A Lutheran Astrologer. Johannes Kepler

A Lutheran Astrologer.
" Johannes Kepler

J. V. FIELD
Communicated by C.TRuESDELL
Contents
1. K e p l e r ' s A s t r o l o g y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A s t r o l o g y in the Mysterium Cosmograpkieum (1596) . . . . . . . .
De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus (1602) . . . . . . . . . .
A d K e p l e r u m p a r a l i p o m e n a : the Z o d i a c a n d its p a r t s . . . . . . .
O b s e r v a t i o n a l astrology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Astrological aspects a n d musical c o n s o n a n c e s . . . . . . . . . .
Harmoniees Mundi B o o k IV (1619) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The " L u t h e r a n " astrologer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The decline o f astrology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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2. T r a n s l a t i o n o f De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus . . . . . . . . . . .

T r a n s l a t o r ' s preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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On giving Astrology sounder foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

D e d i c a t o r y letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Theses I - I V
V-XIV
XV-XVIII
XIX-XXXIV
XXXV-XXXVIII
XXXIX-XLIV
XLV-LI
LI1-LXII
LXIII, LXIV
LXV, LXVI
LXVII
LXVIII-LXXIII
LXXIV, LXV
Conclusion . .
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Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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[Introduction] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[The Sun]
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[The M o o n ]
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[Planets] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Aspects] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[The soul o f the Earth] . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Cycles in the disposition o f the Earth] . . . . . .
[Meteorological predictions for 1602] . . . . . . .
[Eclipses] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[The harvest] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[Diseases]
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[Political predictions]
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[Nativities] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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J. V. FIELD
1. Kepler's Astrology
Introduction
Historians tend to class astrology: as one of the occult sciences, though the
exact meaning of 'occult' is not usually defined. Thus astrology finds a place in
THOMAS'S Religion and the Decline of Magic (THOMAS 1971) and SHUMAKER'S
The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance (S~UMAKER1972). Yet the kind of astrology
that KEPLERpracticed had little in common with magic and witchcraft. One might
perhaps call it 'high' astrology, in recognition of its being concerned with large
scale matters (such as the weather), and by way of distinguishing it from the
'low' astrology of soothsaying, the recovery of stolen goods, etc. which is discussed
by TIJOMAS(1971). This distinction is not a sharp one, and it partly cuts across
the different division which KEPLERand his contemporaries made between natural
astrology (a part of sublunary physics, since it was concerned with the effects
of the planets and stars on terrestrial bodies, e.g. forming minerals in the Earth)
and judicial astrology (which was concerned with such things as choosing an
auspicious day to sign a treaty, or break one). Astrology, as taught in the quadrivium, was part of a complete philosophical system of the world, and it is to this
'high' tradition that KEPLER'S astrology belongs. 'Low' astrology seems rather
to be part of folklore, affected by the belief systems of the more learned but not
part of the mainstream of intellectual developments.
Throughout his life, KEPLERwas employed as a mathematicus, and as such
his duties always included the practice of astrology. In Graz they specifically
included the production of annual calendars, but KEPLER continued to write
calendars even after he left Graz. (The second part of the present paper consists
of a translation of the only one that was written in Latin and thus addressed to
the learned.) Moreover, it is well known that KEPLER'StWO most famous patrons,
the Emperor RUDOLFI][ (b. 1552, reigned 1576-1612) and the hardly less colourful Count WALLENSTEIN(1583-1634) were both passionately interested in astrology.
KEPLER'S own interest in astrology is apparent in his first published work,
the Mysterium Cosmographicum (Tiibingen, 1596), where the observational verifications of the proposed cosmological archetype include its ability to account
for accepted astrological phenomena such as the individual characters of the
planets. In fact, it seems to have been the shortcomings of the polyhedral archetype described in the Mysterium Cosmographicum in explaining astrological and
musical phenomena that first caused KEPLERtO modify his theory. His correspondence shows that this modification was well advanced by 1599, when he certainly still hoped that TYCHO'S observations would eventually provide better
confirmation of the astronomical part of the theory.
The ideas KEPLER puts forward in his correspondence in 1599 are closely
similar to those printed many years later in Harmonices Mundi Libri V (Linz,
1619), though in this later work the musical part of the archetype was also to be
extended to astronomy. The increased importance given to music and the inclusion of astrological aspects as 'harmonies' shows the influence of PTOLEMY'S
A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler
191
Harmonica ~, in which musical consonances were used to explain astrological

aspects, the consonances themselves being explained numerologically. In KEPLER'S
work, all the explanations are geometrical2 but it is clear that the work is seen
as a development of that of PTOLEMY,for whom KEPLER seems to have had an
immense respect. Astrology was thus always an integral part of KEPLER'Scosmos.
Astrology in the Mysterium Cosrnographicum (1596)

In the Mysterium Cosmographicum KEPLERpresents and defends the cosmological theory that the structure of the Copernican planetary system is determined by the properties of the five convex regular polyhedra described in EUCLID'S
Elements. For our present purposes, the famous plate which illustrates Chapter II
of the work provides an adequate outline of the relevant parts of the theory (see
Figure 1): the existence of exactly five regular solids (proved in Elements Book
XIII) establishes that there are exactly six planets, and the ratio between the radii
of the circumsphere and insphere of each regular solid serves to determine the
spacing between one pair of adjacent planetary orbs.
Having first described the Copernican planetary system and then sketched
out his theory, KEPLERgives a series of justifications for the precise nature of the
theory, for example, explaining the ordering of the solids between the spheres
and the appropriateness of each particular solid to the planets whose orbs it
separates. The style of these justifications is very close to that of PLATO'S distribution of the polyhedra among the elements in Timaeus. As KE~LERstates at the
beginning of these mathematical justifications, their purpose is to remove the
objection that there might be any arbitrary element in his theory 3. It was, after all,
for its inclusion of arbitrary elements that KE~LER had criticised the Ptolemaic
description of the planetary system in the first chapter of his work*.
The mathematical arguments occupy Chapters III to VIII of the Mysterium
Cosmographicum. They are followed by chapters on astrology and numerology
which constitute observational tests of KEPLER'Stheory. For example, in Chapter X
he takes it as well established that certain numbers are of cosmological significance
and shows how they may be seen as characteristic of the Platonic solids- arising,
for example, as the number of sides or faces or angles of the bodies. The three
chapters of astrological interest are Chapter IX, which concerns the astrological
characters of the planets, Chapter XI, which deals with the origin of the Zodiac,
and Chapter XII, which treats of astrological aspects and musical consonances.
In fact, on closer inspection, Chapter XI turns out merely to deal with the
position and width of the band of the Zodiac and to have no specifically astrological content. The twelve-fold division of the Zodiac is dealt with briefly at the
beginning of Chapter XII, and the treatment again has no specifically astrological
content.
1 See KLEIN1971 for KEPLER'Sconcern with obtaining a copy of this work.
2 See FIELD,in press, 1982.
a Mysterium Cosmographicum, Chapter III, KGW 1, p. 29.
4 Mysterium Cosmographicum, Chapter I, pp. 15-17, KGW 1, pp. 18-19.
192
J.V. FIRED
Fig. 1. Planetary orbs and regular polyhedra, from KEPLER,Mysterium Cosmographicum

(Ttibingen, 1596). Photograph courtesy of the Science Museum, London.
In accounting for the 'observed' astrological character of each planet, in

Chapter I X of the Mysterium Cosmographicum, K~VLER associates each planet
with the polyhedron which determines the spacing between the sphere of the planet
concerned and the sphere of the planet which lies next to it in the direction towards the Earth. This leads to the correspondences
Saturn
Jupiter
Mars
Venus
Mercury
cube
tetrahedron
dodecahedron
icosahedron
octahedron.
193
KEPLER merely states that his procedure seems very reasonable, without presenting
any arguments. Since astrology is concerned with the effects of other planets upon
the Earth, even KEPLER'S astrological theories were always to some extent geoc e n t r i c - as here in the way the planets are related to the Earth.
Having set up these correspondences, KEPLER now uses the mathematical
properties e f the polyhedra, described in the earlier chapters, to explain the
astrological characters of the planets. For example, the fact that the solids corresponding to Jupiter, Venus and Mercury all have the same face, the triangle,
is the cause of their friendship for one another s ; and the fact that the square, which
is characteristic of Saturn, being the face of the cube, is also to be found inside
the octahedron, the body associated with Mercury, "makes peace between their
habits"6; and Saturn's solitariness and love of solitude is ascribed to the fact
that its angle is the right angle, not admitting of variation, the only angle of its
class (whereas Jupiter, by contrast, has chosen one from the large class of acute
angles) 7. The chapter consists almost entirely of very brief assertions like these.
Since the astrological natures of the planets are for the most part rather less
ponderable than the physical properties of the elements, often being expressed
in terms of human character traits and human relations, KEPLER'S mathematical
explanations do not on the whole seem as appropriate to his subject as TIMAEUS'
explanations did to the distribution of the polyhedral shapes among the elements.
The style of argument is, however, identical in the two cases, and it should be
noted that, like TIMAEUS' mathematical forms, KEPLER'S polyhedra, though
shown in his diagrams as lying between the orbs of the planets, have no actual
existence in the physical world.
KEPLER'S use of the polyhedral archetype to account for astrological aspects,
in Chapter XII of the Mysterium Cosmographicum, is a somewhat involved affair.
It starts by describing the ratios of lengths of vibrating strings which will give
combinations of notes that are pleasing to the human ear, that is, musical consonances. Particular consonant ratios are then associated with the individual regular
solids. KEPLER'S description of his scheme starts, disarmingly, with the admission
that "because we do not know the causes of this relationship it is difficult to
associate particular harmonic ratios with particular solids ''s. Most of the reasons
KEPLER gives in justifying these associations appeal to the divisions set up in a
circle by the inscription within it of a polygon connected with the regular solid in
question. As KEPLER points out, the musical divisions of a string, are like the divisions of the circle of the Zodiac by planets that are at aspect to one another 9.
He has thus established a rather confused series of relations between polyhedra,
aspects and some, but not quite all, of the musical ratios. There follows a certain
amount of speculation as to why there should be consonances with no corresponding aspect. No general theory is developed, but KEPLER does attempt to distinguish the types of mathematical cause that may be expected to give rise to con5
6
7
8
9
KGW
KGW
KGW
KGW
KGW
1,
1,
1,
1,
1,
p. 35,
p. 35,
p. 35,
p. 41,
p. 41,
1.22.
1.28.
11.37-41.
1.12 et seqq.
1.22 et seqq.
194
J.V. FIELD
sonances and aspects. Thus, even before he had read PTOLEMY'SHarmonica (this
chapter ends with the regret that the work is not yet p r i n t e d - w h i c h was not in
fact true~), KEPLER was already dissatisfied with PTOLEMY'S simple equation of
consonances with aspects, shown here in the diagram supplied by GOGAVAfor his
Latin translation of the work (see Figure 2).
Fig. 2. Musical consonances and astrological aspects, from PTOLEMYHarmonica, trans.

GOGAVA, Venice, 1562. Photograph courtesy of the British Library Board.
The Mysterium Cosmographicum went into a second edition in 1621, and for
this second edition KEPLEr, decided that rather than revising the work chapter
by chapter he would reprint the text of the first edition, merely adding notes. The
result is that the second edition of the Mysterium Cosmographicum is about half
as long again as the first. Some of the notes give detailed explanations of KEI'LER'S
changes of mind, a few pick up howlers ("behold a manifest hallucination; eight
is not a factor of sixty"l~), but the great majority merely refer the reader to the
other works in which KEt'LER has treated the matter in hand in a manner he now
regards as more correct. The tone of such notes is rather that of pleasure in his
later success than one of explanation or apology for his earlier failures. There is
no apparent inclination to take an indulgent attitude towards his early work.
Indeed one would hardly expect such indulgence on the part of a man who had
ao KEPLER'S information appears to have been drawn from CARDANO De rerum
varietate (Basel, 1557); see AITON & DUNCAN 1981. The editio princeps of PTOLEMY'S
Harmonica was in ANtoNio GOGAVA'SLatin translation, published in Venice in 1562.
1~ Note on Chapter X, KGW 8, p. 60, 1.32.
195
proved capable of writing off hard-won results with the ruthlessness shown in the
Astronomia Nova.
KEPLER wrote 39 notes on the account of musical consonances and astrological
aspects in Chapter XII of the Mysterium Cosmographicum, and the total length
of the notes is rather greater than that of the original chapter. This is hardly
surprising, since, as we shall see below, the material of this chapter had furnished
him with the basis for the cosmological theory described in Harmonices Mundi
Libri V (Linz, 1619).
By contrast, the explanation of the characters of the planets by reference to
the corresponding regular polyhedra, in Chapter IX of the Mysteriurn Cosmographicum, is only lightly annotated in the second edition. There is a general note,
saying that this chapter should not be taken as part of the main work but as an
astrological digression, but KEPLER nevertheless invites the reader to compare
his reasons with those given by PTOLEMYin the Tetrabiblos and the Harmonica 12.
The remaining two notes are both short and deal with points of only minor
importance as far as the main subject of the chapter is concerned. It would therefore seem that although KEPLER had modified many of his astrological ideas
since writing the Mysterium Cosrnographicum he still believed, in 1621, that it
was reasonable to explain the 'observed' powers of the planets in terms of the
mathematical entities invoked to explain the spacing of their orbits. As far as I
can discover, however, there is no mention of this idea in Harmonices Mundi
Libri V, in which astrology is discussed almost entirely in terms of the power of
aspects (see below).
De F u n d a m e n t i s Astrologiae Certioribus (1602)

KEPLER'S dissatisfaction with the astrological part of his polyhedral archetype
presumably accounts for its omission from De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus, an astrological treatise and calendar written in the final months of 1601.
The work does however contain a brief mention of a connection between astrological aspects and musical consonances (in Theses XXVI and XXXVII), with
the promise that this will be discussed more fully in a future "book on Harmonics,,~ 3.
De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus was written after the death of TYCHO
BRAHE (24 October 1601). KEPLER'S desire to obtain the now vacant post of Imperial Mathematician no doubt contributed to his decision to write the work
at this particular time. One can, nonetheless, trace other, older and more intellectually respectable, origins for the work.
The duties of KEPLER'S post as District Mathematician at Graz had included
the writing of annual calendars, containing astronomical information and astrological predictions of the weather, the harvest, political events, and so on. KEPLER
had accordingly written such calendars for the years 1598 and 1599. However,
12 KGW 8, p. 59.
13 This book was eventually published as Harmoniees Mundi Libri V (Linz, 1619);
see below.
196
J.V. FIELD
his opinions about the extent to which an astrologer could legitimately make
predictions about these traditional subjects were not conventional. Indeed, he
regarded much of the usual content of such calendars as mere superstition.
We know this because he chose to say so in the dedicatory letters which preface
the calendars. Each of these letters takes up about a third of the booklet in which
it appears. 14
When the calendar for 1598 was published, MAESTLIN seems to have criticised
KEPLER'S harshness (his letter is lost); KEPLER protested that he did not reject
astrology as a whole but wanted to reform it15; to which MAESTLIN replied that
he had not supposed KEPLER rejected astrology as a whole, but had only meant
to suggest that the discussion of such basic matters was not appropriate in a
calendar and should be reserved for the learned 16. This advice did not apparently
deter KEPLER from writing his calendar for 1599 in the same style as that for 1598.
It may, however, have played a part in persuading him to write De Fundamentis
Astrologiae Certioribus.
This work, being written in Latin, and thus addressed to the learned, may
legitimately be the subject of straightforward comparison with KEPLER'S other
Latin works, addressed to a similar readership. Moreover, it was not written as
part of a c o n t r o v e r s y - a s was the later Tertius Interveniens (Frankfurt, 1610, in
German) - a n d it is concerned not with refuting the opinions of others but with
presenting and justifying the author's own opinions. In this also it resembles most
of KEPLER'S other learned works.
De Fundarnentis Astrologiae Certioribus contains no defence of the basic principle of astrology: that celestial bodies affect the Earth. It might seem that Copernicanism made this principle less plausible, since it made the Earth a planet and
thus suggested that the other five planets were Earthlike. Possibly KEPLER felt
free to ignore this problem, secure in the knowledge that most of his readers would
not be Copernicans. Indeed, De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus is notable
among KEPLER'S works for the absence of pro-Copernican arguments as well as for
an apparent acceptance of some kind of Aristotelian distinction between celestial
and terrestrial bodies iv.
The treatise is dedicated to PETP, VoK RO~MBERK (1539--1611), a cultured
patron of many learned men, including TYCHO BRAHE. The dedicatory letter, like
those of the calendars for 1598 and 1599, is highly critical of the credulity of the
unlearned is. The criticisms are repeated, though in a lighter tone, in the introductory sections of the work itself (Theses I to IV), after which KEPLER turns at
once to the S u n - universally acknowledged as the most powerful source of influence.
Its influence is described as being exercised through the heat the Sun transmits
14 These calendars are reprinted in KOF I.
15 KEPLER to MAESTLIN,15 March 1598, letter 89, 1.142 et seqq, KGW 13, p. 183.
16 MAESTLINto KEPLER, 2 May 1598, letter 97, 11.47-61, KGW 13, p. 210.
17 See Thesis XXV and note 29 in Part 2 below, but note that KEPLER gives an a
priori reason for there being six planets, in Thesis XXIV.
is This letter is omitted in MEYWALD'S translation (KEPLERtrans. MEYWALD1949.2),
which also softens or misconstrues KEPLER'S occasional condemnations of traditional
astrological dogma and practice in the main body of the work.
197
to the air surrounding the Earth (Theses V to XIV). KEPLER next turns to the
influence of the Moon, which, he asserts, experience shows to be exerted upon
humours: they swell as the Moon waxes and shrink as it wanes (Thesis XV).
Since this force varies with the face of the Moon (Thesis XVI) it seems that it is
associated with the light of the M o o n (as the force of the Sun was associated with
sunlight), though KEPLER does not state this explicitly.
The nature of their light is also the means of distinguishing the individual
characters of the planets (Thesis XIX et seqq) and thus the nature of their 'forces'.
KEPLER'S discussion of the possible natures that may be ascribed to the planets is
explicitly based upon ARISTOTLE'Sdiscussion of pairs of opposite qualities in the
Metaphysics, and KEPLER points out in detail the modifications he has made in
adapting ARISTOTLE'S account to his own purposes. The possible combinations
of qualities allow KEPLER to assign a number to the planets in somewhat the same
way as the various natural motions allowed ARISTOTLE to assign a number to
the elements in his Physics (Thesis XXIV). KEPLER is not, however, disposed
to regard this combinatorial archetype as necessarily fundamental, and adds that
"other causes may have been involved as well".
Since the individual planets show individual characters, KEPLER believes they
must also differ from one another physically, and he proceeds to attempt to deduce
the physical differences from the accepted astrological characters (Theses XXV
to XXX). This involves a discussion of the reflectivity of surfaces of different colours, in which KEPLERmakes use of a sketchy theory of the rainbow which appears
to be derived from that given by ARISXOTLEin the Meteorologica (Thesis XXVII;
see notes on this passage in Part 2 below). The discussion of the reflected light is
balanced by a discussion of the intrinsic light of each planet, in which KEPLER
apologises for "arguing from bodies we may handle to celestial bodies", adding
that this seems to be the only way he can proceed if he is to give any account at
all of the differences between planets (Thesis XXX).
After his discussion of these material effects, all caused through the light
transmitted from the heavenly bodies to the Earth, KEPLER next turns to a formal
cause, which he regards as being of an altogether nobler order, namely the operation of astrological aspects (Thesis XXXVI et seqq). As we have already noted,
he connects aspects with musical consonances. He also suggests, without further
elaboration, that the musical ratios may be derived from plane regular figures
(Thesis XXXVII). Thus far, KEPLER'S account might be seen as derived from PTOLEMY, but in the next section (Thesis XXXVIII) he notes that the Ancients related
aspects and consonances, and points out explicitly that he believes that there
are more aspects than there are consonances-claiming that experience has repeatedly confirmed his additional aspects (which involve angles of 72, 144
and 135 ) but giving no details. KEPLER has thus committed himself to seeking
separate explanations for consonances and aspects, although (as we shall see later)
his correspondence in this period shows that he had not as yet succeeded in his
attempts to do so.
In explaining the efficacy of aspects KEPLER is led to suggest that the Earth
possesses a soul. For without one how could it respond to a geometrical configuration of rays ? KEPLER is careful to repudiate a hypothetical charge that such a theory
is wholly original, but admits he is "giving a little more generality to ancient be-
198
J.V. FIELD
liefs" (Thesis XLI). His later and much fuller discussion of this soul in H a r m o n i c e s
M u n d i Book IV nevertheless makes it clear that he was aware that his soul of
the Earth was very different from the Soul of the World described by PLATO
and other ancient authors.
The effect of aspects is to stimulate the Earth's soul into more vigorous acti,
Pity (Thesis XLIII) but predictions of the extent and nature of this activity cannot be exact because it is also affected by changes in the internal disposition of
the Earth. Thus whole years may be unusually cold, as was 1601, or unusually
dry, as was 1599 (Thesis XLV). It is therefore clear that KEI'LER does not even
hope that astrology alone will ever provide accurate detailed weather predictions.
Thus, although he is indeed attempting to reform astrology, we should not draw
too close an analogy between this attempted reform and his attempted reform of
astronomy. There is no astrological equivalent to the famous demand that the
predictions of positions of the planet drawn from a model orbit of Mars should
show the same degree of accuracy as the original observations from which the
model orbit was constructed 19.
After a fairly lengthy discussion of factors which may affect the general
disposition of the Earth (such as the shock of the sudden intermission of light
at eclipses (Thesis XLVI) or cyclical changes which resemble diseases (Thesis
XLVII)), and of the plausibility of various explanations offered by astrologers,
ancient authors and modern peasants, KEPLER finally turns to meteorological
predictions for the year 1602. These are undramatic and entirely consistent with
the principles he has enunciated. From meteorology KEPLER turns to diseases,
making the standard Hippocratic connection between the two. He also links
motions of the humours of the body with aspects between the Moon and the
planets or the Sun (Thesis LXVII). His medical astrology thus seems to be entirely
conventional.
The following section, which is concerned with political predictions (Thesis
LXVIII), constitutes KEPLER'S sole discussion of natal astrology in this work
(with the exception of his dismissal of the practice of casting horoscopes for years
or seasons in Thesis XLIX). The soul is asserted to be affected directly by the celestial configurations operating at the moment of birth, the bodily temperament
being the result of the subsequent effect of the soul on its body, and both body
and soul remaining particularly sensitive to configurations which occurred in the
birth chart. However, in the next section KEPLER again emphasises the folly of
looking for specific predictions (Thesis LXIX), and then makes some general
forecasts (not all of them astrological in origin), followed by a request that his
readers should let him know of any objections that they wish to raise against
his theories (objections to which he promises to reply). Characteristically, he
concludes the work with a farewell in the form of a prayer.
19 Astronomia Nova, Chapter XIX, KGW 3, p. 177, 1.37 et seqq. We may note in
passing that this demand is, in general, untenable: small errors can build up into large
ones in the course of calculations--as is proved in university courses on Numerical Analysis.
199
Ad Keplerum paralipomena: the Zodiac and its parts

