But, as it turned out, the most fruitful work of Tycho Brahe was on the motions of the planets, and especially of the planet Mars, for it was by an examination of these results that Kepler was led to the discovery of his immortal laws.
After the death of King Frederick the observatories of Tycho Brahe were not supported. The gigantic power and industry displayed by this determined man were accompanied, as often happens, by an overbearing manner, intolerant of obstacles. This led to friction, and eventually the observatories were dismantled, and Tycho Brahe was received by the Emperor Rudolph II., who placed a house in Prague at his disposal. Here he worked for a few years, with Kepler as one of his assistants, and he died in the year 1601.
It is an interesting fact that Tycho Brahe had a firm conviction that mundane events could be predicted by astrology, and that this belief was supported by his own predictions.
It has already been stated that Tycho Brahe maintained that observation must precede theory. He did not accept the Copernican theory that the earth moves, but for a working hypothesis he used a modification of an old Egyptian theory, mathematically identical with that of Copernicus, but not involving a stellar parallax. He says (_De Mundi_, etc.) that
the Ptolemean system was too complicated, and the new one which that great man Copernicus had proposed, following in the footsteps of Aristarchus of Samos, though there was nothing in it contrary to mathematical principles, was in opposition to those of physics, as the heavy and sluggish earth is unfit to move, and the system is even opposed to the authority of Scripture. The absence of annual parallax further involves an incredible distance between the outermost planet and the fixed stars.
We are bound to admit that in the circumstances of the case, so long as there was no question of dynamical forces connecting the members of the solar system, his reasoning, as we should expect from such a man, is practical and sound. It is not surprising, then, that astronomers generally did not readily accept the views of Copernicus, that Luther (Luther's _Tischreden_, pp. 22, 60) derided him in his usual pithy manner, that Melancthon (_Initia doctrinae physicae_) said that Scripture, and also science, are against the earth's motion; and that the men of science whose opinion was asked for by the cardinals (who wished to know whether Galileo was right or wrong) looked upon Copernicus as a weaver of fanciful theories.