THE COSMOGRAPHIC MYSTERY.

Turning toward the development of that work, in the following October, within the dedication of the annual prognostic As a district mathematician in Graz, Kepler was required to write an annual "prognosticum" or calendar featuring astrological and weather predictions. which I was required to write by virtue of my office, I promised the publication of this little book. I did this to signify publicly how heavy a burden this necessity of making conjectures was to me, a lover of philosophy. Setting out from there to Wittenberg amidst my domestic affairs, I held nothing as more important than the publication of this booklet. To me, a mere youth with no public reputation for learning, and with printers fearing for their own losses, this caused a great deal of trouble; furthermore, there were those who, moved by the absurdity of the Copernican doctrine At this time, the sun-centered model of Nicolaus Copernicus was still widely considered "absurd" and physically impossible by many scholars., sought to block my efforts. And so, having written that dedication on the Ides of May at Stuttgart, I returned to Styria two years later, leaving the care of the publication, which I had almost despaired of, to my teacher Maestlin. He, indeed, left nothing undone to adorn, commend, and circulate the little work among men—which he had first looked upon with great congratulation. By his wisdom and industry, he ensured that the booklet was finally published at the end of the year 1596 and was inserted into the Frankfurt catalog for the following Spring Fair in 1597; though by a harsh fate for my name, for instead of Kepler, they printed it as Kepleus. At that very time, while the Hungarian war was raging against the Turks, arduous deliberations were being held regarding the transfer of the border provinces to the heir Ferdinand, since the years of his hereditary guardianship had expired.

Since, therefore, a certain occurrence—and a quite beautiful one at that—connected the beginnings of these speculations with the start of Ferdinand's government, who could forbid me from following through by commemorating the remaining successes? From this, a faith full of the best hope may be strengthened: that it was not blind chance, but a most clear-sighted and vigilant spirit original: genium that joined this feeble vine, creeping upon the ground, to those sublime elms Kepler uses a classical metaphor of a vine supported by a sturdy tree to describe his relationship with his royal and scholarly patrons..

For it happened in that same year of 1597 that Tycho Brahe—a man born of an illustrious Danish lineage, most celebrated for his undertaken plans for restoring Astronomy, and most fortunate as long as he lived—that he, I say, having left his Danish homeland, was traveling into Germany with all his astronomical apparatus. Since this man's projects had long been known to me through the reports and lectures of Maestlin, and since I had made mention of him everywhere in the booklet itself as a "Supreme Artist," it seemed beautiful and just to me that as soon as I knew my booklet was listed in the Frankfurt Catalog, I should consult Tycho (as the vanguard original: antefignanum among other Professors of Mathematics) on the subject of the book. I believed this matter to be of the greatest importance, both by my own judgment and that of Maestlin. And while others responded promptly—Galileo from Padua, Ursus from Prague, Limnaeus from Jena—my letter was delivered to Tycho much later because he had changed his address in the meantime. This delayed for an entire year the pleasure that was to follow from the response of such a great man. At last, I drank it in abundantly and joined it to the public joy then holding Styria for the start of the government of Ferdinand, that most flourishing Prince. Even so, the great solar eclipse in the twelfth part of Pisces (the place which culminates for Ferdinand), and much more the intemperance of certain men, had already in my judgment displayed signs of the hardships that followed shortly after through those provinces.

The argument of Brahe's letter was this: that I should set aside speculations descending a priori a priori: reasoning from theoretical principles or causes rather than from observation and instead turn my mind to considering the observations he was offering at the same time. He suggested that, having made that the first step, I might only then ascend to the causes, and devise something of that sort within his own Hypothesis rather than the Copernican one, which he considered truer. Finally, he invited me to come to him, since he had already crossed the sea. When I did not respond immediately, Brahe wrote several letters to me with the same argument over the following year, which were delivered to me one after another, each with its own delay. Meanwhile, since our assembly in Graz had been scattered and I was well-positioned to use the salary I was receiving from the Provincial Nobles without work, I finally took the advice to visit Tycho Brahe, who had invited me so often. He had come to Wittenberg in 1598 on his way to the Emperor; having stayed there for some time, he moved to Bohemia in the following year, 1599. The royal castle of Benátky, five miles from Prague, was granted to him as a residence, while the Emperor Rudolph was staying in Pilsen due to the plague raging in Prague. All this was told to me by Friedrich Hofmann, a Styrian Baron and Aulic Councilor to Emperor Rudolph, who had then come from Prague; he urged me to undertake the journey, offering me a place in his company. Thus it happened that I came to Brahe at the beginning of the year 1600, just as Archduke Ferdinand was celebrating his marriage in Graz to his Bavarian cousin. Shortly after I had begun to grasp Brahe's labors and had in turn shown experiments of my own talent, I struck an agreement for staying with him—which the Styrian Nobles ratified—and after a conversation of several months, I returned to Graz. Having received a few letters from Brahe shortly after (in which he encouraged me when I was wavering in my purpose due to arising difficulties, adding a mention of what he had already discussed with the Emperor about summoning me), I finally moved my family to Prague in the month of October. I did not enjoy my surviving Master for longer than one year; after his death, I was substituted by Emperor Rudolph as the director of the Work of the Tables Referring to the Rudolphine Tables, the massive star catalog and planetary table project based on Tycho's data., which Brahe wished to be named after Rudolph. In completing this, I have toiled for these twenty years. Thus, all my life, my studies, and my works...

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