The third edition, of 1592, contains an Addition, by the son, of twenty pages. He there speaks of having found, apparently among his father's papers, "A description or modile of the world and situation of Spheres Coelestiall and elementare according to the doctrine of Ptolemie, whereunto all universities (led thereunto chiefly by the authoritie of Aristotle) do consent." He adds: "But in this our age, one rare witte (seeing the continuall errors that from time to time more and more continually have been discovered, besides the infinite absurdities in their Theoricks, which they have been forced to admit that would not confesse any Mobilitie in the ball of the Earth) hath by long studye, paynfull practise, and rare invention, delivered a new Theorick or Model of the world, shewing that the Earth resteth not in the Center of the whole world or globe of elements, which encircled and enclosed in the Moone's orbe, and together with the whole globe of mortalitye is carried yearely round about the Sunne, which like a king in the middest of all, raygneth and giveth lawes of motion to all the rest, sphærically dispersing his glorious beames of light through all this sacred cœlestiall Temple. And the Earth itselfe to be one of the Planets, having his peculiar and strange courses, turning every 24 hours rounde upon his owne centre, whereby the Sunne and great globe of fixed Starres seem to sway about and turne, albeit indeed they remaine fixed-So many ways is the sense of mortal man abused."

This Addition is headed:

66

"A Perfit Description of the Coelestiall Orbes, according to the most ancient doctrine of the Pythagoreans: lately revived by Copernicus, and by Geometrical Demonstrations approved." Mr. De Morgan, not having seen this edition, and knowing the title-page only as far as the word "ythagoreans," says "their astrological doctrines we presume, not thei. reputed Copernican ones." But it now appears that in this, as in other cases, the authority of the Pythagoreans was claimed for the Copernican system. Antony a Wood quotes the latter part of the title thus: "Cui subnectitur orbium Copernicarum accurata descriptio;" which is inaccurate. Weidler, still more inaccurately, cites it, "Cui subnectitur operum Copernici accurata descriptio." Lalande goes still further, attempting, it would seem, to recover the English title-page from the Latin: we find in the Bibl. Astron. the following: "1592. . Leonard Digges, Accurate Description of the Copernican System to the Astronomical perpetual Prognostication." Thomas Digges appears, by others also of his writings, to have been

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a clear and decided Copernican. In his "Alæ sive Scale Mathematicæ," 1573, he bestows high praise upon Copernicus and upon his system and appears to have been a believer in the real motion of the Earth, and not merely an admirer of the system of Copernicus as an explanatory hypothesis.

Giordano Bruno.

THE Complete title of the work referred to is:

"Jordani Bruni Nolani De Monade Numero et Figura liber consequens Quinque De Minimo Magno et Mensura, item De Innumerabilibus, Immenso et Infigurabili; seu De Universo et Mundis libro octo. (Francofurti, 1591.)"

That the Reader may judge of the value of Bruno's speculations, I give the following quotations:

Lib. iv. c. 11 (Index). "Tellurem totam habitabilem esse intus et extra, et innumerabilia animantium complecti tum nobis sensibilium tum occultorum genera."

C. 13. "Ut Mundorum Synodi in Universo et particulares Mundi in Synodis ordinentur," &c.

He says (Lib. v. c. 1, p. 461): "Besides the stars and the great worlds there are smaller living creatures carried through the ethereal space, in the form of a small sphere which has the aspect of a bright fire, and is by the vulgar regarded as a fiery beam. They are below the clouds, and I saw one which seemed to touch the roofs of the houses. Now this sphere, or beam as they call it, was really a living creature (animal), which I once saw moving in a straight path, and grazing as it were the roofs of the city of Nola, as if it were going to impinge on Mount Cicada; which however it went over."

There are two recent editions of the works of Giordano Bruno; by Adolf Wagner, Leipsick, 1830, in two volumes; and by Gfrörer, Berlin, 1833. Of the latter I do not know that more than one volume (vol. ii.) has appeared.

Did Francis Bacon reject the Copernican System?

MR. DE MORGAN has very properly remarked (Comp. B. A. 1855, p. 11) that the notice of the heliocentric question in the Novum Organon must be considered one of the most important passages in his works upon this point, as being probably the latest written and best

matured. It occurs in Lib. ii. Aphorism xxxvi., in which he is speaking of Prerogative Instances, of which he gives twenty-seven species. In the passage now referred to, he is speaking of a kind of Prerogative Instances, better known to ordinary readers than most of the kinds by name, the Instantia Crucis: though probably the metaphor from which this name is derived is commonly wrongly apprehended. Bacon's meaning is Guide-Post Instances: and the Crux which he alludes to is not a Cross, but a Guide-Post at Cross-roads. And among the cases to which such Instances may be applied, he mentions the diurnal motion of the heavens from east to west, and the special motion of the particular heavenly bodies from west to east. And he suggests what he conceives may be an Instantia Crucis in each case. If, he says, we find any motion from east to west in the bodies which surround the earth, slow in the ocean, quicker in the air, quicker still in comets, gradually quicker in planets according to their greater distance from the earth; then we may suppose that there is a cosmical diurnal motion, and the motion of the earth must be denied.