If KEPLER'S readers sent him vast numbers of letters full of objections, their
letters have perished. In fact, it seems unlikely that huge exception would be taken
to the theories that KEPLER puts forward: they are mainly Aristotelian in spirit
(though they occasionally differ from ARISTOXLE over details) and it was not
unusual for astrologers to suggest that some modifications should be made to
astrological theories (such as the revision of the number of aspects that KEPLER
proposes here), since astrology was recognised as imperfect in its predictions.
The glaring objections to be made against KEPLER'S treatise refer not to what
it includes, but to what it omits. The most notable omission is that of any discussion of the Z o d i a c - i t s signs, the houses of planets (briefly dismissed in Thesis
XLIX), and so on. This omission has its counterpart in the summary treatment
of the Zodiac in the Mysterium Cosmographicum, and we know from KEPLER'S
correspondence that what we are seeing in the published works is a mere hint
of what was, in fact, an almost wholesale rejection of the conventional wisdom,
most of whose intricacies had been catalogued and codified by PTOLEMY in the
Tetrabiblos.
This rejection is not merely a consequence of KEPLER'S Copernicanism. Heliocentric cosmology presumably did play a part in the eventual decline of astrology
by (among other things) destroying belief in the physical reality of the Zodiac,
but it destroyed it only in the indirect sense that it contributed to the evolution
of cosmological theories characterised in the title of KOYR~'S classic study From
the Closed Worm to the Infinite Universe (KoYR~ 1957). In the infinite Universe,
stars were distributed more or less uniformly and all the constellation figures were
mere appearances. KEPLER, however, believed that the Universe was finite and
that the Solar system held a privileged position within it.
His rejection of any natural significance for the signs of the Zodiac is based
not upon rejecting the physical reality of the apparent associations of stars seen
in the constellations (a reality it would, in fact, have been difficult for him to disprove, though he does seem disinclined to accept it) but rather, at least in its earlier
statement, upon the artificiality of the traditional beliefs and the discontinuities
entailed by them. For example, in a letter to MAESTLINin 1598 he noted that if
Zodiac signs are used as measures of triplicities (that is, considered as vertices
of equilateral triangles inscribed in the Zodiac circle) then "if Mars is at 29 59'
of Aries it is in its own triplicity, but if it is at 0 1' of Taurus [2' away from its
previous position] it is in the triplicity of the Moon and has different forces".
He adds, however, that he does not reject the triangles defined by successive positions of Great Conjunctions (of Saturn and Jupiter) 2 (see Figure 3). This distinction seems to be based on the fact that the second type of triangle is an almost
exact equilateral triangle defined by actual positions of the planets, whereas the
first is exact only as defined by the central points of the signs that compose it
(and is thus liable to abrupt change as the planet crosses the division between two
signs).
20 KEPLERto MAESTLIN,15 March 1598, letter 89, 1.147 et seqq, KGW 13, p. 183.
200
J.W. FIELD
Fig. 3. The positions of successive conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn, from KEPLER,
De Stella Nova, Prague, 1606, p. 25. The conjunctions take place about once every twenty
years and their positions move round each time by a little more than 60, so that for long
periods such conjunctions always take place in a particular set of signs whose centres
are the vertices of an equilateral triangle (that is, the signs belong to one of the astrological
triplicities, named after one of the elements). Photograph courtesy of the Science Museum, London.
In his letter to MAESTLIN,KEPLER does not enter into further details concerning
the signs of the Zodiac and their possible use for the astrologer. It is quite possible
that MAESTLIN was already familiar with the substance of his pupil's thoughts
on the matter, so that a brief indication would suffice. In any case, the opinions
expressed in this letter are consistent with the detailed discussion of the nature
of triplicities and signs published eight years later in De Stella Nova (Prague,
1606).
The New Star of October 1604 had appeared close to a Great Conjunction,
hence KEPLER'S including in his book a discussion of such conjunctions and the
triplicities in which they occur. In fact, it was on 17 December 1603 (New Style)
that the conjunction had returned to the Fiery Trigon (the triplicity of signs
Aries, Leo and Sagittarius), an event which was believed to have taken place
only eight times since the creation of the World 21. Thus the appearance of the
New Star was potentially heavy with astrological significance. KEPLER'S final
chapter includes arguments against some of the more spectacular suggestions:
that the Indians are to be converted to Christianity, that the Mohammedans are
all to perish, that the Messiah of the Jews is about to come, and s o o n 22. He
makes no definite suggestions of his own. In fact, a large part of the book is
taken up with refutations or defences of astrological tenets relating to the theory
of triplicities, and most of the rest is given over to discussions of observations of
the star (for instance, observations establishing that, like the New Star of 1572,
21 De Stella Nova, Chapter I, KGW 1, p. 157, 11.9-10.
22 De Stella Nova, Chapter XXX, KGW 1, pp. 347-8.
201
it is in the sphere of the fixed stars) and of theories as to its origin and the material
of which it was formed.
The arguments which KEPLER marshalls against the belief that the twelve-fold
division of the Zodiac is natural are basically historical. He shows that such a
division might have seemed appropriate to primitive astronomers, since the length
of the solar year is approximately twelve lunations, and suggests that the institution
of twelve exactly equal divisions was the product of later more sophisticated
mathematical astronomers 23. In the following chapter, a similarly historical
argument is used to establish that the names of the signs are the result of human
choice and thus without any natural significance 24. Whereas the titles of these
two chapters take the form of a question (whether such and such is natural) the
title of the next forthrightly states its conclusion: that the naming of the trigons
after the elements is not from the nature of things but from human choice 25.
KEPLER'S argument largely relies upon showing the lack of internal consistency
of the nomenclature, whereby, for example, Aquarius is not a watery sign and
Taurus is feminine 26. The reality of the triplicities themselves is, however, quite
another matter, as KEPLER establishes in the next chapter (Chapter VII). The
triplicities are defined by the occurrence of successive Great Conjunctions (see
Figure 3) just as the rough twelve-fold division of the Zodiac itself was established
by the occurrences of successive conjunctions between the Sun and Moon (i.e.
New Moons). The triplicities are therefore natural, like the months.
As SIMON (1975) has noted, this part of KEPLER'S work shows an unambiguous
determination to distinguish between words and things, in a field where they
had traditionally been confounded (see SIMON 1975, p. 444). Moreover, throughout
KEPLER'S astrological work we find the same concern with physical realities rather
than geometrical constructs that informs his astronomy. In astrology he rejects
the purely geometrical triangles whose vertices are the centres of signs, in favour
of the triangles whose vertices are defined by conjunctions, while in astronomy
he rejects the mathematically-constructed 'mean Sun' and instead refers his planetary orbits to the actual position of the body of the Sun.
Observational Astrology
Although KEPLER'S style of reasoning is closely similar in his astrology and
his astronomy, we have seen that, even in 1601, he did not hope that astrology
would ever produce anything more than qualitative weather predictions, and
rather vague ones at that 2v. Nevertheless, he did believe that experience could
confirm the existence of new astrological aspects 28.
23 De Stella Nova,
2~ De Stella Nova,
25 De Stella Nova,
26 De Stella Nova,
Chapter IV, KGW 1, pp. 168-172.

Chapter V, KGW 1, pp. 172-177.
Chapter VI, KGW 1, p. 177.
Chapter VI, KGW 1, p. 178, 11.22-23.
27 See above and De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus Thesis XLV et seqq,

KGW 4, p. 31 et seqq.
2s Op. eit. in note 27, Thesis XXVIII, KGW 4, p. 18.
202
J.V. FIELD
KEPLER gives no details of this observational confirmation in De Fundamentis

Astrologiae Certioribus, but in Tertius Interveniens (Frankfurt, 1610), a polemical
work written in German, he claims to have made weather observations over a
number of years, and quotes some of them to prove that a conjunction of Saturn
and the Sun causes coldness in the weather:
"In the year 1592, on 9 July, New Style, [such a conjunction took place] in
Cancer, when I had not yet begun to take note. But Chytraeus writes that the
whole Summer, particularly at that special time, was cold and wintry. In 1593,
24 July, in the first part of Leo. There was great confusion of Aspects. For the
Sun, Venus and Saturn were at conjunction, Mars was at sextile to Jupiter
and, further, Mercury was moving back from being at opposition to Jupiter
to being at trine to Mars. On 20, 21 and 22 July there was much rain and hail.
The 23rd was cloudy ..."29.
KEPLER cites seventeen such examples, giving varying quantities of detail,
the last one dating from 22 and 23 January 1609. Eleven examples concern the
months from October to January, when one would naturally expect the weather
to be cold, or, in KEPLER'S terms, when the disposition of the Earth made it
susceptible to influences that would cause an increase in cold. KEPLER'S s u c c e s s
in obtaining observational confirmation of his belief in the efficacy of aspects
may be partly due to the subjectivity of the data but another possible explanation
also presents itself: aspects are so numerous that for any given change one could
almost certainly find an appropriate recent aspect.
This objection to KEPLER'S meteorological investigations in fact occurred to
one of his regular correspondents, the physician JOHANN GEORG BRENGGERwho
commented, in a letter to KEPLER dated 7 March 1608:
"You say that you have confirmed by experience, in meteorology, the existence
of the additional (extraordinarios) aspects quintile, biquintile and sesquiquadrature [corresponding to angles between the celestial bodies of 72 ,
144 and 135 - s e e Figure 4]. I myself should like to see an example of this
observational material (hujus experientiae specimen), for with such a number
and variety of aspects always occurring, so that one is unsure to which of them
one should ascribe a change in the atmosphere, I do not know how I should
make an observational test (quomodo experimentum capeam), or even whether
I should find it possible to do so. ''3
KEPLER replied to this letter on 5 April 1608, giving BRENGGER what he had
asked for:
"I could give many examples of experience (experientiae) in regard to secondary
aspects, but there is no time to describe my observations (observationes). So,
in 1600, when from 23 April until 2 May, New Style, there were no primary
29 Tertius Interveniens, Thesis CXXXIV, KGW 4, p. 254.
30 BREN~C~R to KEPLER, 7 March 1608, letter 480, 11.6-11, KGW 16, p. 114.
203
Fig. 4. Correspondence of astrological aspects and harmonic ratios, from a letter written
by KEPLER to HERWARTYON HOHENBURG(30 May 1599).
Ptolemaic Aspects: AB, conjunction (0 , undivided string)--used as an aspect by
PTOLEMY, though he does not define it as such;
CDE, sextile (60 , 1 : 5);
MNO, quadrature (90 , 1 : 3);
STU, trine (120 , 1:2);
XYZ, opposition (180 , 1 : 1).
New Aspects:
FGH, quintile (72 , 1 : 4);
IKL, biquintile (144 , 2: 3);
PQR, sesquiquadrature (135 , 3:5).
Photograph courtesy of Staatsbibliothek, Munich.
aspects [i.e. none of the standard aspects, from PTOLEMY; see Figure 2], and
Magini's tables showed Saturn and Jupiter to be at quintile, on 1 M a y there
was a very heavy fall of snow both in Prague and in Styria for F~ rdinand's
wedding, and the jousting had to be cancelled (hastiludia impedita fuerunt).
F r o m observing the heavens, it was found that during these same days Saturn
and Jupiter were 72 apart [i.e. at quintile; see Figure 4]. Tycho's students
made the check on my behalf with Tycho's quadrant. ''31
It is not clear why KEPLER failed to confirm the existence of whatever aspects
were required to allow him to set up a simple correspondence between aspects
and musical consonances like that given by PTOLEMY. Perhaps, like many a modern
astronomer and cosmologist, he was more open to persuasion on some points
than on others?
al KEPLER to BRENGGER, 5 April 1608, letter 488, 11.8-15, K G W 16, pp. 137-138.
204
J.V. FIELD
In any case, in Tertius Interveniens he says that taking daily weather observations over a period of sixteen years has convinced him that there is not an exact
correspondence between aspects and consonances 3z. If it was only after sixteen
years of observations that KEPLER came to this conclusion, then it must date
from 1609, since he seems to have begun his weather observations in 159333 .
In the introduction to his Ephemerides of 1618, as quoted in Harmonices Mundi
Book IV Chapter V[ 34, KEPLER was to say that the had come to this conclusion
in 1608.
Astrological aspects and musical consonances

We have seen that in the Mysterium Cosmographicum KEPLER uses his polyhedral archetype to set up some kind of relation between the ratios of string
lengths that define musical consonances and the divisions of the circle of the Zodiac
that define astrological aspects. However, the first stage in this procedure is to
establish a geometrical origin for the numbers in the musical ratios, and the further
link with aspects seems to be of lesser importance 3s. Like PTOLEMY, KEPLER
apparently regards the consonances as prior to the aspects and thus the primary
elements that his theory must explain.
This dominance of the consonances persists in the modified versions of the
theory which KEPLER describes in two letters to HERWART VON HOHENBURG in
1599. In the first of these letters, written in May, he rejects his published account
of aspects and suggests an alternative which follows PTOLEMY'S procedure of
deriving them from musical ratios among the arcs into which the circle of the Zodiac is divided by bodies that are at aspect to one another (as shown in Figure 2
above). KEPLER accompanies his version of this theory with a group of diagrams
which show the Zodiac opened out to resemble the string of the traditional monochord (see Figure 4). This schemeleads KEPLERto suggest the existence of some astrological aspects not mentioned by PTOLEMY, but which he hopes experience may
confirm (as we learn from De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus, Thesis XXXVII,
that it did) 36. In this letter, KEPLER seems to regard the musical ratios as merely
given, but a further letter to HERWART, written in August 1599, contains a fairly
substantial attempt to explain their origin 37. This attempt is also clearly inspired
by PTOLEMY'S Harmonica in that it is concerned with the inscription of regular
polygons in the circle (PTOLEMY'Sscheme is shown in Figure 2 above) but KEPLER'S
description of his theory does not really amount to an explanation of it or even
an argument in favour of certain ideas. It is no more than a series of assertions
addressed to a like-minded reader. The same is true of the paragraph that follows,
32 Tertius Interveniens, Thesis LIX, KGW 4, p. 205, 11.7-21.
33 See my previous quotation from Tertius Interveniens, note 32.
34 KGW 6, p. 258, 1.26 et seqq.
as I have discussed elsewhere KEPLER'S use of geometry rather than numerology

in explaining consonances; see FIELD, in press, 1982.
36 KEPLERto HERWART, 30 May 1599, letter 123, 11.359-416, KGW 13, pp. 349350.
37 KEPLERto HERWART, 6 August 1599, letter 130, 1.327 et seq, KGW 14, p. 29.
205
in which KEPLER states which polygons he will need to exclude, and gives grounds
for excluding them, such as that, in the case of the decagon and the pentagon,
the square of the side of the polygon is not commensurable with the square of the
diameter of the circle as. However, he found that he could not construct a satisfactory scheme by this method, so he looked at the sizes of the angles of the regular polygons concerned, thinking that he might be able to exclude all the figures
in which three vertical angles came to more than four right angles "though it
is not clear why Nature should take special account of this property in setting up
ratios ''39.
This idea naturally led on to considering patterns of polygons fitted together
so as to cover the plane completely (tessellations), since if polygons are to form
a tessellation the angles which meet at each of its vertices must add up to exactly
four right angles 4. Tessellation patterns make brief appearances in several
Renaissance mathematical works, for instance in Dt)RER'S Unterweysung der
Messung mit Zirkel und Richtscheit (Nuremberg, 1525), and some of them were
of course familiar from the patterns on tiled floors (hence their name), but KEPLER
seems to have been the first person to make a systematic mathematical study of
them. This was eventually published in Harmonices Mundi Book II, and found
its application in connection with astrological aspects. However, it makes its
first appearance as a possible explanation for musical ratios.
The next section of the letter proceeds to attempt to explain aspects by means
of these musical ratios. KEPLER states at the outset that the problem is to explain
why Astronomy, in regard to aspects, admits fewer ratios (between arcs of the
Zodiac) than Music will allow between lengths of strings 41. His attempts to explain
this discrepancy do not lead him to look for a separate explanation for aspects
but merely involve going back to first principles (as it were) and looking in more
detail at the division of the circle by the inscription of a regular polygon. In two
other letters written in the Summer of 1599, KEPLER gave similar, but rather more
cursory, accounts of the relation between aspects and musical ratios to EDMtrNI)
BRUCE and to MAESTLIN42.
Although KEPLER still formulates the problem in terms of explaining musical
ratios and then using these ratios to explain astrological ones, these two letters to
HERWART do contain all the elements which were to be reassembled to form the
geometrical explanations of musical consonances and astrological aspects nearly
twenty years later in Harmonices Mundi Libri V. By then KEPLERhad reformulated
the problem: musical ratios are derived from those polygons whose sides are most
closely related to the diameter of the circle in which they are inscribed, while the
astrological ratios are derived from those polygons which will fit together to form
tessellations or polyhedra.
It is not clear exactly when KEPLER decided that it was appropriate to give
a8 Letter 130, 1.352 et seqq, KGW 14, p. 30.
a9 Letter 130, 11.397-402, KGW 14, p. 31.
4o Letter 130, 1.419 et seqq, KGW 14, p. 32.
41 Letter 130, 11.573-576, KGW 14, p. 37.
42 KEPLERto BRUCE,18 July 1599, letter 128, KGW 14, p. 7; KEPLERto MAESTLIN,
19 August 1599, letter 132, KGW 14, p. 43.
206
J.V. FIELD
separate explanations of the musical and astrological ratios. A letter to HEYDON,

written in October 1605, mentions tessellations again, and refers also to fitting
polygons together to form polyhedra, but as in the letters of 1599 KEPLER is proposing to use these mathematical facts to account for musical ratios, and he still
apparently finds difficulties in his theory 4a. Nevertheless, in January 1607, he
tells HERWART YON HOHENBURG that he has already written up his theory o f
harmony "a few years ago", but before publishing it he wants, God willing, to
resolve the astronomical part 44. He proceeds to give a brief account of the plan
of the work, which is in five books, but appears to differ from Harmonices Mundi
Libri V in that the first two books concern "the geometrical figures from which
Harmonic ratios arise" and "the Harmonic Ratios or numbers", whereas the
first two books of the published work are both concerned with g e o m e t r y - t h e
first with inscribing polygons in a circle, and the second with tessellations and polyhedra. However, Harmonices Mundi Book II is very short (22 folio pages in
K G W 6) and it does not seem impossible that in an earlier draft it might have formed
part of Book I. Moreover, it is also conceivable that the introduction and first
three chapters of Book III might once have formed a separate b o o k - and their
contents could indeed be summarised as " o n Harmonic Ratios or n u m b e r s " but (and this seems to me to be crucial) the chapters do not describe the harmonic
ratios that find expression in astrological aspects (in Harmonices Mundi Book IV
and in the fourth book in the plan described in 1607). Thus it seems that the work
already written in 1607, and apparently only waiting upon KEPLER'S calculations
of planetary orbits for its publication, still followed PTOLEMY'Sexample in using
consonances to explain aspects.
We have seen that by 1610, at the latest, KEPLER was convinced that he had
proved by observation that there was not a simple correspondence between consonances and aspects 45. However, this did not apparently convince him that the
two phenomena must have different origins, for, in the same section of Tertius
lnterveniens in which he states that the phenomena do not correspond, he nevertheless gives an explanation of the origin of consonances which seems to be
intended to serve for aspects as well 46. One may, I think, reasonably imagine that
since he is writing for relatively unlearned readers (the work is in German but
with its numerous technical terms in Latin) he may have suppressed the further
mathematical details that differentiate aspects from consonances, but it does not
seem likely that he would omit to mention that the former have a very different
geometrical c a u s e - w h i c h they do in the theory described in Harmonices Mundi
Libri V.
KEPLER'S correspondence between 1610 and the writing of the Harrnonice

Mundi does not appear to contain any further discussion of the archetypal origin
of astrological aspects. Thus, since it seems hazardous to attempt to make any
deductions from the fact that we do find discussions of music without reference
43 KEPLER to HEYDON,October 1605, letter 357, 11.179 et seqq, KGW 15, p. 236
et seq.
44 KEPLERto HERWART,end January 1607, letter 409, 11.237-238, KGW 15, p. 389.
45 See Tertius Interveniens, Thesis LIX, KGW 4, p. 205 et seq, and note 32 above.
46 Tertius Interveniens, Thesis LIX, KGW 4, p. 203, 1.22 et seqq.
207
to astrology, we are left with the rather unsatisfactory situation that while a letter
written in 1599 contains very nearly all the mathematical results which are applied
to explain consonances and aspects in the Harmonice Mundi *v, we cannot tell
precisely when KEVLER gave his theory the exact form it takes in that work.
Harmonices M undi Book IV

