This
prophetic insight is very sublime, and opens up new spaces in man.
[Footnote 1: _Correspondence,_ 1637]
Of the discoveries of Kepler, we can here have to do with their
universal and humanitary bearings alone. It is to be understood,
however, that the three grand sweeps of Deduction which we call
Kepler's Laws formed the foundation of the higher conception of
astronomy, that is, the dynamical theory of astronomical phenomena, and
prepared the way for the "Mecanique Celeste." Whewell, the learned
historian of the Sciences, speaks of them as "by far the most
magnificent and most certain train of truths which the whole expanse of
human knowledge can show"; and Comte declares, that "history tells of
no such succession of philosophical efforts as in the case of Kepler,
who, after constituting Celestial Geometry, strove to pursue that
science of Celestial Mechanics which was by its very nature reserved
for a future generation." These laws are, first, the law of the
velocities of the planets; second, the law of the elliptic orbit of the
planets; and, third, the harmonic law, that the squares of the times of
the planetary revolutions are proportional to the cubes of their mean
distances from the sun.
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