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+Project Gutenberg's Myths and Marvels of Astronomy, by Richard A. Proctor
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Myths and Marvels of Astronomy
+
+Author: Richard A. Proctor
+
+Release Date: September 8, 2008 [EBook #26556]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYTHS AND MARVELS OF ASTRONOMY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brenda Lewis, Scott Marusak, Greg Bergquist
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  Transcriber's Note
+
+  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A list of corrections
+  is found at the end of the text.
+
+[Illustration: LILLY'S HIEROGLYPHS (PUBLISHED IN 1651)]
+
+
+
+
+  MYTHS AND MARVELS
+  OF ASTRONOMY
+
+  BY
+  RICHARD A. PROCTOR
+
+  AUTHOR OF
+
+  "ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH," "THE EXPANSE OF HEAVEN," "OUR PLACE
+  AMONG INFINITIES," "PLEASANT WAYS IN SCIENCE,"
+  ETC., ETC.
+
+  _NEW EDITION_
+
+  LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
+  LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY
+  1896
+
+
+
+
+  _Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO
+
+  _At the Ballantyne Press_
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The chief charm of Astronomy, with many, does not reside in the wonders
+revealed to us by the science, but in the lore and legends connected
+with its history, the strange fancies with which in old times it has
+been associated, the half-forgotten myths to which it has given birth.
+In our own times also, Astronomy has had its myths and fancies, its wild
+inventions, and startling paradoxes. My object in the present series of
+papers has been to collect together the most interesting of these old
+and new Astronomical myths, associating with them, in due proportion,
+some of the chief marvels which recent Astronomy has revealed to us. To
+the former class belong the subjects of the first four and the last five
+essays of the present series, while the remaining essays belong to the
+latter category.
+
+Throughout I have endeavoured to avoid technical expressions on the one
+hand, and ambiguous phraseology (sometimes resulting from the attempt
+to avoid technicality) on the other. I have, in fact, sought to present
+my subjects as I should wish to have matters outside the range of my
+special branch of study presented for my own reading.
+
+  RICHARD A. PROCTOR.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                   PAGE
+
+  I. ASTROLOGY                                        1
+
+  II. THE RELIGION OF THE GREAT PYRAMID              53
+
+  III. THE MYSTERY OF THE PYRAMIDS                   78
+
+  IV. SWEDENBORG'S VISIONS OF OTHER WORLDS          106
+
+  V. OTHER WORLDS AND OTHER UNIVERSES               135
+
+  VI. SUNS IN FLAMES                                160
+
+  VII. THE RINGS OF SATURN                          191
+
+  VIII. COMETS AS PORTENTS                          212
+
+  IX. THE LUNAR HOAX                                242
+
+  X. ON SOME ASTRONOMICAL PARADOXES                 268
+
+  XI. ON SOME ASTRONOMICAL MYTHS                    299
+
+  XII. THE ORIGIN OF THE CONSTELLATION-FIGURES      332
+
+
+
+
+MYTHS AND MARVELS
+
+OF
+
+ASTRONOMY
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+_ASTROLOGY._
+
+     Signs and planets, in aspects sextile, quartile, trine, conjoined,
+     or opposite; houses of heaven, with their cusps, hours, and
+     minutes; Almuten, Almochoden, Anahibazon, Catahibazon; a thousand
+     terms of equal sound and significance.--_Guy Mannering._
+
+  ... Come and see! trust thine own eyes.
+  A fearful sign stands in the house of life,
+  An enemy: a fiend lurks close behind
+  The radiance of thy planet--oh! be warned!--COLERIDGE.
+
+
+Astrology possesses a real interest even in these days. It is true that
+no importance attaches now even to the discussion of the considerations
+which led to the rejection of judicial astrology. None but the most
+ignorant, and therefore superstitious, believe at present in divination
+of any sort or kind whatsoever. Divination by the stars holds no higher
+position than palmistry, fortune-telling by cards, or the indications of
+the future which foolish persons find in dreams, tea-dregs,
+salt-spilling, and other absurdities. But there are two reasons which
+render the history of astrology interesting. In the first place, faith
+in stellar influences was once so widespread that astrological
+terminology came to form a part of ordinary language, insomuch that it
+is impossible rightly to understand many passages of ancient and
+mediæval literature, or rightly to apprehend the force of many allusions
+and expressions, unless the significance of astrological teachings to
+the men of those times be recognised. In the second place, it is
+interesting to examine how the erroneous teachings of astrology were
+gradually abandoned, to note the way in which various orders of mind
+rejected these false doctrines or struggled to retain them, and to
+perceive how, with a large proportion of even the most civilised races,
+the superstitions of judicial astrology were long retained, or are
+retained even to this very day. The world has still to see some
+superstitions destroyed which are as widely received as astrology ever
+was, and which will probably retain their influence over many minds long
+after the reasoning portion of the community have rejected them.
+
+Even so far back as the time of Eudoxus the pretensions of astrologers
+were rejected, as Cicero informs us ('De Div.' ii. 42). And though the
+Romans were strangely superstitious in such matters, Cicero reasons with
+excellent judgment against the belief in astrology. Gassendi quotes the
+argument drawn by Cicero against astrology, from the predictions of the
+Chaldæans that Cæsar, Crassus, and Pompey would die 'in a full old age,
+in their own houses, in peace and honour,' whose deaths, nevertheless,
+were 'violent, immature, and tragical.' Cicero also used an argument
+whose full force has only been recognised in modern times. 'What
+contagion,' he asked, 'can reach us from the planets, whose distance is
+almost infinite?' It is singular that Seneca, who was well acquainted
+with the uniform character of the planetary motions, seems to have
+entertained no doubt respecting their influence. Tacitus expresses some
+doubts, but was on the whole inclined to believe in astrology.
+'Certainly,' he says, 'the majority of mankind cannot be weaned from the
+opinion that at the birth of each man his future destiny is fixed;
+though some things may fall out differently from the predictions, by the
+ignorance of those who profess the art; and thus the art is unjustly
+blamed, confirmed as it is by noted examples in all ages.'[1]
+
+Probably, the doubt suggested by the different fortunes and characters
+of men born at the same time must have occurred to many before Cicero
+dwelt upon it. Pliny, who followed Cicero in this, does not employ the
+argument quite correctly, for he says that, 'in every hour, in every
+part of the world, are born lords and slaves, kings and beggars.' But of
+course, according to astrological principles, it would be necessary that
+two persons, whose fortunes were to be alike, should be born, not only
+in the same hour, but in the same place. The fortunes and character of
+Jacob and Esau, however, should manifestly have been similar, which was
+certainly not the case, if their history has been correctly handed down
+to us. An astrologer of the time of Julius Cæsar, named Publius Nigidius
+Figulus, used a singular argument against such reasoning. When an
+opponent urged the different fortunes of men born nearly at the same
+instant, Nigidius asked him to make two contiguous marks on a potter's
+wheel which was revolving rapidly. When the wheel was stopped, the two
+marks were found to be far apart. Nigidius is said to have received the
+name of Figulus (the potter), in remembrance of the story; but more
+probably he was a potter by trade, and an astrologer only during those
+leisure hours which he could devote to charlatanry. St. Augustine, who
+relates the story (which I borrow from Whewell's 'History of the
+Inductive Sciences'), says, justly, that the argument of Nigidius was as
+fragile as the ware made on the potter's wheel.
+
+The belief must have been all but universal in those days that at the
+birth of any person who was to hold an important place in the world's
+history the stars would either be ominously conjoined, or else some
+blazing comet or new star would make its appearance. For we know that
+some such object having appeared, or some unusual conjunction of planets
+having occurred, near enough to the time of Christ's birth to be
+associated in men's minds with that event, it came eventually to be
+regarded as belonging to his horoscope, and as actually indicating to
+the Wise Men of the East (Chaldæan astrologers, doubtless) the future
+greatness of the child then born. It is certain that that is what the
+story of the Star in the East means as it stands. Theologians differ as
+to its interpretation in points of detail. Some think the phenomenon was
+meteoric, others that a comet then made its appearance, others that a
+new star shone out, and others that the account referred to a
+conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, which occurred at about that
+time. As a matter of detail it may be mentioned, that none of these
+explanations in the slightest degree corresponds with the account, for
+neither meteor, nor comet, nor new star, nor conjoined planets, would go
+before travellers from the east, to show them their way to any place.
+Yet the ancients sometimes regarded comets as guides. Whichever view we
+accept, it is abundantly clear that an astrological significance was
+attached by the narrator to the event. And not so very long ago, when
+astrologers first began to see that their occupation was passing from
+them, the Wise Men of the East were appealed to against the enemies of
+astrology,[2]--very much as Moses was appealed to against Copernicus
+and Galileo, and more recently to protect us against certain
+relationships which Darwin, Wallace, and Huxley unkindly indicate for
+the human race divine.
+
+Although astronomers now reject altogether the doctrines of judicial
+astrology, it is impossible for the true lover of that science to regard
+astrology altogether with contempt. Astronomy, indeed, owes much more to
+the notions of believers in astrology than is commonly supposed.
+Astrology bears the same relation to modern astronomy that alchemy bears
+to modern chemistry. As it is probable that nothing but the hope of
+gain, literally in this case _auri sacra fames_, would have led to those
+laborious researches of the alchemists which first taught men how to
+analyse matter into its elementary constituents, and afterwards to
+combine these constituents afresh into new forms, so the belief that, by
+carefully studying the stars, men might acquire the power of predicting
+future events, first directed attention to the movements of the
+celestial bodies. Kepler's saying, that astrology, though a fool, was
+the daughter of a wise mother,[3] does not by any means present truly
+the relationship between astrology and astronomy. Rather we may say that
+astrology and alchemy, though foolish mothers, gave birth to those wise
+daughters, astronomy and chemistry. Even this way of speaking scarcely
+does justice to the astrologers and alchemists of old times. Their views
+appear foolish in the light of modern scientific knowledge, but they
+were not foolish in relation to what was known when they were
+entertained. Modern analysis goes far to demonstrate the immutability,
+and, consequently, the non-transmutability of the metals, though it is
+by no means so certain as many suppose that the present position of the
+metals in the list of _elements_ is really correct. Certainly a chemist
+of our day would be thought very unwise who should undertake a series of
+researches with the object of discovering a mineral having such
+qualities as the alchemists attributed to the philosopher's stone. But
+when as yet the facts on which the science of chemistry is based were
+unknown, there was nothing unreasonable in supposing that such a mineral
+might exist, or the means of compounding it be discovered. Nay, many
+arguments from analogy might be urged to show that the supposition was
+altogether probable. In like manner, though the known facts of astronomy
+oppose themselves irresistibly to any belief in planetary influences
+upon the fates of men and nations, yet before those facts were
+discovered it was not only not unreasonable, but was in fact, highly
+reasonable to believe in such influences, or at least that the sun, and
+moon, and stars moved in the heavens in such sort as to indicate what
+would happen. If the wise men of old times rejected the belief that 'the
+stars in their courses fought' for or against men, they yet could not
+very readily abandon the belief that the stars were for signs in the
+heavens of what was to befall mankind.
+
+If we consider the reasoning now commonly thought valid in favour of the
+doctrine that other orbs besides our earth are inhabited, and compare it
+with the reasoning on which judicial astrology was based, we shall not
+find much to choose between the two, so far as logical weight is
+concerned. Because the only member of the solar system which we can
+examine closely is inhabited, astronomers infer a certain degree of
+probability for the belief that the other planets of the system are also
+inhabited. And because the only sun we know much about is the centre of
+a system of planets, astronomers infer that probably the stars, those
+other suns which people space, are also the centres of systems; although
+no telescope which man can make would show the members of a system like
+ours, attending on even the nearest of all the stars. The astrologer had
+a similar argument for his belief. The moon, as she circles around the
+earth, exerts a manifest influence upon terrestrial matter--the tidal
+wave rising and sinking synchronously with the movements of the moon,
+and other consequences depending directly or indirectly upon her
+revolution around the earth. The sun's influence is still more manifest;
+and, though it may have required the genius of a Herschel or of a
+Stephenson to perceive that almost every form of terrestrial energy is
+derived from the sun, yet it must have been manifest from the very
+earliest times that the greater light which rules the day rules the
+seasons also, and, in ruling them, provides the annual supplies of
+vegetable food, on which the very existence of men and animals depends.
+If these two bodies, the sun and moon, are thus potent, must it not be
+supposed, reasoned the astronomers of old, that the other celestial
+bodies exert corresponding influences? _We_ know, but they did not know,
+that the moon rules the tides effectually because she is near to us, and
+that the sun is second only to the moon in tidal influence because of
+his enormous mass and attractive energy. We know also that his position
+as fire, light, and life of the earth and its inhabitants, is due
+directly to the tremendous heat with which the whole of his mighty
+frame is instinct. Not knowing this, the astronomers of old times had no
+sufficient reason for distinguishing the sun and moon from the other
+celestial bodies, so far at least as the general question of celestial
+influences was concerned.
