TWO:The Platonic influence told even more efficaciously on Galileos still greater contemporary, Kepler. With him as with the author of the Republic, mysticism took the direction of seeking everywhere for evidence of mathematical proportions. With what brilliant success the search was attended, it is needless to relate. What interests us here is the fact, vouched for by Arago, that the German astronomer was guided by an idea of Platos, that the world must have been created on geometrical principles.552 Had Bacon known anything about the work on which his adventurous contemporary was engaged, we may be sure that it would have afforded him another illustration for his Id?la, the only difficulty being whether it should be referred to the illusions of the Tribe, the Den, or the Theatre.Gnostic pessimism marks the extreme point of aberration to which Greek thought was drawn by the attraction of Oriental superstition. How it was rescued from destruction by a new systematisation of its ancient methods and results will be explained in another chapter.
TWO:You wont make me believe Dick flew that-there crate, he declared.


















