form Kepler, while the dedication of the same book is signed Keppler.

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