+
+So far as particulars were concerned, it was not altogether so clear to
+them as it is to us, that the influence of the sun must be paramount in
+all respects save tidal action, and that of the moon second only to the
+sun's in other respects, and superior to his in tidal sway alone. Many
+writers on the subject of life in other worlds are prepared to show (as
+Brewster attempts to do, for example) that Jupiter and Saturn are far
+nobler worlds than the earth, because superior in this or that
+circumstance. So the ancient astronomers, in their ignorance of the
+actual conditions on which celestial influences depend, found abundant
+reasons for regarding the feeble influences exerted by Saturn, Jupiter,
+and Mars, as really more potent than those exerted by the sun himself
+upon the earth. They reasoned, as Milton afterwards made Raphaël reason,
+that 'great or bright infers not excellence,' that Saturn or Jupiter,
+though 'in comparison so small, nor glist'ring' to like degree, may yet
+'of solid good contain more plenty than the sun.' Supposing the
+influence of a celestial body to depend on the magnitude of its sphere,
+in the sense of the old astronomy (according to which each planet had
+its proper sphere, around the earth as centre), then the influence of
+the sun would be judged to be inferior to that of either Saturn,
+Jupiter, or Mars; while the influences of Venus and Mercury, though
+inferior to the influence of the sun, would still be held superior to
+that of the moon. For the ancients measured the spheres of the seven
+planets of their system by the periods of the apparent revolution of
+those bodies around the celestial dome, and so set the sphere of the
+moon innermost, enclosed by the sphere of Mercury, around which in turn
+was the sphere of Venus, next the sun's, then, in order, those of Mars,
+Jupiter, and Saturn. We can readily understand how they might come to
+regard the slow motions of the sphere of Saturn and Jupiter, taking
+respectively some thirty and twelve years to complete a revolution, as
+indicating power superior to the sun's, whose sphere seemed to revolve
+once in a single year. Many other considerations might have been urged,
+before the Copernican theory was established, to show that, possibly,
+some of the planets exert influences more effective than those of the
+sun and moon.
+
+It is, indeed, clear that the first real shock sustained by astrology
+came from the arguments of Copernicus. So long as the earth was regarded
+as the centre round which all the celestial bodies move, it was hopeless
+to attempt to shake men's faith in the influences of the stars. So far
+as I know, there is not a single instance of a believer in the old
+Ptolemaic system who rejected astrology absolutely. The views of
+Bacon--the last of any note who opposed the system of
+Copernicus[4]--indicate the extreme limits to which a Ptolemaist could
+go in opposition to astrology. It may be worth while to quote Bacon's
+opinion in this place, because it indicates at once very accurately the
+position held by believers in astrology in his day, and the influence
+which the belief in a central fixed earth could not fail to exert on the
+minds of even the most philosophical reasoners.
+
+'Astrology,' he begins, 'is so full of superstition that scarce anything
+sound can be discovered in it; though we judge it should rather be
+purged than absolutely rejected. Yet if any one shall pretend that this
+science is founded not in reason and physical contemplations, but in the
+direct experience and observation of past ages, and therefore not to be
+examined by physical reasons, as the Chaldæans boasted, he may at the
+same time bring back divination, auguries, soothsaying, and give in to
+all kinds of fables; for these also were said to descend from long
+experience. But we receive astrology as a part of physics, without
+attributing more to it than reason and the evidence of things allow, and
+strip it of its superstition and conceits. Thus we banish that empty
+notion about the horary reign of the planets, as if each resumed the
+throne thrice in twenty-four hours, so as to leave three hours
+supernumerary; and yet this fiction produced the division of the
+week,[5] a thing so ancient and so universally received. Thus likewise
+we reject as an idle figment the doctrine of horoscopes, and the
+distribution of the houses, though these are the darling inventions of
+astrology, which have kept revel, as it were, in the heavens. And
+lastly, for the calculation of nativities, fortunes, good or bad hours
+of business, and the like fatalities, they are mere levities, that have
+little in them of certainty and solidity, and may be plainly confuted by
+physical reasons. But here we judge it proper to lay down some rules for
+the examination of astrological matters, in order to retain what is
+useful therein, and reject what is insignificant. Thus, 1. Let the
+greater revolutions be retained, but the lesser, of horoscopes and
+houses, be rejected--the former being like ordnance which shoot to a
+great distance, whilst the other are but like small bows, that do no
+execution. 2. The celestial operations affect not all kinds of bodies,
+but only the more sensible, as humours, air, and spirits. 3. All the
+celestial operations rather extend to masses of things than to
+individuals, though they may obliquely reach some individuals also which
+are more sensible than the rest, as a pestilent constitution of the air
+affects those bodies which are least able to resist it. 4. All the
+celestial operations produce not their effects instantaneously, and in a
+narrow compass, but exert them in large portions of time and space. Thus
+predictions as to the temperature of a year may hold good, but not with
+regard to single days. 5. There is no fatal necessity in the stars; and
+this the more prudent astrologers have constantly allowed. 6. We will
+add one thing more, which, if amended and improved, might make for
+astrology--viz. that we are certain the celestial bodies have other
+influences besides heat and light, but these influences act not
+otherwise than by the foregoing rules, though they lie so deep in
+physics as to require a fuller explanation. So that, upon the whole, we
+must register as needed,[6] an astrology written in conformity with
+these principles, under the name of _Astrologia Sana_.'
+
+He then proceeds to show what this just astrology should comprehend--as,
+1, the doctrine of the commixture of rays; 2, the effect of nearest
+approaches and farthest removes of planets to and from the point
+overhead (the planets, like the sun, having their summer and winter); 3,
+the effects of distance, 'with a proper enquiry into what the vigour of
+the planets may perform of itself, and what through their nearness to
+us; for,' he adds, but unfortunately without assigning any reason for
+the statement, 'a planet is more brisk when most remote, but more
+communicative when nearest;' 4, the other accidents of the planet's
+motions as they pursue
+
+  Their wand'ring course, now high, now low, then hid,
+  Progressive, retrograde, or standing still;
+
+5, all that can be discovered of the general nature of the planets and
+fixed stars, considered in their own essence and activity; 6, lastly,
+let this just astrology, he says, 'contain, from tradition, the
+particular natures and alterations of the planets and fixed stars; for'
+(here is a reason indeed) 'as these are delivered with general consent,
+they are not lightly to be rejected, unless they directly contradict
+physical considerations. Of such observations let a just astrology be
+formed; and according to these alone should schemes of the heavens be
+made and interpreted.'
+
+The astrology thus regarded by Bacon as sane and just did not differ, as
+to its primary object, from the false systems which now seem to us so
+absurd. 'Let this astrology be used with greater confidence in
+prediction,' says Bacon, 'but more cautiously in election, and in both
+cases with due moderation. Thus predictions may be made of comets, and
+all kinds of meteors, inundations, droughts, heats, frosts, earthquakes,
+fiery eruptions, winds, great rains, the seasons of the year, plagues,
+epidemic diseases, plenty, famine, wars, seditions, sects,
+transmigrations of people, and all commotions, or great innovations of
+things, natural and civil. Predictions may possibly be made more
+particular, though with less certainty, if, when the general tendencies
+of the times are found, a good philosophical or political judgment
+applies them to such things as are most liable to accidents of this
+kind. For example, from a foreknowledge of the seasons of any year, they
+might be apprehended more destructive to olives than grapes, more
+hurtful in distempers of the lungs than the liver, more pernicious to
+the inhabitants of hills than valleys, and, for want of provisions, to
+monks than courtiers, etc. Or if any one, from a knowledge of the
+influence which the celestial bodies have upon the spirits of mankind,
+should find it would affect the people more than their rulers, learned
+and inquisitive men more than the military, etc. For there are
+innumerable things of this kind that require not only a general
+knowledge gained from the stars which are the agents, but also a
+particular one of the passive subjects. Nor are elections to be wholly
+rejected, though not so much to be trusted as predictions; for we find
+in planting, sowing, and grafting, observations of the moon are not
+absolutely trifling, and there are many particulars of this kind. But
+elections are more to be curbed by our rules than predictions; and this
+must always be remembered, that election only holds in such cases where
+the virtue of the heavenly bodies, and the action of the inferior bodies
+also, is not transient, as in the examples just mentioned; for the
+increases of the moon and planets are not sudden things. But punctuality
+of time should here be absolutely rejected. And perhaps there are more
+of these instances to be found in civil matters than some would
+imagine.'
+
+The method of inquiry suggested by Bacon as proper for determining the
+just rules of the astrology he advocated, was, as might be expected,
+chiefly inductive. There are, said he, 'but four ways of arriving at
+this science, viz.--1, by future experiments; 2, past experiments; 3,
+traditions; 4, physical reasons.' But he was not very hopeful as to the
+progress of the suggested researches. It is vain, he said, to think at
+present of future experiments, because many ages are required to procure
+a competent stock of them. As for the past, it is true that past
+experiments are within our reach, 'but it is a work of labour and much
+time to procure them. Thus astrologers may, if they please, draw from
+real history all greater accidents, as inundations, plagues, wars,
+seditions, deaths of kings, etc., as also the positions of the celestial
+bodies, not according to fictitious horoscopes, but the above-mentioned
+rules of their revolutions, or such as they really were at the time,
+and, when the event conspires, erect a probable rule of prediction.'
+Traditions would require to be carefully sifted, and those thrown out
+which manifestly clashed with physical considerations, leaving those in
+full force which complied with such considerations. Lastly, the physical
+reasons worthiest of being enquired into are those, said Bacon, 'which
+search into the universal appetites and passions of matter, and the
+simple genuine motions of the heavenly bodies.'
+
+It is evident there was much which, in our time at least, would be
+regarded as wild and fanciful in the 'sound and just astrology'
+advocated by Bacon. Yet, in passing, it may be noticed that even in our
+own time we have seen similar ideas promulgated, not by common
+astrologers and fortune-tellers (who, indeed, know nothing about such
+matters), but by persons supposed to be well-informed in matters
+scientific. In a roundabout way, a new astrology has been suggested,
+which is not at all unlike Bacon's 'astrologia sana,' though not based,
+as he proposed that astrology should be, on experiment, or tradition, or
+physical reasons. It has been suggested, first, that the seasons of our
+earth are affected by the condition of the sun in the matter of spots,
+and very striking evidence has been collected to show that this must be
+the case. For instance, it has been found that years when the sun has
+been free from spots have been warmer than the average; and it has also
+been found that such years have been cooler than the average: a
+double-shotted argument wholly irresistible, especially when it is also
+found that when the sun has many spots the weather has sometimes been
+exceptionally warm and sometimes exceptionally cold. If this be not
+considered sufficient, then note that in one country or continent or
+hemisphere the weather, when the sun is most spotted (or least, as the
+case may be), may be singularly hot, while in another country,
+continent, or hemisphere, the weather may be as singularly cold. So with
+wind and calm, rain and drought, and so forth. Always, whether the sun
+is very much spotted or quite free from spots, something unusual in the
+way of weather must be going on somewhere, demonstrating in the most
+significant way the influence of sun-spots or the want of sun-spots on
+the weather. It is true that captious minds might say that this method
+of reasoning proved too much in many ways, as, for example,
+thus--always, whether the sun is very much spotted or quite free from
+spots, some remarkable event, as a battle, massacre, domestic tragedy on
+a large scale, or the like, may be going on, demonstrating in the most
+significant way the influence of sun-spots or the want of sun-spots on
+the passions of men--which sounds absurd. But the answer is twofold.
+First, such reasoning is captious, and secondly, it is not certain that
+sun-spots, or the want of them, may not influence human passions; it may
+be worth while to enquire into this possible solar influence as well as
+the other, which can be done by crossing the hands of the new
+fortune-tellers with a sufficient amount of that precious metal which
+astrologers have in all ages dedicated to the sun.
+
+That the new system of divination is not solely solar, but partly
+planetary also, is seen when we remember that the sun-spots wax and wane
+in periods of time which are manifestly referable to the planetary
+motions. Thus, the great solar spot-period lasts about eleven years, the
+successive spotless epochs being separated on the average by about that
+time; and so nearly does this period agree with the period of the planet
+Jupiter's revolution around the sun, that during eight consecutive
+spot-periods the spots were most numerous when Jupiter was farthest from
+the sun, and it is only by going back to the periods preceding these
+eight that we find a time when the reverse happened, the spots being
+most numerous when Jupiter was nearest to the sun. So with various other
+periods which the ingenuity of Messrs. De la Rue and Balfour Stewart has
+detected, and which, under the closest scrutiny, exhibit almost exact
+agreement for many successive periods, preceded and followed by almost
+exact disagreement. Here, again, the captious may argue that such
+alternate agreements and disagreements may be noted in every case where
+two periods are not very unequal, whether there be any connection
+between them or not; but much more frequently when there is no
+connection: and that the only evidence really proving a connection
+between planetary motions and the solar spots would be constant
+agreement between solar spot periods and particular planetary periods.
+But the progress of science, and especially the possible erection of a
+new observatory for finding out ('for a consideration') how sun-spots
+affect the weather, etc., ought not to be interfered with by captious
+reasoners in this objectionable manner. Nor need any other answer be
+given them. Seeing, then, that sun-spots manifestly affect the weather
+and the seasons, while the planets rule the sun-spots, it is clear that
+the planets really rule the seasons. And again, seeing that the planets
+rule the seasons, while the seasons largely affect the well-being of men
+and nations (to say nothing of animals), it follows that the planets
+influence the fates of men and nations (and animals). _Quod erat
+demonstrandum._
+
+Let us return, however, to the more reasonable astrology of the
+ancients, and enquire into some of the traditions which Bacon considered
+worthy of attention in framing the precepts of a sound and just
+astrology.