N o t only do the mathematical results used in Harmonices Mundi Libri V date
from 1599, so too does the project of writing a b o o k on world harmony. In a letter
to MAESTLIN, KEVLEg proposes to call this b o o k De harmonia mundi, but in a
letter to HEgWAgT some months later the title has become De Harmonice Mundi 48.
The letter to MAESTLIN gives a summary of the contents of the projected work
that runs to about 332 lines. This is very informal, but the correspondence with
the actual contents of Harmonices Mundi Libri V is very close. To HERWART,
KEVLEg gives a very brief but much more formal outline of his "short b o o k " :
"There will be five books or chapters.
1. Geometrical, on constructible figures.
2. Arithmetical, on solid ratios
3. Musical, on the causes of harmonies
4. Astrological, on the causes of Aspects
5. Astronomical, on the causes of the periodic motions ''49.
When KEPLER decided to assign separate geometrical causes to musical consonances and astrological aspects, the plan of the earlier books of the work was
changed a little, as was their content. At the very last moment, in fact, the content
of the last b o o k was changed as well: KEVLEg'S discovery of the law relating the
periods of the planets to the mean radii of their orbits 5 enabled him to explain
not only the periods (as promised in 1599) but also the actual dimensions of the
orbits 51. The final titles of the books of Harmonices Mundi Libri V thus look a
little less like a declaration of the essential unity of the subjects of the quadriviurn
than did those of the earlier plan. As given on the individual title pages they are:
Book I The regular figures which give rise to harmonic proportions, their origin,
their classes, their rank and their differences in knowability and demonstrability
[i.e. constructibility].
Book II
Congruence [i.e. fitting together] of harmonic figures.
47 KEPLERto HERWART,6 August 1599, letter 130; see detailed references in notes 36
and 37 above.
,8 KEPLERto MAESTLIN,29 August 1599, letter 132, 1.139, KGW 14, p. 46; KEPLER
to HERWART, 14 December 1599, letter 148, 1.12, K G W 14, p. 100.
49 KEPLER to HERWART, 14 December 1599, letter 148, 11.13-19, K G W 14, p. 100.
50 See Harmonices Mundi Book V, Chapter III, KGW 6, p. 302, 1.14 et seqq.
5~ A summary of the method of calculation is given in FIELD 1982.
208
J.V. FIELD
Book III The origin of harmonic proportions and the nature of and differences
between things appertaining to music.
Book IV The harmonic configurations of the rays of stars at the Earth, and their
effect in determining the weather and other natural phenomena.
Book V The most perfect harmony in the celestial motions and the origin from
them of eccentricities, semidiameters and periodic times.
In fact, the "short book" planned in 1599 was published in 1619 as a very
orderly treatise of some 320 folio pages, which deduces from geometrical truths
the nature of the mathematical harmonices that KEVLERhas found in the Universe.
He has found mathematical harmonies in the same things as PTOLEMYconsiders
in his Harmonica: musical consonances, astrological aspects and the motions
of the planets, and he is perfectly aware of the closeness of the relation of his
own work to PTOLEMY'S. It is, in fact, immediately after a discussion of the inadequacy of PTOLEMY'S H a r m o n i c a - f o r example, in its incorrect astronomy-that KEVLER makes the contrast with his own success in the famous boast that
"I have stolen the golden vessels of the Egyptians to make from them a Tabernacle for my God far from the confines of the land of Egypt ''52.
The order in which the books of Harmonices Mundi Libri V are presented may
at first glance seem to have been dictated merely by the need to prove theorems
before using them. However, closer scrutiny reveals that this is not entirely the
case: the astrological book, Book IV, uses geometrical results directly, not in
the musical form which some of them have been given in Book III, a fact upon
which KEVrER himself remarks 53, and the musical results of Book III are not
applied until Book V. It seems as though the central position of the book on
music not only appeared appropriate in a work concerned with musica mundana
but also, since the musical book comes immediately after the geometrical ones,
served to emphasize that the musical consonances, long seen as arithmetical in
origin, had now been given a basis in geometry. This allows KEVLER to see the
musical ratios among the velocities of the planets as a consequence of the fact that
G o d is a Platonic Geometer, whereas they might otherwise perhaps have suggested
that He was something of a Pythagorean Numerologist s4. Astrological harmony
was discussed before astronomical harmony because KEVLER felt it appropriate
to leave until last "the work of Creation which of all things was the first and most
perfect ''sS.
The mathematics which forms the basis of KEVLER'Sexplanation of astrological
harmonies is to be found in Harmonices Mundi Book II. In this book, KEI'LER
is concerned with establishing a hierarchy of regular polygons according to their
s2 Harmonices Mundi Book V, Prooemium, KGW 6, p. 290, 1.4 et seqq.
~3 Harmonices Mundi Book IV, Chapter IV, KGW 6, p. 234, 1.32.
s4 See note 35 above.
ss Harmoniees Mundi Book IV, Praeambulum et ratio ordinis, KGW 6, p. 209, 1.12.
209
"sociability", that is their capacity to combine with polygons of the same or

different kinds so as to form as "congruence", that is a flat pattern which will cover
the plane (a tessellation) or a polyhedron whose vertices are all alike (a uniform
polyhedron). This conception of a polyhedron as made up of its faces is the one
PLATO used in Timaeus when constructing his solids from the basic triangles, but
in the present context KEPLER apparently regards it merely as a mathematical
convenience which allows him to develop his laborious, but rigorous, proofs by
exhaustion.
It is in Harmoniees Mundi Book II that KEPLER gives his first published account
of the two star polyhedra he had discovered, and the originality of his work, which
is the first systematic treatment of tessellations, has earned it a place in histories
of mathematics 56. Nevertheless, whatever the mathematical interest of the work,
it is clear that KEPLER'S concern is not that of a pure mathematician investigating
the properties of geometrical entities for their own sake. His first "conclusion"
is a ranking of polygons according to the number of "congruences" in which they
can take part. There follows a second "conclusion" in which this hierarchy is
contrasted with that produced in Book I by considering the number of steps which
were required to construct the side of each polygon in a circle (the degree of
"demonstrability" of the polygon) s7. Since the hierarchy established in Book II
is to be used to explain aspects while that of Book I is to explain consonances,
this comparison between the hierarchies is clearly an echo of the Ptolemaic musical
theory that guided KEPLER'S earlier work in astrology.
As we have seen, astrology does not play a very important part in the Mysterium
Cosmographicum, and the later notes KEPLER added for the second edition of the
work in 1621 suggest that by then he regarded two of the three brief astrological
chapters as irrelevant to the main purpose of the book. In contrast, the astrology
in Harmonices Mundi Libri V is not only much more mathematically sophisticated
than that in the earlier work, it is also an integral part of KEPLER'S description of
his scheme of universal harmonies (of which a slightly modified version of the
theory described in the Mysterium Cosmographicum is also a part). A closer reading
of Harmonices Mundi Libri V confirms the impression conveyed by the array of
titles of its individual books: the astrology of Book IV has much the same status
as the astronomy of Book V. Astrological aspects, like the eccentricities of the
planetary orbits, are seen as the physical consequences of the mathematical truths
described in the earlier part of the work.
Although KEPLER has abandoned any attempt to explain aspects by means of
consonances, he nevertheless regards aspects as being natural "harmonies", though
in a non-musical sense. In fact, in the introduction to Harmonices Mundi Book II
he draws an etymological parallel between eongruentia, derived from the Latin
verb congruere, and the Greek d~#ovt'a, derived from the verb do~#d~Tetv which
like congruere means "to fit together ''58. Like other writers on musiea mundana,
KEVLER is concerned with harmony in a wider sense than the purely musical one.
It is in Harmoniees Mundi Book IV that this wider sense first becomes relevant,
56 See COXETER 1975 and FIELD 1979.
57 Harmonices Mundi Book II, sections XXIX and XXX, KGW 6, pp. 88-9.
58 Harmonices Mundi, Book II Prooemium, KGW 6, p. 67.
210
J.V. FIELD
and the first three chapters are accordingly concerned with the problems of the
essence of harmonies (in sensible and abstract entities), the soul's faculty for perceiving harmonies, and in what things harmonies may be perceived (by God or
by Man). The fourth chapter deals with the distinctions to be made between the
musical harmonies (consonances) considered in Book III and the astrological
ones to be considered in the present one. These distinctions are all "physical"
in the wide sense in which KEPLER uses the word, that is in something close to
its etymological sense, to mean "pertaining to Nature or to the way the natural
world works" (the natural world being taken to include celestial as well as terrestrial
phenomena) (see JARDINE 1979). The distinctions are summed up succinctly in the
marginal notes: "The harmonies in this book are narrower" (i.e. they do not
interact as musical harmonies do), "These harmonies concern angles", "In the
form of arcs of the Zodiac", "They are not truly celestial", "but terrestrial"
(i.e. they are perceived from the Earth, being angles made at the Earth), and so
on 59. Harmonies are perceived by the human soul, and since the Earth appears
to respond to h a r m o n i e s - t h a t is, to astrological aspects--KEPLER argues that
the Earth too must have a soul 6. As we have seen, he had made this same suggestion, on the same grounds, many years earlier in De Fundamentis Astrologiae
Certioribus (Augsburg, 1602) 61,
Having thus established the nature of the harmonies with which he is concerned,
KEPLER next turns to his geometrical explanation of them. This is contained in
Harmonices Mundi Book IV, Chapter V 62. The chapter is set out in mathematical
form, as a series of definitions, axioms and propositions, with a small amount
of linking text, very much in the manner of the geometrical work of Harmonices
Mundi Books I and I I - o r , indeed, KEPLER'S Dioptrice (Prague, 1611).
After defining what is meant by an astrological configuration, and what is
meant by describing it as powerful (efficax), KEPLER proceeds to state two axioms,
upon which, he tells us, the whole discussion will depend. They are:
"Axiom I
The arc of the Zodiac cut off by the side of a convex or star polygon which
forms congruences and is knowable measures the angle o f a powerful configuration.
Axiom II
The angle of a convex or star polygon which forms congruences and is knowable is the measure of the angle of a powerful Configuration. ''63
These two axioms resemble the axioms which related knowable polygons and
consonances in Book III, Chapter I, the main difference being that the new axioms
59 Harmonices Mundi Book IV, Chapter IV, KGW 6, pp. 234-235.
60 Harmonices Mundi Book IV, Chapter IV, KGW 6, pp. 236-237.
61 Theses XL to XLIII, KGW 4, pp. 23-24, translated in Part 2 below.
62 KGW 6, pp. 239-256.
6~ KGW 6, p. 241. A "knowable" or "demonstrable" or "constructible" polygon
is one which can be constructed in a circle by means of straight edge and compasses.
K~VLE~ discusses these constructions in Harmoniees Mundi Book I.
211
give not one but two forms of relationship between the physically realised harmonies
and their geometrical prototypes, through the arc cut off by the side and through
the angle between two neighbouring sides.
The paragraphs which immediately follow the statement of the axioms, before
the first proposition, are concerned with expanding the meaning of the axioms.
In particular, KEPLER points out that the two axioms in fact lead to the same set
of configurations. This is most easily illustrated by reference to the diagrams of
aspects which occur later in the chapter, from which we can see that the angle
subtended by the side of a congruence-forming and knowable polygon at the centre
of its circumcircle is always equal to the angle of another congruence-forming
and knowable polygon (for the square it is in fact an angle of the same polygon)
(see Figure 5). Since both axioms give the same set of aspects it would appear that
KEPLER has committed the mathematical solecism of employing two axioms where
one would apparently have sufficed. However, the use of both axioms has the
advantage of allowing him to relate each aspect to two polygons, the "central"
one and the "circumferential" one. A decision between the two might have
seemed unnecessarily arbitrary at this stage of the proceedings for, as we shall see,
KEPLER does not seem to regard his axioms as being, by definition, true, but rather
as reasonable assumptions that might be susceptible of proof.
The series of propositions which immediately follows the axioms is concerned
with establishing the relative importance of the "central" and "circumferential"
polygons for their corresponding aspect, and deciding which properties of the
polygons should be considered as determining the properties of the aspects. The
first proposition looks back to the consonances: "Aspects are more closely connected with the circle and its arcs than the consonances are ''64. This is proved simply
by considering the relation of each to its associated circle:
"the consonances do not depend immediately on the circle and its arcs on
account of their being circular, but on account of the length of the parts, that
is, their proportion one to another, which would be the same if the circle were
straightened out into a line 65. Whereas the Aspects, by definition I, are angles,
which the circle measures with its arcs, and in no other way except by remaining
what I have called it, that is, by continuing to have a circular shape and to remain complete. ''66
KEPLER adds that the consonances do not always involve the whole circle,
but sometimes only ratios of parts of it, whereas aspects do always concern the
whole circle. This mixture of physical and mathematical reasoning is characteristic
of most of the propositions, though the relative importance of the two components varies from proposition to proposition. For example, Proposition IV that
"Congruence of figures is more influential than Knowability in making a
configuration powerful ''67
64
6s
66
67
KGW 6,
Compare
KGW 6,
KGW 6,
p. 242, 1.28.
PTOLEMY'Ssystem, shown in Figure 2 above.
p. 242, 1.35 et seqq.
p. 245.
212
J.V. FIELD
Fig. 5 a
Fig. 5. Aspects as given in Harmonices Mundi Book IV, Chapter V. Photographs courtesy
of the Science Museum, London.
Fig. 5 b
213
214
J.V. FIELD
Fig. 5 c
Fig. 5 d
215
216
J.V. FIELD
Fig. 5 e
217
is clearly mainly a matter of physics. The following proposition, that

"Congruence is a property of the Circumferential rather than the central
figure"
is entirely mathematical. By way of proof, KEPLER asserts, quite reasonably, that
the capacity to f o r m congruences is a property of the figure as a whole and the
circumferential polygon is employed as a whole (i.e. the circle goes through all its
vertices) whereas the central polygon has only one of its angles at the centre 68.
This straightforward mathematical insight provides the justification for using
the hierarchy of polygons defined by considering congruences as a means of determining the relative status of aspects - once KEPLER has shown, in Proposition VI,
that aspects are to be seen as determined more by their circumferential than their
central polygon, and in Proposition VII, that for the circumferential polygon
congruence-forming is more important than knowability of the side (and vice
versa for the central polygon) 69.
Proposition V I I I is a partial converse of Axiom I, namely that the arc of the
circle cut off by a figure which does not form congruences does not correspond
to an aspect. It is not clear why KEPLER did not make this proposition an axiom.
Perhaps he thought it too important to be asserted without proof? His comment
on it is
"Behold the cause why, although the knowable figures are infinite in number,
though of various rank, yet aspects are few ''7.
However, it is of the nature of axioms to have just this importance, as KEPLER
had acknowledged after stating his two axioms earlier in this chapter. Moreover,
though the two axioms I quoted are called axioms, the series of propositions which
follows them does seem to have been at least partly designed to justify accepting
them as true, and KEPLER'S comment on his third axiom (which appears immediately
after Proposition V I I I and states that the arcs of a circle whose corresponding
polygons are of higher rank in Congruence and Knowability will give more powerful configurations) begins " I f the first two axioms are acceptable (consentanea)
. . . , 7 1 It therefore appears that the word " a x i o m " does not mean to KEPLER
quite the same as it does to a modern mathematician, and seems to have done to
ARCHIMEDES. KEPLER'S use of the word in this chapter is rather closer to COVERNICVS' usage in the CommentarioIus, where " a x i o m " apparently means something
we shall use as if it were true but would like to prove one day if we can 72.
Having stated his third, and final, axiom, KEPLER proceeds to list the twelve
aspects whose existence can be deduced from the axioms, referring to the results
6a KGW 6, p. 245, 11.35-38.
69 K G W 6, p. 246-250.
70 KGW 6, p. 250, 11.17-18.
71 K G W 6, p. 250, 1.23.
72 See SWERDLOW 1973. Like KEPLER, COPERNICUSalso shows no anxiety to reduce
his axioms to the minimum number or to ensure their mutual independence.
218
J.V. FIELD
of Books I and II for proof that the polygons involved are congruence-forming
and knowable 73. The next group of propositions, numbers X to XV, is concerned
with establishing the relative degrees of power of the aspects, on the basis of the
nobleness of the corresponding polygons established in Books I and II (i.e. using
the criteria set out in Axiom III). KEVLERworks from the strongest aspects, opposition and conjunction, which correspond to the diameter of the circle 74, to the
weakest configurations,
"configurations which hesitate between power and powerlessness, namely the
24 arc from the pentekaedecagon and the 18 arc from the icosigon ''75.
The lowest grade of configurations which are definitely accepted as aspects is that
of the decile, tridecile, octile and trioctile aspects 76 (see Figure 5). This enumeration
of the effective configurations, in order of decreasing p o w e r - w h i c h resembles
the standard classification of consonances in music t h e o r y - b r i n g s KEVLER'S
chapter to an end.
His following chapter, Chapter VI, returns to the comparison of astrological
and musical harmonies, with a disussion of the fact that there is not the same number of aspects as of consonances. As we have seen, KEVL~R had already discussed
the physical distinctions to be made between the two types of harmony (in Chapter IV). The new discussion is concerned with differences in the mathematical
formulation, which were dictated by the physical differences, and have led to aspects
which do not correspond exactly with the consonances described in Harrnonices
Mundi Book III. Chapter VI thus provides philosophical justification for the
mathematical reasoning of Chapter V. KEVLER presumably thought he had better
show first that his mathematical method would give the desired result and leave
philosophical arguments until later.
The final chapter of Harrnonices Mundi Book IV, Chapter VII, contains a
fairly detailed discussion of the nature and activities of the soul of the Earth (whose
existence was suggested in Chapter IV) 77. In neither of these two final chapters
of Book IV is there any discussion of the practical business of astrology 78. Indeed,
in the first sentence of Chapter VI KEVLER explicitly rules out such practical
considerations, referring the reader to those already given in De Stella Nova
(Prague, 1606) 79. Thus, although the main title page of Harmonices Mundi Libri V
describes the fourth book as "metaphysical, psychological and astrological",
73 Proposition IX, KGW 6, pp. 250-251.

74 Proposition X, KGW 6, p. 251. See Figure 5.
75 Proposition XV, KGW 6, p. 256. See Figure 5.
76 Proposition XIV, KGW 6, p. 254. See Figure 5.
77 KGW 6, pp. 264-286.
78 Similarly, the astronomy of Harmonices Mundi Book V is unrelated to the usual
tasks of an astromer.
79 KGW 6, p. 257, 1.4 et seqq. The chapters to which KEVLERrefers are in fact
concerned with arguing for the power of aspects and the significance of points of Great
Conjunctions (against PIco DELLAMmANDOLA): De Stella Nova, Chapters VIII, IX and
X, KGW 1, pp. 184-197.
219
and the title page of Book IV reads

" O n the harmonic configurations of stellar rays at the Earth, and their effect
on the weather and other natural phenomena",
the contents of the b o o k are very little more than a discussion of the theoretical
foundations of astrology.
It would seem that this restriction of the scope of Book IV indicates what
KEPLER takes to be the intrinsic limitations of his mathematical theory. In his
notes for the second editioh of the Mysteriurn Cosmographicum (Frankfurt, 1621)
he says that when he first wrote the work he hoped to extend the use of mathematical archetypes to other things, but his attempts to do so had taught him that
"the heavens, the first of God's works, were laid out much more beautifully
than the remaining small and common things ''8.
KEPLER'S exemplar in constructing his geometrical archetype was certainly
PLATO'S Timaeus 81, but, whereas PLATO had given a mathematical description of
the sublunary world as well as the celestial, KEPLER found himself compelled to
apply an Aristotelian distinction and confine his mathematical cosmology to the
heavens. We may imagine that he did so with regret, since he does not seem to have
believed that celestial physics should be distinguished from terrestrial. However,
Harmonices Mundi Book IV succeeds at least in giving an a priori account of the
means by which celestial bodies exercise influence upon terrestrial ones. It was
KEPLER'S sole contribution to the mathematisation of terrestrial physics - a p a r t
from his description of the close packing of equal spheres to explain the shape of
the honeycomb (but not the snowflake) in De Nive Sexangula (Prague, 1611).
The " L u t h e r a n " astrologer

Writing to MAESTLIN in March 1598, in reply to a letter that seems not to
have survived, KEPLER defends the attack on astrology he made in his calendar
of 159882 . He gives details of the parts of astrological doctrine to which he objects
(mainly those which depend upon signs of the Zodiac) 83 and then likens himself
to a theologian:
"Should I not do rightly to try to convince the learned and the philosophers
of the effect of the heavens ? Thus I should do as the Jesuits do : making many
emendations that they may make men catholics. Fundamentally I do not do
so Mysterium Cosmographicum, Frankfurt, 1621, note on the title page, KGW 8,
p. 15, 11.14-18.
81 See FIELD 1981 and FIELD, in press, 1983.
82 KEPLER to MAESTLIN,15 March 1598, letter 89, 1.142 et seqq, KGW 13 p. 183
et seq.; see also CASPAR'S note on 1.142, KGW 13, p. 400.
8a See the passage referred to in note 20 above.
220
J.V. FIELD
that, for it is they who defend all the nonsense (nugas) who are like the Jesuits.
I am a Lutheran astrologer, throwing away the nonsense and keeping the kernel.,,s4
As we have seen, what seemed 'nonsense' and what 'kernel' did change over the
years, so that the Confessio Augustana of KEPLER'S alleged astrological Lutheranism was more a collection of principles than a definite body of dogma. As
SIMON (1975, 1979) has shown, these principles were closely akin to those governing
KEPLER'S astronomical beliefs. One such principle was the demand that a theory
should account for observations with an appropriate degree of precision: to five
minutes of arc for the position of Mars, and rather roughly when it came to
predictions of the weather (since the weather depended not only upon aspects
operating from the heavens but also on such things as the local disposition of the
Earth) ss. Nevertheless, as we have seen, KEPLER was convinced that there was a
body of observational evidence that proved that aspects between celestial bodies
did affect the weather, even if predictions could not be precise: in Tertius Interveniens (1610) he makes the very reasonable comparison between astrology and
another hit-and-miss art, that of the physician 86. It is, moreover, clear that no
general refutation of astrology was a reasonable proposition while the influence
of the Sun upon the weather (in determining the seasons) and that of the Moon
upon the sea (in causing the tides) were regarded as examples of astrological
'force' in action.
Astrologers had always differed over minor points 87. There are, for example,
several different recognised ways of drawing out the twelve astrological h o u s e s though there is general agreement that each represents life, money, brothers,
parent, children, e t c . - and each astrologer marshalls arguments in favour of his
favorite system. There are also disputes over the characters of the planets and of
the effects of aspects between them. KEPLERwas thus not exceptional in proposing
reform. His reforms do, indeed, seems to have been as radical as LUTHER'S reforms of the Church, but he stops short of the most radical reform of all: the
complete rejection of astrology (which a not inconsiderable number of prominent
and learned men had advocateda8). As KEPLER puts it on the title page of Tertius
lnterveniens, the book is a "warning to some Theologians, Physicians and Philosophers" that, in their reasonable condemnation of superstitious astrological
beliefs, "they do not throw out the baby with the bath water ''sg.
KEPLER'S attempts to distinguish baby from bath water are certainly revealing
both of the principles that governed his natural philosophy and of the method
s4 Letter 89, 11.173-178, KGW 13, p. 184.
s5 See De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus, Thesis XLIV, KGW 4, p. 24, translated
in Part 2 below.
s6 Tertius Interveniens, Thesis XII, KGW 4, p. 163.
s7 See BoucH~-LI~CLERCQ1899, GARIN 1969, SHUMAKER1972, BOWDEN1974, W~BSTER 1982, and JErqKS 1983.
ss A few are discussed in SHUMAKER1972.
s9
... nicht das Kindt mit dem Badt aul3schiitten .... Tertius Interveniens, Frankfurt,
1610, Title page, KGW 4, p. 147.
221
of their application 9. Nevertheless, it seems to me that in concentrating attention

upon KEPLER'S reforms of astrology-- and thus, as it were, seeing his Lutheranism
from the Catholic side-earlier studies have tended to neglect another important
aspect of KEPLER'S astrology, namely the manner in which it fitted into his conception of the world as a whole, that is, the part it played in his cosmology. From
the Protestant point of view (if I may so call it) KEPLER'S astrology appears as an
integral part of his picture of the world.
As a deeply religious Christian, and a convinced Platonist, KEPLER saw the
Universe as the outward expression of the nature of the Creator. Man being made
in the image of God, was also to some extent like the Universe, and clearly capable
of understanding it in the same terms in which God had designed it, namely in
terms of Geometry. In fact, KEPLER'S Platonism extended to believing that Timaeus was a commentary on the book of Genesis. This belief is stated in so many
words in a marginal note in Harmonices Mundi Book IV, Chapter ~[91.
In the Mysterium Cosmographicum, the most natural comparison is with
Timaeus, since KEPLER, like PLAto, is concerned with p o l y h e d r a - a n d some of
his arguments echo those PLATO put forward in Timaeus when assigning a polyhedron to each element. However, as we have seen, even in this work KEPLER is
also concerned with the cosmological ideas PTOLEMYput forward in his Harmonica.
And we know from KEPLER'S correspondence that even before he had given
up the idea of writing further cosmographical treatises as sequels to the Mysterium
Cosmographicum he was already planning to write a book on world harmony 92.
The plan for this book seems always to have resembled that of PTOLEMY'SHarmonica, including musical, astrological and astronomical harmonies.
KEPLER rejected the numerological explanation of musical consonances that
formed the basis of PTOLEMY'S work (I have argued this in detail elsewhere; see
FIELD, in press, 1982). He rejected the equation of musical consonances with
astrological aspects. He rejected much of PTOLEYIY'Sastrological system as well as
all of his astronomical one. Moreover, most importantly of all, KEPLER regarded
his own archetype as cosmogonic, that is, as the model God had used in creating
the Universe, whereas PTOLEMY'Sdescription of the Universe was merely cosmological. As KEPLER put it in a letter to CHRISTOPHER HEYDON in October 1605:
"Ptolemy had not realised that there was a creator of the world: so it was not
for him to consider the world's archetype, which lies in Geometry and expressly
in the work of Euclid, the thrice-greatest philosopher (et nominatim in Euclide
philosopho ter maximo) ''93.
Nevertheless, despite these very important points of difference-all of which
KEPLER explicitly acknowledges9~-it is clear that KEPLER'S Harmonices Mundi
9o See SItaON 1975 and 1979 on the first point and ROSEN, in press, 1982 on the
second.
91 KGW 6, p. 221.
92 KEPI.ER to MAESTLIN,29 August 1599, letter 132, 1.136 et seqq, KGW 14, p. 46.
9s KEVLErt to HEYOON, October 1605, letter 357, 11.164-167, KGW 15, p. 235.
94 For example, in his comparison of his own work with that of PTOLEMYin the
Appendix to Harmonices Mundi Book V, KGW 6, pp. 369-373.
222
J.V. FIELD
Libri V is closely modelled upon PTOLEMY'S Harmonica. Astrological harmony
is thus an integral part of KEPLER'Swork as it is of PTOLEMY'S. It seems to me that

