Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564

Sacrobosco. `063739 On October 16, 1541, Melanchthon wrote to a

friend: "Some think it a distinguished achievement to construct such a

crazy thing as that Prussian astronomer who moves the earth and

fixes the sun. Verily, wise rulers should tame the unrestraint of

men's minds." `063740

In the summer of 1540 Rheticus went back to Frauenburg, and stayed

till September 1541. Repeatedly he begged his master to give his own

text to the world. When two prominent clergymen joined in the

appeal, Copernicus, perhaps feeling that he had now one foot safely in

the grave, yielded. He made some final additions to the manuscript,

and allowed Rheticus to send it to a printer in Nuremberg, who assumed

all financial costs and risks (1542). As Rheticus had now left

Wittenberg to teach in Leipzig, he delegated to his friend Andreas

Osiander, a Lutheran minister at Nuremberg, the task of seeing the

book through the press.

Osiander had already written to Copernicus (October 20, 1541)

suggesting that the new view should be presented as an hypothesis

rather than as proved truth, and in a letter of the same day to

Rheticus he had pointed out that by this procedure "the

Aristotelians and the theologians will easily let themselves be

appeased." `063741 Copernicus himself had repeatedly termed his

theories hypotheses, not only in the Commentariolus but in his major

text; `063742 at the same time his Dedication claimed that he had

supported his views with "the most transparent proofs." We do not know

how he answered Osiander. In any case Osiander, without appending

his own name, prefaced the book as follows:

-

To the reader, concerning the hypotheses of this work.

Many scientists, in view of the already widespread reputation of

these new hypotheses, will doubtless be greatly shocked by the

theories of this book.... However... the master's... hypotheses are

not necessarily true; they need not even be probable. It is completely

sufficient if they lead to a computation that is in accordance with

the astronomical observations.... The astronomer will most readily

follow those hypotheses which are most easily understood. The

philosopher will perhaps demand greater probability; but neither of

the two will be able to discover anything certain... unless it has

been made known to him by divine revelations. Therefore let us grant

that the following new hypotheses take their place beside the old ones

which are not any more probable. Moreover, these are really

admirable and easy to grasp, and in addition we shall find here a

great treasure of the most learned observations. For the rest let no

one expect certainty from astronomy as regards hypotheses. It cannot

give this certainty. He who takes everything that is worked out for

other purposes, as truth, would leave this science probably more

ignorant than when he came to it.... `063743

-

This preface has often been condemned as an insolent

interpolation. `063744 Copernicus may have resented it, for the old

man, having lived with his theory for thirty years, had come to feel

it as part of his life and blood, and as a description of the actual

facts of the universe. But Osiander's preface was judicious and

just; it reduced the natural resistance of many minds to a

disturbing and revolutionary idea, and it is still a good reminder

that our descriptions of the universe are the fallible

pronouncements of drops of water about the sea, and are likely to be

rejected or corrected in their turn.

The book appeared at last, in the spring of 1543, with the title,

Nicolai Copernici revolutionum liber primus ( First Book of

Revolutions ); later the book came to be known as De revolutionibus

orbium coelestium ( On the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs ). One

of the first copies reached Copernicus May 24, 1543. He was on his

deathbed. He read the title page, smiled, and in the same hour died.

The Dedication to Pope Paul III was itself an effort to disarm

resistance to a theory which, as Copernicus well knew, flagrantly

contradicted the letter of Scripture. He began with pious

assurances: "I still believe that we must avoid theories altogether

foreign to orthodoxy." He had long hesitated to publish, wondering

"were it not better to follow the example of the Pythagoreans... who

were accustomed to transmit the secrets of philosophy not in writing

but orally, and only to their relatives and friends." But learned

churchmen- Nicholas Schonberg, Cardinal of Capua, and Tiedeman

Giese, Bishop of Kulm- had urgently recommended that he should publish

his findings. (Copernicus felt it wise not to mention the Lutheran

Rheticus.) He acknowledged his debt to Greek astronomers, but, by a

slip of the pen, he omitted Aristarchus. He believed that

astronomers were in need of a better theory than the Ptolemaic, for

they now found many difficulties in the geocentric view, and were

unable to calculate accurately, on that basis, the length of the year.