With regard to the special motions of the heavenly bodies, he first remarks that each body not coming quite so far westwards as before, after one revolution of the heavens, and going to the north or the south, does not imply any special motion; since it may be accounted for by a modification of the diurnal motion in each, which produces a defect of the return, and a spiral path; and he says that if we look at the matter as common people and disregard the devices of astronomers, the motion is really so to the senses; and that he has made an imitation of it by means of wires. The instantia crucis which he here suggests is, to see if we can find in any credible history an account of any comet which did not share in the diurnal revolution of the skies.

On his assertion that the motion of each separate planet is, to sense, a spiral, we may remark that it is certainly true; but that the business of science, here, as elsewhere, consists in resolving the complex phenomenon into simple phenomena; the complex spiral motion into simple circular motions.

With regard to the diurnal motion of the earth, it would seem as if Bacon himself had a leaning to believe it when he wrote this passage; for neither is he himself, nor are any of the Anticopernicans, accus

2 Et certissimum est si paulisper pro plebeiis nos geramus (missis astronomorum et scholæ commentis, quibus illud in more est, ut sensui in multis immerito vim faciant et obscuriora malint) talem esse motum istum ad sensum qualem diximus.

tomed to assert that the immensely rapid motion of the sphere of the Fixed Stars graduates by a slower and slower motion of Planets, Comets, Air, and Ocean, into the immobility of the Earth. So that the conditions are not satisfied on which he hypothetically says, "tum abnegandus est motus terræ."

With regard to the proper motions of the planets, this passage seems to me to confirm what I have already said of him; that he does not appear to have seen the full value and meaning of what had been done, up to his time, in Formal Astronomy.

We may however fully agree with Mr. De Morgan; that the whole of what he has said on this subject, when put together, does not justify Hume's assertion that he rejected the Copernican system “with the most positive disdain."

Mr. De Morgan, in order to balance the Copernican argument derived from the immense velocity of the stars in their diurnal velocity on the other supposition, has reminded us that those who reject this great velocity as improbable, accept without scruple the greater velocity of light. It is curious that Bacon also has made this comparison, though using it for a different purpose; namely, to show that the transmission of the visual impression may be instantaneous. In Aphorism xlvi. of Book ii. of the Novum Organon he is speaking of what he calls Instantiæ curriculi, or Instantiæ ad aquam, which we may call Instances by the clock: and he says that the great velocity of the diurnal sphere makes the marvellous velocity of the rays of light more credible.

"Immensa illa velocitas in ipso corpore, quæ cernitur in motu diurno (quæ etiam viros graves ita obstupefecit ut mallent credere motum terra), facit motum illum ejaculationis ab ipsis [stellis] (licet celeritate ut diximus admirabilem) magis credibilem." This passage shows an inclination towards the opinion of the earth's being at rest, but not a very strong conviction.

Kepler persecuted.

WE have seen (p. 280) that Kepler writes to Galileo in 1597-" Be trustful and go forwards. If Italy is not a convenient place for the publication of your views, and if you are likely to meet with any obstacles, perhaps Germany will grant us the necessary liberty." Kepler however had soon afterwards occasion to learn that in Germany also, the cultivators of science were exposed to persecution. It is true that

in his case the persecution went mainly on the broad ground of his being a Protestant, and extended to great numbers of persons at that time. The circumstances of this and other portions of Kepler's life have been brought to light only recently through an examination of public documents in the Archives of Würtemberg and unpublished letters of Kepler. (Johann Keppler's Leben und Wirken, nach neuerlich aufgefundenen Manuscripten bearbeitet von J. L. C. Freiherrn v. Breitschwart, K. Würtemberg. Staats-Rath. Stuttgart, 1831.)

Schiller, in his History of the Thirty Years' War, says that when Ferdinand of Austria succeeded to the Archduchy of Stiria, and found a great number of Protestants among his subjects, he suppressed their public worship without cruelty and almost without noise. But it appears now that the Protestants were treated with great severity. Kepler held a professorship in Stiria, and had married, in 1597, Barbara Müller, who had landed property in that province. On the 11th of June, 1598, he writes to his friend Mæstlin that the arrival of the Prince out of Italy is looked forwards to with terror. In December he writes that the Protestants had irritated the Catholics by attacks from the pulpit and by caricatures; that hereupon the Prince, at the prayer of the Estates, had declared the Letter of License granted by his father to be forfeited, and had ordered all the Evangelical Teachers to leave the country on pain of death. They went to the frontiers of Hungary and Croatia; but after a month, Kepler was allowed to return, on condition of keeping quiet. His discoveries appear to have operated in his favor. But the next year he found his situation in Stiria intolerable, and longed to return to his native country of Würtemberg, and to find some position there. This he did not obtain. He wrote a circular letter to his Brother Protestants, to give them consolation and courage; and this was held to be a violation of the conditions on which his residence was tolerated. Fortunately, at this time he was invited to join Tycho Brahe, who had also been driven from his native country, and was living at Prague. The two astronomers worked together under the patronage of the Emperor Rudolph II.; and when Tycho died in 1601, Kepler became the Imperial Mathematicus.

We are not to imagine that even among Protestants, astronomical notions were out of the sphere of religious considerations. When Kepler was established in Stiria, his first official business was the calculation of the Calendar for the Evangelical Community. They protested against the new Calendar, as manifestly calculated for the furtherance of an impious papistry: and, say they, "We hold the Pope for a hor