The King of Denmark, however, having a higher opinion of the value of science, promised Tycho the first canonry that should fall vacant in the cathedral chapter of Roskilde, so that he might be assured of an income while devoting himself to financially unproductive work.

Many branches of human knowledge have, since that time, been more extensively cultivated, but such branches as are totally unproductive to poetrychemistry, mechanics, manufactures, and rural and political economywill never enable a man to become a poet.