ars recommended by Horace, and published it at last in compliance
with the entreaties of his friend, Cardinal Schomberg. "Though I know,"
it is added, "that the thoughts of a philosopher do not depend on the
judgment of the many, his study being to seek out truth in all things as
far as that is permitted by God to human reason, yet when I considered
how absurd that doctrine would appear, I long hesitated whether I should
publish my book, or whether it were not better to follow the example of
the Pythagoreans and others, who delivered their doctrines only by
tradition and to friends." From this passage we should infer that he
apprehended controversy rather than persecution, that for the former he
had no desire, that he was without ambition, and felt no wish to found a
new school, but would rather leave truths he had learned quietly to make
their way through the world.

The fame of Copernicus is now wide as the world. He painted a portrait
of himself which fell into the hands of Tycho Brahe; and he wrote an
epigram upon the subject, to the effect that the whole earth could not
contain the whole of the man who whirled it along the ocean of ether.
Less extravagant was the grateful enthusiasm of Rhiticus, a disciple of
Copernicus, when he wrote, "God has given to my excellent preceptor a
reign without end, which may He vouchsafe to guide, govern, and
increase, to the restoration of astronomical truth. Amen!"

"The Copernican system" is the name now generally given to the almost
universal scientific belief that the earth and the planets revolve
around the sun, though the system carried out and perfected by Kepler,
Newton, Halley, Laplace, and others is by no means perfectly identical
with the theory of the German astronomer. But the inextricable
interweaving of his name with opinions sanctioned by the entire
scientific world, is one of the noblest conceivable tributes to the
magnitude and lustre of his renown.

His death was in harmony with his life. Shortly before he expired he
repeated these words:

"Non parem Paulo gratiam requiro,
Veniam Petri neque posco; sed quam
In crucis ligno dederat latroni
Sedulus oro."

He had lived a life of Christian virtue--imitating his master, who went
about doing good, healing the sick and preaching the gospel to the
poor--yet, so far from having anything whereof to boast before God, he
said himself that he felt his need of infinite mercy, and in seeking
the pardon of