To change metaphors once more: the three Laws are the pillars on which the edifice of modern cosmology rests; but to Kepler they meant no more than bricks among other bricks for the construction of his baroque temple, designed by a moon-struck architect. He never realized their real importance. In his earliest book he had remarked that ‘Copernicus did not know how rich he was’; the same remark applies to Kepler himself.