KEPLER shows the preference which he so strangely attributes to COPERNICUS:
the wish to depart as little as possible from PTOLEMY95. Indeed, if PTOLEMY'Sname
had not, in retrospect, become so indissolubly wedded to geocentric astronomy,
one might fairly describe much of KEPLER'S natural philosophy as Ptolemaic in
its inspiration. Even the famous rejection of heliocentric versions of PTOLEMY'S
model orbits in the Astronomia Nova is accompanied by the comment that PTOLEMY had achieved adequate agreement with the observations available in his
time 96. KEPLER clearly felt that the standards he himself was applying differed from
PTOLEMY'S only in being more stringent in their numerical tolerances.
KEPLER'S concern with astrology is not peripheral to his cosmological theories,
and there can be no doubt that it grossly misrepresents his attitude to astrology
to suggest that he saw it primarily as a way of making money. However, astrology
was a way of making money. And KEPLER, indeed, complains repeatedly and bitterly of having to use it as s u c h - t h u s providing comforting quotations for those
historians who have wished to "defend" him for having been an astrologer. The
defence is, in fact, fair enough if the charge is that KEPLER sometimes practised
judicial astrology and that in his astrological calendars he published predictions
which gave more details than he really believed he could j u s t i f y - a n astrological
equivalent of the spurious precision found in astronomical tables. It is these, to
his mind illegitimate, uses of astrology to which he refers in his complaints that
RUDOLF II, Count WALLENSTEINor the public are wasting his time by their demands for predictions, but that satisfying them does at least provide him with
money. Astrological musica mundana was rather harder to sell.
Curiously enough, GALILEO,who rejected KEPLER'S astrological explanation
of the tides 97, seems himself to have been interested in one of the parts of astrology
which KEPLER regarded with most suspicion: natal astrology. GALILEO drew up
detailed nativities, employing the division of the sky into twelve houses and using
the positions of the planets in relation to these houses to make specific predictions
about the life of the subject of the nativity. The horoscope for COSIMO II Grand
Duke of Tuscany, mentioned in the dedicatory letter of the Sidereus Nuncius
(Venice, 1610) is the most famous of these 9s. However, GALILEO did not only
respond to requests from patrons; he also cast three horoscopes for himself, and
many others for his family and friends 99. Some of them seem to have been drawn
up in an effort to decide whether the stars really did affect the c h i l d - from which
it would seem that GALILEO was not entirely insensible to the astrologers' claim
that the predictive power of their theories was confirmed by millenia of experience.
GALILEO himself does not seem to have made any attempt to publish his astrological work, and almost all of it still remains in manusript 1.
9s Mysterium Cosmographieum, Chapter XV, p. 51, KGW 1, p. 50, 11.31-34.
96 Astronomia Nova, Chapter XIX, KGW 3, p. 177, 1.37 et seqq.
97
9s
99
loo
GALILEOGALILEI Diologo, Fourth Day, Ed. Naz. 7, p. 486.

It is the subject of an article by RIGHINI (1976).
See ERrqST, in press, 1983.
My sketch of GALILEO'Sastrological beliefs and practices is derived from the
223
In the passage from the Fourth D a y of the Dialogo, to which I referred above,
it is not entirely clear which of KEPLER'S explanations of the tides GArlLEO is
rejecting. The standard astrological explanation, which KEPLER apparently accepted in 16011I, was that the M o o n influenced the ocean because it was composed
of humours. By 1609 KEPLER seems to have revised his ideas, for in the Introduction to the Astronomia Nova he proposes that the M o o n acts on the waters
by the force of gravity lz. However, "force" (action at a distance) is itself an astrological notion, and so GALILEO'S rejection of KEPLER'S theory does not necessarily
imply ignorance of this passage of the Astronomia Nova or wilful misunderstanding
of it. KEPLER himself, however, seems to have seen this theory as a matter of ordinary physics, for when he refers to it in Harrnonices Mundi Book IV, Chapter VII,
he says that he had suggested that
"the waves are pulled by the Moon, like iron by a magnet, by a corporeal
virtue of unification of bodies (virtute corporea unitionis corporum)".
(The last phrase echoes COPERNICUS' definition of gravity in De Revolutionibus.)
This abandonment of specific astrological influence in favour of a more general
type of force may, particularly since it refers to magnetism, seem to connect the
force of the M o o n on the ocean with the force by which the Sun moves the planets.
It is, after all, a matter of some interest that in his later works KEPLER prefered
to describe the Sun not as the possessor of an anima motrix but as exerting a v i s
motrix. He himself explains the reasons for this change in one of the notes he
provided for the second edition of the Mysterium Cosmographieum (1621):
"Formerly I believed that the cause of the motion of the planets was a Soul,
imbued as I was with J. C. Scaliger's beliefs about Motive Intelligences. But
when I reflected on the fact that this cause of motion weakened with distance,
and that the light of the Sun also became fainter with distance from the Sun,
I drew the conclusion that this Force was something corporeal, that is an
emanation (speciem) derived from a body, though a non-material one. ' ' l a
Thus KEPLER'S rejection of animism can be seen as the result of a wish to give a
mathematical description of the effect of the Sun on the planets. Nonetheless, this
specific rejection of an anima motrix in the Sun is not part of a general rejection
of animism: as we have seen, KEPLER'S astrological theories entailed a belief in
the soul of the Earth. In fact, his reference in the Harmonice Mundi to the account
of the tides in the Astronomia Nova is part of a passage in which he suggests that
much fuller account given by ERNST(in press, 1983). I am grateful to Dr. ERNSTfor giving
me a preprint of her very interesting paper.
2ol See De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus, Thesis XVI, K G W 4, p. 14, translated in Part 2 below.
lo2 Astronomia Nova, Introduction, f4r, KGW 3, p. 26. The passage is marked with
a marginal note.
loa Mysterium Cosmographieum, 1621, Chapter XX, note3, KGW 8, p. 113 and
J. C. SCALIGER Exercitationes Exoterieae (Paris, 1557), Exercitatio 359.8, "De officio
intelligentiarum".
224
J.V. FIELD
if this account seems unsatisfactory the reader may prefer to think of the tides as
the breathing of the Earth, accommodated to the motion of the Sun and Moon
as the sleeping and waking of animals is accommodated to the cycle of nights and
days. "Particularly", he adds, "if there were some indication of flexible portions
in the interior of the Earth which might play the part of lungs or bronchi". He
does not think such breathing need entail a motion of the surface of the Earth
by analogy with the motion of the diaphragm in the breathing of animals ~4.
T h e decline o f a s t r o l o g y
In the course of the seventeenth century, astrology ceased to be intellectually

respectable. This is, of course, not to say that it ceased to be practised, nor that
its results were universally distrusted. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary.
However, as CAPP (1979) has shown, in England, even in the humble almanac,
astrological information was gradually displaced by other more obviously useful
material, such as the dates of fairs. The one legacy of astrology to serious natural
philosophy seems to have been the notion of force: action at a distance. (That
legacy was not, however, transmitted through KEPLER, who quite early rejected
the astrological force of the Moon as an explanation for the tides and appealed
to magnetism to explain the Sun's effect upon the planets.)
That Copernicanism became more respectable at the same time that astrology
became less so has been regarded as suggestive by almost all historians. However,
KEPLER'S case presents a problem if we wish to believe merely that astrology, being
essentially geocentric, would necessarily seem implausible to someone who believed
the Universe to be heliocentric. It clearly did not do so to KEVLER. Nevertheless,
his rejection of the use of the signs of the Zodiac is clearly partly a reflection
of his Copernicanism in that he recognised that stars seen close together on the
sky need not be close in space (see KOYR~ 1957). The Zodiac signs were thus deprived of any necessary physical reality, and, as we have seen, K~PLER in fact took
the further step of regarding them as purely matters of human convention ls.
A further motive in KEPLER'S reform of astrology was, as SIMON (1975, 1979)
has shown, the demand that there be some cause assigned for astrological effects.
It seems to me that it is rather revealing to consider the type of cause that KEPLER
assigned to the only form of astrological influence which he seems to have accepted
to the very end, namely the influence of aspects. That cause was harmony. It did
not act through the medium of the light of the planets and it was not itself material
- as K~I'LER points out even in his brief treatment of the subject in De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus~6. '
Now, as we have seen, for KZPL~R the astrological expression of harmony was
part of a wider cosmological harmony. This musica mundana, however, depends
upon another element in KEPLER'S thought that classes him with the Old Guard
rather than the avant garde: his belief that the Universe (or, at least, the observable
xo4 Harmonices Mundi Book IV, Chapter VII, KGW 6, p. 270, 11.16-32.
los See above and De Stella Nova, Chapters IV and V, KGW 1, pp. 168-177.
lo6 In Thesis XXXVI, KGW 4, p. 21, translated in Part 2 below.
225
Universe) was finite, and that the Sun, with its system of planets, held a privileged
position within it. As KOYR (1957) has shown, KEPLERbelieved he had good philosophical and observational grounds for this belief (KoYR~ seems, however, to have
underestimated the weight of one of KEPLER'S observational arguments; see FIELD
1981). In any case, it is fundamental to his cosmology, for his cosmological models
are designed only to describe the Solar s y s t e m - w h i c h is no doubt why they
failed to appeal to later generations of cosmologists, who increasingly saw the
Sun as but one star in an infinite Universe.
KEPLER'S cosmological harmony is too perfect to be extended to other planetary
systems around other Suns. It finds all the harmonies in our one Solar system,
whose nature KEPLER proves to be the consequence of God's determination that
the Universe shall be as beautiful as possible. Indeed the Creator appears to have
no choice once he has decided upon this criterion. (KEPLERformulates his description in these theological terms, but if we transpose them into the corresponding
terms for natural philosophy we see that they really amount to the assertion that
there will only be one cosmological theory which gives an adequate account of all
the facts. KEPLER also made this assertion in regard to astronomical theories.) lv
Because of its dependence upon the belief that the Universe was finite, KEPLER'S metaphysical defence of astrology was ineffective. And this despite the fact
it had formed part of a cosmological model whose astronomical part was in very
good agreement with observation (see FIELD 1982) and that it was not animistic
but mathematical: an affair not of angels but of angles 18. It seems to me that
the example of KEPLER does not in fact provide evidence against the theory that
the rise of Copernicanism made a major contribution to the decline of astrology.
KEPLER was exceptional in that the consequences he drew from Copernicanism
did not lead him to believe that the Universe was infinite and did lead him to
believe that the new astronomy made it possible to write a more accurate version
of PTOLEMY'S Harmonica as well as of the Alrnagest. His astrological system was
part of a cosmological archetype that could find no place in an infinite Universe,
while the parts of astrology he had rejected amounted to very nearly the whole
of traditional astrology, and his reasons for rejecting them were closely connected
with his Copernicanism.
2. Translation of De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus

Translator's preface
As CASPAR HAMMER point out in their Afterword to De Fundamentis
Astrologiae Certioribus in Johannes Kepler Gesarnrnelte Werke, volume 4 (Munich,
1941), the work was written in Prague in the final months of 1601 after the death
of TYCHO BRAHE,which took place on 24 October. This is, however, not to say
lo7 Mysterium Cosmographicum, Chapter 1, KGW I, p. 15, 1.5 et seqq; see also
JAROINE 1979.
lo8 JOHN HENRY, private communication, 1983.
226
J.V. FIELD
that the work was, by KEPLER'S standards, necessarily written at unusual speed.
The annotations to the Mysteriurn Cosmographicum, which make the second edition about 44 folio pages longer than the first (in the modern reprints, in K G W
1 and 8), were apparently the work of a week (HAMMER,1963); and the Dissertatio
cure Nuncio Sidereo (Prague, 1610) (about 25 folio pages in K G W 4) was written
almost equally quickly (ROSEN 1965). KEPLER'S style in these two works does not
differ from his style in others in a manner that, to me, naturally indicates haste,
so it is with some hesitation that I put forward the suggestion that the sometimes
obscure style of De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus may be attributable to the
speed with which the work was written. Perhaps KEPLER was, also, over-eager
to impress his readers? Composing an astrological c a l e n d a r - w i t h a learned
treatise on astrology by way of introduction-should probably be seen (at least
partly) as a bid for attention in high places and an advertisement of the writer's
competence to take up TvcRo's former position as Imperial Mathematician.
This might account for some of KEPLER'S obscurities, which seem to me to
be due, in the main, to a determination to leave nothing out and to his intermittent fondness for extreme b r e v i t y - a quality he certainly considered a literary
elegance, as witness his admiration for the styles of PERSIUS and TACITUS(CASPAR
1938). In translating such passages I have tried to be as literal as possible, and
have explained in my notes what I take to be the significance of the passage in
question. The notes thus provide something of a commentary on the first part of
KEPLER'S text (Theses I-LI). The second part, the prognostication for 1602
(Theses LII-LXXV), is uniformly aphoristic in style, as are most astrological
calendars of the period.
In view of its later career in natural philosophy, the word vis in KEPLER'S text
has always been rendered as "force", even if the result sounded awkward. Similarly, the word virtus has always been rendered as "power". I do not, however,
wish to imply that whatever separation KEPLER may have made between the
meanings of these words (and he does appear to have made some) it necessarily
corresponds exactly with the later separation of meanings between the English
words I have employed in my translation.
It is perhaps also of interest that in this text KEPLER twice uses the word leges
to denote natural laws (Theses XLVII and L). However, it should be noted that
the laws in question appear to be complementary to "periodic change" and it is
therefore not obvious that they are capable of mathematical formulation. On
the other hand, KEPLER seems to have regarded almost everything as capable of
mathematical formulation (the Universe being a reflection of God the Geometer
Who made it). Thus his failure to use the word lex in referring to his aids to the
calculation of planetary motions may merely indicate the low status he accorded
them.
In De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus, as in his other works and in his
correspondence, KEPLER seems to follow the convention that all dates after 1582
are New Style (Gregorian) unless otherwise indicated. My notes follow his example.
Every time that KEPLER uses a Greek word, it has been printed in Greek in
the translation.
The text used for this translation was that published by CASPAR t~ HAMMER
227
( K G W 4), and I am indebted to the notes of that edition for most of the identifications of persons and works referred to in the text.
I have, also, found it useful to refer to the German translation by HANS
GENUIT: Ober die zuverliissigeren Grundlagen der Astrologie (Kassel, RosenkreuzVerlag, 1975).
Fig. 6. Title page of De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus (Prague, 1602).

Photograph courtesy of the British Library Board.
228
J . V . FIELD
Acknowledgements. I am grateful to Professor A. R. HALL for reading the first part

of this paper and an earlier draft of the translation of the Dedicatory Letter, and to
Dr. E. J. A~TON for reading the draft translation of the rest of KEPLER'S treatise. Their
comments were very valuable.
Much of the material in the first part of this paper is derived from my PhD thesis
(FIELD 1981 in the bibliography). In connection with that part of my work, I am grateful not only to Professor HALL, who was my supervisor, but also to my friend and former
colleague (at the Observatories, Cambridge, UK) the late Dr ARTHOR BE~R.
I am indebted, also, to Ms J. BRODY, Dr A. M. DUNCAN, D r R. J. W. EVANS and
D r U. KEUDEI- for help on various matters as diverse as, for example, points of Hungarian history and idiomatic usage in (modern) German.
229
ON GIVING ASTROLOGY SOUNDER FOUNDATIONS

A new short dissertation concerning Cosmology
WITH A PHYSICAL PROGNOSIS FOR THE COMING YEAR
1602 after the birth of Christ,
Addressed to philosophers
by
Magister Johannes Kepler
Mathematician
Discover the force of the Heavens, 0 Men; once recognised it can be put to use.
That of which we are ignorant can profit us nothing,
Only futile labour is onerous: success brings gain.
By your skill, 0 Men, discover the force of Nature.
Prague in Bohemia
Schumann Press
To THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUSLORD, LORD PETER WOK OF ROSENBERGKI, IN KRUMLAU IN BOHEMIA,LORD OF THE CELEBRATEDHOUSE OF ROSENBERGK,COUNCILLOR
To THE HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR, MY CLEMENT LORD
Sir, in the first book of De Officiis CICERO points out that that there are now
great spirits, and there have been in the past many who even as private persons
have sought after or attempted certain great things, even while confining themselves
within the limits of their own affairs 2. Our fellow-German, REINHOLD3, adapting
1 PETERVOK RO~MBERK(1539--1611), a cultured patron of all the arts, was the last
of his family, which had played an important part in the political and social life of
Bohemia. He moved to Krumlov (Krumlau) on the death of his brother Vm~M in 1592,
but in 1600 debt compelled him to cede this castle to the crown and he retired to the
town of Tiebofi (Trublau) (see EVANS 1973).
2 CICERODe Officiis, Book I, Chapter XXVI. As translated by CYRUS R. EDMONDS
(1865) the passage in question reads:
"One thing you are to understand, that they who regulate public affairs perform
the greatest exploits, and such as require the highest style of mind, because their
business is most extensive and concerns the greatest number. Yet there are, and have
been, many men of great capacities, who in private life have planned out or attempted
mighty matters, and yet have confined themselves to the limits of their own affairs
. . .
(EDMONDS 865, pp. 47-48).