+
+It was natural that the astrologers of old should regard the planetary
+influences as depending in the main on the position of the celestial
+bodies on the sky above the person or place whose fortunes were in
+question. Thus two men at the same moment in Rome and in Persia would by
+no means have the same horoscope cast for their nativities, so that
+their fortunes, according to the principles of judicial astrology, would
+be quite different. In fact it might happen that two men, born at the
+same instant of time, would have all the principal circumstances of
+their lives contrasted--planets riding high in the heavens of one being
+below the horizon of the other, and _vice versâ_.
+
+The celestial sphere placed as at the moment of the native's birth was
+divided into twelve parts by great circles supposed to pass through the
+point overhead, and its opposite, the point vertically beneath the feet.
+These twelve divisions were called 'houses.'
+
+Their position is illustrated in the following figure, taken from
+Raphaël's Astrology.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  Particular Significations
+  OF THE
+  _Twelve Celestial Houses_,
+  According to various
+  Astrological Authors.
+
+  Sun-rise.
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Ascendant_.
+
+  LIFE
+  and
+  HEALTH
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Second House_.
+
+  RICHES
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Third House_.
+
+  KINDRED
+  and
+  SHORT JOURNEYS
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Fourth House_.
+
+  INHERITANCES
+
+  Mid-night.
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Fifth House_.
+
+  CHILDREN
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Sixth House_.
+
+  SICKNESS
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Seventh House_.
+
+  MARRIAGE
+
+  Sun-set.
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Eighth House_.
+
+  DEATH
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Ninth House_.
+
+  LONG JOURNEYS
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Mid-heaven_.
+
+  HONOR
+
+  Noon-day.
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Eleventh House_.
+
+  FRIENDS
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Twelfth House_.
+
+  ENEMIES
+
+]
+
+The first, called the Ascendant House, was the portion rising above the
+horizon at the east. It was regarded as the House of Life, the planets
+located therein at the moment of birth having most potent influence on
+the life and destiny of the native. Such planets were said to rule the
+ascendant, being in the ascending house; and it is from this usage that
+our familiar expression that such and such an influence is 'in the
+ascendant' is derived. The next house was the House of Riches, and was
+one-third of the way from the east below the horizon towards the place
+of the sun at midnight. The third was the House of Kindred, short
+journeys, letters, messages, etc. It was two-thirds of the way towards
+the place of the midnight sun. The fourth was the House of Parents, and
+was the house which the sun reached at midnight. The fifth was the House
+of Children and Women, also of all sorts of amusements, theatres,
+banquets, and merry-making. The sixth was the House of Sickness. The
+seventh was the House of Love and Marriage. These three houses (the
+fifth, sixth, and seventh) followed in order from the fourth, so as to
+correspond to the part of the sun's path below the horizon, between his
+place at midnight and his place when descending in the west. The
+seventh, opposite to the first, was the Descendant. The eighth house was
+the first house above the horizon, lying to the west, and was the House
+of Death. The ninth house, next to the mid-heaven on the west, was the
+House of Religion, science, learning, books, and long voyages. The
+tenth, which was in the mid-heaven, or region occupied by the sun at
+midday, was the House of Honour, denoting credit, renown, profession or
+calling, trade, preferment, etc. The eleventh house, next to the
+mid-heaven on the east, was the House of Friends. Lastly, the twelfth
+house was the House of Enemies.
+
+The houses were not all of equal potency. The _angular_ houses, which
+are the first, the fourth, the seventh, and the tenth--lying east,
+north, west, and south--were first in power, whether for good or evil.
+The second, fifth, eighth, and eleventh houses were called _succedents_,
+as following the angular houses, and next to them in power. The
+remaining four houses--viz. the third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth
+houses--were called _cadents_, and were regarded as weakest in
+influence. The houses were regarded as alternately masculine and
+feminine: the first, third, fifth, etc., being masculine; while the
+second, fourth, sixth, etc., were feminine.
+
+The more particular significations of the various houses are shown in
+the accompanying figure from the same book.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  A
+  CELESTIAL DIAGRAM
+  representing at one view the
+  various symbolical significations
+  of the
+  _Twelve Heavenly Houses_;
+  according to ancient manuscript
+  writers of the twelfth century;
+  _and not to be found in Authors_.
+
+  Brethren
+  of
+  friends, fathers
+  of kings, sickness of
+  public enemies, wives of
+  enemies, death of servants,
+  long journeys of children, friends
+  of brethren, thoughts of the asker.
+
+  The end of youth, brethren of private
+  enemies, fathers and grandsires of
+  friends, king's sons, enemies
+  of wives, magistery of
+  children, private
+  enemies of
+  brethren.
+
+  Sects,
+  dreams,
+  churches, fathers
+  of private enemies, sons
+  of friends, sickness of kings,
+  enemies of the religious, trade of
+  servants, private enemies of fathers.
+
+  Dead men's goods, castles, treasure hid,
+  the fate of the corpse in the grave,
+  money of brethren, children
+  of private enemies, sickness
+  of friends, king's
+  enemies, friends
+  of servants.
+
+  Cards,
+  dice, brethren's
+  brethren, father's money,
+  sickness of private enemies,
+  enemies of friends, death of kings,
+  friends of enemies, enemies of servants.
+
+  Vassals, children's money, brethren's
+  fathers, father's brethren, enemies'
+  enemies, death of friends,
+  journeys and religion of
+  kings, lay dignities,
+  enemies of
+  wives.
+
+  Fines,
+  pleas, laws,
+  nuptials, death of
+  enemies, friends of brethren,
+  sons of friends, sisters
+  of brethren, death of enemies and
+  of great beasts, religion of friends.
+
+  Labour, sorrow, inheritance of the dead,
+  money of enemies, brethren of servants,
+  sickness of brethren,
+  dignity of friends, king's
+  friends, enemies
+  of religious
+  persons.
+
+  Prophets, prayers, visions, omens, divine
+  worship, wife's brethren, fathers of
+  servants, children's children,
+  sickness of fathers, enemies
+  of brethren,
+  friends of friends,
+  enemies of
+  kings.
+
+  Judges, brethren
+  of enemies,
+  servants, fathers of enemies,
+  children of servants,
+  sickness of sons, death of brethren,
+  friends of enemies, enemies of friends.
+
+  Knights, esquires, children of enemies,
+  sickness of servants, enemies
+  and wives of offspring,
+  death of fathers, journeys
+  of brethren, enemies
+  of enemies.
+
+  Envy, sorrow, guile, long hidden wrath,
+  money of friends, brethren of kings,
+  sickness of wives, servants'
+  enemies, death of children,
+  trade of brethren,
+  a prison.
+
+]
+
+It will be easily understood how these houses were dealt with in
+erecting a scheme of nativity. The position of the planets at the moment
+of the native's birth, in the several houses, determined his fortunes
+with regard to the various matters associated with these houses. Thus
+planets of good influence in the native's ascendant, or first house,
+signified generally a prosperous life; but if at the same epoch a planet
+of malefic influence was in the seventh house, then the native, though
+on the whole prosperous, would be unfortunate in marriage. A good planet
+in the tenth house signified good fortune and honour in office or
+business, and generally a prosperous career as distinguished from a
+happy life; but evil planets in the ninth house would suggest to the
+native caution in undertaking long voyages, or entering upon religious
+or scientific controversies.
+
+Similar considerations applied to questions relating to horary
+astronomy, in which the position of the planets in the various houses at
+some epoch guided the astrologer's opinion as to the fortune of that
+hour, either in the life of a man or the career of a State. In such
+inquiries, however, not only the position of the planets, etc., at the
+time had to be considered, but also the original horoscope of the
+person, or the special planets and signs associated with particular
+States. Thus if Jupiter, the most fortunate of all the planets, was in
+the ascendant, or in the House of Honour, at the time of the native's
+birth, and at some epoch this planet was ill-aspected or afflicted by
+other planets potent for evil in the native's horoscope, then that epoch
+would be a threatening one in the native's career.
+
+The sign Gemini was regarded by astrologers as especially associated
+with the fortunes of London, and accordingly they tell us that the great
+fire of London, the plague, the building of London Bridge, and other
+events interesting to London, all occurred when this sign was in the
+ascendant, or when special planets were in this sign.[7]
+
+The signs of the zodiac in the various houses were in the first place
+to be noted, because not only had these signs special powers in special
+houses, but the effects of the planets in particular houses varied
+according to the signs in which the planets were situated. If we were to
+follow the description given by the astrologers themselves, not much
+insight would be thrown upon the meaning of the zodiacal signs. For
+instance, astrologers say that Aries is a vernal, dry, fiery, masculine,
+cardinal, equinoctial, diurnal, movable, commanding, eastern, choleric,
+violent, and quadrupedalian sign. We may, however, infer generally from
+their accounts the influences which they assigned to the zodiacal signs.
+
+Aries is the house and joy of Mars, signifies a dry constitution, long
+face and neck, thick shoulders, swarthy complexion, and a hasty,
+passionate temper. It governs the head and face, and all diseases
+relating thereto. It reigns over England, France, Switzerland, Germany,
+Denmark, Lesser Poland, Syria, Naples, Capua, Verona, etc. It is a
+masculine sign, and is regarded as fortunate.
+
+Taurus gives to the native born under his auspices a stout athletic
+frame, broad bull-like forehead, dark curly hair, short neck, and so
+forth, and a dull apathetic temper, exceedingly cruel and malicious if
+once aroused. It governs the neck and throat, and reigns over Ireland,
+Great Poland, part of Russia, Holland, Persia, Asia Minor, the
+Archipelago, Mantua, Leipsic, etc. It is a feminine sign, and
+unfortunate.
+
+Gemini is the house of Mercury. The native of Gemini will have a
+sanguine complexion and tall, straight figure, dark eyes quick and
+piercing, brown hair, active ways, and will be of exceedingly ingenious
+intellect. It governs the arms and shoulders, and rules over the
+south-west parts of England, America, Flanders, Lombardy, Sardinia,
+Armenia, Lower Egypt, London, Versailles, Brabant, etc. It is a
+masculine sign, and fortunate.
+
+Cancer is the house of the Moon and exaltation of Jupiter, and its
+native will be of fair but pale complexion, round face, grey or mild
+blue eyes, weak voice, the upper part of the body large, slender arms,
+small feet, and an effeminate constitution. It governs the breast and
+the stomach, and reigns over Scotland, Holland, Zealand, Burgundy,
+Africa, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Constantinople, New York, etc. It is a
+feminine sign, and unfortunate.
+
+The native born under Leo will be of large body, broad shoulders,
+austere countenance, with dark eyes and tawny hair, strong voice, and
+leonine character, resolute and ambitious, but generous, free, and
+courteous. Leo governs the heart and back, and reigns over Italy,
+Bohemia, France, Sicily, Rome, Bristol, Bath, Taunton, Philadelphia,
+etc. It is a masculine sign, and fortunate.
+
+Virgo is the joy of Mercury. Its natives are of moderate stature, seldom
+handsome, slender but compact, thrifty and ingenious. It governs the
+abdomen, and reigns over Turkey both in Europe and Asia, Greece, and
+Mesopotamia, Crete, Jerusalem, Paris, Lyons, etc. It is a feminine sign,
+and generally unfortunate.
+
+Libra is the house of Venus. The natives of Libra are tall and well
+made, elegant in person, round-faced and ruddy, but plain-featured and
+'inclined to eruptions that disfigure the face when old; they' (the
+natives) 'are of sweet disposition, just and upright in dealing.' It
+governs the lumbar regions, and reigns over Austria, Alsace, Savoy,
+Portugal, Livonia, India, Ethiopia, Lisbon, Vienna, Frankfort, Antwerp,
+Charleston, etc. It is a masculine sign, and fortunate.
+
+Scorpio is, like Aries, the house of Mars, 'and also his joy.' Its
+natives are strong, corpulent, and robust, with large bones, 'dark curly
+hair and eyes' (presumably the eyes dark only, not curly), middle
+stature, dusky complexion, active bodies; they are usually reserved in
+speech. It governs the region of the groin, and reigns over Judæa,
+Mauritania, Catalonia, Norway, West Silesia, Upper Batavia, Barbary,
+Morocco, Valentia, Messina, etc. It is feminine, and unfortunate. (It
+would appear likely, by the way, that astrology was a purely masculine
+science.)
+
+Sagittarius is the house and joy of Jupiter. Its natives are well formed
+and tall, ruddy, handsome, and jovial, with fine clear eyes, chestnut
+hair, and oval fleshy face. They are 'generally jolly fellows at either
+bin or board,' active, intrepid, generous, and obliging. It governs the
+legs and thighs,[8] and reigns over Arabia Felix, Spain, Hungary,
+Moravia, Liguria, Narbonne, Cologne, Avignon, etc. It is masculine, and
+of course fortunate.
+
+Capricorn is the house of Saturn and exaltation of Mars. This sign gives
+to its natives a dry constitution and slender make, with a long thin
+visage, thin beard (a generally goaty aspect, in fact), dark hair, long
+neck, narrow chin, and weak knees. It governs, nevertheless, the knees
+and hams, and reigns over India, Macedonia, Thrace and Greece, Mexico,
+Saxony, Wilna, Mecklenburgh, Brandenburg, and Oxford. It is feminine,
+and unfortunate.
+
+Aquarius also is the house of Saturn. Its natives are robust, steady,
+strong, healthy, and of middle stature; delicate complexion, clear but
+not pale, sandy hair, hazel eyes, and generally an honest disposition.