And he appealed to the Pope, as a man "eminent... in the love of all

learning, and even of mathematics," to protect him against the

"bites of slanderers" who, without adequate mathematical knowledge,

would "assume the right to pass judgment on these things," or would

"attack this theory of mine because of some passage of

Scripture...." `063745

The exposition begins with postulates: first, that the universe is

spherical; second, that the earth is spherical- for matter, left to

itself, gravitates toward a center, and therefore arranges itself into

a spherical form; and third, that the motions of the celestial

bodies are uniform circular motions, or are composed of such

motions- for the circle is the "most perfect form," and "the intellect

shrinks with horror" from the supposition that the celestial motions

are not uniform. (Reason in thought would be impossible unless there

were reason in the behavior of the objects of thought.)

Copernicus notes the relativity of motion: "All change in position

which is seen is due to motion either of the observer or of the

thing looked at, or to changes in the position of both, provided

that these are different. For when things are moved equally relatively

to the same things, no motion is perceived as between the object

seen and the observer." `063746 So the apparent daily rotation of

the planets about the earth could be explained as due to a daily

rotation of the earth on its axis; and the apparent annual movement of

the sun around the earth can be explained by supposing the earth to

move annually around the sun.

Copernicus anticipates objections. Ptolemy had argued that the

clouds and surface objects of a rotating earth would fly off and be

left behind. Copernicus answers that this objection would hold still

more against the revolution of the major planets around the earth,

since their great distances would imply vast orbits and extreme

speeds. Ptolemy had further held that an object propelled directly

upward from a rotating earth would not fall back to its point of

origin. Copernicus replies that such objects, like the clouds, are

"parts of the earth," and are carried along with it. And to the

objection that the annual revolution of the earth around the sun

should manifest itself in a movement of the "fixed" stars (stars

beyond our planetary system) as observed at opposite ends of the

earth's orbit, Copernicus answers that there is such a movement, but

the great distance of the stars ("firmament") makes it imperceptible

to us. (A moderate degree of such movement is now observable.)

He sums up his system in a compact paragraph:

-

First and above all lies the sphere of the fixed stars, containing

itself and all things, for that very reason immovable.... Of the

moving bodies [planets] first comes Saturn, who completes his

circuit in thirty years. After him Jupiter, moving in a twelve-year

revolution. Then Mars, who revolves biennially. Fourth in order, an

annual cycle takes place, in which... is contained the earth, with the

lunar orbit as an epicycle. In the fifth place Venus is carried

round in nine months. Then Mercury holds the sixth place,

circulating in the space of eighty days. In the middle of all dwells

the sun.... Not ineptly some call it the lamp of the universe,

others its mind, and others again its ruler... rightly, inasmuch as

the sun, sitting on a royal throne, governs the circumambient family

of the stars.... We find, therefore, under this orderly arrangement, a

wonderful symmetry in the universe, and a definite relation of harmony

in the motion and magnitude of the orbs, of a kind it is not

possible to obtain in any other way. *06071 `063747

-

Generally an advance in human theory carries with it many remnants

of the theory displaced. Copernicus based his conceptions on

observations handed down by Ptolemy, and he retained much of the

Ptolemaic celestial machinery of spheres, epicycles, and eccentrics;

the rejection of these would wait for Kepler. Most eccentric of all

was Copernicus's calculation that the sun was not quite at the

center of the earth's orbit. The center of the universe, he

reckoned, would be "three sun-diameters away from the sun"; and the

centers of the planetary orbits were likewise outside the sun, and not

at all identical. Copernicus transferred from the earth to the sun two

ideas now rejected: that the sun is the approximate center of the

universe, and that it is at rest. He thought of the earth as having

not only an axial rotation and an orbital revolution, but a third

motion, which he supposed necessary to explain the inclination of

the earth's axis and the precession of the equinoxes.

