After exhausting other topics suggested by this new star, he examines the different opinions on the cause of its appearance. Among others he mentions the Epicurean notion, that it was a fortuitous concourse of atoms, whose appearance in this form was merely one of the infinite number of ways in which, since the beginning of time, they have been combined. Having descanted for some time on this opinion, and declared himself altogether hostile to it, Kepler proceeds as follows:—"When I was a youth, with plenty of idle time on my hands, I was much taken with the vanity, of which some grown men are not ashamed, of making anagrams, by transposing the letters of my name, written in Greek, so as to make another sentence: out of Ιωάννης Κεπλῆρος I made Σειρήνων κάπηλος;[184] in Latin, out of _Joannes Keplerus_ came _Serpens in akuleo_.[185] But not being satisfied with the meaning of these words, and being unable to make another, I trusted the thing to chance, and taking out of a pack of playing cards as many as there were letters in the name, I wrote one upon each, and then began to shuffle them, and at each shuffle to read them in the order they came, to see if any meaning came of it. Now, may all the Epicurean gods and goddesses confound this same chance, which, although I spent a good deal of time over it, never showed me anything like sense even from a distance.[186] So I gave up my cards to the Epicurean eternity, to be carried away into infinity, and, it is said, they are still flying about there, in the utmost confusion among the atoms, and have never yet come to any meaning. I will tell these disputants, my opponents, not my own opinion, but my wife's. Yesterday, when weary with writing, and my mind quite dusty with considering these atoms, I was called to supper, and a salad I had asked for was set before me. It seems then, said I aloud, that if pewter dishes, leaves of lettuce, grains of salt, drops of water, vinegar, and oil, and slices of egg, had been flying about in the air from all eternity, it might at last happen by chance that there would come a salad. Yes, says my wife, but not so nice and well dressed as this of mine is." FOOTNOTES: [181] See Life of Galileo, p. 16. [182] The fiery trigon occurs about once in every 800 years, when Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars are in the three fiery signs, Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius. [183] The copy of this work in the British Museum is Kepler's presentation copy to our James I. On the blank leaf, opposite the title-page, is the following inscription, apparently in the author's hand-writing:—"Regi philosophanti, philosophus serviens, Platoni Diogenes, Britannias tenenti, Pragæ stipem mendicans ab Alexandro, e dolio conductitio, hoc suum philosophema misit et commendavit." [184] The tapster of the Sirens. [185] A serpent in his sting.