+It governs the legs and ankles, and reigns over Arabia, Petræa, Tartary,
+Russia, Denmark, Lower Sweden, Westphalia, Hamburg, and Bremen. It is
+masculine, and fortunate.
+
+Pisces is the house of Jupiter and exaltation of Venus. Its natives are
+short, pale, thick-set, and round-shouldered (like fish), its character
+phlegmatic and effeminate. It governs the feet and toes, and reigns over
+Portugal, Spain, Egypt, Normandy, Galicia, Ratisbon, Calabria, etc. It
+is feminine, and therefore, naturally, unfortunate.
+
+Let us next consider the influences assigned to the various planets and
+constellations.
+
+Though we can understand that in old times the planets and stars were
+regarded as exercising very potent influences upon the fates of men and
+nations,[9] it is by no means easy to understand how astrologers came to
+assign to each planet its special influence. That is, it is not easy to
+understand how they could have been led to such a result by actual
+reasoning, still less by any process of observation.[10] There was a
+certain scientific basis for the belief in the possibility of
+determining the special influences of the stars; and we should have
+expected to find some scientific process adopted for the purpose. Yet,
+so far as can be judged, the influences assigned to the planets depended
+on entirely fanciful considerations. In some cases we seem almost to see
+the line along which the fancies of the old astrologers led them, just
+as in some cases we can perceive how mythological superstitions (which
+are closely related to astrological ideas) had their origin; though it
+is not quite clear whether the planets were first regarded as deities
+with special qualities, and these qualities afterwards assigned to the
+planetary influences, or whether the planetary influences were first
+assigned, and came eventually to be regarded as the qualities of the
+deities associated with the several planets.
+
+It is easy, for instance, to understand why astrologers should have
+regarded the sun as the emblem of kingly power and dignity, and equally
+easy to understand why, to the sun regarded as a deity, corresponding
+qualities should have been ascribed; but it is not easy to determine
+whether the astrological or the Sabaistic superstitions were the
+earlier. And in like manner of the moon and planets. There seems to me
+no sufficient evidence in favour of Whewell's opinion, that 'in whatever
+manner the sun, moon, and planets came to be identified with gods and
+goddesses, the characters ascribed to these gods and goddesses,
+regulated the virtues and powers of the stars which bear their names.'
+As he himself very justly remarks, 'We do not possess any of the
+speculations of the earlier astrologers; and we cannot, therefore, be
+certain that the notions which operated in men's minds when the art had
+its birth, agreed with the views on which it was afterwards defended.'
+He does not say why he infers that, though at later periods supported by
+physical analogies, it was originally suggested by mythological beliefs.
+Quite as probably mythological beliefs were suggested by astrological
+notions. Some of these beliefs, indeed, seem manifestly to have been so
+suggested; as the character of the deity Mercury, from the rapid motions
+of the planet Mercury, and the difficulty of detecting it; the character
+of Mars from the blood-red hue of the planet when close to the horizon,
+and so forth.
+
+Let us examine, however, the characteristics ascribed by astrologers to
+various planets.
+
+It is unfortunate for astrology that, despite the asserted careful
+comparison of events with the planetary positions preceding and
+indicating them, nothing was ever observed which seemed to suggest the
+possibility that there may be an unknown planet ruling very strongly the
+affairs of men. Astrologers tell us now that Uranus is a very potent
+planet; yet the old astrologers seem to have got on very well without
+him. By the way, one of the moderns, the grave Raphaël, gives a very
+singular account of the discovery of Uranus, in a book published sixteen
+years before Neptune was discovered by just such a process as Raphaël
+imagined in the case of Uranus. He says that Drs. Halley, Bradley, and
+others, having frequently observed that Saturn was disturbed in his
+motion by some force exerted from beyond his orbit, and being unable to
+account for the disturbance on the known principles of gravitation,
+pursued their enquiry into the matter, 'till at length the discovery of
+this hitherto unknown planet covered their labours with success, and has
+enabled us to enlarge our present solar system to nearly double its
+bounds.' Of course there is not a word of truth in this; Uranus having
+been discovered by accident long after Halley and Bradley were in the
+grave. But the account suggests what might have been, and curiously
+anticipates the actual manner in which Neptune was discovered.
+
+Astrologers agree in attributing evil effects to Uranus. But the evil he
+does is always peculiarly strange, unaccountable, and totally
+unexpected. He causes the native born under his influence to be of a
+very eccentric and original disposition, romantic, unsettled, addicted
+to change, a seeker after novelty; though, if the moon or Mercury have a
+good aspect towards Uranus, the native will be profound in the secret
+sciences, magnanimous, and lofty of mind. But let all beware of marriage
+when Uranus is in the seventh house, or afflicting the moon. And in
+general, let the fair sex remember that Uranus is peculiarly hostile to
+them, and very evil in love.
+
+Saturn is the Greater Infortune of the old system of astrology, and is
+by universal experience acknowledged to be the most potent, evil, and
+malignant of all the planets. Those born under him are of dark and pale
+complexion, with small, black, leering eyes, thick lips and nostrils,
+large ears, thin face, lowering looks, cloudy aspect, and seemingly
+melancholy and unhappy; and though they have broad shoulders, they have
+but short lips and a thin beard, They are in character austere and
+reserved, covetous, laborious, and revengeful; constant in friendship,
+and good haters. The most remarkable and certain characteristic of the
+Saturnine man is that, as an old author observes 'he will never look
+thee in the face.' 'If they have to love any one, these Saturnines,'
+says another old author, 'they love most constantly; and if they hate,
+they hate to the death.' The persons signified symbolically by Saturn
+are grandparents, and other old persons, day labourers, paupers,
+beggars, clowns, husbandmen of the meaner sort, and especially
+undertakers, sextons, and gravediggers. Chaucer thus presents the chief
+effects which Saturn produces in the fortunes of men and nations--Saturn
+himself being the speaker:--
+
+          ... quod Saturne
+  My cours, that hath so wide for to turne,
+  Hath more power than wot any man.
+  Min is the drenching in the sea so wan,
+  Min is the prison in the derke cote,
+  Min is the strangel and hanging by the throte,
+  The murmure and the cherles rebelling,
+  The groyning, and the prive empoysoning,
+  I do vengaunce and pleine correction,
+  While I dwell in the signe of the leon;
+  Min is the ruine of the high halles,
+  The falling of the toures and of the walles
+  Upon the minour or the carpenter:
+  I slew Sampson in shaking the piler.
+  Min ben also the maladies colde,
+  The derke tresons, and the castes olde:
+  My loking is the fader of pestilence.
+
+Jupiter, on the contrary, though Saturn's next neighbour in the solar
+system, produces effects of an entirely contrary kind. He is, in fact,
+the most propitious of all the planets, and the native born under his
+influence has every reason to be jovial in fact as he is by nature. Such
+a native will be tall and fair, handsome and erect, robust, ruddy, and
+altogether a good-looking person, whether male or female. The native
+will also be religious, or at least a good moral honest man, unless
+Jupiter be afflicted by the aspects of Saturn, Mars, or Uranus; in which
+case he may still be a jolly fellow, no man's enemy but his own--only he
+will probably be his own enemy to a very considerable extent,
+squandering his means and ruining his health by gluttony and
+intoxication. The persons represented by Jupiter (when he is not
+afflicted) are judges, counsellors, church dignitaries, from cardinals
+to curates, scholars, chancellors, barristers, and the highest orders of
+lawyers, woollendrapers (possibly there may be some astral significance
+in the woolsack), and clothiers. When Jupiter is afflicted, however, he
+denotes quacks and mountebanks, knaves, cheats, and drunkards. The
+influence of the planet on the fortunes is nearly always good.
+Astrologers, who to a man reverence dignities, consider Great Britain
+fortunate in that the lady whom, with customary effusion, they term 'Our
+Most Gracious Queen,' was born when Jupiter was riding high in the
+heavens near his culmination, this position promising a most fortunate
+and happy career. The time has passed when the fortunes of this country
+were likely to be affected by such things; but we may hope, for the
+lady's own sake, that this prediction has been fulfilled. Astrologers
+assert the same about the Duke of Wellington, assigning midnight, May 1,
+1769, as the hour of his birth. There is some doubt both as to the date
+and place of the great soldier's birth; but the astrologer finds in the
+facts of his life the means of removing all such doubts.[11]
+
+Next in order comes Mars, inferior only in malefic influence to Saturn,
+and called by the old astrologers the Lesser Infortune. The native born
+under the influence of Mars is usually of fierce countenance, his eyes
+sparkling, or sharp and darting, his complexion fiery or yellowish, and
+his countenance scarred or furrowed. His hair is reddish or sandy,
+unless Mars chances to be in a watery sign, in which case the hair will
+be flaxen; or in an earthly sign, in which case the hair will be
+chestnut. The Martialist is broad-shouldered, steady, and strong, but
+short,[12] and often bony and lean. In character the Martialist is fiery
+and choleric, naturally delighting in war and contention, but generous
+and magnanimous. This when Mars is well aspected; should the planet be
+evil aspected, then will the native be treacherous, thievish,
+treasonable, cruel, and wicked. The persons signified by Mars are
+generals, soldiers, sailors (if he is in a watery sign), surgeons,
+chemists, doctors, armourers, barbers, curriers, smiths, carpenters,
+bricklayers, sculptors, cooks, and tailors. When afflicted with Mercury
+or the moon, he denotes thieves, hangmen, and 'all cut throat people.'
+In fact, except the ploughboy, who belongs to Saturn, all the members of
+the old septet, 'tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, apothecary, ploughboy,
+thief,' are favourites with Mars. The planet's influence is not quite so
+evil as Saturn's, nor are the effects produced by it so long-lasting.
+'The influence of Saturn,' says an astrologer, 'may be compared to a
+lingering but fatal consumption; that of Mars to a burning fever.' He is
+the cause of anger, quarrels, violence, war, and slaughter.
+
+The sun comes next; for it must be remembered that, according to the old
+system of astronomy, the sun was a planet. Persons born under the sun as
+the planet ruling their ascendant, would be more apt to be aware of the
+fact than Saturnine, Jovial, Martial, or any other folk, because the
+hour of birth, if remembered, at once determines whether the native is a
+solar subject or not. The solar native has generally a round face (like
+pictures of the sun in old books of astronomy), with a short chin; his
+complexion somewhat sanguine; curling sandy hair, and a white tender
+skin. As to character, he is bold and resolute, desirous of praise, of
+slow speech and composed judgment; outwardly decorous, but privately not
+altogether virtuous. The sun, in fact, according to astrologers, is the
+natural significator of respectability; for which I can discover no
+reason, unless it be that the sun travelling always in the ecliptic has
+no latitude, and so solar folk are allowed none. When the sun is ill
+aspected, the native is both proud and mean, tyrannical and sycophantic,
+exceedingly unamiable, and generally disliked because of his arrogance
+and ignorant pomposity. The persons signified by the sun are emperors,
+kings, and titled folk generally, goldsmiths, jewellers, and coiners.
+When 'afflicted,' the sun signifies pretenders either to power or
+knowledge. The sun's influence is not in itself either good or evil, but
+is most powerful for good when he is favourably aspected, and for evil
+when he is afflicted by other planets.
+
+Venus, the next in order, bore the same relation to the Greater Fortune
+Jupiter which Mars bore to Saturn the Greater Ill-fortune. She was the
+Lesser Fortune, and her influence was in nearly all respects benevolent.
+The persons born under the influence of this planet are handsome, with
+beautiful sparkling hazel or black eyes (but another authority assigns
+the subject of Venus, 'a full eye, usually we say goggle-eyed,' by which
+we do not usually imply beauty), ruddy lips, the upper lip short, soft
+smooth hair, dimples in the cheek and chin, an amorous look and a sweet
+voice. One old astrologer puts the matter thus pleasantly:--'The native
+of Venus hath,' quoth he, 'a love-dimple in the chin, a lovely mouth,
+cherry lips, and a right merry countenance.' In character the native of
+Venus is merry 'to a fault,' but of temper engaging, sweet and cheerful,
+unless she be ill aspected, when her native is apt to be too fond of
+pleasure and amusement. That her influence is good is shown (in the
+opinion of Raphaël, writing in 1828) by the character of George IV.,
+'our present beloved monarch and most gracious majesty, who was born
+just as this benevolent star' was in the ascendant; 'for it is well
+known to all Europe what a refined and polished genius, and what
+exquisite taste, the King of England possesses, which therefore may be
+cited as a most illustrious proof of the celestial science; a proof
+likewise which is palpably demonstrable, even to the most casual
+observer, since the time of his nativity is taken from the public
+journals of the period, and cannot be gainsaid.' 'This illustrious and
+regal horoscope is replete with wonderful verifications of planetary
+influence, and England cannot but prosper while she is blessed with the
+mild and beneficent sway of this potent monarch.' Strengthened in faith
+by this convincing proof of the celestial science, we proceed to notice
+that Venus is the protectrice of musicians, embroiderers, perfumers,
+classic modellers, and all who work in elegant attire or administer to
+the luxuries of the great; but when she is afflicted, she represents
+'the lower orders of the votaries of voluptuousness.'