3 CASPAR & HAMMER (1941) have identified the reference as being to MELANCHTHON'S letter to GRYNAEUSprinted in his edition of PEURBACH'STheoricae novae planetarum (Wittenberg, 1535), reprinted in REINHOLD'Sedition of the work (Paris, 1553).
Apart from being cast into indirect speech, KEPLER'S quotation is, however, exact--run-
230
J.V. FIELD
this remark to the study of Astronomy in particular, urges that right thinking
people should not allow themselves to be deflected from these studies by the opinions of the unlearned, who admire only those arts that bring financial gain. For
these are worthy studies and fortitude too is required in prosecuting them, fortitude
which strengthens the mind against the foolish opinions of the crowd and despises
perverse judgements. As for what this excellent man said of both branches of
Astrology, I have thought that today it applies chiefly to Judicial Astrology, which
is a part of Physics. Anyone whose duty it is to write Prognostications must
especially look with lofty disdain upon two mutually contradictory common
attitudes, and guard himself against two lowly and abject emotions, the love of
glory, and timidity. For he who will please the crowd and for the sake of the most
ephemeral renown will either proclaim those things which Nature does not display
or even will publish genuine miracles of Nature without regard to deeper causes,
is a spiritually corrupt person. On the other hand, there are those who say that
it is not fitting for a serious philosopher to prostitute the good name of intelligence
and the honour of scholarship by involving himself with topics that every year
are defiled by extremely trivial and inane soothsaying. By this action, they say,
he inflames (as with tinder) the crowd's appetite for marvels and the superstitions
that flourish in feeble wits. I accept that these arguments are persuasive, and if an
honest man had no more urgent cause in mind they are of a kind to deter him
from this kind of writing. But one whose reasoning furnishes him with such
[a motive] as the wise would approve surely must be accounted timid if he were
to allow his encounter with these irrelevant and inappropriate objections to deter
him from his proposed course, through fear of rumour and baseless detraction.
For, though the majority of teachers of this art are taken up with the trifling
of the Arabs, it does not follow that the secrets of Nature which the art contains
are either trifles themselves or should be rejected along with the trifles. Rather, the
gems should be picked out of the mire, our worship of God enlightened by the
proposed contemplation of Nature, others inspired by our example, and we
should strive that those things which may once have proved of some definite
usefulness to mankind shall be brought, by every endeavour, from the shadows
of ignorance into the open. And even if we do not at once achieve success (and
predictions are vastly doubtful because of the great confusion among [operative]
causes) this should make us redouble our efforts, since merit is industry's reward.
That many will misuse this art to satisfy their own craving for marvels and to
confirm their own superstitions discourages me no more t h a n - t o take one
example among m a n y - a good ruler is discouraged from storming a city because
he knows it will cost him a few soldiers, whom he would, indeed, have preferred
not to lose, if that had been possible. If anyone objects that this work is addressed
to the public at large, who are least likely to draw profit from it, I should like to
ask him to bear in mind that by no other way than publication could we reach
out to the educated persons hidden here and there among the crowd. And, further,
we may observe (in order to cure the crowd's craving for marvels) what physicians
ning as far as "... and despises perverse judgements" in the present translation, KEPLER
seems to be correct in interpreting MELANCHTHON'Sremarks as referring to both branches
of astrology.
231
observe in the sick, that we may make use of the unnatural and pernicious appetities
of the crowd to get them to swallow (as medicine) such advice (disguised as prognostications) as may serve to remove this disease of the mind, and which otherwise we could scarcely have persuaded them to take. Therefore, just as the physician
is not as delirious as the patient when in order to administer a medicine he humours the delirious patient in word and simulated action, so I hope the right
minded will not suspect me of anything underhand when, with the best intentions,
I publicly speak to the crowd (which is eager for things future and new) on the
subject of what is to come. As for unfair judges, who do not go deeply into matters
even of the greatest import, and merely mock, if they do not leave untouched this
humble professional service, so open to ridicule, I shall follow the poet's advice
and turn the unseeing back of my head to them 4.
I resolved to dedicate my meditations on the coming year (together with a
very interesting discussion of celestial influences) to you, Most Illustrious Lord,
as a trifling New Year's gift because I am persuaded that Your Highness is a magnanimous patron to all learned men, and particularly those learned in these arts,
as is clearly witnessed by your conversation and by the fact that you extended the
hand of friendship to the famous and nobly-descended TYCHO BRAHE, a Phoenix
among astronomers, and then, after his death, extended it to me also, with expressions of your regret at his loss and goodwill towards myself. And evidence of
this interest is seen every day, since the members of your court include the famous
HERMANN BULDER5, doctor of medicine, a great lover of mathematics and a man
of universal learning in studies of this kind, with whom you daily converse about
these matters. Accept, therefore, Most Illustrious Lord,these forecasts of natural
events, and compare them with the political forecasts which you may make by
reason of your rank and your knowledge of state affairs, to which I frequently
make appeal. For only those who are concerned with politics in a rational way
will be able to judge correctly the success of this forecast. As for the marvels
relating to natural phenomena and natural philosophy, the philosophers will
surely claim the right to pass judgement. Farewell, may you enjoy a long and
comfortable old age, and may you pass a very happy New Year. I commend
myself to Your Highness.
Your Highness'
obedient servant
Magister JOHANNES KEPLER
Mathematician.
4 PERSIUS Satires I, 6l.
5 HERMANNBULDERwas physician at the Ro~mberk court. Little is known about
him except that he was an enthusiastic collector of Paracelsian manuscripts (see EVANS
1973). Some letters that passed between BULDERand KEPLERare printed in the KGW.
232
J.V. FIELD
THESIS I
The p u n i c expects a Mathematician to write annual Prognostications. Since

at the approach of this year, 1602 from the birth of Christ our Saviour, I decided
not to pander to the public's craving for marvels but rather to do my duty as a
philosopher, namely to limit the scope of such Prognostications, I shall begin
with the safest assertion of all: that this year the crop of prognostications will be
abundant, since, as the crowd's craving for marvels increases, each day will bring
an increase in the number of authors.
II
Some of what these pamphlets say will turn out to be true, but most of it
time and experience will expose as empty and worthless. The latter part will be
forgotten 6 while the former will be carefully entered in people's memories, as is
usual with the crowd.
III
The nature of the cause is the same as that of the effect. In their prophecies,
Astrologers have regard to causes that are partly physical, partly political (for
the greater part, indeed, inadequate, and mostly imaginary, vain and false) and,
for the rest, causes that are completely null (when they allow Enthusiasm to guide
their pens). When they are carried away by this, if what they say is true the fact
must be attributed to chance-unless we are to believe that more often and for
the most part it is brought about by some higher occult instinct.
IV
Some physical causes are recognised by all [practitioners], some by very few.
Moreover, there are many things which exist in Nature but which no man has
yet explained in terms of their causes. And, of the causes of which we have taken
note, there are some whose mode of operation and rationale (rationem) we all
of us understand, and others whose mode of operation, or mediating causes,
are understood by very few people or by nobody at all.
V
The most universal, powerful and surest c a u s e - w h i c h all men know a b o u t is the increase and decrease of the height of the Sun at noon. Thus, the Sun is
6 Literally "written on the wind". This idiom exists both in classical Latin and in
colloquial German.
233
at the Winter Solstice near Christmas, that is on 21 December, a little before six
in the afternoon, and it is at the Summer Solstice on 21 June at half past ten at
night 7. Thus the former will be marked by the cold of Winter, the latter by the
heat of Summer.
VI
The mode of operation of this cause is clear from what follows. At Prague in
Bohemia the elevation of the pole is 50 5' 45". The inclination of the Ecliptic
is 23 31' 30" at the present epoch s , as measured by that Phoenix of Astronomers
the late TYCHO BRAHE. Thus in Winter the Sun, which is our source of heat, is
visible above the horizon for only 7h 49 min. Thus it only warms our air for a
short time, whereas for more than twice as long as that it is hidden beneath the
horizon and does not warm us. In Summer, on the contrary, it remains above the
horizon, and continues to warm us, for 16h 22 min, and is hidden for less than half
that time.
VII
Moreover, our air, and similarly both water and earth (insofar as it is an
element) will, if not warmed continuously, quickly return to their natural state
and become cold. For ARISTOTLZ is mistaken in asserting that air is naturally
hot 9.
VIII
For whatever is partly material is, insofar as it is material, by nature cold.
And whatever is potentially hot has this nature from animal force (a vi animali)
or innate force (insita) or that force from which it came into being.
IX
Another and more important reason why the Sun warms more when it is
high than when it is low is that when the Sun is low it strikes our horizon obliquely and feebly, whereas when it is high it strikes more at right angles, and more
strongly. Why the immaterial ray of the Sun should show the same property
7 New Style.
s hoc saeculo. The passage suggests that at this period KEPLER was not willing to
rule out the possibility that the inclination of the ecliptic might change with time. TYcHO'S
measurements are given in Tychonis Brahe Dani Opera Omnia, vol. II, p. 71.
9 ARISTOTLEOn coming-to-be and passing away, II, 3 (300a30-331a6).
234
J.V. FIELD
that we find in dense material bodies when they are in collision with one another,
no-one has so far been able to explain.
X
Thus since at Prague the Sun is about four times higher in Summer than in
Winter it follows f r o m this factor, (ogether with the previous one, that o f the heat
which comes down f r o m the Sun to the elemental region on the longest day o f
Summer no more than an eighth part remains in the shortest day 1.
XI
N o r do we experience all o f this eighth part o f the heat that remains in Winter.
F o r in Winter the Sun is not far above our horizon and on account o f its obliquity
encounters (habet oppositum) more o f our dense atmosphere (erassum nostrum
a~rem). N o w let us assume that the surface o f the clear air (vapidi a~ris) which
refracts the Sun's ray, is, measured perpendicularly upwards, at a distance o f
one G e r m a n mile (it can hardly be m u c h further, for it is not at the same height
as the material which causes twilight and refracts the rays o f stars) 11. Then in
Summer the Sun's ray encounters (objiietur) a one thousand and ninth part o f
density (crassities), in Winter a twenty-third. Thus in Winter the Sun's ray is
three times weaker on this account; and taking all three factors together, hardly
a twenty-fourth part o f the Summer heat remains in Winter 12.
lo That is, the Sun gives eight times more heat over the course of the longest day
than over the shortest. In a context so rich in unquantifiable factors, KEPLER'Scalculation
is appropriately crude. He assumes, firstly, that the ratio 1 : 4 in the height of the Sun at
noon will change the amount of heat in the same proportion, and, secondly, that the ratio
1:2 in the length of the day (mentioned in Thesis VI) will change the amount of heat
in the ratio 1 : 2. (The method of calculating the length of the day from the latitude is
given in Almagest II.3.) Multiplying these ratios gives 1:8 for the ratio between the
amounts of heat the Sun gives on the days of the solstices.
11 According to KEPLER'S calculation in Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena (Prague,
1604), TvcHo's observations showed that the distance to the upper surface of the air,
at Uraniborg, as measured by refraction, was not more than half a German mile (Ad
Vitellionem Paralipomena ..., Chapter IV, Proposition XI, pp. 128-129, K G W 2, p. 120).
One German mile (4000 paces) is about seven and a half kilometers (about four and a
half English miles) (see ALBERTI 1957).
12 As in Thesis X (see note 10 above) KEPLER assumes that the ratio between the
amounts of heat for the complete days will be the same as the ratio between the heat at
noon on those days. The "amount of density" the ray encounters is proportional to the
length of its path through the atmosphere. KEPLER'S calculation thus merely involves
a certain amount of trigonometry. If we take the radius of the Earth to be 860 German
miles (the value given in Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena), KEPLER'S results appear to be
numerically correct. (860 German miles are equal to approximately 6477 kin, and the
modern value for the radius of the Earth is 6371 km, so KEPLER'S value is about 2~o
too large).
235
XII
Although these three causes are most in evidence on the actual days of the
Winter and Summer solstices, it is not a necessary consequence that these should
respectively be the times of greatest cold and heat. Indeed, there is another factor
(causa) which, for its part, makes the Winter more intense from about the beginning of February and the Summer from about the beginning of August. F o r
earth and water are thick bodies (crassa corpora) and cannot be made hot all
in an instant; and when heated, in the month of June, when the Sun is at its highest, they will, on account of the density of their matter and the size of their bodies,
retain for some time the external heat that has been forced into them (though
each night they will emit some of it from their surface); and in this way they
will store up the heat of June after it is past, and likewise that of July and August.
The same thing applies in reverse to the cold of Winter.
XIII
The same applies also to the second hour of the day, which is hotter than the
twelfth hour, although the Sun is beginning to go down la. F o r in this latter case
the air has the same effect as the earth did in the former one. For air, being rather
thin, can be altered more quickly than earth, but still not instantaneously. However, this holds, if not for the whole mass of the earth, at least for its surface.
XIV
On the same grounds we can predict that on this account September and
October will be warmer than March and February, though the length of the day
will be the same for both.
XV
The second physical cause to be taken into account in predictions is the
Moon. For experience shows that all things that consist of humours swell as the
M o o n waxes and shrink as it wanes. This single effect determines many of the
predictions and choices of auspicious times that are to be made in matters of
Economy, Agriculture, Medicine and Seafaring. Natural philosophers have not
yet completely understood the reason for this Sympathy.
23 The comparison is presumably between the second hour after noon and the hour
of noon itself. KEPLERappears to be lapsing into the professional astronomers' convention
of taking noon as the start of each day.
236
J.V. FmLD
XVI
Moreover, the Moon's power (virtus) is twofold, one part being monthly,
as I have mentioned, depending on the changing face of the Moon, the other
part half-monthly, and on that account also half-daily, seen to exert its greatest
force in what Physicians call Crises and in the alternating tides of the sea, which
will be considered below.
XVII
Thus, on every day in the Calendar that there is a New Moon, humours, since
they depend on the Moon, will be diminished, and on the days of Full M o o n
they will be increased 14. Moreover, just as at the points I have mentioned, so
even when the M o o n is at the points of quadrature humours will be powerfully
moved. This is the straightforward and purely astrological prediction; as for what
might be deduced by individual techniques 15, in concerning himself with such
things the Astrologer would overstep the bounds of his profession, to become
a farmer, a physician, a chemist e t c . .
XVIII
Sometimes, however, it may be useful to give such people advice. For instance,
I suggest to the chemists that they may find the time of full M o o n unsuitable
for melting metals, because the air is excessively humid. I f this is so, the choice of
Aspects will be of great moment for them.
XIX
The third physical cause to be taken into account in predictions is the variety
in the nature of the other planets, seen in their coloursl 6. Here we should be making
14 KEVL~Rmakes a brief reference to this passage in Tertius Interveniens, Thesis XXX
(Frankfurt, 1610, KGW 4, p. 172, 1.31 et seqq). In contrast to KEVLER'Susual practice,
there are very few references to De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus in his other works.
15 Presumably the special techniques appropriate to particular cases.
16 Astrology, being concerned with effects produced on the Earth, necessarily remains geocentric, and KEVLERhas lapsed into using the standard Ptolemaic terminology,
counting the Sun and Moon as planets (see also note 43 below).
It seems that at this period (late 1601) KEPLER was already abandoning the conventional belief that the planets (other than the Moon) were completely self-luminous. Later
telescopic observations--which KEVLERaccepted immediately--confirmed that the light
of the planets was apparently all reflected sunlight, taking its colour from the reflecting
surface. However, since he believed that the planets exerted their force through their light
(see Thesis XXI below), KEVLERcontinued to connect the quality of the force with the
colour of the light (see Harmonices Mundi Libri V, Linz, 1619, Book IV, Chapter VII,
p. 170, KGW 6, p. 279, 1.30 et seqq). See also Thesis XXV and notes 20, 29 and 30 below.
237
a mistake if we were to distribute the customary four qualities among the planets 17.
F o r cold and dryness are not due to light but to its absence, as are other related
conditions perceived by the soul (cognatae animae affectiones). For cold and dryness are at their most extreme where there is no light, no soul and thus also no
heat. Thus since nothing comes down to us from the heavens except the light of
the stars it is clear that cold and dryness do not come down as such.
XX
We deduce both the various forces (vires) of the planets and their number in
a way that is different from and perhaps not less elegant than that in which ARiSTOTLE deduced his four elements from the combinations of the four qualities.
All variety arises from pairs of opposites, and primary variety from primary pairs
of opposites. In his Metaphysics ARISTOTLEtakes as his primary pair of opposites
the Same and the Different, it being his intention to deal with matters higher and
more general than Geometry. For me, the Distinction (Alteritas) among created
things seems to be found in their matter, or on account of it; and where there is
matter, there is Geometry. Thus what ARISTOTLE calls the primary pair of opposites, having no middle term, that of the Same and the Different; for my part, in
considering Geometrical things in a philosophical manner, I find this pair to be
primary, but to have a middle term, so that what for ARISTOTLE was the one
term D I F F E R E N T we shall separate into the two terms M O R E and LESS. Consequently, since Geometry provided the model for the creation of the whole world,
it is not improper that these Geometrical opposites (haec Geornetrica contrarietas)
should contribute to the adornment of the world, which is based upon the various
forces of the planets (qui constitit in variatis planetarum viribus) 18.
XXI
But since these terms Same, Different, Equal, More and Less have no significance when they stand alone, we must think of their subjects. Now the s u b j e c t s that is natural t h i n g s - o f which these properties are predicated, are to be understood as follows. The most wise Founder had decided to construct a corporeal
World. Therefore, at the first, when He conceived Creation He conceived Matter,
17 ARISTOTLE'Sfour qualities (hot, cold, wet and dry) are distributed in pairs among
the elements in On coming-to-be andpassing away II, 3 (330a30-331a6). Most of KEVLE~'S
discussion of the qualities of the forces of the planets is repeated, with more detailed
references to the work of ARISTOTLE and others, in Tertius Interveniens (Frankfurt,
1610) Thesis XXXII et seqq (KGW 4, p. 172 et seqq).
18 KEPLERhad described the nature of the geometrical model according to which he
believed the world to have been created in his Mysterium Cosmographicum (Ttibingen,
1596). The work contains a very short chapter (Chapter IX) relating the astrological
character of each planet to this geometrical model. This chapter is discussed in the first
part of the present paper.
238
J.V. FIELD
which from Moses we know to have been water, that is, wet, yielding and capable
of being moulded 19. Therefore this one thing is natural, that is Fluid (Humor).
But the Founder was not satisfied with the body of the world until He had made
it somewhat like its Founder, in being capable of life and motion. Therefore there
exists a second thing, namely Life. Now since we are debating the forces of the
stars, which they exert on things here below, we must consider what it is that
comes down from the stars to us. It is not matter or actual body. It is not originally
actual life, for that all living things already possess, from the activity of the soul
which is within them. This is to say that the stars do not engender, but aid, so
their part is that of instruments. Thus they supply us with two instrumental
qualities, two things to add to the number of two natural things, exerting force
to make matter capable of absorbing fluid and kindling it to make it capable of
becoming w a r m for life and motion. Both these forces they obtain and exercise
through light, which they obtain and at the same time send to us 2. For the particular quality of direct light is the quality of warming, and that of reflected light
is humidification 21.
XXII
Therefore we have two f a c u l t i e s - w a r m i n g and h u m i d i f i c a t i o n - i n any of
three degrees-Excess, Mean and Defect. Let us see what diversity may be deduced from this. First the faculties may exist alone: Heat in Excess, Mean or
Defect 2z. Humidification in excess, mean or defect. F r o m this we have six distinctions. Then from the combinations of both the faculties we have nine distinctions,
as is clear from the table given below.
Therefore in all we have fifteen distinctions. Now let us see what choice we are
to make among them and which of them are by nature inadmissible ((~O'~O'q~(l"(O/,)23.
19 The Latin word translated as 'capable of being moulded' is fietilis, for which
LEWIS & SHORT give the classical meaning 'made of earth', deriving it from Jingo. Since
KEPLER, following Genesis, is specifically concerned with water, it seems possible that
he is relying upon the etymology of the word rather than on its significance in classical
Latin.
so The verb obtinere, translated here as 'obtain', means 'to be in possession of'
as well as 'to gain possession of'. Thus KEPLER is not prejudging the issue of whether
planetary light is reflected or intrinsic. See note 16 above, and Thesis XXV and notes 29
and 30 below.
21 KEPLER'Sword's are Lucis enim propria qualitas, quatenus htx est, calfactio [sic]
est: lucis verb, quatenus refleetitur, qualitas est, humectatio (KGW 4, p. 16, 11.15-16).
22 As here, KEPLERoccasionally fails to distinguish the faculty of heating (calefactio)
from heat itself (calor). And similarly in relation to humectatio.
2a Might KEPLER'S use of the Greek adjective da~araTo~ be a reminiscence of
PLATO'S use of the related noun aO~r~aat~ ('construction') to describe the polyhedral
figures of the elements in Timaeus (55C)? In On coming-to-be and passing away, II, 3
239
XXIII
First, it is not reasonable (aequum) that any excess or defect should exist in isolation without any compensating property. Thus f r o m the six distinctions obtained
f r o m single faculties four are ruled out 24. Indeed, mean heat (we assess it in regard
to the world, n o t in regard to its quantity) is assigned to the b o d y o f the Sun,
whose light is purely intrinsic; mean humidification is assigned to the M o o n ,
whose light is purely b o r r o w e d from the Sun and the stars.
XXIV
Next, it was not possible, either, to have more than one excess or more than
one defect. F o r excesses are a little unnatural (a natura paulo alienores) if they
do not have a defect to temper them. So no Planet has been made such that it
carries excess or defect in both faculties. Therefore, o f the distinctions constructed
f r o m the combinations o f faculties, there remain seven 25. In fact, of these, two
pairs are equivalent. F o r there is the same p r o p o r t i o n between excess of heat and
mean o f humidity as there is between mean o f heat and defect o f humidity; and
the same between defect o f heat and mean o f humidity as between mean o f heat
and excess o f humidity. In the figure these combinations show their equivalence
by making parallel lines z6. The same applies to combined excesses or defects. Thus
(330a32) ARISTOTLEdismisses incompatible pairs with the adjective d6~vazo~ ('impossible').

The fifteen distinctive characters are:
1. Warming in excess,
4. Humidifying in excess,
2. Warming in mean,
5. Humidifying in mean,
3. Warming in defect,
6. Humidifying in defect;
7. Excess m warming excess in humidifying,
8. Excess m warming + mean in humidifying,
9. Excess an warming + defect in humidifying;
10. Mean in warming + excess in humidifying,
11. Mean m warming + mean in humidifying,
12. Mean m warming + defect in humidifying;
13. Defect in warming + excess in humidifying,
14. Defect m warming + mean in humidifying,
15. Defect m warming + defect in humidifying.
24 KEPLER has ruled out the characters numbered 1, 3, 4 and 6 in note 23 above.
25 KEVLERhas now also ruled out the characters numbered 7, 9, 13 and 15 in note 23
above, leaving himself with those numbered 2, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 14, that is, seven possible
characters. He refers to them as combinations of faculties although 2 and 5 each involve
only one faculty.
26 The figure in KEVLER'Stext (shown in Figure 7) appears to have been designed so
that it could be set in ordinary lines of type. The name of each planet characterised by
a particular combination of faculties is written twice, the names running parallel. For
example, if, for the sake of clarity, we show only the part of the figure relating to Mercury
240
J.V. FIELD
Fig. 7. The powers of the Eplanets, from KEPLER'S D e F u n d a m e n t i s

Photograph courtesy of the British Library Board.
...
241
the true distinctions are five in n u m b e r , three 27 o f t h e m simple, two, as we have

a l r e a d y shown, as it were double, o r rather with two n a m e s each, and one with
three 28. A n d since in the w o r l d there are also five planets, three superior a n d two
inferior, it is i n d e e d r e a s o n a b l e to s u p p o s e (consentaneurn) t h a t they m a y have been
m a d e in this n u m b e r on this a c c o u n t alone ( t h o u g h o t h e r causes m a y have been
involved as well); m o r e o v e r , n o t h i n g could be m o r e a p t t h a n the d i s t r i b u t i o n o f
we have:
Calefaciendi
Excessus
Excessus
Humectandi
met
CU
ri
US
Mediocritas
Mediocr.
met
CU
ri
US
Defectus
Defectus.
In making this equivalence, K~eLER is ruling out various comparisons between planets.
F o r instance, he can say that Mercury is more heating than humidifying, but he cannot
say whether it is more heating than Venus (which is more humidifying than it is heating).
27 Sic. It should be 'two'.
28 As in note 26 above, various components of Figure 7 will be isolated for the sake
of clarity.
The first double item is the character of Mercury, shown above in note 26. The second
is that of Venus.
Calefaciendi
Excessus
Excessus
Humectandi
U
N
VE
Mediocr.
Mediocritas
S
U
N
VE
Defectus
Defectus.
The triple item is the character of Jupiter.