Consequently we must not smile in hindsight at those who took so

long to adopt the Copernican system. They were required not only to

set the earth turning and hurtling in space at an alarming speed,

contrary to the direct evidence of the senses, but to accept a

mathematical maze only slightly less bewildering than Ptolemy's. Not

until Kepler, Galileo, and Newton should work out the mechanism of the

new theory to greater simplicity and accuracy would it appear

clearly superior to the old; and even then we should have to say of

the sun what Galileo may have said of the earth- eppur si muove.

Meanwhile Tycho Brahe rejected the heliocentric hypothesis on the

ground that Copernicus had not convincingly answered Ptolemy's

objections. More surprising than such a rejection is the relative

celerity with which the new system was accepted by astronomers like

Rheticus, Osiander, John Field, Thomas Digges, and Erasmus Reinhold-

whose "Prutenic Tables" (1551) of celestial motions was in large

part based on Copernicus. The Catholic Church raised no objection to

the new theory so long as it represented itself as an hypothesis;

but the Inquisition struck back mercilessly when Giordano Bruno

assumed the hypothesis to be a certainty, and made explicit its

consequences for religion. In 1616 the Congregation of the Index

forbade the reading of De Revolutionibus "until corrected"; in

1620 it allowed Catholics to read editions from which nine sentences

had been removed that represented the theory to be a fact. The book

disappeared from the revised Index of 1758, but the prohibition was

not explicitly rescinded till 1828.

The geocentric theory had fitted reasonably well a theology which

supposed that all things had been created for the use of man. But

now men felt tossed about on a minor planet whose history was

reduced to a "mere local item in the news of the universe." `063748

What could "heaven" mean when "up" and "down" had lost all sense, when

each would become the other in half a day? "No attack on

Christianity," wrote Jerome Wolf to Tycho Brahe in 1575, "is more

dangerous than the infinite size and depth of the heavens"- though

Copernicus had not taught the infinity of the universe. When men

stopped to ponder the implications of the new system they must have

wondered at the assumption that the Creator of this immense and

orderly cosmos had sent His Son to die on this middling planet. All

the lovely poetry of Christianity seemed to "go up in smoke" (as

Goethe was to put it) at the touch of the Polish clergyman. The

heliocentric astronomy compelled men to reconceive God in less

provincial, less anthropomorphic terms; it gave theology the strongest

challenge in the history of religion. Hence the Copernican

revolution was far profounder than the Reformation; it made the

differences between Catholic and Protestant dogmas seem trivial; it

pointed beyond the Reformation to the Enlightenment, from Erasmus

and Luther to Voltaire, and even beyond Voltaire to the pessimistic

agnosticism of a nineteenth century that would add the Darwinian to

the Copernican catastrophe. There was but one protection against

such men, and that was that only a small minority in any generation

would recognize the implications of their thought. The sun will "rise"

and "set" when Copernicus has been forgotten.

In 1581 Bishop Kromer raised a monument to Copernicus against the

inner wall of Frauenburg Cathedral, next to the canon's grave. In 1746

the monument was removed to make place for a statue of Bishop Szembek.

Who was he? Who knows?

III. MAGELLAN AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE EARTH

-

The exploration of the earth progressed more rapidly than the

charting of the skies, and with almost as disturbing influences on

religion and philosophy. Geology advanced least, for the Biblical

theory of creation was put beyond question by belief in its divine

authorship. "If a wrong opinion should obtain regarding the creation

as described in Genesis," said the Italian-English reformer, Peter

Martyr Vermigli, "all the promises of Christ fall into nothing, and

all the life of our religion would be lost." `063749 Aside from

Leonardo's scattered suggestions, the most significant work in geology

in the first half of the sixteenth century was done by Georg Agricola.