+
+Mercury is considered by astrologers 'a cold, dry, melancholy star.' The
+Mercurial is neither dark nor fair, but between both, long-faced, with
+high forehead and thin sharp nose, 'thin beard (many times none at all),
+slender of body, and with small weak eyes;' long slender hands and
+fingers are 'especial marks of Mercury,' says Raphaël. In character the
+Mercurial is busy and prattling. But when well affected, Mercury gives
+his subjects a strong, vigorous, active mind, searching and exhaustive,
+a retentive memory, a natural thirst for knowledge.[13] The persons
+signified by Mercury are astrologers, philosophers, mathematicians,
+politicians, merchants, travellers, teachers, poets, artificers, men of
+science, and all ingenious, clever men. When he is ill affected,
+however, he represents pettifoggers, cunning vile persons, thieves,
+messengers, footmen, and servants, etc.
+
+The moon comes last in planetary sequence, as nearest to the earth. She
+is regarded by astrologers as a cold, moist, watery, phlegmatic planet,
+variable to an extreme, and, like the sun, partaking of good or evil
+according as she is aspected favourably or the reverse. Her natives are
+of good stature, fair, and pale, moon-faced, with grey eyes, short arms,
+thick hands and feet, smooth, corpulent and phlegmatic body. When she is
+in watery signs, the native has freckles on the face, or, says Lilly,
+'he or she is blub-cheeked, not a handsome body, but a muddling
+creature.' Unless the moon is very well aspected, she ever signifies an
+ordinary vulgar person. She signifies sailors (not as Mars does, the
+fighting-men of war-ships, but nautical folk generally) and all persons
+connected with water or any kind of fluid; also all who are engaged in
+inferior and common offices.
+
+We may note, in passing, that to each planet a special metal is
+assigned, as also particular colours. Chaucer, in the Chanones Yemannes'
+Tale, succinctly describes the distribution of the metals among the
+planets:--
+
+  Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe;
+  Mars iren, Mercurie silver we clepe:
+  Saturnus led, and Jupiter is tin,
+  And Venus coper, by my [the Chanones Yemannes'] faderkin.
+
+The colours are thus assigned:--to Saturn, black; to Jupiter, mixed red
+and green; to Mars, red; to the sun, yellow or yellow-purple; to Venus,
+white or purple; to Mercury, azure blue; to the moon, a colour spotted
+with white and other mixed colours.
+
+Again, the planets were supposed to have special influence on the seven
+ages of human life. The infant, 'mewling and puking in the nurse's
+arms,' was very appropriately dedicated to the moist moon; the whining
+schoolboy (did schoolboys whine in the days of good Queen Bess?) was
+less appropriately assigned to Mercury, the patron of those who eagerly
+seek after knowledge: then very naturally, the lover sighing like
+furnace was regarded as the special favourite of Venus. Thus far the
+order has been that of the seven planets of the ancient astrology, in
+supposed distance. Now, however, we have to pass over the sun, finding
+Mars the patron of mid life, appropriately (in this respect) presiding
+over the soldier full of strange oaths, and so forth; the 'justice in
+fair round belly with good capon lined' is watched over by the
+respectable sun; maturer age by Jupiter; and, lastly, old age by Saturn.
+
+Colours were also assigned to the twelve zodiacal signs--to Aries, white
+and red; to Taurus, white and lemon; to Gemini, white and red (the same
+as Aries); to Cancer, green or russet; to Leo, red or green; to Virgo,
+black speckled with blue; to Libra, black, or dark crimson, or tawny
+colour; to Scorpio, brown; to Sagittarius, yellow, or a green sanguine
+(this is as strange a colour as the _gris rouge_ of Molière's
+_L'Avare_); Capricorn, black or russet, or a swarthy brown; to Aquarius,
+a sky-coloured blue; to Pisces, white glistening colour (like a fish
+just taken out of the water).
+
+The chief fixed stars had various influences assigned to them by
+astrologers. These influences were mostly associated with the imaginary
+figures of the constellations. Thus the bright star in the head of
+Aries, called by some the Ram's Horn, was regarded as dangerous and
+evil, denoting bodily hurts. The star Menkar in the Whale's jaw denoted
+sickness, disgrace, and ill-fortune, with danger from great beasts.
+Betelgeux, the bright star on Orion's right shoulder, denoted martial
+honours or wealth; Bellatrix, the star on Orion's left shoulder, denoted
+military or civic honours; Rigel, on Orion's left foot, denoted honours;
+Sirius and Procyon, the greater and lesser Dog Stars, both implied
+wealth and renown. Star clusters seem to have portended loss of sight;
+at least we learn that the Pleiades were 'eminent stars,' but denoting
+accidents to the sight or blindness, while the cluster Præsepe or the
+Beehive in like manner threatened blindness. The cluster in Perseus does
+not seem to have been noticed by astrologers. The variable star Algol or
+Caput Medusæ, which marks the head of Gorgon, was accounted 'the most
+unfortunate, violent, and dangerous star in the heavens.' It is
+tolerably clear that the variable character of this star had been
+detected long before Montanari (to whom the discovery is commonly
+attributed) noticed the phenomenon. The name Algol is only a variation
+of Al-ghúl, the monster or demon, and it cannot be doubted that the
+demoniac, Gorgonian character assigned to this star was suggested by its
+ominous change, as though it were the eye of some fierce monster slowly
+winking amid the gloom of space. The two stars called the Aselli, which
+lie on either side of the cluster Præsepe, 'are said' (by astrologers)
+'to be of a burning nature, and to give great indications of a violent
+death, or of violent and severe accidents by fire.' The star called Cor
+Hydræ, or the serpent's heart, denotes trouble through women (said I not
+rightly that Astrology was a masculine science?); the Lion's heart,
+Regulus, implied glory and riches; Deneb, the Lion's tail, misfortune
+and disgrace. The southern scale of Libra meant bad fortune, while the
+northern was eminently fortunate.
+
+Astrology was divided into three distinct branches--the doctrine of
+nativities, horary astrology, and state astrology. The first assigned
+the rules for determining the general fortunes of the native, by drawing
+up his scheme of nativity or casting his horoscope. It took into account
+the positions of the various planets, signs, stars, etc., at the time of
+the native's birth; and as the astrologer could calculate the movements
+of the planets thereafter, he could find when those planets which were
+observed by the horoscope to be most closely associated with the
+native's fortunes would be well aspected or the reverse. Thus the
+auspicious and unlucky epochs of the native's life could be
+predetermined. The astrologer also claimed some degree of power to rule
+the planets, not by modifying their movements in any way, but by
+indicating in what way the ill effects portended by their positions
+could be prevented. The Arabian and Persian astrologers, having less
+skill than the followers of Ptolemy, made use of a different method of
+determining the fortunes of men, not calculating the positions of the
+planets for many years following the birth of the native, but assigning
+to every day after his birth a whole year of his life and for every two
+hours' motion of the moon one month. Thus the positions of the stars and
+planets, twenty-one days after the birth of the native, would indicate
+the events corresponding to the time when he would have completed his
+twenty-first year. There was another system called the Placidian, in
+which the effects of the positions of the planets were judged with sole
+reference to the motion of the earth upon her axis. It is satisfactory
+to find astrologers in harmony amongst each other as to these various
+methods, which one would have supposed likely to give entirely different
+results. 'Each of them,' says a modern astrologer, 'is not only correct
+and approved by long-tried practice, but may be said to defy the least
+contradiction from those who will but take the pains to examine them
+(and no one else should deliver an opinion upon the subject). Although
+each of the above methods are different, yet they by no means contradict
+each other, but each leads to _true results_, and in many instances they
+each lead to the foreknowledge of the same event; in which respect they
+may be compared to the ascent of a mountain by different paths, where,
+although some paths are longer and more difficult than others, they
+notwithstanding all lead to the same object.' All which, though
+plausible in tone labours under the disadvantage of being untrue.
+
+Ptolemy is careful to point out, in his celebrated work the
+'Tetrabiblos,' that, of all events whatsoever which take place after
+birth, the most essential is the continuance of life. 'It is useless,'
+he says, 'to consider what events might happen to the native in later
+years if his life does not extend, for instance, beyond one year. So
+that the enquiry into the duration of life takes precedence of all
+others.' In order to deal properly with this question, it is necessary
+to determine what planet shall be regarded as the Hyleg, Apheta, or Lord
+of Life, for the native. Next the Anareta, or Destroyer of Life, must be
+ascertained. The Anaretic planets are, by nature, Saturn, Mars, and
+Uranus, though the sun, moon, and Mercury may be endowed with the same
+fatal influence, if suitably afflicted. The various ways in which the
+Hyleg, or Giver of Life, may be afflicted by the Anareta, correspond to
+the various modes of death. But astrologers have always been singularly
+careful, in casting horoscopes, to avoid definite reference to the
+native's death. There are but few cases where the actual day of death is
+said to have been assigned. One is related in Clarendon's 'History of
+the Rebellion.' He tells us that William Earl of Pembroke died at the
+age of fifty, on the day upon which his tutor Sandford had predicted his
+decease. Burton, the author of the 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' having cast
+his own horoscope, and ascertained that he was to die on January 23,
+1639, is said to have committed suicide in order that the accuracy of
+his calculations might not be called in question. A similar story is
+related of Cardan by Dr. Young (Sidrophel Vapulans), on the authority of
+Gassendi, who, however, says only that either Cardan starved himself,
+or, being confident in his art, took the predicted day for a fatal one,
+and by his fears made it so. Gassendi adds that while Cardan pretended
+to describe the fates of his children in his voluminous commentaries, he
+all the while never suspected, from the rules of his great art, that his
+dearest son would be condemned in the flower of his youth to be beheaded
+on a scaffold, by an executioner of justice, for destroying his own wife
+by poison.
+
+Horary astrology relates to particular questions, and is a comparatively
+easy branch of the science. The art of casting nativities requires many
+years of study; but horary astrology 'may be well understood,' says
+Lilly, 'in less than a quarter of a year.' 'If a proposition of any
+nature,' he adds, 'be made to any individual, about the result of which
+he is anxious, and therefore uncertain whether to accede to it or not,
+let him but note the hour and minute when it was _first_ made, and erect
+a figure of the heavens, and his doubts will be instantly resolved. He
+may thus in five minutes learn whether the affair will succeed or not:
+and consequently whether it is prudent to accept the offer made or not.
+If he examine the sign on the first house of the figure, the planet
+therein, or the planet ruling the sign, _will exactly describe the party
+making the offer_, both in person and character, and this may at once
+convince the enquirer for truth of the reality of the principles of the
+science. Moreover, the descending sign, etc., _will describe his own
+person and character_--a farther proof of the truth of the science.'
+
+There is one feature of horary astrology which is probably almost as
+ancient as any portion of the science, yet which remains even to the
+present day, and will probably remain for many years to come. I refer to
+the influence which the planets were supposed to exert on the
+successive hours of every day--a belief from which the division of time
+into weeks of seven days unquestionably had its origin--though we may
+concede that the subdivision of the lunar month into four equal parts
+was also considered in selecting this convenient measure of time. Every
+hour had its planet. Now dividing twenty-four by seven, we get three and
+three over; whence, each day containing twenty-four hours, it follows
+that in each day the complete series of seven planets was run through
+three times, and three planets of the next series were used. The order
+of the planets was that of their distances, as indicated above. Saturn
+came first, then Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon.
+Beginning with Saturn, as ruling the first hour of Saturn's day
+(Saturday), we get through the above series three times, and have for
+the last three hours of the day, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. Thus the
+next hour, the first hour of the next day, belongs to the sun--Sunday
+follows Saturday. We again run three times through the series, and the
+three remaining hours are governed by the sun, Venus, and
+Mercury,--giving the moon as the first planet for the next day. Monday
+thus follows Sunday. The last three hours of Monday are ruled by the
+moon, Saturn, and Jupiter; leaving Mars to govern the next day--Martis
+dies, Mardi, Tuesday or Tuisco's day. Proceeding in the same way, we get
+Mercury for the next day, Mercurii dies, Mercredi, Wednesday or Woden's
+day; Jupiter for the next day, Jovis dies, Jeudi, Thursday or Thor's
+day; Venus for the next day, Veneris dies, Vendredi, Friday or Freya's
+day; and so we come to Saturday again.[14]
+
+The period of seven days, which had its origin in, and derived its
+nomenclature from astrological ideas, shows by its wide prevalence how
+widely astrological superstitions were once spread among the nations. As
+Whewell remarks (though, for reasons which will readily be understood he
+was by no means anxious to dwell upon the true origin of the Sabbatical
+week), 'the usage is found over all the East; it existed among the
+Arabians, Assyrians, and Egyptians. The same week is found in India,
+among the Brahmins; it has there also its days marked by the names of
+the heavenly bodies; and it has been ascertained that the same day has,
+in that country, the name corresponding with its designation in other
+nations.... The period has gone on without interruption or irregularity
+from the earliest recorded times to our own days, traversing the extent
+of ages and the revolutions of empires; the names of ancient deities,
+which were associated with the stars, were replaced by those of the
+objects of the worship of our Teutonic ancestors, according to their
+views of the correspondence of the two mythologies; and the Quakers, in
+rejecting these names of days, have cast aside the most ancient existing
+relic of astrological as well as idolatrous superstition.
