The Sleepwalkers (255 page)

5.
The Fatal Estrangement

And
yet
this
new
Pythagorean
unity
lasted
only
a
short
time,
and
was
followed
by
a
new
estrangement
which
seems
to
us
more
irrevocable
than
any
before.
The
first
signs
of
this
estrangement
appear
already
in
Kepler's
own
writings.

"What
else
can
the
human
mind
hold
besides
numbers
and
magnitudes?
These
alone
we
apprehend
correctly,
and
if
piety
permits
to
say
so,
our
comprehension
is
in
this
case
of
the
same
kind
as
God's,
at
least
insofar
as
we
are
able
to
understand
it
in
this
mortal
life."
⁴

"Geometry
is
unique
and
eternal,
a
reflection
of
the
mind
of
God.
That
men
are
able
to
participate
in
it
is
one
of
the
reasons
why
man
is
an
image
of
God."
⁵

"Therefore
I
chance
to
think
that
all
Nature
and
the
graceful
sky
are
symbolised
in
the
art
of
geometry...
Now,
as
God
the
maker
play'd,
He
taught
the
game
to
Nature,
whom
He
created
in
His
image;
taught
her
the
self-same
game
which
He
played
to
her."
⁶

All
this
was
wholly
admirable
and
unexceptionable
from
the
theologian's
point
of
view.
But
in
Kepler's
later
writings,
a
new
note
becomes
discernible.
We
hear
that
"geometry
provided
the
Creator
with
a
model
for
the
decoration
of
the
whole
world",
⁷
that
geometry
somehow
preceded
the
Creation
of
the
world,
and
that
"quantities
are
the
archetypes
of
the
world."
⁸

There
is
a
subtle
shift
of
emphasis
here,
which
conveys
the
impression
that
God
copied
the
universe
from
geometrical
archetypes
which
co-existed
with
Him
from
eternity,
and
that
in
the
act
of
Creation
He
was
somehow
bound
by
blueprints.
Paracelsus
expressed
the
same
idea
in
a
less
delicate
manner:
"God
can
make
an
ass
with
three
tails,
but
not
a
triangle
with
four
sides."
⁹

For
Galileo,
too,
"the
book
of
nature
is
written
in
the
mathematical
language
...
without
its
help
it
is
impossible
to
comprehend
a
single
word
of
it."
¹⁰
But
Galileo's
"chief
mathematician"
is
called
"Nature",
not
God,
and
his
references
to
the
latter
sound
like
lip-service.
Galileo
takes
the
hyperstatization
of
mathematics
a
decisive
step
further
by
reducing
all
nature
to
"size,
figure,
number
and
slow
or
rapid
motion",
and
by
relegating
into
the
limbo
of
"subjective"
or
"secondary"
qualities
everything
that
cannot
be
reduced
to
these
elements
–
including,
by
implication,
ethical
values
and
the
phenomena
of
the
mind.

The
division
of
the
world
into
"primary"
and
"secondary"
qualities
was
completed
by
Descartes.
He
further
reduced
primary
qualities
to
"extension"
and
"motion",
which
form
the
"realm
of
extension"
–
res
extensa
–
and
he
lumped
together
everything
else
in
the
res
cognitans
,
the
realm
of
the
mind,
housed
in
a
somewhat
niggardly
manner
in
the
tiny
pituitary
gland.
Animals,
for
Descartes,
are
robot
mechanisms,
and
so
is
the
human
body;
and
the
universe
(with
the
exception
of
a
few
million
pea-sized
pituitary
glands)
was
now
so
completely
mechanized
that
he
could
claim
"give
me
matter
and
motion
and
I
will
construct
the
world".
And
yet
Descartes,
too,
was
a
profoundly
religious
thinker,
who
deduced
his
law
of
the
immutability
of
the
total
amount
of
motion
in
the
universe*
from
the
immutability
of
God.
But
since,
given
matter
and
motion,
he
would
have
created
the
same
universe
governed
by
the
same
laws,
was
the
deduction
from
God's
mind
really
necessary?
The
answer
is
contained
in
Bertrand
Russell's
aphorism
on
Descartes:
"No
God,
no
geometry;
but
geometry
is
delicious,
therefore
God
must
exist."

____________________

As
for
Newton,
who
was
a
better
scientist
and
hence
a
more
muddled
metaphysician
than
Galileo
or
Descartes,
he
assigned
to
God
a
two-fold
function:
as
Creator
of
the
universal
clockwork,
and
as
its
Supervisor
for
maintenance
and
repair.
He
believed
that
the
placing
of
all
planetary
orbits
into
a
single
plane
and
in
such
orderly
manner,
and
the
fact
that
there
was
only
a
single
sun
in
the
system
sufficient
to
provide
the
rest
with
light
and
heat,
instead
of
having
several
suns
or
no
sun
at
all,
were
proof
that
Creation
was
the
work
of
an
"intelligent
agent
...
not
blind
or
fortuitous,
but
very
well
skilled
in
mechanics
and
geometry."
¹¹
He
further
believed
that
under
the
pressure
of
gravity
the
universe
would
collapse
"without
a
divine
power
to
Support
it";
¹²
and
moreover,
that
the
small
irregularities
in
the
planetary
motions
would
accumulate
and
throw
the
whole
system
out
of
gear
if
God
did
not
from
time
to
time
set
it
right.