Note this passage from De ortu et causis subterraneorum (Basel,

1546) on the origin of mountains:

-

Hills and mountains are produced by two forces, one of which is

the power of water, the other the strength of the wind; we must add

the fire in the interior of the earth.... For the torrents first of

all wash out the soft earth, next carry away the harder earth, and

then roll down the rocks, and thus in a few years they excavate the

plains or slopes.... By such excavation to a great depth through

many ages there arises an immense eminence.... Streams... and rivers

effect the same result by their rushing and washing; for this reason

they are frequently seen flowing either between very high mountains,

which they have created, or close by the shore which borders

them.... The wind produces hills and mountains in two ways:

either... it violently moves and agitates the sand, or also when,

after having been driven into the hidden recesses of the earth... it

struggles to burst out. `063750

-

Agricola's De natura fossilium (1546) was the first systematic

treatise on mineralogy; his De re metallica included the first

systematic stratigraphy, and gave, as we have seen, the first

explanation of ore deposits.

Ethnography produced two major works: the Cosmographia universalis

(1544) of Sebastian Munster, and the Descriptio Africae (1550) of

"Leo Africanus." Al-Hasan ibn-Muhammad al-Wazzan was a Moor from

Granada; he traveled through Africa, and south to the Sudan, with

the avidity of Ibn-Batuta; he was captured by Christian pirates and

sent to Rome as a present to Leo X, who, impressed by his scholarly

attainments, freed and pensioned him. He responded by accepting

Christianity and Leo's name. During the next thirty years he

composed his book, first in Arabic, then in Italian. Before it came

from the press he returned to Tunis; and there he died in 1552,

apparently in the faith of his fathers. `063751

It was an exciting age for geography. Reports poured in from

missionaries, conquistadores, navigators, travelers, adding

immensely to Europe's knowledge of the globe. The Spanish who in

this period conquered Mexico, California, Central America, and Peru

were first of all adventurers, tired of poverty and routine at home,

and facing with pleasure the perils of distant and alien lands. Amid

the hardships of their reckless enterprise they forgot civilized

restraints, frankly adopted the morality of superior guns, and

accomplished an act of continental robbery, treachery, and murder

forgivable only because here and there- if an interested party may

judge- the ultimate result was a gain for civilization. Yet there is

little doubt that the conquered were at the time more civilized than

their actual conquerors. Think of the Mayan culture found in Yucatan

by Hernandez de Cordova (1517), and the Aztec Empire of the Montezumas

conquered by Hernando Cortes (1521), and the socialistic

civilization of the Incas destroyed in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of

Peru (1526-32). We cannot know into what forms, noble or ignoble,

these civilizations would have developed had they possessed the

weapons to defend themselves.

The geographical revelation proceeded. Sebastian Cabot, under a

Spanish flag, explored Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. De Soto

crossed Florida and the Gulf States into Oklahoma. Pedro de Alvarado

discovered the empire of Texas, and Francisco de Coronado moved

through Arizona and Oklahoma to Kansas. The mines of Potosi in Bolivia

began to send their silver to Spain (1545). Year by year the map of

the New World was charted in gold, silver, and blood. The English

and French lagged behind in the great raid, because those parts of

North America which the Spanish and Portuguese left to them were

poor in precious metals, and forbidding in forests. John Rut sailed

along the coast of Newfoundland and Maine. Giovanni da Verrazano was

sent by Francis I to find a northwest passage to Asia; he landed on

North Carolina, entered New York harbor (which remembers him with a

statue at the Battery), and rounded Cape Cod to Maine. Jacques

Cartier, under the flag of France, sailed up the St. Lawrence to

Montreal, and established a French claim to Canada.

The most impressive adventure in this second generation of

transoceanic exploration was the circling of the globe. Fernao de

Magalhaes was a Portuguese who shared actively in many Portuguese

voyages and forays, but, falling into disfavor with his government, he

passed into the service of Spain. In 1518 he persuaded Charles I (V)

