Nicolaus Copernicus/Leopold Friedrich Prowe

“ From Gassendi's biography was formed the mental image of Copernicus which has, during the last two centuries, occupied a more or less prominent place in every cultured mind. We have all in some dim fashion, pictured to ourselves a dark-browed ecclesiastic watching, amid the wintry mists of the Baltic, for glimpses of the wandering luminaries whose movements he had, in the course of long vigils, reduced to a marvellous and novel harmony ; thinking thoughts that were not those of other men ”

“ A powerful tendency of our time impels us to demand this species of intercourse with the past. We can no longer accept ideal presentments of historical personages. We want to see them in the working clothes of everyday life, or, better still, in the dressing-gown and slippers of familiar privacy, rather than in the stately robes in which early biographers thought it only decent to array their heroes for introduction to a respected and respectful posterity. Moreover, as regards Copernicus, this critical and realistic 'movement' has been aided by another and an equally energetic sentiment. ”

“ Since Nicholas Copernicus drew his last breath at Frauenburg, 340 years have gone by, not innocuously or in vain. Indeed, it seems as if an evil fate had from the first pursued the most authentic records of the life of that great man. The biographical narrative of his pupil Rheticus, written under his own eyes, and therefore absolutely trustworthy, perished, it might be said, at the birth ; one man alone is known to have read it, and his high estimate of its value serves but to quicken our regret at its disappearance. ”

“ Then, as now, on the great Sarmatian plain stretching down to the Baltic, a Slav and a German power stood confronting each other. The kingdom of Poland and the Teutonic Order were, it is true, but puny representatives of the two great Northern empires of modern times ; but Europe still bears profound traces of their compacts and conflicts, their short friendship and long enmity, of the jostlings and swayings of the rival populations subject to them. Into this seething cauldron of incipient nationalities the lot of Copernicus was cast. ”

“ In reliance, accordingly, upon German promises of support, successive Grand Masters persistently refused the stipulated oath of fealty to Poland, and nothing less was dreamed of than the recovery of the province alienated by the disastrous Treaty of Thorn. A sullen and lowering peace was meantime a visible prelude to war, of which the first and surest victim must be the defenceless territory of Ermland.
Under these circumstances the bishop leaned upon Poland for protection against the still formidable power on the east. But by so doing he bitterly offended his neighbours on the west. ”

“ Shortly after the death of his uncle, Copernicus resumed his place in the Chapter of Frauenburg. But here a fresh sorrow awaited him. His brother Andrew's early career had, as we have already in part seen, run strictly parallel with his own. They had been together at Cracow, at Bologna, at Rome ; they had obtained admittance to the same religious corporation, and together closed their years of study and travel. But, not long after their return from Italy, Andrew showed the first symptoms of a disease terribly familiar in medieval times, though in our part of the world now happily unknown. ”

“ Distrust and estrangement made themselves felt ; the past easy life was gone for ever ; and the long-relaxed bonds of discipline were not drawn tighter without causing some uneasy rubs in the process. Even the Chapter had its black sheep, and with this black sheep — one Alexander Scultetus — Copernicus was accused of undue intimacy. To the delicately conveyed remonstrances of Bishop Dantiscus on the subject he however submitted, though not, it would seem, without reluctance; and Scultetus eventually succeeded in clearing himself at Rome from the charges brought against him at Frauenburg. ”

“ This result has been achieved by the labours of many men extending over many decades. The field of enquiry was almost coextensive with Europe. The libraries and archives of Italy, Bohemia, Sweden, Prussia, and Poland, have all been examined, and have all yielded something to the search. Slowly and painfully, as the fruit of these toilsome enquiries, the true life of Copernicus has, at least partially, emerged from the shadow of four centuries. The simplicity of tradition is replaced by the complexity of actual existence. ”

“ And he cherished with unshaken confidence the belief that the pattern of creation which seemed good to him had also, in the beginning, seemed good to the Creator. His scheme might, then, be accurately described as a remodelling of the received astronomy on the basis of symmetry and simplicity.
It is extremely difficult for us, in our superabundant wealth of conviction, to realise the paucity of cogent evidence as to the truth of the heliocentric system at the disposal of Copernicus. ”

“ Nothing quickens industry like a quarrel. No trouble, it is well known, can be too great if only an advantage can thereby be gained over an adversary. The ardour of enquiry was accordingly redoubled. Associations were set on foot, distant explorations were conducted, dusty archives ransacked, crabbed manuscripts deciphered, in part, no doubt, out of a natural and noble enthusiasm for a great name, but also in considerable measure for the sake of gratifying a childish national vanity. The purer zeal which tempered party spirit in some was, we readily admit, uncontaminated by it in others. ”

“ Copernicus entered the University of Bologna, as a student of canon law, at the opening of the winter term of 1496-7. The occurrence of his name in the annals of the 'Natio Germanorum' [11] must be regarded as a strong point in favour of the upholders of his Teutonic origin. Indeed, taken in connexion with his unquestioned use of German as his mother-tongue, it might — at least by impartial outsiders possessing intelligence of the ordinary blunt, though serviceable type — be fairly held to terminate the controversy. This, however, seems beyond hope. Controversies rarely die save of inanition. ”

