Appendix (pp. 78 and 82)
TYCHO
BRAHE
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601).
A very learned and exhaustive work in English is that by J. L. E. Dreyer,
Ph.D., Director of the Armagh Observatory, published in Edinburgh by
Adam and Charles Black in 1890, entitled
Tycho Brahe: a Picture of Scientific Life and Work in the Sixteenth Century.
The following data and quotations bearing on certain points mentioned by
Rudolf Steiner in these lectures, are taken from Dr. Dreyer's book.
(1)
The “Nova Stella.”
This was noticed in the constellation of Cassiopea by Tycho Brahe while
returning to his house in the evening of 11th November, 1542. His account
of the star was printed in 1593 in a little book entitled
De Nova Stella,
the important parts being reprinted in the great work
Astronomie Instauratæ Progymnasmata
on which Tycho Brahe was engaged
for fourteen years. “... the Star of Cassiopea started astronomical
science on the brilliant career which it has pursued ever since, and
swept away the mist that obscured the true system of the world. As Kepler
truly said, ‘If that star did nothing else, at least it announced
and produced a great astronomer.’” (p. 197.)
(2)
Tycho Brahe and Kepler.
“The most important inheritance which Tycho left
to Kepler and to posterity was the vast mass of observations, of which
Kepler justly said that they deserved to be kept among the royal treasures,
as the reform of astronomy could not be accomplished without them. He
even added that there was no hope of anyone ever making more accurate
observations ... Kepler was not only a great genius, he was also a
pure and noble character, and he never forgot in his writings to do
honour to the man without whose labours he never could have found out
the secrets of the planetary motions ... Kepler and Tycho had squabbled
often enough while the latter was alive, but after his death this was
forgotten, and Kepler's mind had only room for gratitude for having
become heir to the great treasures left by Tycho.” (pp. 312-3)
(3)
Practice of Medicine.
In his laboratory at Uraniborg on the island of Hveen, Tycho Brahe prepared
medicines, “and as he distributed his remedies without payment,
it is not strange that numbers of people are said to have flocked to
Hveen to obtain them. In the official Danish
Pharmacopœa
of 1658 several of Tycho's elixirs are given, and in 1599 he provided the
Emperor Rudolph with one against epidemic diseases, of which the principal
ingredient was theriaca Andromachi, or Venice treacle, mixed with
spirits of wine, and submitted to a variety of chemical operations
and admixtures with sulphur, aloes, myrrh, saffron, etc. This medicine
he considered more valuable than gold, and if the Emperor should wish
to improve it still more, he might add a single scruple of either tincture
of coral or of sapphire, of garnet, or of dissolved pearls, or of liquid
gold if free from corrosive matter. If combined with antimony, this
elixir would cure all diseases which can be cured by perspiration, and
which form a third part of those which afflict the human body.”
(pp. 129-30)
(4)
Macrocosmic Science applied to the Microcosm.
On the subject of the reciprocal action
between the “aethereal and elementary worlds,” Tycho Brahe
mentioned that he had studied Hermes Trismegistus, Geber, Arnoldus de
Villa Nova, Raymundus Lullius, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Albertus
Magnus, etc. (see p. 129)
From September, 1574 until
early in 1575, Tycho Brahe delivered a course of lectures an the
mathematical sciences at the University of Copenhagen. The following
passage is taken from Dr. Dreyer's abstract of the contents of the
opening oration:
“While many people
admitted the influence of the stars an nature, they denied it where
mankind were concerned. But man is made from the elements, and absorbs
them just as much as food and drink, from which it follows that man
must also, like the elements, be subject to the influence of the planets;
and there is, besides, a great analogy between the parts of the human
body and the seven planets. The heart, being the seat of the breath
of life, corresponds to the sun, and the brain to the moon. As the heart
and brain are the most important parts of the body, so the sun and moon
are the most powerful celestial bodies; and as there is much reciprocal
action between the former, so is there much mutual dependence between
the latter. In the same way the liver corresponds to Jupiter, the kidneys
to Venus, the milt to Saturn the gall to Mars, and the lungs to Mercury,
and the resemblance of the functions of there various organs to the
assumed astrological character of the planets is pointed out in a manner
similar to that followed by other astrological writers. ...”
(pp. 76-7)
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