Calefaciendi
Excessus
Mediocr.
Defectus
I U P I T E R
I U P I T E R
I U P I T E R
Excessus Humectandi
Mediocritas
Defectus.
242
J . V . FIELD
these c o m b i n a t i o n s o f faculties a m o n g the planets in the m a n n e r shown in m y

figure:
IExcessus
I V P
S mer
A
cu
TN
~1
VE
V
I V P
Sol. ~ ~Mediocr.
[
mer
S
~1
Rcu
V
ri
M
T
R
V
Excessus
S
A
E
us
R
S
Mediocritas
Luna.
ri
us
R
M VE
[Defectus
R
S
R
S
Defectus
The two 'simple' characters are those of Mars and Saturn, which have been transposed
in KEPLER'S figure, where they are shown as:
Calefaciendi
Excessus
Excessus
Humectandi
A
T
U
Mediocr.
Mediocritas
R
N
U
S
Defectus
Defectus
and
Calefaciendi
Excessus
Excessus
Humectandi
S
R
A
M
Mediocr.
Mediocritas
S
R
A
M
Defectus
Defectus
(~ASPAR HAMMER (1941) note that a copy of De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus

now in the University Library at Munich contains an annotation in KEPLER'S handwriting
pointing out this error ( K G W 4, p, 486).
243
XXV
It follows from this that the five planets do not only make use of light borrowed
from the Sun but also add something of their o w n - w h i c h , indeed, there are also
other reasons to believe. For, if many of the natural bodies on the Earth have
intrinsic light, what is there to prevent other celestial globes besides the Sun
having the same? 29 Then, if the planets lacked light of their own, they should
show a changing face, as the Moon does 3. Finally, it is plausible to consider
brightness and twinkling as evidence for intrinsic light, and cloudiness and steadiness as evidence for illumination from another source.
XXVI
We must now consider what it may be that can distinguish these forces of
the Planets into excess, mean and defect. Thus, since we have argued that light is
borrowed by reflection [i.e. that some of the light of the planets is reflected sunlight] we must account for this diversity of properties by considering the various
ways in which light can be reflected, that is how it is reflected from various different surfaces. Now I am not dealing with the type of reflection that takes place
from the surface of a mirror, in which light is reflected from any point of the surface only to a single point; rather, I am concerned with the kind of reflection that
we see from any wall, even one with an uneven and rough surface, which reflects
incident light from any one of its points over a complete hemisphere and imbues
the reflected light with whatever colour it may itself possess. For the light of the
M o o n comes to us in this latter way, not in the f o r m e r - o r we should never see
a M o o n with horns but always a small round image of the Sun. Thus the Geometrical arrangement of the surface has no effect, unless it perhaps accounts for the
markings we observe on the Moon 3~.
29 For a Copernican there was a logical compulsion to regard the other planets as
being similar in nature to the Earth, and KEPLER never seems to have found any difficulty in accepting the unity of terrestrial and celestial physics. However, in this passage
he seems to be attempting to combine this belief with the Aristotelian notion of some
particular kinship among 'celestial' bodies--again echoing the Ptolemaic inclusion of
the Sun among the planets. See note 16 above and Thesis XXX below.
3o In 1613 GALILEOproved, for those who chose to believe what he claimed to see
through telescopes, that Venus indeed showed phases exactly like those of the Moon.
Until then the observed changes in brightness of the planet could have been ascribed to
intrinsic variation in brightness or the planet's changing distance from the Earth. KEPLER,
who did believe GALILEO,seems to have abandoned the idea that the planets were selfluminous. See notes 16 and 29 above and Thesis XXIX below.
31 The words translated as "Geometrical arrangement" are Geometriea dispositio.
KEPLERseems to be arguing that we should think of the surface of the Moon as resembling
a rough bulging wall rather than a convex mirror. Thus its overall spherical shape is
irrelevant, but small irregularities may be responsible for small features observed on the
disc. He was to repeat this argument--going into more detail and giving references to
COPERNICUSand Ancient authors (particularly PLUTARCH)--inAd Vitellionem Paralipo-
244
J.V. FIELD
XXVII
The causes o f the variation in reflection (the cause o f the quality of the refleeted ray) are the colours o f the reflecting surface. Here I should like to know
f r o m the Chemists what it is that produces the diversity o f colours in terrestrial
bodies. As for the colours o f the Rainbow, they divide into two classes: the first
arises f r o m darkening, or the taking away of light, the second f r o m refraction
(a refractione), or colouring. Each class begins f r o m the light itself [i,e. unaltered
white light], or analogously (fi~,a2o'y@ white-coloured light, which light occupies
the central arc o f the R a i n b o w and as it were divides it in two 32. On one side
the light diminishes, on the other it is refracted (refringitur); on both it ends with
black, that is darkness. As it diminishes, the light becomes first yellow (tiara) 33,
next red, then b r o w n (fusca) and finally black. The same effect is seen in clouds
when the Sun has set or when it is about to rise; and in the light o f stars near
the horizon, and in Eclipses of the Sun, when our e y e s - t h e seat o f this illusion
(in quibus est haec fallaeia)-are suddenly deprived o f the light of the Sun 34.
W h e n reflected (In reflexionis), in the first stage the light shows green, later blue
then purple and finally completely black or obscured 3s. Thus, since this is the
mena (Prague, 1604) Chapter VI, section 2 (p. 266 et seqq, K G W 2, p. 201 et seqq).
GALILEO'Stelescopic observations (Sidereus Nuneius, Venice, 1610) later lent support to
K~PLER'S argument. In his reply to GALILEO(Dissertatio eum Ntmeio Sidereo, Prague,
1610) KEPLERrefers not to the sketchy account of the matter in De Fundamentis Astrologiae
Certioribus but to the fuller one in Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena. In substance, KEPLER'S
argument in both these works is identical with that GALXLEOputs forward, in an entirely
different style, in the First Day of the Dialogo (1632).
32 KEPLER'S sentence ends "... quae quidem lux medium Iridis cireulum obtinens,
eum in duo quasi seeat" (KGW 4, p. 18, 11.15-16).
33 Perhaps 'orange'?
34 KEPLER seems to be thinking of edge-contrast effects and retinal afterimages-though of course not in those terms.
35 KEPLER'Svarious theories of the rainbow--in the present work, in Ad Vitellionem
Paralipomena (Prague, 1604) and in his correspondence--have tempted a number of
scholars to explain his explanations, most notably CARL B. BOYER (1950 and 1959).
The theory described in the present work is inelegant: it calls upon two separate
mechanisms for the inner and outer parts of the bow.
On the redward side of the bow, the colours are ascribed to the diminution of the
light. KEPLER does not discuss what it may be that causes the light to diminish in this
way, but one may imagine that observations of sunsets, or the slow fading of the white
heat of a piece of iron in the smithy, might suggest that a decrease in intensity causes
light to redden (it being left open whether the reddening is truly in the light or is merely
an effect caused in the eye or by the faculty of sight).
KEPLER'S description of what happens on the blueward side of the bow is made
more difficult for the modern reader by his apparently using interchangeably words one
inevitably translates as 'refraction' and 'reflection', These words now carry very different
meanings, but it appears that their Latin originals did not do so for KEPLER. His usage
of the words can presumably be traced back to ARISTOTLE'Saccount of haloes and the
rainbow in Meteorologiea, III, 3 4 . ARISTOTLE,who is considering extramitted visual rays,
refers to them as being subject to ~v6z2~t. In the context, this noun is most naturally
245
o r d e r o f the c o l o u r s o f the R a i n b o w , it is r e a s o n a b l e to suppose (consentaneum)

t h a t the same o r d e r will o b t a i n in reflection as well (et in reflexione), so t h a t the
surface which reflects a r a y m o s t strongly is a white one; next c o m e green a n d
yellow, then blue a n d red, then p u r p l e a n d b r o w n ; a n d the surface which reflects
m o s t w e a k l y o f all is a b l a c k one 36.
XXVIII
H o w e v e r , when b l a c k is brightly i l l u m i n a t e d it sheds red light. This effect is
seen in steel mirrors, where the white c o l o u r o f the face a n d the b l a c k o f the m i r r o r
c o m b i n e to give a reflected i m a g e o f a r a t h e r red face. Thus one w o u l d be entirely
translated as 'reflection', since ARISTOTLE is clearly describing visual rays being turned
back on themselves, the weaker ones being turned back more easily (see particularly
Meteorologiea III, 4, 373a35 et seqq). However, the cognate verb dvaz26co, carries the
primary meaning of 'to bend' and could indeed be taken to refer to either of the processes
we now describe as reflection or refraction. In any case. ARISTOTLE'Sexplanation of the
rainbow depends upon his assumption that dvdz~.aa~; by water, being more forceful than
that by air produces colours.
KEPLER'S explanation of the rainbow is not as explicit as ARISTOTLE'S.We have already noted that he provides no cause for the weakening of the light in the redward
half of the bow. The same is true for the refraction/reflection which is asserted to produce
the blueward half. It is not even clear that he recognises that water is necessary for the
formation of the bow, and it seems possible that the gradation of colours on the blueward
side may be proposed as due to the same process that causes landscape to appear bluer
with greater distance (a phenomenon generally noted and exploited by painters since the
fifteenth century).
The absence of any cause for the colours of the bow is disturbing, as is the absence
of any hint as to the reason for its shape. (Perhaps we are expected to accept ARlSTO:LE'S
explanation of the shape of haloes and assume, as ARISTOTLEseems to do, that the same
arguments will hold for rainbows ?) But more disturbing than either of these omissions
is the apparent assertion that there is white light in the middle of the bow, dividing the
redward and the blueward sides. One might almost suspect KEPLER of taking drastic
measures to get seven colours in his bow: brown, red, yellow, white, green, blue, purple.
Newtonian hindsight may also suggest that the white gets used up by refraction/reflection
into green, blue and purple; but KE:'LER'S account does not seem capable of bearing
such an interpretation. I am most inclined to think that we should be literal-minded in
our interpretation of KEPLER'S assertion that the white light occupies the central arc,
dividing the bow in two (the Latin text is given in note 32 above). The white light is,
I suggest, proposed as a mere line, an invisible geometrical boundary between the two
visible zones. Perhaps KEPLER thought that the fact one does not see a white line was too
obvious to need to be stated explicitly--or perhaps he thought its invisibility was implied
by his quasi?
In any case, KEPLER'S description of his theory is very brief, and its primary purpose
is not to explain the rainbow but to provide a basis for deducing the colours of the surfaces of the planets.
36 Reflection from mirrors is apparently proposed as an analogy to each of the two
processes producing the rainbow rather than an example of either. KEPLER assumes that
the colours which reflect more strongly are those found closer to the centre of the bow.
246
J.V. FIELD
justified in stating that Mars possesses a black surface, since its ray is very red.
Thus its reflected light is faint, and thus the planet does not humidify greatly, and
is defective in humidity. By the same argument from colour and humidification,
we shall attribute to Saturn a rough white surface, because its colour is leaden;
and to Jupiter a red or purple surface, because it appears a slightly reddish yellow;
to Venus a very smooth yellow or white surface, since it is the fairest of them all;
to Mercury a blue or green surface, since it appears silvery, and owes its brilliance
more to its twinkling or the dilution of its brightness than to its colour 37,
XXIX
Now, the intrinsic light of a planet varies over the surface of its body, whence
it comes, so that it shows differing colours; but the degree of the planet's power
to w a r m is derived f r o m the internal structure of its body. However, the surface
is a consequence of the structure of the body, so that in this way the power of
humidification depends to some extent upon the power of imparting heat. And,
clearly, if colour can be transferred and propagated from one body to another
by means of light, we may believe that the same is true of other q u a l i t i e s - f o r it
is certainly true of heat. Hence it is reasonable that for any power a Planet shows
in its effect there will be some analogous disposition in the body of the Planet.
I f this [i.e. the statement in the last sentence but one] is so, it can lead us to wonderful exercises of our art. For example, I might say that in Summer it is unhealthy
to stay in the neighbourhood 3s of a wall illuminated by the Sun, because the
cement is made of lime which, since it can corrode and eat into things, imbues the
ray it reflects with this same property. However, the first thing that seems to be
associated with intrinsic light is some degree of transparency. For if there is
intrinsic light in something, the light is not attached to the surface but has roots
reaching deep into the interior, as we remark in gemstones. Thus in order for the
light to shine through we require transparency. Nonetheless, many things actually
become transparent by the action of heat and retain that property 39.
XXX
I hope philosophers will forgive me for arguing from bodies we may handle
to celestial bodies. For they themselves show that there is absolutely no variation
37 The colour of the surface, by determining the proportion of reflected light in the
light radiated by the planet (according to the scheme deduced from the structure of the
rainbow in Thesis XXVII) determines the degree of humidification to be attributed to the
planet. Clearly, it is really the 'known' degree of humidification which has been used to
assign a colour to the planet. The roughness or smoothness of the surface seems to be
involved only as a way of differentiating Saturn and Venus.
a8 Reading in regione for e regione (KGW 4, p. 19, 1.12).
39 KEPLER seems to be suggesting that the intrinsic light of a body has a warming
effect, and will thus make the body transparent. Thus the transparency of such a body is
not a separate property but merely a consequence of the body's intrinsic light.
247
to be found among bodies of the latter kind. Why should they calmly accept in
celestial things that variation which they consider base and terrestrial? It is,
however, better to give some account, not involving any palpable absurdity,
than to be completely silent [on the subject of celestial bodies]. And I really do
not know whether one might not rather say that there is something divine and
celestial in the gemstone of the carbuncle, which connects its light with celestial
light, instead of saying that there is something of the terrestrial elements in the Sun
to make it give heat. Thus I shall say that Saturn has an excess of humidity and
is deficient in heat, and that the disposition of its body is like that of ice (which
is also very humid, being water, and entirely lacking in heat), hence its white
surface; and hence, also, the internal disposition of its body is rather dense, and
not very transparent. The Astrologers call it cold and dry, which is almost the
same. However, since its influence gives wet Winters the planet should more
properly be called humid. To Jupiter we shall attribute a body like a Ruby,
so that it may be very transparent, to account for its abundant intrinsic light, and
even and red to account for its brightness and colour. Mars will be likened to
an incandescent coal, from which the hidden inner fire shines out; for the Astrologers say, and experience shows, that Mars possesses the power of a dry and
glowing flame. To Venus we shall give an amber body with a smooth yellow (tiara)
surface, to account for its extraordinary golden (croceurn) brightness; so it will
humidify more than it warms; a property which seems to require a rather soft
body 4. Finally, Mercury will be compared with a Sapphire, or something similar,
such that its transparency is sufficient for the sharpness of its own rays and allows
intrinsic rather than external light, because the planet's combination of qualities
is such that there is more heat than humidity.
XXXI
On account of their borrowed light or humidity we can take into consideration
the planets' emersions or occultations and oppositions 41. Saturn, which is at
opposition to the Sun on 11 May and at conjunction with it on 18 November,
will exercise its humidification to the full on both occasions because then it shows
us a face fully illuminated by the Sun. It will exercise it least on 11 February and
9 August when the planet is at the two points of quadrature. Jupiter will humidify
most on 8 April when at opposition and on 26 October at conjunction; and the
contrary [i.e. humidify least] on 8 January and 6 July at the points of quadrature.
The same is true of Mars (though in the small degree to which it has this faculty)
on 5 March at opposition to the Sun, and the contrary on 9 June at quadrature,
40 mollusculum corpus. I have been unable to find the adjective in any dictionary,
and take it as a diminutive derived from molluscus. KEPLERseems to have had a typically
Germanic fondness for diminutives: the present work is called dissertatiuneula (again
a word not in LEWIS & SNORT).
4~ It is not clear why KEPLERshould have omitted reference to the immersion of the
planet in the Sun's rays, since he mentions its emersion (emergence from them) and the
period separating the two events (the planet's occultation).
248
J.V. FIELD
and so on at similar points in succession 42. There is something else which must be
taken into account for Venus, and also for Mercury. For when it is at superior
conjunction with the Sun on 15 May it will humidify to its fullest extent, doing so
less both before and afterwards; and the next year it will be at inferior conjunction with the Sun and will humidify least. In the same way, Mercury will humidify
little on 4 January, 30 April, 29 August and 19 December. For, when it is at
inferior conjunction with the Sun, all the face illuminated by the Sun is turned
upward. It will humidify most on 9 March, 27 June and 19 October, when it is
at superior conjunction with the Sun, and turns its illuminated face downward.
XXXlI
It is a matter for doubt, when we also take into account their intrinsic light
and power of warming, whether the planets act more strongly when they are high
or when they are low. Astrologers choose high, physicists low. Let us make the
compromise that insofar as they are seen to subtend a larger angle (that is when
they are low) then they warm most, just because they are seen that way 43. The power
that is increased by height is due to a different cause.
XXXIII
When we take into account both powers, that of warming and that of humidifying, we must consider what sign the planets are in. For both the planets and the
M o o n operate most strongly from Cancer, because in that sign they are longest
above the horizon, and for other reasons which we considered at the beginning,
when we were dealing with the Sun. In the same way, too, they have more power
as they are further to the North. Hence, full Moons near the Winter solstice are
more humid than those of Summer. Thus in Northern latitudes, this year and for
a few years to come, those powers which we have already described as belonging
to Saturn and Jupiter, and indeed those of Mars at the end of the year, will be
weak, because the planets will be in signs that are low in the sky. On the other
hand, their powers will be correspondingly stronger in Southern latitudes.
XXXIV
We see that it is when planets move most slowly that they have most effect,
and this explains why they are so strong when stationary, even when they are at
42 interjectis et sequentibus temporibus suceessivb. That is, at successive oppositions,
quadratures and conjuctions.
43 The terms 'high' and 'low' referring to a planet's greater or lesser distance from
the Earth, seem more appropriate in a geocentric planetary system than in a heliocentric one. However, as an astrologer KEPLER is concerned with appearances as seen
from the Earth.
249
Apogee 44. In this, Mercury's station is the most effectual: for this planet, being
at other times the fastest moving, loses the most motion. And Saturn's station
has the least effect, because Saturn has little motion which it loses when stationary.
Now, the station of Mercury mainly stirs up winds, and in places snow or rain,
in the form of abundant vapours. Thus we shall expect these things around
17 January, 20 April, 12 May, 15 August, 6 September, and 9 and 31 December.
But the motion of Mercury is as yet not well known, so it is not possible to be
absolutely certain of the day in advance.
XXXV
The causes of future events which I have explained so far, although they
indeed have much of the divine about them, are still of a nature more closely resembling that of matter than are the causes which now follow. For the former causes
act through some kind of flow of light which extends down to the sublunary bodies,
a flow which, although it is not material and does not take place in time, is, however, not without properties that apply to quantities 45. For it takes place in a
straight line, is attenuated with increasing distance from the heavenly body, increases or decreases with the changing face of the planet that is shining, is obstructed by the interposition of an opaque body and, on the other hand, given
the visible presence of the heavenly body, acts continuously. N o r is this true only
in relation to one and the same heavenly body, but it also applies in comparing
two different ones: thus, since the Sun and the M o o n appear largest, it is in them
that these powers are most evident: in the others, whose [apparent] diameters are
small in comparison with that of the Sun and the Moon, such powers are very
weak, to the point of being scarcely, or not even scarcely, perceptible. Thus even
the common mass of Astrologers almost neglects the variation of these effects in
the manner I have described 46.
XXXVI
Thus follows another cause, which concerns all the planets equally, is far
nobler than the previous one, and excites much more wonder. For this cause
has no flavour of materiality but is concerned with form, and not with simple
form but with an animal faculty, with intellectual understanding, with Geometrical
thought. It does not draw its power in straight lines from individual heavenly bodies;
instead it assesses the rays of two heavenly bodies converging in the Earth, judging
44 Since all the effects operate through the light reaching the Earth from the planet
(see Thesis XIX above and Thesis XXXV below) one would expect them to be at their
weakest when the planet is at its greatest distance from the Earth.
4s n o n . . . s i n e q u a n t i t a t u m d i m e n s i o n i b u s . Perhaps 'not without the properties that
apply to quantifiable things'.
46 KEVLER'S"even" is presumably connected with his opinion, stated in Thesis III
above, that such astrologers usually invoke too many causes.
250
J.V. FIELD
whether they converge geometrically or non-geometrically (&2o'yo3g)47; nor is