“ Inscrutable to human reason the movements of the heavenly bodies are, and, unless by the succour of Divine revelation, must ever remain. [35]
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. ”

“ A fresh source of scientific sympathy was, however, opened late and unexpectedly to the great astronomer. In the early summer of 1539, a traveller rode up to the gate of the cathedral-close, and asked to see Canon Nicholas Copernicus. He was unknown, and (so far as can be ascertained) without recommendation of any sort; moreover, he came from Wittenberg, the metropolis of heresy ; he followed the spiritual guidance of Luther, and was deeply indebted to the temporal patronage of Melanchthon. ”

“ From its vicinity to the captured town, where a large body of Teutonic troops were maintained, Frauenburg was regarded as a highly unsafe residence, and most of the canons sought a refuge in Dantzic, Elbing, or Allenstein. Copernicus nevertheless refused to quit his tower and terrace, but calmly continued his planetary observations in the midst of disquietudes of the most urgent kind. Danger, indeed, at one moment had almost yielded its place to disaster. ”

“ Indeed, the organisation of Ermland reminds us of nothing so much as of certain Chinese toys, which exhibit a seemingly endless succession of delicately wrought spheres, each contained within the other, and each perfect in itself. Out of the original territory of the Order a third had been carved to form the endowment of the bishop; out of the territory of the bishop a third was again carved to form the endowment of the Chapter. Moreover, to each canon was assigned an allodium, or manor, within the bounds of which, as well as in his household, he exercised jurisdiction, both criminal and civil ”

“ The backward loopings of the paths pursued by them in the heavens were then at once seen to have no substantial existence — to be, in fact, mere perspective effects of the combination of their real movements with the no less real movement of the earth. And the circumstance that the so-called ' stations and retrogradations ' of all the planets could be abolished, as it were, at one stroke, by simply making the point from which they were viewed revolve in their midst in a period of one year, was in itself a powerful argument in favour of that assumption. ”

“ A great religious revolution had in the meantime passed over Germany. From the Alps to the Baltic, the doctrines of Luther had been received either with open acclamation, with tacit approval, or with mild dissent. Those who remained true to the old teachings clung to the hope that by charity and patience they might still win back the wanderers, and maintain the unity of the Church. Amongst these was Copernicus. ”

“ Such demonstrations, we may be sure, added to the difficulties of those friends of Copernicus who sought to impress upon him the duty of unreserved publication. The meet earnest and persistent among them was Bishop Gysius ; but it was not until his arguments were reinforced by the eager protests of Rheticus that Copernicus, worn out by their united importunities, at length consented to place the manuscript, upon the fate of which depended the whole future of astronomy, in the hands and at the absolute disposal of the Bishop of Culm. ”

“ Space may be its scene, but cannot be its subject. But the 'celestial sphere' signifies nothing more than the depths of space surrounding us on every side. Its movement is then only apparent — an optical transference of the real movement of the earth. [36]
The reasons alleged by him in favour of the earth's revolution round the sun were of a more special and technical character. They rested mainly on the simplification which the adoption of such an hypothesis introduced into the complicated theories of the several planets. ”

“ Some, who could have spoken much that we would now very gladly hear, kept silence; others, in their eagerness to promote an already wide-spread and ever-growing reputation, served as the unconscious agents of a devastation especially malignant because deliberately selective. ”

“ The earlier canons against the practice of the healing art by ecclesiastics had, before then, fallen obsolete, or rather they had gradually become restricted to the surgical branch of the profession. The service of the altar, even the dignity of the episcopate, was no longer held incompatible with the skilled treatment of disease ; but no sacred office was permitted to be exercised by those whose hearts (it was supposed) were hardened by the familiar use of the knife and the cautery. Copernicus, however, although the holder of two benefices, [16] never became a priest ”

“ The province of ' Prussia ' thus energetically won for the Gospel was not less energetically secured for civilisation. German immigrants thronged in, towns and villages were founded, and German burgher-life took root in the soil. Nobles who had come to aid in a sacred warfare remained to build castles and cultivate estates. Agriculture was promoted with a persistent zeal which still excites astonishment and admiration. ”

“ The question as to whether Copernicus was a German or a Pole is still far from being decided; it may be doubted whether it is capable of decision. The truth is, that argument on the subject is idle, because turning on the meaning of a word incapable of exact definition. In the eyes of the law, a man's nationality depends, at least primâ facie, on the place of his birth ”

“ The revolution, however, brought no mitigation of economic difficulties. The currency question came up for discussion year after year ; at one Diet after another the unanswerable arguments of Copernicus were reiterated; resolutions were passed, edicts were issued, of which the attempted enforcement added to the confusion. The last glimpse we catch of the matter is in 1530, when the Frauenburg astronomer still occupies the foreground, though having left far behind his last hope of bringing it to a successful issue. ”

“ They had invoked the aid of a strong power ; they refused to pay the price which that power was certain, sooner or later, to exact. The articles of incorporation had been loosely drawn ; they were naturally interpreted in widely different senses by the two contracting parties. The Prussians clung passionately to the separate privileges secured by them ; the Poles insisted on the reality of the covenanted union. And on their side were time, force, and the natural assimilative power of a victorious nationality. ”