to finance an expedition that would seek a southwest passage to

Asia. The young King was not yet rich, and the five ships allotted

to Magellan were so weatherbeaten that one captain pronounced them

unseaworthy. The largest was of 120 tons burden, the smallest, of

seventy-five. Experienced sailors were loath to enlist; the crews

had to be made up in large part of water-front riffraff. On

September 20, 1519, the fleet sailed out of the Guadalquivir at San

Lucar. It had the advantage of sailing from summer in the North

Atlantic into summer in the South Atlantic; but in March 1520,

winter came, and the vessels were anchored while the crews spent

five weary months in Patagonia. The giant natives, averaging over

six feet in height, gave the comparatively short Spaniards a

condescending friendliness; nevertheless the hardships were so endless

that three of the five crews mutinied, and Magellan had to wage war

against his own men to compel their continuance in the enterprise. One

ship stole away and returned to Spain; another was shattered on a

reef. In August 1520, the voyage was resumed, and every bay was

eagerly looked into as possibly the mouth of a transcontinental

waterway. Or November 28 the search succeeded; the reduced fleet

entered the Straits that bear Magellan's name. Thirty-eight days

were spent in the 320-mile passage from sea to sea.

Then began a dreary crossing of the seemingly endless Pacific. In

ninety-eight days only two small islands were seen. Provisions ran

dangerously low, and scurvy plagued the crews. On March 6, 1521,

they touched at Guam, but the natives were so hostile that Magellan

sailed on. On April 6 they reached the Philippines; on the seventh

they landed on the island of Cebu. There Magellan, to assure supplies,

agreed to support the local ruler against neighboring enemies. He took

part in an expedition against the island of Mactan, and was killed

in battle there on April 27, 1521. He did not circumnavigate the

globe, but he was the first to realize Columbus' dream of reaching

Asia by sailing west. `063752

The crews were now so reduced by death that they could man only

two ships. One of these turned back across the Pacific, probably

seeking American gold. Only the Victoria remained. Juan Sebastian

del Cano took command, and guided the little vessel, of eighty-five

tons burden, through the Spice Islands, across the Indian Ocean,

around the Cape of Good Hope, and up the west coast of Africa.

Hungry for supplies, the crew anchored the ship off one of the Cape

Verde Islands, but they were attacked by the Portuguese, and half of

them were jailed. The remaining twenty-two managed to get away; and on

September 8, 1522, the Victoria sailed up to Seville, with only

eighteen men (the rest were Malays) of the 280 who had set out from

Spain almost three years before. The ship's log recorded the date as

September 7; Cardinal Gasparo Contarini explained the discrepancy as

due to the westward direction of the voyage. The enterprise was one of

the bravest in history, and one of the most fruitful for geography.

It remained for the geographers to catch up with the explorers.

Giambattista Ramusio, the Italian Hakluyt, made the task easier by

collecting, through thirty years, the accounts brought home by

voyagers and other travelers; he translated and edited them, and

they were published in three volumes (1550-59), thirteen years after

his death. The progress made by the geographers in a decade becomes

visible in comparing the 1520 globe preserved in the Germanisches

National Museum at Nuremberg- which shows the West Indies but no

American continent, and skips over a narrow ocean to Asia- with the

three maps drawn up (1527-29) by Diogo Ribeiro, which show the

coasts of Europe, Africa, and southern Asia with great accuracy, the

east coast of the Americas from Newfoundland to the Straits of

Magellan, and the west coast from Peru to Mexico. Probably copied from

Ribeiro is the beautiful "Ramusio Map" (Venice, 1534) of the

Americas in the New York Public Library. In the same alma mater is

an early and faulty map by Gerhadus Mercator (1538), in which North

and South America were first so named. ("Mercator's Projection"

belongs to 1569.) Peter Apian (1524) furthered the science by

attempting to reduce geographical distances to precise measurements.

The effects of these explorations were felt in every phase of

European life. The voyages of 1420-1560 nearly quadrupled the known

surface of the globe. New fauna and flora, gems and minerals, foods

and drugs, enlarged the botany, zoology, geology, menu, and

pharmacopoeia of Europe. People wondered how representatives of all

the new species had found room in Noah's ark. Literature was

transformed: the old tales of chivalry gave way to stories of travel

or adventure in distant lands; the search for gold replaced the

quest of the Holy Grail in unconscious symbolism of the modern mood.

The greatest commercial revolution in history (before the maturing

Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564

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