this cause extinguished at the time of New Moon, when no rays descend to the
Earth, but then a ray is imagined to descend; it is not obstructed when the Earth
is interposed between us and the heavenly bodies; but it makes them operative
over the Earth even when they are hidden beneath it. Finally, it acts almost
instantaneously, and when a Geometrical angle is changed into one that is nongeometrical and non-harmonic (?~2oyo~ et &,dQ#oazo~,) it falls into abeyance at
once, or very shortly afterwards, however much the light of the heavenly bodies
may increase. Since these facts are most thoroughly confirmed by experience, they
lead me to the beliefs I describe in what follows.
XXXVII
Since God the creator derived the structure of the corporeal world from the
form of body, which is quantity, it is reasonable to suppose that the positions, the
spacing and the bulk of the bodies should bear to one another the proportions
that arise from the regular solid f i g u r e s - a s I proved in my Mysterium Cosmographicum [Tiibingen, 1 5 9 6 J - a n d the motion of the bodies, which are the life
of the world, then either sound sweetly in consonance or work strongly together,
when the proportion between them is derived from the regular plane figures. For as
a plane figure is an image of a solid, so motion is an image of a body. Just as it is
impossible that there should be more than five regular bodies in Geometry ~8,
similarly there are no more than eight harmonic ratios which arise from comparing
the regular plane figures, as I shall show another time, God willing, in my b o o k
on Harmonics 49.
XXXVIII
Thus, since there are eight ratios which determine the motions, and the action
of the Heavens on the Earth is (as it were) a kind of motion, taking place through
47 That is, whether the angle between them can be constructed "geometrically",
i.e. using only a straight edge and compasses (the means permitted by EUCLID). In Harmonices Mundi Libri V (Linz, 1619) the constructibility of a regular polygon (which is
equivalent to that of its angle) is made a criterion for whether or not the figure contributes to the archetype of the Universe. However, in this later work, it is not constructibility
of the polygon which determines whether the angle defines a powerful configuration (an
astrological aspect) but rather its capacity for forming either a polyhedron or a flat
pattern which entirely covers the plane (a tessellation). See Part 1 above and FIELD,
in press, 1983.
48 KEPLER had already discovered at least one more regular polyhedron, but as its
faces were star polygons he regarded it as a secondary solid, derived from the regular
dodecahedron described by EUCLID. See FIELD 1979.
49 The "book on harmonics" was eventually published as Harmonices Mundi Libri
V(Linz, 1619), and did, indeed, contain a geometrical explanation of consonances, though
one that is rather more sophisticated than is suggested by the brief sketch KEI"LERgives
here. See Part 1 above.
251
the intermediary of rays from heavenly bodies which converge in the Earth and make
angles with one another, so the eight Harmonic ratios will be translated into the
sizes of these angles. The Ancients indeed acknowledged no more than five
(commonly called Aspects), namely Conjunction, Opposition, Quadrature, Trine
and Sextile 5. But reasoning first suggested to me that we should add three more,
namely quintile, biquintile and sesquiquadrature 5~, which experience has since
repeatedly confirmed.
XXXIX
As to why the effect of two Planets should be so strongly concentrated at the
moments of these Aspects, I can ascribe it to nothing other than an animal faculty,
which on the one hand is capable of Geometrical reasoning (which makes an Aspect), and on the other has power over its body, in which the effect is noticed.
For the effect is not produced because two rays join to form an angle. There is
an angle both the day before and the day after an Aspect, and two rays always
form some kind of angle; the effect only finally occurs when the angle corresponds
to a Harmonic ratio or figure (~Z~#~) (PTOLEMY speaks of "configurations"
(aZ~#~url~o)g)). Ratios and figures are ineffective in themselves. And what happens here is exactly the same as what happens when living creatures move. I f
anyone were to say that the things a living creature sees with its eyes can make
it move, without its being necessary for this that there should be an animal faculty
in the body which is moved, then he would be a very strange kind of philosopher.
XL
Moreover, this faculty which gives force to Aspects is not in the heavenly
bodies themselves. For these Aspects we have been discussing occur in the Earth
and are merely a relationship (~:Zga~), not formal consequences of the motion of
the heavenly bodies but consequences of the accidental positions of two heavenly
bodies in relation to the Earth. Thus, just as the soul which moves the body does
not lie in the object but where the image (species) of the object is perceived, so
so The traditional aspects correspond to differences in ecliptic longitude of 0 , 180,
90 , 120 and 60 respectively (see Figure 2 in Part 1 above). Differences in latitude were
usually ignored, planetary positions being calculated from tables rather than found by
observation. Since the distances of the heavenly bodies from the Earth are large compared
with its radius, the angle between the observed positions of the bodies are equivalent
to the angles between lines joining the bodies to the centre of the Earth.
5~ KEVI.ER'Snew aspects correspond to angles of 72 , 144 and 135 .
Although KEVLERis introducing aspects not used by PTOLEMY,his concern to relate
aspects to musical consonances is clearly influenced by PTOLEMY'SHarmonica, though it
appears that at this time he had only indirect knowledge of the work (see KLEIN 1971).
However, in Harmonices Mundi Libri V consonances and aspects are not related directly,
but are derived separately from different geometrical properties of polygons (see Part 1
above).
252
J.V. FIELD
it is necessary that this force, which makes Aspects effective, must be inherent
in all sublunary bodies and in the great globe of the Earth itself. Which is to say
that every animal faculty is the image of God practising geometry (yeo)#ev~obvro~,)
in creation, and is roused to action by this celestial Geometry or H a r m o n y of
Aspects.
XLI
The hasty may imagine that I am proposing a form new to Philosophy, which
is not the case, except insofar as I am giving a little more generality to ancient
beliefs. For, firstly, in connection with the Earth, no-one will deny that its whole,
as being a whole, has a nobler form that than which is recognised in any clod of
earth. And its activities argue that this form is truly akin to animal faculties:
they are Engendering metals, keeping the Earth warm, and sweating out vapours
to beget rivers, rains and other meteorological phenomena. These activities argue
that its form is not only conservative, as in stones, but truly vegetative 52.
XLII
However, this does not mean that the Earth must increase in size or change
its position. For its soul is not human, nor properly speaking animal, nor like
that of a plant, but of a particular kind which is defined from its activities, as are
other kinds of animal faculty. And the same reasoning that compelled the Ancients
to attribute a third kind of soul to plants compels us to attribute this fourth kind
to the Earth.
XLIII
Nor is it absurd to suppose that animal faculties, which have no capacity for
discursive reasoning, should understand Geometry, and be moved by it as by an
object. There are acknowledged examples close at hand. The plastic faculty of a
tree does not reason, yet it follows the Creator's instructions to the full, in the
way it orders its leaves for the benefit of its fruit and for its defined purpose. Indeed
its beauty, which depends upon number, is retained in all its seeds. Most types of
plant show structures which involve the number five 53. It is not derived from the
52 A more detailed account of the soul of the Earth is given in Harmonices Mundi
Book IV, Chapter VII (see Part 1 above). CASPAR(1940, p. 469) notes that KEPLER had
discussed the soul of the Earth in his calendar for 1599. This calendar was reprinted in
KOF I, and will appear in KGW 11, part 2, for which no publication date is as yet available.
i 23 The meaning of KEPLER'Sword quinarium is fairly obvious, but I have been unable
to find the word in any dictionary. It is later translated as 'five-hess'.
KEPLER'S account of the fruit's inheritance of the characteristics of its parent tree is
apparently an early example of preformationism.
253
tree into the fruit by material necessity (it is impossible to preserve this five-hess
in such a derivation), but rather by communication of the plastic faculty that the
plant has the inborn five-ness of its characteristic beauty. However, this use of
reason [sc. apparent use of reason] is rather lowly and not greatly to be wondered
at, since the faculty remains within itself and passes on the five-ness which it
contains. I shall give a more appropriate example. The peasant does not reason
about the Geometrical proportion which one musical note bears to another. Yet,
all the same, the external H a r m o n y of the strings penetrates through the peasant's
ears into his mind and makes him r e j o i c e - n o t indeed because of the regular
mixing of the notes, not because of the soothing caress given to the ears (for often
violent sounds hurt the ears yet their consonance nonetheless gives pleasure), nor
on account of any other cause that anyone has so far been able to find, but on
account of this single fact that, as I shall show in my Harmonics, some Geometrical
relation (ratio) connects the form to the musical consonances; this relation is
familiar to everything else in the world, particularly to souls, and was indeed called
harmony by some of the Ancients. Drawn on by these examples, as if we were
mounting a flight of steps, let us dare to go to the top and believe that there is
within the Earth a vegetative animal force, and in the animal force some kind
o f sense of Geometry, as a form, and due to the fact that this force is a kind of
animal faculty. And although this force is always at work it is stimulated most
when it is fed with this kind of nourishment of Aspects. Thus, just as the ear is
aroused by a consonance, so that it listens carefully, and so hears that much more
(seeking pleasure, which is the perfection of sensation), similarly the Earth is
stimulated by the Geometrical convergence of vegetative rays (for we have noted
that they warm and humidify), so that it concentrates diligently, or to a greater
extent, upon its vegetative work, and sweats out a large quantity of vapours.
XLIV
The effects of Aspects are modified to some extent according to the different
natures of the Planets, explained above. Thus the Earth will be affected in one
way by a Geometrical combination of Saturn and Mars, which are contraries,
and in another by a combination of Jupiter and Venus, which are similar. This
happens in much the same way as we observe that all purgatives cause a motion
o f humours in a man's bowels, but Rhubarb particularly affects bile. (For if.a
faculty recognises Geometry will it not also recognise colour and other qualities
in the rays ?) However, the greatest variation [in the response to Aspects] is due to
the disposition of the bodies acted upon, particularly the Earth, which is different
in different places and at different times. For when, for example, in Spring humours are abundant in the Northern hemisphere because of the increasing height
of the Sun, as explained above, then even the lightest Aspect, of any Planets, will
spur that faculty in the Earth into action and it will sweat out a quantity of vapours to engender showers. At another time or place a far stronger Aspect does
indeed stimulate the Earth but since material is lacking it produces little result.
254
J.V. FIELD
XLV
At this point we must, in addition, consider another cause, not yet acknowledged [se. by most astrologers ?], ignorance of which throws Astrologer's predictions into violent confusion. For, as in man there are certain cycles of the humours
which make a man suddenly, without apparent cause, subject to a certain f e e l i n g at times he will be merry without the aid of music, at others there is no pleasant
thing that can turn him away from sad t h o u g h t s - s o , in the same way, we must
recognise that apart from Aspects there are other more powerful and more lasting
causes which bring it about that a whole y e a r - a time for which no Aspect can
l a s t - i s held in the grip of humours and excessive cold; and then you may see
that whenever even the lightest Aspects occur they move quantities of rain or wind.
Such a year was this 1601. In another year there is so much dryness that on a day
of Aspects nothing can be discerned except small clouds or smoke instead of
vapours. Such was the year 1599.
XLVI
I leave to one side the problem of whether this very obvious variation is due
to Eclipses of the Sun and M o o n (which must likewise be accounted Aspects,
that is as conjunctions and oppositions) s4. It would be necessary to establish that
the animal faculty of the Earth, which I have discussed at such length, is violently
disturbed by the sudden intermission of light, experiencing something like emotion, and persisting in it for some time, a phenomenon which THEOPHRASTUS,
who is not always fanciful, seems to have noticed 55. I f you do not either give this
as a cause or, rejecting all causes, ascribe this ordinary activity of nature to the
special providence of God, then you will not be able to explain why it is that
eclipses are so important as omens.
XLVII
It is more reasonable to suppose that in this case what happens to the Earth
is like what happens to living creatures, apart from their being mortal, so that
because of its internal disposition there are cyclical changes in its humours and
it as it were suffers illnesses. If this is so, the laws (Ieges) and periods of the cycles
should be investigated by collating observations made over m a n y years, something
which has not yet been done. CAESlUS attributes some part in this to the nineteen
5, An eclipse of the Sun can occur only at New Moon, when the Moon is at conjunction with the Sun. An eclipse of the Moon can occur only at Full Moon, when the Moon
is at opposition to the Sun.
5s The reference appears to be to PARACELSUS--THEOPHRASTUS BOMBASTUS VON
HOHENHEIM (C. 1493-1541)--but it has so far eluded more precise identification (see
CASPAR & HAMMER 1941).
255
y e a r cycle o f the M o o n , a n d we c a n n o t entirely reject his o p i n i o n s6. F o r m a r i n e r s

say t h a t the greatest tidal m o v e m e n t s o f the sea c o m e b a c k to the same days o f
the y e a r after nineteen y e a r s ; a n d the M o o n , which governs h u m o u r s , seems
s u i t e d to p l a y a p a r t in this business, which involves an excess or defect in h u m o u r s .
XLVIII
But a t h i r d very plausible cause also c o m m e n d s itself: t h a t m a n y o f the dist u r b a n c e s o f s u b l u n a r y nature, which as I have said occur i n d e p e n d e n t l y o f
Aspects, m a y be driven b y h a r m o n i c m o t i o n s o f the Planets. F o r if a n angle
which b e a r s a certain r e l a t i o n to the w h o l e circle has a n effect, w h y s h o u l d n o t
the same be true o f the m o t i o n s o f two heavenly bodies which are in such p r o p o r tion to one a n o t h e r as c o r r e s p o n d s to a musical consonance, so that, if one b o d y
traverses an equal distance m o r e quickly t h a n the other, the o t h e r is slower in a
H a r m o n i c p r o p o r t i o n ? Indeed, these p r o p o r t i o n s v a r y a n d are n o t often h a r m o n i c ,
for the same P l a n e t at times m o v e s m o r e quickly at times m o r e slowly. H o w e v e r ,
these things have n o t yet been confirmed b y experience, n o r is there yet a n y w a y
o f investigating the h a r m o n i e s 57.
XLIX
T h e A s t r o l o g e r s seek o u t a t h o r o u g h l y inane cause for this general d i s p o s i t i o n
o f years b y l o o k i n g to the entrance o f the Sun into Aries, for the f o u r seasons
they use the figures for the c a r d i n a l p o i n t s , a n d for the m o n t h s the figures for the
N e w M o o n - all o f this as if a p e r i o d o f time were a fixed thing like a man, whose
Birth C h a r t we m a y r e a s o n a b l y examine, a n d n o t r a t h e r a p o r t i o n o f the celestial
m o t i o n s - or as if the E a r t h were p r e p a r e d for a new season at a precise m o m e n t sS.
s6 CASPAR ~; HAMMER (1941) note that GEORG CAESIUS (1542--1604) wrote a large
number of calendars, which KEPLER valued for their information about weather. The
two that I have been able to examine (for the years 1585 and 1602, both published in
Nuremberg) give forecasts in a style similar to that KEPLER adopts in Theses LII to LXII
of the present work. CAESIUSfollows his forecasts with sections on eclipses and diseases,
again in a manner like KEPLER'S in the present work, considerable weight being given to
terrestrial causes. Indeed, CAESIUSgoes further than KEPLER in not suggesting any direct
astrological influence upon the course of diseases--though since they are connected with
the weather (in Hippocratic style) there is an indirect astrological influence.
57 KEPLER seems to be saying that the orbits of the planets are not yet known sufficiently accurately. Might this be an indirect plea to TYcHo's heirs, who at this time were
still denying KEVLER access to TCHO'S books of observations ? In Harmonices Mundi
Book V ratios of speeds of planets are used as part of the musical-polyhedral archetype
which describes the structure of the system of orbits. They play no part in the astrological
theory of Book IV. See FIELD 1982 and F~ELD, in press, 1982.
58 KEPLER is censuring the traditional astrological practices of drawing up the birth
chart of a year as if it were 'born' at the moment of the Spring equinox (the entry of the
Sun into Aries), of drawing up birth charts for seasons as if they were 'born' at equinoxes
and solstices, and of months as if they were 'born' at New Moon. The first of these prac-
256
J.V. FIELD
The Earth will be affected by the Aspects of the figure of the Spring equinox,
if there are any, but only on that day; on preceding and following days it will be
affected by the different ones and different ones again which occur on each partitices was not confined to popular astrologers (practising what I have called'low' astrology):
in his ephemerides for the years 1611 to 1630 ANTONIOMAGINI(1555-1617) put the birth
chart of each year on the title page of the appropriate set of tables (see Figure 8).
Fig. 8. Horoscope of the year 1617, from MAGINIEphemerides... ad annum 1630, Venice,
1616. Photograph courtesy of the Science Museum, London.
257
cular day. However, in this, almost the sole concern of some Astrologers, there is
nothing more unseemly than their distributing twelve houses among the seven
Planets, showing a childish credulity that is beyond all solid Philosophical reason,
devising dominations, and instantaneous vicissitudes in the exercise of empire,
as if they were considering an assembly of men. F r o m this has arisen all Magical
and Astrological superstition. Let us concede that there is a certain plausibility
in some of the distribution, as in the case of Saturn, which is given the Winter
signs. However, the causes of the plausibility are different [from those that are
alleged], and the inanity [of these astrologers' reasoning] appears at once in other
cases, such as that of Jupiter. However, this silly part of Astrology has already
been refuted indirectly, on physical grounds, by the Astrologer STOVLER(to avoid
appealing to the testimony of the hostile P~co DELLA MIRANDOLA)s9; in fact,
experience refutes it every day, since in so m a n y centuries they scarcely knew the
correct time for any equinox, as TYCHO BRAHE has shown 6. Let them produce
the figures for the cardinal points for past years and compare them with the
effects [that were recorded]. I shall show them that they had mistaken the time
[of the equinox] and that the true figures show qualities contrary to those of the
year that f o l l o w e d - t o employ this inane interpretive method. In the coming
year, the Sun enters Aries on 20 March just after Sunset, when Jupiter is rising
in Libra. The astrologers will think Gemini is rising, from the Prutenic Tables 61.
However, nothing of general significance can be deduced from this. F o r Jupiter
will in fact exert its force on 8 April, when it is at opposition to the Sun. And on
10 and 11 M a y Saturn will follow, because on that day it is at opposition to the
Sun.
L
Now in this matter I do not reject the opinions of the most ancient authors
HESIOD, ARATUS, VIRGIL and PLINY, and those of present day farmers, who use
the annual risings of heavenly bodies and the faces of the Moon, just at the moment
when they become visible (or certainly not long before) as a way of judging the
59 See JOHANNES STOFLER (1452--1531) Expurgatio adversus divinationum X X I I I
anni suspiciones (Ttibingen, 1523). GIOVANNIPIco DELLA MIRANDOLA(1463--1494) rejected astrology completely--see his Disputationes adversus Astrologiam divinatrieem
(Bologna, 1485, and ed. E. GARIN, Florence, 1946, 2 vol.).
6o In Astronomiae Instauratae Progrymnasmata, Part I (ed. J. KEPLER, Prague,
1602) (Tyehonis Brahe ... Opera Omnia, vol. II, p. 16).
61 The Tabulae Prutenieae (Ti.ibingen, 1551) of ERASMUS REINHOLD (1511--1553)
were still in common use. TYCHO had noted their increasing inaccuracy in the 1570s.
KEPLER'S own calculations are based on TYCHO'Sobservations. The problem for astrologers is that a small error in the position of the Sun on the ecliptic corresponds to a large
error in the astrologer's determination of the moment of birth (which uses solar time)
resulting in a birth chart which may be very different, since it depends upon the relation
of the signs to the local horizon at the moment of birth. The half degree errors in the values
found from the Prutenic Tables at this period would correspond to an error of twelve
hours in the estimate of the moment of birth.
258
J.V. FIELD
future temperament of the atmosphere. They do not consider it on account of

