Text: In Response To: MISTERIUM COSMOGRAFICUM (Rosalinda) "It is my intention, reader, to show in this little book that the most great and good Creator, in the creation of a moving universe, and the arrangement of the heavens, looked to those five regular solids, which have so celebrated from the time of Pythagoras and Plato down to our own, and that he fitted to the nature of these solids, the number of heavens, their proportions, and the law of their motions...." Johannes Kepler Original Preface to the Reader Mysterium Cosmographicum Translation by A.M. Duncan Abaris Books The following passage introduces Misterium Cosmograficum which was Kepler's first major history-making discovery. The context makes it clear that Kepler is attempting to explain to the reader the method he employed to make his truly revolutionary determinations of the principles of motion in the Solar System. CHAPTER II OUTLINES OF THE PRIMARY DERIVATION After these preliminaries, to come to the point, and to demonstrate by evidence Copernicus¹ hypothesis about a new universe, which have just been reviewed, I shall repeat the argument, as they say from scratch, with as much brevity as possible. Quibus ita praemissis, ut ad propositum veniam; atque modo recinsitas Copernici hypotheses de mundo mouo, nuou argumento probem: rem a primo, quod aiunt, ouo, nouo qua breitate fieri poterit, repatam. "It was matter which God created in the beginning, and if we know the definition of matter, I think it will be fairly clear why God created matter and not any other thing in the beginning. I say that what God wanted was quantity. To achieve it he needed everything which pertains to the essence of matter; and quantity is a form of matter, in virtue of its being matter, and the source of its definition. Now God decided that quantity should exist before all other things so that there should be a means of comparing a curved with a straight line. For in this one respect Nicolas of Cusa and others seem to me divine, that they attached so much importance to the relationship between a straight and a curved line. And dared to liken a curve to God, a straight line to his creatures, and those who tried to compare the Creator to his creations, God to Man, and divine judgements to human judgements did not perform much more valuable a service than those who tried to compare a curve and a straight line, a circle with a square."

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