SOURCE: "The New Astronomy and the New Metaphysics," in From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1957, pp. 28-57.

In the following essay, Koyré examines the development of astronomy and metaphysics by comparing the cosmological beliefs of Copernicus, Digges, Bruno, and Gilbert.

Palingenius and Copernicus are practically contemporaries. Indeed, the Zodiacus vitae and the De revolutionibus orbium coelestium must have been written at about the same time. Yet they have nothing, or nearly nothing, in common. They are as far away from each other as if they were separated by centuries.

As a matter of fact, they are, indeed, separated by centuries, by all those centuries during which Aristotelian cosmology and Ptolemaic astronomy dominated Western thought. Copernicus, of course, makes full use of the mathematical technics elaborated by Ptolemy—one of the greatest achievements of the human mind—and yet, for his inspiration...