1883. Prowe's Life of Copernicus. 329
prerogatives of the halcyon. He was well aware that from Wittenberg violent opposition to the reception of the Copernican theory might be expected; and Wittenberg was then to Germany what Rome was to the world. Its decisions carried not only moral weight, but very serious practical issues. He sought to anticipate and disarm them by a virtual fraud.
It would be unfair to assume that personal motives alone suggested to Osiander the expedient of the 'præfatiuncula ; ' he was also without doubt sincerely desirous to conciliate favour for the system of which he had undertaken to act as sponsor, and to secure for it a quiet, if a furtive, entrance into the temple of received knowledge. But its author had expressly declined to avail himself of subterfuge or disguise. He had endeavoured, to the best of his power, to trace the plan of the Divine Artificer of the world; and he rejected, as ineffably unworthy of so lofty an aim, the proposal that he should set a lie in the front of a work destined to promulgate a sublime truth. When, however, he lay in the long trance of helplessness through which he passed to death, his best known wishes were set aside. Osiander used his opportunity. He wrote an anonymous preface stating that the theories set forth in the pages which followed were simple hypotheses, framed for the purpose of facilitating calculation, but standing, as regarded intrinsic truth or even probability, precisely on a level with the homocentrics of Eudoxus and the epicycles of Ptolemy. Let no one, he added, look for certainty in the speculations of astronomers, or mistake for fact what professes itself to be pure fiction. Inscrutable to human reason the movements of the heavenly bodies are, and, unless by the succour of Divine revelation, must ever remain.[1]
The unexpected appearance of this notable addition to his work excited equal anger and amazement amongst those to whom the memory of Copernicus was dear and his fame precious. No words were too strong to express the indignation of the Bishop of Culm at the breach of trust. He did not scruple to denounce it to Rheticus as an impiety and a crime. He even hoped for the ejection of the intruded admonition, and advised an application for that purpose to the
- ↑ Beckmann argues with some plausibility ('Zur Gesch.' &c. pp. 258, 353) that the Congregation of the Index would never have passed the famous decree of March 5, 1616, but for the discredit thrown on the Copernican system by Osiander's remarks ; and it is at least certain that the book was ordered to be corrected into conformity with the preface under the belief that both were by the same author.
