OF JOHANNES KEPLER

The reason for all my studies arose from this one little book. And why should I not boast magnificently of myself, when I recall to memory that, having already demonstrated the motions of all the planets, I finally applied my mind to finishing the web begun in this little book—namely, the Harmonic work—in that very year when Archduke Ferdinand was accepted as King of Bohemia; and that in the following year, 1618, the year Ferdinand received the Crown of the Kingdom of Hungary, I completed the fifth book of the Harmonics; and finally, in the year 1619, when the highest Imperial dignity came to Ferdinand, I published my Harmonics in the same place and month of his coronation. May God grant that, once the dissonances of civil strife are extinguished throughout this Monarch’s entire empire and in Upper Austria, my current home, the sweetest Harmony of peace—which consists in the equity of governments and the readiness of obedience—may be restored from this very time, in which I publish anew this first little book of mine, corrected with notes and completed. For thus it may happen that, once the scars over the devastation of the provinces have healed and the waters of the horrendous flood have dried, and the leaves have returned to the reflowering horn of plenty, the funds destined for me by Emperor Rudolph (which were hindered by the turbulence of previous times) may finally be poured out for publishing the work of the Astronomical Tables original: "tabularum Astronomicarum"; these are the famous Rudolphine Tables, the most accurate star catalog and planetary data of the era..

(2) [Before two thousand years ago.] Because the doctrine of the five geometric figures distributed among the worldly bodies is traced back to Pythagoras, from whom Plato borrowed this philosophy. See Harmonics Book I, pages 3 and 4; also Book II, pages 58 and 59. For the same five figures were proposed both to them and to me, and the world was the same for them as for me, but the parts of the world were not the same on both sides, if you look only at the literal text; nor was the method of application the same.

(3) [Something different from man.] Forgive the novice author, reader, for an expression that is less than perfect. Philosophy indeed recognizes the body as being in some way "something different from the man," because the body is subject to continuous change, while the man is always the same. But philosophy maintains that the Soul original: "Animum" is that by which a man is a man; thus, the soul is not something different from the man. Yet the conclusion remains the same: that the soul also has its own food, separate from the food of the body, and its own separate delights.

(4) [But it would have in this world.] I had not yet read Seneca, who adorned almost the same sentiment with the blossoms of Roman eloquence thus:

The world is a tiny thing, unless the whole world finds within it that which it seeks.

(5) [There will exist again some Charles.] I certainly had not thought then that I would be called to the court of Emperor Rudolph. For I discovered in this Monarch truly another Charles Kepler likely refers to Emperor Charles V, who was famously interested in the sciences and clockwork before his abdication.—not indeed in his abdication, but certainly in his distaste for the most unjust actions occurring at home and abroad, the withdrawal of his mind from them, and his blessed exercise of recreation (as far as natural contemplations go). Thus it would have been fairer for his subjects to be angry at their own persistence in trouble-making rather than at their King’s distaste for it.

(6) [Copernican-Pythagorean.] I alluded to the sphere of the Planetary System, constructed from planetary Orbs and the five regular Pythagorean bodies, distinguished from the others by their own colors: the orbs blue, but the rims in which the planets were signified to run, white. All were transparent, so that the Sun could be seen hanging in the center. The orb of Saturn was represented by six circles, which, by their mutual intersection, marked the place of the corner of a Cube in threes. Two stood above the center of the cubic plane. The outermost of Jupiter’s orbs was represented by three circles, the innermost by six. The outermost of Mars again by six; but the innermost, no less than both of the Earth’s, and the outermost of Venus, were each sketched with ten circles, of which five met twelve times, three met twenty times, and two met thirty times Kepler is describing a complex physical model of the nested Platonic solids. The "circles" or rings represent the vertices and edges of the polyhedra: the cube, tetrahedron, etc.. The innermost orb of Venus was equal to the outermost of Jupiter; the orb of Mercurcy was equal to the innermost of Jupiter. It was a not-unpleasant spectacle, the rudimentary form of which—though not entirely genuine—can be seen in the following copperplate figure.

(7) [Accustom yourselves among the promoters of Astronomy.] My exhortation found its place, to my no small benefit; a reminder I offer to the honor of the Nobles by the law of gratitude. The Illustrious Lord Captain immediately gave from his own means; the others, as they were in the position of the body of the Provincial Estates, having waited for their assembly in the year 1600, obtained for me—though I was then absent in Bohemia—a magnificent grant, even though the treasury was exhausted by continuous border wars. Thus the Founder of the Heavens provided for me, the herald of His works, at that time with travel funds for moving my family into Bohemia.