+
+Not only do the names remain, but some of the observances connected with
+the old astrological systems remain even to this day. As ceremonies
+derived from Pagan worship are still continued, though modified in form,
+and with a different interpretation, in Christian and especially Roman
+Catholic observances, so among the Jews and among Christians the rites
+and ceremonies of the old Egyptian and Chaldæan astrology are still
+continued, though no longer interpreted as of yore. The great Jewish
+Lawgiver and those who follow him seem, for example, to have recognised
+the value of regular periods of rest (whether really required by man or
+become a necessity through long habit), but to have been somewhat in
+doubt how best to continue the practice without sanctioning the
+superstitions with which it had been connected. At any rate two
+different and inconsistent interpretations were given in the earlier and
+later codes of law. But whether the Jews accepted the Sabbath because
+they believed that an All-powerful Being, having created the world in
+six days, required and took rest ('and was refreshed') on the seventh,
+as stated in Exodus (xx. 11 and xxxi. 17), or whether they did so in
+remembrance of their departure from Egypt, as stated in Deuteronomy (v.
+15), there can be no question that among the Egyptians the Sabbath or
+Saturn's day was a day of rest because of the malignant nature of the
+powerful planet-deity who presided over that day. Nor can it be
+seriously doubted that the Jews descended from the old Chaldæans, among
+whom (as appears from stone inscriptions recently discovered) the very
+word Sabbath was in use for a seventh day of rest connected with
+astrological observances, were familiar with the practice even before
+their sojourn in Egypt. They had then probably regarded it as a
+superstitious practice to be eschewed like those idolatrous observances
+which had caused Terah to remove with Abraham and Lot from Ur of the
+Chaldees. At any rate, we find no mention of the seventh day of rest as
+a religious observance until after the Exodus.[15] It was not their only
+religious observance having in reality an astrological origin. Indeed,
+if we examine the Jewish sacrificial system as described in Numbers
+xxviii. and elsewhere, we shall find throughout a tacit reference to the
+motions or influences of the celestial bodies. There was the morning and
+evening sacrifice guided by the movements of the sun; the Sabbath
+offering, determined by the predominance of Saturn; the offering of the
+new moon, depending on the motions of the moon; and lastly, the Paschal
+sacrifice, depending on the combined movements of the sun and
+moon--made, in fact, during the lunation following the sun's ascending
+passage of the equator at the sign of Aries.
+
+Let us return, however, after this somewhat long digression, to
+astrological matters.
+
+Horary astrology is manifestly much better fitted than the casting of
+nativities for filling the pocket of the astrologer himself; because
+only one nativity can be cast, but any number of horary questions can be
+asked. It is on account of their skill in horary astrology that the
+Zadkiels of our own time have occasionally found their way into the
+twelfth house, or House of Enemies. Even Lilly himself, not devoting, it
+would seem, five minutes to inquire into the probable success of the
+affair, was indicted in 1655 by a half-witted young woman, because he
+had given judgment respecting stolen goods, receiving two shillings and
+sixpence, contrary to an Act made under and provided by the wise and
+virtuous King James, First of England and Sixth of Scotland.
+
+State astrology relates to the destinies of kingdoms, thrones, empires,
+and may be regarded as a branch of horary science relating to subjects
+(and rulers) of more than ordinary importance.
+
+In former ages all persons likely to occupy an important position in the
+history of the world had their horoscopes erected; but in these
+degenerate days neither the casting of nativities nor the art of ruling
+the planets flourishes as it should do. Our Zadkiels and Raphaëls
+publish, indeed, the horoscopes of kings and emperors, princes and
+princesses, and so forth; but their fate is as that of Benedict
+(according to Beatrice)--men 'wonder they will still be talking, for
+nobody marks them.' Even those whose horoscopes have been erected show
+no proper respect for the predictions made in their behalf. Thus the
+Prince of Wales being born when Sagittarius was in the ascendant should
+have been, according to Zadkiel, a tall man, with oval face, ruddy
+complexion, somewhat dusky, and so forth; but I understand he has by no
+means followed these directions as to his appearance. The sun, being
+well aspected, prognosticated honours--a most remarkable and
+unlooked-for circumstance, strangely fulfilled by the event; but then
+being in Cancer, in sextile with Mars, the Prince of Wales was to be
+partial to maritime affairs and attain naval glory, whereas as a
+field-marshal he can only win military glory. (I would not be understood
+to say that he is not quite as competent to lead our fleets as our
+battalions into action.) The House of Wealth was occupied by Jupiter,
+aspected by Saturn, which betokened great wealth through inheritance--a
+prognostication, says Professor Miller, which is not unlikely to come
+true. The House of Marriage was unsettled by the conflicting influences
+of Venus, Mars, and Saturn; but the first predominating, the Prince,
+after some trouble in his matrimonial speculations, was to marry a
+Princess of high birth, and one not undeserving of his kindest and most
+affectionate attention, probably in 1862. As to the date, an almanack
+informs me that the Prince married a Danish Princess in March 1863,
+which looks like a most culpable neglect of the predictions of our
+national astrologer. Again, in May 1870, when Saturn was stationary in
+the ascending degree, the Prince ought to have been injured by a horse,
+and also to have received a blow on the left side of the head, near the
+ear; but reprehensibly omitted both these ceremonies. A predisposition
+to fever and epileptic attacks was indicated by the condition of the
+House of Sickness. The newspapers described, a few years since, a
+serious attack of fever; but as most persons have some experience of the
+kind, the fulfilment of the prediction can hardly be regarded as very
+wonderful. Epileptic attacks, which, as less common, might have saved
+the credit of the astrologers, have not visited 'this royal native.' The
+position of Saturn in Capricorn betokened loss or disaster in one or
+other of the places ruled over by Capricorn--which, as we have seen, are
+India, Macedonia, Thrace, Greece, Mexico, Saxony, Wilna, Mecklenburgh,
+Brandenburgh, and Oxford. Professor Miller expresses the hope that
+Oxford was the place indicated, and the disaster nothing more serious
+than some slight scrape with the authorities of Christchurch. But
+princes never get into scrapes with college dons. Probably some one or
+other of the 'hair-breadth 'scapes' chronicled by the reporters of his
+travels in India was the event indicated by the ominous position of
+Saturn in Capricorn.
+
+A remarkable list of characteristics were derived by Zadkiel from the
+positions of the various planets and signs in the twelve houses of the
+'royal native.' Some, of course, were indicated in more ways than one,
+which will explain the parenthetical notes in the following alphabetical
+table which Professor Miller has been at the pains to draw up from
+Zadkiel's predictions. The prince was to be 'acute, affectionate,
+amiable, amorous, austere, avaricious, beneficent, benevolent, brave,
+brilliant, calculated for government' (a quality which may be understood
+two ways), 'candid, careful of his person, careless, compassionate,
+courteous (twice over), delighting in eloquence, discreet, envious, fond
+of glory, fond of learning, fond of music, fond of poetry, fond of
+sports, fond of the arts and sciences, frank, full of expedients,
+generous (three times), gracious, honourable, hostile to crime,
+impervious, ingenious, inoffensive, joyous, just (twice), laborious,
+liberal, lofty, magnanimous, modest, noble, not easy to be understood
+(!), parsimonious, pious (twice), profound in opinion, prone to regret
+his acts, prudent, rash, religious, reverent, self-confident, sincere,
+singular in mode of thinking, strong, temperate, unreserved, unsteady,
+valuable in friendship, variable, versatile, violent, volatile, wily,
+and worthy.' Zadkiel concludes thus:--'The square of Saturn to the moon
+will add to the gloomy side of the picture, and give a tinge of
+melancholy at times to the native's character, and also a disposition to
+look at the dark side of things, and lead him to despondency; nor will
+he be at all of a sanguine character, but cool and calculating, though
+occasionally rash. Yet, all things considered, though firm and sometimes
+positive in opinion, this royal native, if he live to mount the throne,
+will sway the sceptre of these realms in moderation and justice, and be
+a pious and benevolent man, and a merciful sovereign.' Fortunately, the
+time has long since passed when swaying the sceptre of these realms had
+any but a figurative meaning, or when Englishmen who obeyed their
+country's laws depended on the mercy of any man, or when even bad
+citizens were judged by princes. But we still prefer that princes should
+be well-mannered gentlemen, and therefore it is sincerely to be hoped
+that Zadkiel's prediction, so far as it relates to piety and
+benevolence, may be fulfilled, should this 'royal native' live to mount
+the throne. As for mercy, it is a goodly quality even in these days and
+in this country; for if the law no longer tolerates cruelty to men, even
+on the part of princes, who once had prescribed rights in that
+direction, there are still some cruel, nay brutal sports in which 'royal
+natives' might sometimes be tempted to take part. Wherefore let us hope
+that, even in regard to mercy, the predictions of astrologers respecting
+this 'royal native' may be fulfilled.
+
+Passing however, from trivialities, let us consider the lessons which
+the history of astrology teaches us respecting the human mind, its
+powers and weaknesses. It has been well remarked by Whewell that for
+many ages 'mysticism in its various forms was a leading character both
+of the common mind and the speculations of the most intelligent and
+profound reasoners.' Thus mysticism was the opposite of that habit of
+thought which science requires, 'namely, clear ideas, distinctly
+employed to connect well-ascertained facts; inasmuch as the ideas in
+which it dealt were vague and unstable, and the temper in which they
+were contemplated was an urgent and aspiring enthusiasm, which could not
+submit to a calm conference with experience upon even terms.' We have
+seen what has been the history of one particular form of the mysticism
+of ancient and mediæval ages. If we had followed the history of alchemy,
+magic, and other forms of mysticism, we should have seen similar
+results. True science has gradually dispossessed science falsely so
+called, until now none but the weaker minds hold by the tenets formerly
+almost universally adopted. In mere numbers, believers in the ancient
+superstitions may be by no means insignificant; but they no longer have
+any influence. It has become a matter of shame to pay any attention to
+what those few say or do who not merely hold but proclaim the ancient
+faith in these matters. We can also see why this has been. In old times
+enthusiasm usurped the place of reason in these cases; but opinions so
+formed and so retained could not maintain their ground in the presence
+of reasoning and experience. So soon as intelligent and thoughtful men
+perceived that facts were against the supposed mysterious influences of
+the stars, the asserted powers of magicians, the pretended knowledge of
+alchemists, the false teachings of magic, alchemy, and astrology, were
+rejected. The lesson thus learned respecting erroneous doctrines which
+were once widely prevalent has its application in our time, when, though
+the influence of those teachings has passed away, other doctrines
+formerly associated with them still hold their ground. Men in old times,
+influenced by erroneous teachings, wasted their time and energies in
+idle questionings of the stars, vain efforts to find Arcana of
+mysterious power, and to acquire magical authority over the elements. Is
+it altogether clear that in these our times men are not hampered,
+prevented to some degree from doing all the good they might do in the
+short life-time allotted to them, by doctrines of another kind? Is there
+in our day no undue sacrifice of present good in idle questionings? is
+there no tendency to trust in a vain fetishism to prevent or remove
+evils which energy could avert or remedy? The time will come, in my
+belief, when the waste of those energies which in these days are devoted
+(not merely with the sanction, but the high approval, of some of the
+best among us) to idle aims, will be deplored as regretfully--but, alas,
+as idly--as the wasted speculations and labours of those whom Whewell
+has justly called the most intelligent and profound reasoners of the
+'stationary age' of science. The words with which Whewell closes his
+chapter on the 'Mysticism of the Middle Ages' have their application to
+the mysticism of the nineteenth century:--'Experience collects her
+stores in vain, or ceases to collect them, when she can only pour them
+into the flimsy folds of the lap of Mysticism, who is, in truth, so much
+absorbed in looking for the treasures which are to fall from the skies,
+that she heeds little how scantily she obtains, or how loosely she
+holds, such riches as she might find beside her.'
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+_THE RELIGION OF THE GREAT PYRAMID._
+
+
+During the last few years a new sect has appeared which, though as yet
+small in numbers, is full of zeal and fervour. The faith professed by
+this sect may be called the religion of the Great Pyramid, the chief
+article of their creed being the doctrine that that remarkable edifice
+was built for the purpose of revealing--in the fulness of time, now
+nearly accomplished--certain noteworthy truths to the human race. The
+founder of the pyramid religion is described by one of the present
+leaders of the sect as 'the late worthy John Taylor, of Gower Street,
+London;' but hitherto the chief prophets of the new faith have been in
+this country Professor Smyth, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, and in
+France the Abbé Moigno. I propose to examine here some of the facts most
+confidently urged by pyramidalists in support of their views.
+
+But it will be well first to indicate briefly the doctrines of the new
+faith. They may be thus presented:
+
+The great pyramid was erected, it would seem, under the instructions of
+a certain Semitic king, probably no other than Melchizedek. By
+supernatural means, the architects were instructed to place the pyramid
+in latitude 30° north; to select for its figure that of a square
+pyramid, carefully oriented; to employ for their unit of length the
+sacred cubit corresponding to the 20,000,000th part of the earth's
+polar axis; and to make the side of the square base equal to just so
+many of these sacred cubits as there are days and parts of a day in a
+year. They were further, by supernatural help, enabled to square the
+circle, and symbolised their victory over this problem by making the
+pyramid's height bear to the perimeter of the base the ratio which the
+radius of a circle bears to the circumference. Moreover, the great
+precessional period, in which the earth's axis gyrates like that of some
+mighty top around the perpendicular to the ecliptic, was communicated to
+the builders with a degree of accuracy far exceeding that of the best
+modern determinations, and they were instructed to symbolise that
+relation in the dimensions of the pyramid's base. A value of the sun's
+distance more accurate by far than modern astronomers have obtained
+(even since the recent transit) was imparted to them, and they embodied
+that dimension in the height of the pyramid. Other results which modern
+science has achieved, but which by merely human means the architects of
+the pyramid could not have obtained, were also supernaturally
+communicated to them; so that the true mean density of the earth, her
+true shape, the configuration of land and water, the mean temperature of
+the earth's surface, and so forth, were either symbolised in the great
+pyramid's position, or in the shape and dimensions of its exterior and
+interior. In the pyramid also were preserved the true, because
+supernaturally communicated, standards of length, area, capacity,
+weight, density, heat, time, and money. The pyramid also indicated, by
+certain features of its interior structure, that when it was built the
+holy influences of the Pleiades were exerted from a most effective
+position--the meridian, through the points where the ecliptic and
+equator intersect. And as the pyramid thus significantly refers to the
+past, so also it indicates the future history of the earth, especially
+in showing when and where the millennium is to begin. Lastly, the apex
+or crowning stone of the pyramid was no other than the antitype of that
+stone of stumbling and rock of offence, rejected by builders who knew
+not its true use, until it was finally placed as the chief stone of the
+corner. Whence naturally, 'whosoever shall fall upon it'--that is, upon
+the pyramid religion--'shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall
+it will grind him to powder.'