the magical figure of the heavens nor as a cause of future conditions (for in other
years they have regard to a different omen), but as an indication of the Earth's
general disposition at that moment, a disposition they expect to remain the same
for a little time. I maintain that we are ignorant of the periodic changes and other
laws (leges) governing this disposition.
LI
It has, however, been thought that the successive changes in these overall
qualities [in the Earth] occur within a short time. For Peasants (who of all men
know this best by experience) when they see a hot Summer expect the Winter to
be very hard. And if some part of the Winter stays unnaturally warm they expect
a corresponding greater degree of cold in the later part. Thus this year, since
Winter set in rather late, Spring will be late in compensation, in accordance with
the large number of Aspects which will occur at that time of the year.
LII
I have given a survey of the most important causes that are taken into account
in Astrologers' predictions; the remainder of my work will be mainly taken up
with actual predictions. First, in the months of December, January and February,
Saturn and Mars will be at Sextile, for longer than is usual. For it happens that
at this time Mars is stationary, and Saturn always moves slowly. There will be
violent commotion and it is quite certain that there will be something excessive
in the state of the atmosphere. As to exactly what the excess will consist in, it is
not so easy to say. For, in order to do so, we should need to speculate about the
general disposition of the Earth, in the future, a matter in which it seems to me
we have as yet no theory to rely upon. This disposition is more powerful than the
variation in the operation of Aspects due to the particular forces of the Planets
involved. If there were only the one Aspect to be considered, I should predict
extreme cold due to exhalations of snow. But, because many Aspects occur together, I think there will be so much commotion (particularly on account of there
being a station of Mars) that the atmosphere will be heated by the very warm
vapours excreted from the bowels of the Earth and the snow will almost melt,
making most roads impassable 62. On 4 January the conjunction of the Sun and
Mercury will give snow or winds, according to the general disposition of the Earth.
Around 10 and 11 January there are six very powerful Aspects. Pure warmth,
and rain mingled with snow. Towards the end of the month there is nothing to
predict from the Ancient Aspects, though from the new ones the 21st, with Jupiter
and Venus at Quintile, will be breezy and hot, as far as Winter permits. The
24th, with Saturn and the Sun at Quintile, will be cold, with snow or rain. The
62 Mars, which is excessively warming (Thesis XXIV and note 28 above), is at its
most powerful, since it is at station (Thesis XXXIV).
259
28th, with Mars and the Sun at Sesquiquadrature, will be sharp, with keen fierce
winds, and will bring in snow. Let those who are minded to test the validity of
the new Aspects take note of these days.
LIII
February abounds in old and new Aspects. At first the conjunction of Venus
and Mercury will bring turmoil to the condition of the atmosphere. F o r their
influences are about as contradictory as those of Saturn and Mars, as we have
seen above 63. I speak this from experience, which bears ample witness that a
configuration of these planets brings tumult; perhaps it is also due to the fact
that, since their speeds are very nearly equal, they separate slowly and exert their
influence for a long time. Indeed, they may even bring thunder. F r o m 11 to 23 February there will be no real calm. Either it will snow heavily, if the 1 lth turns out
cold because Saturn and the Sun are at quadrature, or it will rain heavily, if, as
I am more inclined to believe, the warmth lasts as long as that.
LIV
February had 21 Aspects of the six Planets (the Moon moves so quickly that
it plays almost no part in Aspects). March is endowed with twenty. Thus it will
be more turbulent than before, since there are also other reasons for its being like
that. There will be thunder in the first part of the month because the Sun and
Mars are at Opposition, though Mars' latitude detracts from the force of the
Aspect 6'~, but on the other hand, the clustering of Aspects adds force to it. Thus
there will be unnatural warmth. From 13 March I predict this will change to
wintry cold, and from then on there will be continual cold winds and snow
mingled with rain.
LV
I expect a normal April, hot at first, since Mars and the Sun are at Biquintile,
and rain at least two days before and after full Moon, for all the planets are at
Aspect to one another. There will be persistent rain from the 13th to the 16th. Then
heat, and about the 24th excessive heat, which will break in thunder, since the
Sun and Mars are at Trine. At the end of the month there will again be showers.
The beginning of May sees the return of the rough and thundery conjunction
of Venus and Mercury, unless the difference in their latitudes saps its force. The
size of this difference is not quite certain, as the day also is not, since the calculation is as yet inaccurate (vitiosum). On the 10th, 1 lth and 12th there will be cold
63 Thesis XXIV and notes 26 and 28 above.
64 It was not usual to regard the (ecliptic) latitudes as making any contribution
to any aspect. KEVL~R mentions latitudes again in the next thesis (LV).
260
J.V. FIELD
rain, and perhaps snow in the mountains, and the atmosphere will be unhealthy.
But with a clear sky frost is still to be feared. For, apart from the Ancient Aspects,
we have one of the new ones: Saturn and Mars are at Quintile. There follows the
most delightfull mildness, with moisture. At the end [of the month] there will be
thunder and showers.
LVI
Since we do not know the cause of the overall dispositions of years, I must
write of Summer as if the state of the Earth in this next year were going to be the
same as in the one just past. If Astrological predictions (conjecturae) about a particular year prove mistaken I think they should be treated with indulgence, such
is our ignorance of the causes. For such predictions cannot be regarded as pointless, because they deal with matters that are, undisputedly, of the greatest utility,
and because they may bring to light all that is still hidden. Thus I judge that the
beginning of June will be hot and clear; and that after the full Moon there will
be dangerous agitation, floods and frequent lightning. If the general disposition
of the Earth were to incline to dryness there would be no danger. On the other
hand, if it inclines to humidity there will not be lightning but continual cold rain.
The second half of the month is marked by Aspects involving stationary Planets.
There will be agitation. I should think it likely that the whole month would be
rather cool, on account of the quantity of humidity, except that the whole of the
year 1601 has already been like that. If the whole year were to incline to dryness,
the dryness would be that much greater in this month.
LVII
July must be adjudged similarly, and with the same ambiguity. For it has eighteen Aspects. Since there are roughly 150 Aspects each year, we note that this year
they are concentrated in the six Summer months. The 1st, 2nd. 5th and 6th will be
moderate, windy and showery. The 8th will be rainy and cold, the 9th and l l t h
windy. But the 12th, 13th and 14th will be troubled by the Conjunction of Venus
and Mercury, which is repeated four times this year. There will be huge storms.
The 18th, 19th and 21st will be unsettled, with thunder and showers. Then there
will be clear skies and great heat, for at the beginning of August Jupiter and Mars
will come together.
LVIII
In August there will at last be some calm, and heat. On the 5th there will be
rain, and on the 9th. Around the 15th there will be cold rain, with thunder. After
that there will be heat, and on the 19th great agitation.
261
LIX
September will be normal at first. On the 1lth there will be rain and clouds;
the 15th and 17th will be damp. But the 20th will be very much troubled by the
Conjunction of Saturn and Mars. If warmth dominates there will now be fearful
storms. But if the year is generally damp, the rains that gather on those days will
make them overcast, and cold. There will be many clouds. The 27th will also bring
clouds. The other days will be normal.
LX
On the 5th of October there will be cold rains. For the rest, the condition
of this month will depend on that of the preceding September. For, as we have
said many times, it makes a great difference in what condition each month finds
the Earth. The 3rd, 9th and 27th will have rainstorms. The 28th and 29th will be
loud with winds and rain; but I think heat will overcome them; although the nature
of certain winds is very cold, because of the regions from which they blow.
LXI
November, too, will be fairly typical. The 5th will be troubled with hail and
sharp winds. The 15th will be changeable and warm, because Jupiter and Venus
are at Sextile at this time of the year. The 18th will have rains or, if it were to be
clear, the first frost. But I do not believe Winter will set in yet. For at the end of the
month Jupiter forms a configuration with Mars and Venus, so we shall see days
that are warm, and rainstorms, with winds, which may make it cold here and
there.
LXII
Let us take the beginning of Winter to be 3 December, a day of snow and clouds,
though not particularly cold. From then on the weather will be clear, since no
Aspects are at work, and because of their absence the cold will be moderate.
On the 15th, snow. And on the 19th not settled cold but strong winds and rainstorms. At Christmas, Saturn and Mars are at Sextile, which will reinforce the
cold; later the Sextile of Venus and Mercury will make an additional contribution
of snow.
LXIII
I have passed over the configurations of the Moon with the Planets, for the
reason mentioned above 65. However, for reasons that have been explained 66,
65 At the beginning of Thesis LIV above.
66 See Theses XLVI and XLVII above.
262
J.V. FIELD
we must not neglect its conjunction (congressus) with the Sun, before the beginning of the new year, which causes a Solar eclipse, and the pair of full Moons which
give Lunar eclipses in opposite parts of the s k y - o n e at 17 48' of Gemini, whose
onset here in Prague was observed to occur at 5 hr 7 min on 9 December, and its
end at 8 hr 33 rain, in very good agreement with TYcrlo's calculation67; and the
other will occur on 4 June 1602 at 13 32' of Sagittarius, beginning at 4 hr 52 min
after noon, beneath the horizon, so that the M o o n will rise completely dark, and
ending at 9 hr 16 min 68. I observed the onset of the Solar eclipse on 24 December
[1601] at 1 hr 17 min. The centre was at 2 hr 42 min at 2 53' of Capricorn, its
depth being ten digits from the North 69. The Sun set before the end of the eclipse.
This Eclipse is very noteworthy, since if Eclipses do have power it will have very
pronounced Effects, particularly in the North, where its depth was greatest.
However, I think we have no information as to whether, or how, it will affect the
year that follows it. For PTOLEMY'Srules are ill-defined, and not in close conformity
with Nature 7. In 1598 a very deep eclipse took place in Pisces. When, in the following September, the Sun c a m e to the opposite sign, Virgo, there was copious rain.
In 1600 there was an Eclipse in Cancer. When the Sun returned to Gemini and
Cancer, both that particular time and the whole of the subsequent Summer were
damp. Let those learned in these matters consider whether it would be legitimate
to deduce that the significance of this eclipse [of 24 December 1601] will appear
only in December 1602 and the Winter that follows, and that I should read it as
an indication of extreme cold. F o r if Eclipses exercise their force through the
constellation figure (for in admitting the apparent phenomenon of the Eclipse
it seems we also admit the apparent phenomenon of the constellation in which it
occurs 7a) then all three eclipses will affect the rays of Jupiter and Mars; so they
indicate that we must expect the misfortunes associated with Jupiter, such as heat,
and corrupted humours and the misfortunes that arise from such things.
LXIV
Another Eclipse of the M o o n will be visible in the West on 28 November.
According to TvcI-Io'S calculation, here in Prague it will start almost at sunrise,
67 Dates are as usual New Style, and times are measured from noon. There is a
description and discussion of these observations in Ad vitellionem Paralipomena, Chapter XI, Problem XXI (KGW 2, pp. 316-317).
6s Observations of this eclipse are analysed in A d Vitellionem Paralipomena, Chapter
XI, Problem XX (KGW 2, pp. 313-314).
69 That is, the eclipse was partial, the Moon passing to the North of the Sun, and at
the centre of the eclipse the limb of the Moon reached a point ten twelfths of the way
across the diameter of the Sun. KEPLER describes observations of this eclipse in Ad
Vitellionem Paralipomena, Chapter XI, Problem XIII (KGW 2, pp. 306-307).
7o nee naturae admodum eonformia. See PTOLEMY Tetrabiblos Book II.
71 The eclipse (of the Sun) is not an objective phenomenon, but merely a function
of the position of the observer. This position also defines the constellation in which the
eclipse is seen, since the position of the~ Earth in space defines the direction in which
we see the Sun (i.e. its place in the Zodiac at the time of the eclipse).
263
when the M o o n is setting. Since this eclipse occurs below our horizon, as too does
the Eclipse of the Sun which will be seen in the West on 19 June, what is there
about it to stir up tragic exclamations? People make themselves look foolish
when they claim that it is a portent that there are so many eclipses in a single
y e a r - as if there were not four or five every year, if we include all that are visible
from any part of the Earth. These people are misled by the Ephemerides recently
published by ORIGANUS, in which he calculated all the eclipses that take place
all over the Globe, which some of his predecessors were not in the habit of doing 72. Otherwise, we should perhaps not have heard cries of woe about these
eclipses which occur below our horizon; for those who are making the cries are
lost in futile wonder at what they take to be something new in the sky when
it is really only something new in ORIaANUS' method.
LXV
One is on very unsure ground in saying anything about the harvest. For because it involves natural things (all know of God's Providence) the harvest partly
depends on accidental causes, and partly on the general disposition of years,
mentioned above73; and the former causes are, by their very nature, not predictable, while the latter cause is as yet still not understood. The parts [of the sky]
which Astrologers assign to grain, wine, oil and wheat for the position of Jupiter
in the chart of the cardinal point 74, these are the wildest of dreams. You inquire
why no wine will be forthcoming this year ? Because the year was cold and damp.
Whoever has foreseen the latter fact has foreseen the former one from that alone.
Why was the rest of the harvest plentiful in some places and scanty in others ?
Because from some internal and, as I have argued above, as yet secret disposition
of the Earth some parts of the ground were damp and the Summer adequately
fine, whereas in other places there was dryness, which is unfavorable to crops,
and it was followed by earthquakes 75. Sometimes, indeed, the year is good, but
suddenly, one day, frost or a hailstorm damages the uplands, or a flood the lowlands; and this happens only over a small area, according to the direction of the
wind. Thus the nature of the winds is of great importance. And in this region here
the winds are for the most part very unsettled. Thus it is the height of stupidity
to look for other causes of these events in the figures for the cardinal points, when
obvious causes for them are before our eyes. And lest, as a newcomer, I should
seem to be attacking the art [of Astrology], I appeal to the authority of CARDANO
and TYCHO76.
72 DAVID ORIGANUS Ephemerides Novae annorum X X X V I (1596-1630), Frankfurt,
1599.
73 Thesis XLV.
74 That is, astrological 'houses' in the 'birth chart' for the year (Thesis XLIX).
75 Hot weather was commonly supposed to cause earthquakes, so in this case they
are presumably adduced as further evidence of heat, rather than mentioned as a further
hazard to the crops.
76 GIROLAMOCARDANO De Subtilitate Libri X X I (Nuremberg, 1550), Book XVI,
p. 311 et seqq, and Libelli Quinque, I: De Supplemento Almanach ete (Nuremberg, 1547),
264
J.V. FmLD
LXVI
I shall take into account the one cause, namely storms, since we are as yet
unsure about the others 77. In Southern regions, an early Spring will bring out
buds on the trees before their time, and while they are still tender, the intemperate
weather of the succeeding March will damage them. At our own latitude, nothing
normally comes out as early in the year as that, since the weather is usually cold,
with a North wind. The Spring will be favorable for crops, but there are risks
on 10, 11 and 12 May, as mentioned above 7s. June presents a threat to the vine,
which will be in flower, for then and in the following month, July, there will be
widespread damage from excessive humidity or hailstorms. August, September and
October seem favorable for wine, so long as the grapes remain on the vine, and
also favorable for grain. However, there will be a risk around 20 September.
LXVII
As for diseases, all physicians know that when the atmosphere is disturbed
our bodies are also disturbed. Since there are indications that the Winter will be
changeable, there will also be many diseases, particularly at the beginning of March
and May. Moreover, since the Summer too appears to be disturbed, the Autumn
following it will be very full of corruption, on account of the coming together
of Saturn and Mars, and there will be many Autumn diseases, plague in some
places where it is brought by a harmful wind; particularly if one takes account
of the Eclipses in the manner we have discussed. I have mainly pointed out those
days which will be troubled by numerous Aspects. They will bring diseases in
suitably disposed subjects, and will be more difficult days for those who are already ill. When a man has already taken to his bed, or when harmful humours
are already moving to and fro in his body, then indeed one cannot continue,
as I have so far done, to neglect the configurations of the Moon with the [other]
planets, particularly with the Sun. For these configurations more particularly
affect and move humours (as witness that huge Chaos of humours, the Ocean),
and I shall not deny that it is useful to consider them in medical matters. Let the
physician, if he can, refrain from treating a seriously weakened patient when the
Moon is in a powerful Aspect. For every Aspect is of itself a natural purgation.
But if strong purges are needed, let him, on the contrary, choose powerful Aspects.
Indeed, the whole business of Crises depends upon the return of the Moon and
its configurations with the Planets, and it is vain to seek explanations for it
elsewhere.
Aphorisms 111 and 112, p. 292. TYCHO BRAHE De Nova Stella (Copenhagen, 1573)
(Tychonis Brahe ... Opera Omnia, vol. I, p. 43).
77 That is, the other causes discussed in the previous thesis (LXV).
78 Thesis LV.
265
LXVIII
In matters of politics and war an Astrologer clearly has an opinion to express,
assuming that I am correct in what I said above, in connection with the foundations
of Astrology, about the correspondance between souls and the configurations in
the heavens. For when strong Aspects are at work, every kind of soul, whatever
its natural form of operation, is alert and lively, particularly if the Aspect is familiar to the individual concerned from his birth chart. This sympathy is not due
to the temperatment of the body, as when the heavens affect the atmosphere, the
atmosphere affects the temperament of the body and the temperatment of the body
affects the soul; on the contrary, the sympathy is directly between the soul and
the heavens, because the soul is akin to light and Harmony, and afterwards it
transforms its body also. And, since man is a social animal, souls will associate
most closely for public purposes when the rays of the planets are associated with
one another, geometrically, in the heavens. Moreover, this business can be handled more successfully if there is an accord among the birth charts of those who
(in TYcuo's phrase) have their hand on the tiller of the public fate.
LXIX
But it is really the height of folly to look for predictions about specific matters,
such as those who crave marvels seek in Calendars. What I have said in regard to
meteorology applies here as well; nothing can be looked for from Astrology except
the prediction of some excess in the inclination of souls, what this inclination will
lead to in future realities is determined by man's free will (arbitrium) in political
m a t t e r s - f o r man is the image of God, not merely the offspring of N a t u r e - a s
well as by other causes. Thus whether there will be peace or war in some particular
region is a matter for the judgement of those who are experienced in politics, for
their power of prediction is no less than that of the Astrologer. For the state has a
will (morem), if I may call it such, no less [significant in this matter] than the
influence of the heavens. If there is war in some region, it will be on the following
days that the souls of the soldiers and the commanders will be ready for stratagems, fights, skirmishes and other movements: 12 January; 5, 14 and 24 February;
5 and 14 March; 5 and 25 April; 4, 12 and 31 May; 9 and 21 June; 8, 13 and
19 July; 1, 9, 15, 25 and 30 August; 20 and 27 September; 3 October; 5, 18 and
30 November; 25 December. For experience confirms this [effect].
LXX
There seem to be no signs in the heavens of movements that are universal or
very noteworthy or entirely new, since Saturn and Jupiter do not form any
configuration this year 79 ; although the heavens are only one, albeit the most general,
cause and sign of great movements.
79 Aspects between Saturn and Jupiter (which occur relatively rarely, since both
planets move slowly) were considered particularly powerful. KEPLERconsidered it signi-
266
J.V. FIELD
For sublunary things, there are other more specific and genuine signs, which
it is not an Astrologer's business to foresee. Thus, let us consider the earthquake
which in September 1601 shook an area not accustomed to earthquakes, namely
the Rhine and regions nearby. They say it was felt even in Milan (Insubriam).
It is not from Astrology that I make this statement, since there is no star for earthquake, but from observation of the world, and of all ages, from which we see that
movement of armaments and men's souls usually follow earthquakes.
LXXI
At most, we may add from Astrology four things that are of outstanding
significance: the Eclipse of the Sun in 3 of Capricorn, the Sextile of Saturn and
Mars at station, which will last for almost all of January and February, and will
return in June, the Conjunction of Jupiter and Mars at the end of July, and the
Conjunction of Saturn and Mars in September. First, we know from experience
that under these two conjunctions souls are benumbed, fearful or tense with expectation of new things, a situation which has great influence on a large assembly
of men gathered together in one place, inclining either to a successful enterprise or to
disaster, as experience of war bears witness. The disaster at Eger in '96 happened
at an Opposition of Jupiter and MarsS; the wedding at Paris took place when
Saturn and Mars were at Conjunction in Scorpio in 1572 sl. I think it would be
profitable for the Masters and Governors of the people to bear this in mind as
they go about their business. Ruling over a crowd requires great skill, and an understanding of the things which lower public morale. Wheresoever peace and calm
are to be preferred, and there is a risk of civil discord, let there be no assemblies in
August and S e p t e m b e r - let them be dispersed, by an early removal of the causes
of discontent, or let some new matter be proposed which will change the direction
of men's thoughts. If any bold deed is to be undertaken, which may be aided by
spreading fear, let it be done in August; if it requires persevering effort, let it be
in September. If the enemy makes an attack in these months, let the defence be
made with means to lower his morale. For it lies in our power to affect how these
things turn out; it is not a matter of complete necessity, as witness an outstanding
example in the past year.
ficant that the New Star of 1604 appeared when Jupiter and Saturn were close to conjunction; see De Stella Nova (Prague, 1606, KGW 1).
so The city of Eger, In Northern Hungary, had been heroically (and successfully)
defended against the Turks in 1552, but it was captured by MOHAMMEDII in 1596. The
story of these two sieges has for Hungarians the same kind of importance that the story
of the defeat of the Spanish Armada has for the British. The Turks were to hold the city
until 1687.
81 The massacre of St Bartholomew's Day took place on 24 August 1572, during the
celebrations attending the wedding of HENRY of Navarre to MARGUERITEde Valois.
267
LXXII
Furthermore, it is of great assistance for an army to admire and believe in
its commander, for every victory is a consequence of the impulse of the soul. And
if, by some adverse consequence of his birth figure, the leader should fall into
disrepute, there will be a double danger, from the army's imaginings and from the
fortune of battle. Thus, since the conjunction of Saturn and Mars occurs when these
planets are arising over Poland, and the Solar eclipse will be deepest in Muscovy
and Poland, and since there is already war in those parts, I think that these are
signs of disaster for that region; and if stimulation from the birth figure becomes
strong, it will bring on disaster. If, meanwhile, a secure peace is established, there
will be absolutely no danger from the effects of the heavens alone.
LXXII
Thirdly, the Conjunction to which we have already referred is of significance
to our native land as well, for since the conjunction is of such long duration the
details of its effects will be determined not by the heavens but by sublunary causes.
For, though the Sun sees and warms everything, it does not bring forth vegetables
except where they are sown. All the same, on account of the earthquake and birth
figures *2, and the Eclipse of the Sun, which affected the state of the Sun in France
(Gallia) and Spain, we shall expect something unusual in Swabia, Switzerland,
the region of Milan (Insubria) and the nearby part of France.
LXXIV
I have mentioned the Sextite s3 as well as the conjunction of Jupiter and Mars
because they have connections with the birth figures of some people in public
life (:~o2tzevo6Lx~). The birth figures will act powerfully this year, to happy or ill
effect (as God permits), in accordance with their individual character. However,
the fiery planet Mars may harm some natural things, if they are not very robust,
since it lingers for a long time in Virgo, and being at opposition to the Sun in
March will bring trouble in any Nativity.
LXXV
I know it is usual for Astrologers to predict from the Conjunction of Jupiter
and Mars (which takes place in 17 of Libra) that we shall see the death of some
outstanding military leader, particularly if the position of the conjunction plays
sz Geneses, presumably of important people; see Thesis LXXII above and Thesis
LXXIV below.
83 Of Saturn and Mars, see Thesis LXXI above.
268
J.V. FIELD
an important part in the birth figure of such a one. Lest this should lead us to
slander the heavens, by asserting that they have been so framed as to kill men,
let us explain it in another way. For the truth of the matter is that since this Aspect
is fiery in its nature, and involves bright planets, experience bears witness that it
is also associated with noble families. And since almost every motion of the body
or soul or its transition to a new state occurs at a moment when the figure of the
heavens corresponds to its birth figure (which is usually a matter only of certain
correspondences in detail), it happens that some notable men will be most greatly
moved by these Aspects, and others like them, since so many such men were also
born under such Aspects. Now this movement leads to disaster for those who
are ill disposed, but in the same way it draws on to great things those who are
stronger by reason of their age or state of health. We may see each of these alternatives this year, but there is no necessity for them to occur.
CONCLUSION
This completes what I think one may state and defend on physical grounds
concerning the foundations of Astrology and the coming year 1602. If those learned
in matters of Physics think them worthy of consideration, and communicate to
me their objections to them, for the sake of eliciting the truth, I shall, if God grants
me the skill, reply to them in my prognostication for the following year. I urge
all who make a serious study of philosophy to engage in this contest. For it
concerns our worship of God and the welfare of the human race. Meanwhile,
I pray from the depths of my soul, through Christ our mediator, that for all and
for each the coming year may be a very happy one.
FINIS.
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FIELD (in press, 1983)
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crisi del sapere, eds. P. GALLUZZI t~ W. R. SHEA, in press.
GALILEO, GALILEI
Le Opere di Galileo Galilei, Edizione Nazionale, ed. FAYARO, 20 VOIs, Florence,
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HAMMER (1963)
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KEPLER, JOHANNES
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Science Museum
South Kensington
London
(Received September 29, 1983)

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A Lutheran Astrologer.

" Johannes Kepler

2. T r a n s l a t i o n o f De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus . . . . . . . . . . .

On giving Astrology sounder foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

Harmonica ~, in which musical consonances were used to explain astrological

Astrology in the Mysterium Cosrnographicum (1596)

Fig. 1. Planetary orbs and regular polyhedra, from KEPLER,Mysterium Cosmographicum

In accounting for the 'observed' astrological character of each planet, in

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

Fig. 2. Musical consonances and astrological aspects, from PTOLEMYHarmonica, trans.

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

De F u n d a m e n t i s Astrologiae Certioribus (1602)

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

Ad Keplerum paralipomena: the Zodiac and its parts

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

Chapter IV, KGW 1, pp. 168-172.

27 See above and De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus Thesis XLV et seqq,

KEPLER gives no details of this observational confirmation in De Fundamentis

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

Astrological aspects and musical consonances

as I have discussed elsewhere KEPLER'S use of geometry rather than numerology

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

separate explanations of the musical and astrological ratios. A letter to HEYDON,

KEPLER'S correspondence between 1610 and the writing of the Harrnonice

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

Harmonices M undi Book IV

Congruence [i.e. fitting together] of harmonic figures.

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

"sociability", that is their capacity to combine with polygons of the same or

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

is clearly mainly a matter of physics. The following proposition, that

73 Proposition IX, KGW 6, pp. 250-251.

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

and the title page of Book IV reads

The " L u t h e r a n " astrologer

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

of their application 9. Nevertheless, it seems to me that in concentrating attention

Libri V is closely modelled upon PTOLEMY'S Harmonica. Astrological harmony

is thus an integral part of KEPLER'Swork as it is of PTOLEMY'S. It seems to me that

GALILEOGALILEI Diologo, Fourth Day, Ed. Naz. 7, p. 486.

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

In the course of the seventeenth century, astrology ceased to be intellectually

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

2. Translation of De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

Fig. 6. Title page of De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus (Prague, 1602).

Acknowledgements. I am grateful to Professor A. R. HALL for reading the first part

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

ON GIVING ASTROLOGY SOUNDER FOUNDATIONS

(EDMONDS 865, pp. 47-48).

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

The p u n i c expects a Mathematician to write annual Prognostications. Since

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler

(330a32) ARISTOTLEdismisses incompatible pairs with the adjective d6~vazo~ ('impossible').

Fig. 7. The powers of the Eplanets, from KEPLER'S D e F u n d a m e n t i s

A Lutheran Astrologer: Johannes Kepler