If,
therefore, we liken Darwin to Copernicus, and Owen to Tycho, we may
liken the biologists of the present day to Kepler, who interpreted
the results of accurate observation upon sound theoretical
principles.
In reading the works of Kepler in the light of our modern knowledge
we are often struck by the extent to which his perception of the
sublimest truths in nature was associated with the most extravagant
errors and absurdities. But, of course, it must be remembered that
he wrote in an age in which even the rudiments of science, as we now
understand it, were almost entirely unknown.
It may well be doubted whether any joy experienced by mortals is more
genuine than that which rewards the successful searcher after natural
truths. Every science-worker, be his efforts ever so humble, will be
able to sympathise with the enthusiastic delight of Kepler when at
last, after years of toil, the glorious light broke forth, and that
which he considered to be the greatest of his astonishing laws first
dawned upon him. Kepler rightly judged that the number of days which
a planet required to perform its voyage round the sun must be
connected in some manner with the distance from the planet to the
sun; that is to say, with the radius of the planet's orbit, inasmuch
as we may for our present object regard the planet's orbit as
circular.
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