+
+If we examine the relations actually presented by the great pyramid--its
+geographical position, dimensions, shape, and internal
+structure--without hampering ourselves with the tenets of the new faith
+on the one hand, or on the other with any serious anxiety to disprove
+them, we shall find much to suggest that the builders of the pyramid
+were ingenious mathematicians, who had made some progress in astronomy,
+though not so much as they had made in the mastery of mechanical and
+scientific difficulties.
+
+The first point to be noticed is the geographical position of the great
+pyramid, so far, at least, as this position affects the aspect of the
+heavens, viewed from the pyramid as from an observatory. Little
+importance, I conceive, can be attached to purely geographical relations
+in considering the pyramid's position. Professor Smyth notes that the
+pyramid is peculiarly placed with respect to the mouth of the Nile,
+standing 'at the southern apex of the Delta-land of Egypt.' This region
+being shaped like a fan, the pyramid, set at the part corresponding to
+the handle, was, he considers, 'that monument pure and undefiled in its
+religion through an idolatrous land, alluded to by Isaiah; the monument
+which was both "an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt,
+and a pillar at the border thereof," and destined withal to become a
+witness in the latter days, and before the consummation of all things,
+to the same Lord, and to what He hath purposed upon man kind.' Still
+more fanciful are some other notes upon the pyramid's geographical
+position: as (i.) that there is more land along the meridian of the
+pyramid than on any other all the world round; (ii.) that there is more
+land in the latitude of the pyramid than in any other; and (iii.) that
+the pyramid territory of Lower Egypt is at the centre of the dry land
+habitable by man all the world over.
+
+It does not seem to be noticed by those who call our attention to these
+points that such coincidences prove too much. It might be regarded as
+not a mere accident that the great pyramid stands at the centre of the
+arc of shore-line along which lie the outlets of the Nile; or it might
+be regarded as not a mere coincidence that the great pyramid stands at
+the central point of all the habitable land-surface of the globe; or,
+again, any one of the other relations above mentioned might be regarded
+as something more than a mere coincidence. But if, instead of taking
+only one or other of these four relations, we take all four of them, or
+even any two of them, together, we must regard peculiarities of the
+earth's configuration as the result of special design which certainly
+have not hitherto been so regarded by geographers. For instance, if it
+was by a special design that the pyramid was placed at the centre of the
+Nile delta, and also by special design that the pyramid was placed at
+the centre of the land-surface of the earth, if these two relations are
+each so exactly fulfilled as to render the idea of mere accidental
+coincidence inadmissible, then it follows, of necessity, that it is
+through no merely accidental coincidence that the centre of the Nile
+delta lies at the centre of the land-surface of the earth; in other
+words, the shore-line along which lie the mouths of the Nile has been
+designedly curved so as to have its centre so placed. And so of the
+other relations. The very fact that the four conditions _can_ be
+fulfilled simultaneously is evidence that a coincidence of the sort may
+result from mere accident.[16] Indeed, the peculiarity of geographical
+position which really seems to have been in the thoughts of the pyramid
+architects, introduces yet a fifth condition which by accident could be
+fulfilled along with the four others.
+
+It would seem that the builders of the pyramid were anxious to place it
+in latitude 30°, as closely as their means of observation permitted. Let
+us consider what result they achieved, and the evidence thus afforded
+respecting their skill and scientific attainments. In our own time, of
+course, the astronomer has no difficulty in determining with great
+exactness the position of any given latitude-parallel. But at the time
+when the great pyramid was built it must have been a matter of very
+serious difficulty to determine the position of any required
+latitude-parallel with a great degree of exactitude. The most obvious
+way of dealing with the difficulty would have been by observing the
+length of shadows thrown by upright posts at noon in spring and autumn.
+In latitude 30° north, the sun at noon in spring (or, to speak
+precisely, on the day of the vernal equinox) is just twice as far from
+the horizon as he is from the point vertically overhead; and if a
+pointed post were set exactly upright at true noon (supposed to occur at
+the moment of the vernal or autumnal equinox), the shadow of the post
+would be exactly half as long as a line drawn from the top of the pole
+to the end of the shadow. But observations based on this principle would
+have presented many difficulties to the architects of the pyramid. The
+sun not being a point of light, but a globe, the shadow of a pointed rod
+does not end in a well-defined point. The moment of true noon, which is
+not the same as ordinary or civil noon, never does agree exactly with
+the time of the vernal or autumnal equinox, and may be removed from it
+by any interval of time not exceeding twelve hours. And there are many
+other circumstances which would lead astronomers, like those who
+doubtless presided over the scientific preparations for building the
+great pyramid, to prefer a means of determining the latitude depending
+on another principle. The stellar heavens would afford practically
+unchanging indications for their purpose. The stars being all carried
+round the pole of the heavens, as if they were fixed points in the
+interior of a hollow revolving sphere, it becomes possible to determine
+the position of the pole of the star sphere, even though no bright
+conspicuous star actually occupies that point. Any bright star close by
+the pole is seen to revolve in a very small circle, whose centre is the
+pole itself. Such a star is our present so-called pole-star; and, though
+in the days when the great pyramid was built, that star was not near the
+pole, another, and probably a brighter star lay near enough to the
+pole[17] to serve as a pole-star, and to indicate by its circling motion
+the position of the actual pole of the heavens. This was at that time,
+and for many subsequent centuries, the leading star of the great
+constellation called the Dragon.
+
+The pole of the heavens, we know, varies in position according to the
+latitude of the observer. At the north pole it is exactly overhead; at
+the equator the poles of the heavens are both on the horizon; and, as
+the observer travels from the equator towards the north or south pole of
+the earth, the corresponding pole of the heavens rises higher and higher
+above the horizon. In latitude 30° north, or one-third of the way from
+the equator to the pole, the pole of the heavens is raised one-third of
+the way from the horizon to the point vertically overhead; and when this
+is the case the observer knows that he is in latitude 30°. The builders
+of the great pyramid, with the almost constantly clear skies of Egypt,
+may reasonably be supposed to have adopted this means of determining the
+true position of that thirtieth parallel on which they appear to have
+designed to place the great building they were about to erect.
+
+It so happens that we have the means of forming an opinion on the
+question whether they used one method or the other; whether they
+employed the sun or the stars to guide them to the geographical position
+they required. In fact, were it not for this circumstance, I should not
+have thought it worth while to discuss the qualities of either method.
+It will presently be seen that the discussion bears importantly on the
+opinion we are to form of the skill and attainments of the pyramid
+architects. Every celestial object is apparently raised somewhat above
+its true position by the refractive power of our atmosphere, being most
+raised when nearest the horizon and least when nearest the point
+vertically overhead. This effect is, indeed, so marked on bodies close
+to the horizon that if the astronomers of the pyramid times had observed
+the sun, moon, and stars attentively when so placed, they could not have
+failed to discover the peculiarity. Probably, however, though they noted
+the time of rising and setting of the celestial bodies, they only made
+instrumental observations upon them when these bodies were high in the
+heavens. Thus they remained ignorant of the refractive powers of the
+air.[18] Now, if they had determined the position of the thirtieth
+parallel of latitude by observations of the noonday sun (in spring or
+autumn), then since, owing to refraction, they would have judged the sun
+to be higher than he really was, it follows that they would have
+supposed the latitude of any station from which they observed to be
+lower than it really was. For the lower the latitude the higher is the
+noonday sun at any given season. Thus, when really in latitude 30° they
+would have supposed themselves in a latitude lower than 30°, and would
+have travelled a little further north to find the proper place, as they
+would have supposed, for erecting the great pyramid. On the other hand,
+if they determined the place from observations of the movements of stars
+near the pole of the heavens, they would make an error of a precisely
+opposite nature. For the higher the latitude the higher is the pole of
+the heavens; and refraction, therefore, which apparently raises the pole
+of the heavens, gives to a station the appearance of being in a higher
+latitude than it really is, so that the observer would consider he was
+in latitude 30 north when in reality somewhat south of that latitude. We
+have only then to inquire whether the great pyramid was set north or
+south of latitude 30°, to ascertain whether the pyramid architects
+observed the noonday sun or circumpolar stars to determine their
+latitude; always assuming (as we reasonably may) that those architects
+did propose to set the pyramid in that particular latitude, and that
+they were able to make very accurate observations of the apparent
+positions of the celestial bodies, but that they were not acquainted
+with the refractive effects of the atmosphere. The answer comes in no
+doubtful terms. The centre of the great pyramid's base lies about one
+mile and a third _south_ of the thirtieth parallel of latitude; and from
+this position the pole of the heavens, as raised by refraction, would
+appear to be very near indeed to the required position. In fact, if the
+pyramid had been set about half a mile still farther south the pole
+would have _seemed_ just right.
+
+Of course, such an explanation as I have here suggested appears
+altogether heretical to the pyramidalists. According to them the pyramid
+architects knew perfectly well where the true thirtieth parallel lay,
+and knew also all that modern science has discovered about refraction;
+but set the pyramid south of the true parallel and north of the position
+where refraction would just have made the apparent elevation of the pole
+correct, simply in order that the pyramid might correspond as nearly as
+possible to each of two conditions, whereof both could not be fulfilled
+at once. The pyramid would indeed, they say, have been set even more
+closely midway between the true and the apparent parallels of 30° north,
+but that the Jeezeh hill on which it is set does not afford a rock
+foundation any farther north. 'So very close,' says Professor Smyth,
+'was the great pyramid placed to the northern brink of its hill, that
+the edges of the cliff might have broken off under the terrible
+pressure had not the builders banked up there most firmly the immense
+mounds of rubbish which came from their work, and which Strabo looked so
+particularly for 1800 years ago, but could not find. Here they were,
+however, and still are, utilised in enabling the great pyramid to stand
+on the very utmost verge of its commanding hill, within the limits of
+the _two_ required latitudes, as well as over the centre of the land's
+physical and radial formation, and at the same time on the sure and
+proverbially wise foundation of rock.'
+
+The next circumstance to be noted in the position of the great pyramid
+(as of all the pyramids) is that the sides are carefully oriented. This,
+like the approximation to a particular latitude, must be regarded as an
+astronomical rather than a geographical relation. The accuracy with
+which the orientation has been effected will serve to show how far the
+builders had mastered the methods of astronomical observation by which
+orientation was to be secured. The problem was not so simple as might be
+supposed by those who are not acquainted with the way in which the
+cardinal points are correctly determined. By solar observations, or
+rather by the observations of shadows cast by vertical shafts before and
+after noon, the direction of the meridian, or north and south line, can
+theoretically be ascertained. But probably in this case, as in
+determining the latitude, the builders took the stars for their guide.
+The pole of the heavens would mark the true north; and equally the
+pole-star, when below or above the pole, would give the true north, but,
+of course, most conveniently when below the pole. Nor is it difficult to
+see how the builders would make use of the pole-star for this purpose.
+From the middle of the northern side of the intended base they would
+bore a slant passage tending always from the position of the pole-star
+at its lower meridional passage, that star at each successive return to
+that position serving to direct their progress; while its small range,
+east and west of the pole, would enable them most accurately to
+determine the star's true mid-point below the pole; that is, the true
+north. When they had thus obtained a slant tunnel pointing truly to the
+meridian, and had carried it down to a point nearly below the middle of
+the proposed square base, they could, from the middle of the base, bore
+vertically downwards, until by rough calculation they were near the
+lower end of the slant tunnel; or both tunnels could be made at the same
+time. Then a subterranean chamber would be opened out from the slant
+tunnel. The vertical boring, which need not be wider than necessary to
+allow a plumb-line to be suspended down it, would enable the architects
+to determine the point vertically below the point of suspension. The
+slant tunnel would give the direction of the true north, either from
+that point or from a point at some known small distance east or west of
+that point.[19] Thus, a line from some ascertained point near the mouth
+of the vertical boring to the mouth of the slant tunnel would lie due
+north and south, and serve as the required guide for the orientation of
+the pyramid's base. If this base extended beyond the opening of the
+slant tunnel, then, by continuing this tunnelling through the base tiers
+of the pyramid, the means would be obtained of correcting the
+orientation.
+
+This, I say, would be the course naturally suggested to astronomical
+architects who had determined the latitude in the manner described
+above. It may even be described as the only very accurate method
+available before the telescope had been invented. So that if the
+accuracy of the orientation appears to be greater than could be obtained
+by the shadow method, the natural inference, even in the absence of
+corroborative evidence, would be that the stellar method, and no other,
+had been employed. Now, in 1779, Nouet, by refined observations, found
+the error of orientation measured by less than 20 minutes of arc,
+corresponding roughly to a displacement of the corners by about 37-1/2
+inches from their true position, as supposed to be determined from the
+centre; or to a displacement of a southern corner by 53 inches on an
+east and west line from a point due south of the corresponding northern
+corner. This error, for a base length of 9140 inches, would not be
+serious, being only one inch in about five yards (when estimated in the
+second way). Yet the result is not quite worthy of the praise given to
+it by Professor Smyth. He himself, however, by much more exact
+observations, with an excellent altazimuth, reduced the alleged error
+from 20 minutes to only 4-1/2, or to 9-40ths of its formerly supposed
+value. This made the total displacement of a southern corner from the
+true meridian through the corresponding northern corner, almost exactly
+one foot, or one inch in about twenty-one yards--a degree of accuracy
+rendering it practically certain that some stellar method was used in
+orienting the base.
+
+Now there _is_ a slanting tunnel occupying precisely the position of the
+tunnel which should, according to this view, have been formed in order
+accurately to orient the pyramid's base, assuming that the time of the
+building of the pyramid corresponded with one of the epochs when the
+star Alpha Draconis was distant 3° 42' from the pole of the heavens. In
+other words, there is a slant tunnel directed northwards and upwards
+from a point deep down below the middle of the pyramid's base, and
+inclined 26° 17' to the horizon, the elevation of Alpha Draconis at its
+lower culmination when 3° 42' from the pole. The last epoch when the
+star was thus placed was _circiter_ 2160 B.C.; the epoch next before
+that was 3440 B.C. Between these two we should have to choose, on the
+hypothesis that the slant tunnel was really directed to that star when
+the foundations of the pyramid were laid. For the next epoch before the
+earlier of the two named was about 28,000 B.C., and the pyramid's date
+cannot have been more remote than 4000 B.C.
+
+The slant tunnel, while admirably fulfilling the requirements suggested,
+seems altogether unsuited for any other. Its transverse height (that is,
+its width in a direction perpendicular to its upper and lower faces) did
+not amount to quite four feet; its breadth was not quite three feet and
+a half. It was, therefore, not well fitted for an entrance passage to
+the subterranean chamber immediately under the apex of the pyramid (with
+which chamber it communicates in the manner suggested by the above
+theory). It could not have been intended to be used for observing
+meridian transits of the stars in order to determine sidereal time; for
+close circumpolar stars, by reason of their slow motion, are the least
+suited of all for such a purpose. As Professor Smyth says, in arguing
+against this suggested use of the star, 'no observer in his senses, in
+any existing observatory, when seeking to obtain the time, would observe
+the transit of a circumpolar star for anything else than _to get the
+direction of the meridian to adjust his instrument by_.' (The italics
+are his.) It is precisely such a purpose (the adjustment, however, not
+of an instrument, but of the entire structure of the pyramid itself),
+that I have suggested for this remarkable passage--this 'cream-white,
+stone-lined, long tube,' where it traverses the masonry of the pyramid,
+and below that dug through the solid rock to a distance of more than 350
+feet.
+
+Let us next consider the dimensions of the square base thus carefully
+placed in latitude 30° north to the best of the builders' power, with
+sides carefully oriented.
+
+It seems highly probable that, whatever special purpose the pyramid was
+intended to fulfil, a subordinate idea of the builders would have been
+to represent symbolically in the proportions of the building such
+mathematical and astronomical relations as they were acquainted with.
+From what we know by tradition of the men of the remote time when the
+pyramid was built, and what we can infer from the ideas of those who
+inherited, however remotely, the modes of thought of the earliest
+astronomers and mathematicians, we can well believe that they would look
+with superstitious reverence on special figures, proportions, numbers,
+and so forth. Apart from this, they may have had a quasi-scientific
+desire to make a lasting record of their discoveries, and of the
+collected knowledge of their time.
+
+It seems altogether probable, then, that the smaller unit of measurement
+used by the builders of the great Pyramid was intended, as Professor
+Smyth thinks, to be equal to the 500,000,000th part of the earth's
+diameter, determined from their geodetical observations. It was
+perfectly within the power of mechanicians and mathematicians so
+experienced as they undoubtedly were--the pyramid attests so much--to
+measure with considerable accuracy the length of a degree of latitude.
+They could not possibly (always setting aside the theory of divine
+inspiration) have known anything about the compression of the earth's
+globe, and therefore could not have intended, as Professor Smyth
+supposes, to have had the 500,000,000th part of the earth's polar axis,
+as distinguished from any other, for their unit of length. But if they
+made observations in or near latitude 30° north on the supposition that
+the earth is a globe, their probable error would exceed the difference
+even between the earth's polar and equatorial diameters. Both
+differences are largely exceeded by the range of difference among the
+estimates of the actual length of the sacred cubit, supposed to have
+contained twenty-five of these smaller units. And, again, the length of
+the pyramid base-side, on which Smyth bases his own estimate of the
+sacred cubit, has been variously estimated, the largest measure being
+9168 inches, and the lowest 9110 inches. The fundamental theory of the
+pyramidalists, that the sacred cubit was exactly one 20,000,000th part
+of the earth's polar diameter, and that the side of the base contained
+as many cubits and parts of a cubit as there are days and parts of a day
+in the tropical year (or year of seasons), requires that the length of
+the side should be 9140 inches, lying between the limits indicated, but
+still so widely removed from either that it would appear very unsafe to
+base a theory on the supposition that the exact length is or was 9140
+inches. If the measures 9168 inches and 9110 inches were inferior, and
+several excellent measures made by practised observers ranged around the
+length 9140 inches, the case would be different. But the best recent
+measures gave respectively 9110 and 9130 inches; and Smyth exclaims
+against the unfairness of Sir H. James in taking 9120 as 'therefore the
+[probable] true length of the side of the great pyramid when perfect,'
+calling this 'a dishonourable shelving of the honourable older observers
+with their larger results.' The only other measures, besides these two,
+are two by Colonel Howard Vyse and by the French _savants_, giving
+respectively 9168 and 9163·44 inches. The pyramidalists consider 9140
+inches a fair mean value from these four. The natural inference,
+however, is, that the pyramid base is not now in a condition to be
+satisfactorily measured; and assuredly no such reliance can be placed
+on the mean value 9140 inches that, on the strength of it, we should
+believe what otherwise would be utterly incredible, viz. that the
+builders of the great pyramid knew 'both the size and shape of the earth
+exactly.' 'Humanly, or by human science, finding it out in that age was,
+of course, utterly impossible,' says Professor Smyth. But he is so
+confident of the average value derived from widely conflicting base
+measures as to assume that this value, not being humanly discoverable,
+was of necessity 'attributable to God and to His Divine inspiration.' We
+may agree, in fine, with Smyth, that the builders of the pyramid knew
+the earth to be a globe; that they took for their measure of length the
+sacred cubit, which, by their earth measures, they made very fairly
+approximate to the 20,000,000th part of the earth's mean diameter; but
+there seems no reason whatever for supposing (even if the supposition
+were not antecedently of its very nature inadmissible) that they knew
+anything about the compression of the earth, or that they had measured a
+degree of latitude in their own place with very wonderful accuracy.[20]
+
+But here a very singular coincidence may be noticed, or, rather, is
+forced upon our notice by the pyramidalists, who strangely enough
+recognise in it fresh evidence of design, while the unbeliever finds in
+it proof that coincidences are no sure evidence of design. The side of
+the pyramid containing 365-1/4 times the sacred cubit of 25 pyramid
+inches, it follows that the diagonal of the base contains 12,912 such
+inches, and the two diagonals together contain 25,824 pyramid inches, or
+almost exactly as many inches as there are years in the great
+precessional period. 'No one whatever amongst men,' says Professor Smyth
+after recording various estimates of the precessional period, 'from his
+own or school knowledge, knew anything about such a phenomenon, until
+Hipparchus, some 1900 years after the great pyramid's foundation, had a
+glimpse of the fact; and yet it had been ruling the heavens for ages,
+and was recorded in Jeezeh's ancient structure.' To minds not moved to
+most energetic forgetfulness by the spirit of faith, it would appear
+that when a square base had been decided upon, and its dimensions fixed,
+with reference to the earth's diameter and the year, the diagonals of
+the square base were determined also; and, if it so chanced that they
+corresponded with some other perfectly independent relation, the fact
+was not to be credited to the architects. Moreover it is manifest that
+the closeness of such a coincidence suggests grave doubts how far other
+coincidences can be relied upon as evidence of design. It seems, for
+instance, altogether likely that the architects of the pyramid took the
+sacred cubit equal to one 20,000,000th part of the earth's diameter for
+their chief unit of length, and intentionally assigned to the side of
+the pyramid's square base a length of just so many cubits as there are
+days in the year; and the closeness of the coincidence between the
+measured length and that indicated by this theory strengthens the idea
+that this was the builder's purpose. But when we find that an even
+closer coincidence immediately presents itself, which manifestly is a
+coincidence _only_, the force of the evidence before derived from mere
+coincidence is _pro tanto_ shaken. For consider what this new
+coincidence really means. Its nature may be thus indicated: Take the
+number of days in the year, multiply that number by 50, and increase the
+result in the same degree that the diagonal of a square exceeds the
+side--then the resulting number represents very approximately the number
+of years in the great precessional period. The error, according to the
+best modern estimates, is about one 575th part of the true period. This
+is, of course, a merely accidental coincidence, for there is no
+connection whatever in nature between the earth's period of rotation,
+the shape of a square, and the earth's period of gyration. Yet this
+merely accidental coincidence is very much closer than the other
+supposed to be designed could be proved to be. It is clear, then, that
+mere coincidence is a very unsafe evidence of design.
+
+Of course the pyramidalists find a ready reply to such reasoning. They
+argue that, in the first place, it may have been by express design that
+the period of the earth's rotation was made to bear this particular
+relation to the period of gyration in the mighty precessional movement:
+which is much as though one should say that by express design the height
+of Monte Rosa contains as many feet as there are miles in the 6000th
+part of the sun's distance.[21] Then, they urge, the architects were
+not bound to have a square base for the pyramid; they might have had an
+oblong or a triangular base, and so forth--all which accords very ill
+with the enthusiastic language in which the selection of a square base
+had on other accounts been applauded.
+
+Next let us consider the height of the pyramid. According to the best
+modern measurements, it would seem that the height when (if ever) the
+pyramid terminated above in a pointed apex, must have been about 486
+feet. And from the comparison of the best estimates of the base side
+with the best estimates of the height, it seems very likely indeed that
+the intention of the builders was to make the height bear to the
+perimeter of the base the same ratio which the radius of a circle bears
+to the circumference. Remembering the range of difference in the base
+measures it might be supposed that the exactness of the approximation to
+this ratio could not be determined very satisfactorily. But as certain
+casing stones have been discovered which indicate with considerable
+exactness the slope of the original plane-surfaces of the pyramid, the
+ratio of the height to the side of the base may be regarded as much more
+satisfactorily determined than the actual value of either dimension. Of
+course the pyramidalists claim a degree of precision indicating a most
+accurate knowledge of the ratio between the diameter and the
+circumference of a circle; and the angle of the only casing stone
+measured being diversely estimated at 51° 50' and 51° 52-1/4', they
+consider 50° 51' 14·3" the true value, and infer that the builders
+regarded the ratio as 3·14159 to 1. The real fact is, that the modern
+estimates of the dimensions of the casing stones (which, by the way,
+ought to agree better if these stones are as well made as stated)
+indicate the values 3·1439228 and 3·1396740 for the ratio; and all we
+can say is, that the ratio really used lay _probably_ between these
+limits, though it may have been outside either. Now the approximation of
+either is not remarkably close. It requires no mathematical knowledge at
+all to determine the circumference of a circle much more exactly. 'I
+thought it very strange,' wrote a circle-squarer once to De Morgan
+(_Budget of Paradoxes_, p. 389), 'that so many great scholars in all
+ages should have failed in finding the true ratio, and have been
+determined to try myself.' 'I have been informed,' proceeds De Morgan,
+'that this trial makes the diameter to the circumference as 64 to 201,
+giving the ratio equal to 3·1410625 exactly. The result was obtained by
+the discoverer in three weeks after he first heard of the existence of
+the difficulty. This quadrator has since published a little slip and
+entered it at Stationers' Hall. He says he has done it by actual
+measurement; and I hear from a private source that he uses a disc of
+twelve inches diameter which he rolls upon a straight rail.' The
+'rolling is a very creditable one; it is as much below the mark as
+Archimedes was above it. Its performer is a joiner who evidently knows
+well what he is about when he measures; he is not wrong by 1 in 3000.'
+Such skilful mechanicians as the builders of the pyramid could have
+obtained a closer approximation still by mere measurement. Besides, as
+they were manifestly mathematicians, such an approximation as was
+obtained by Archimedes must have been well within their power; and that
+approximation lies well within the limits above indicated. Professor
+Smyth remarks that the ratio was 'a quantity which men in general, and
+all human science too, did not begin to trouble themselves about until
+long, long ages, languages, and nations had passed away after the
+building of the great pyramid; and after the sealing up, too, of that
+grand primeval and prehistoric monument of the patriarchal age of the
+earth according to Scripture.' I do not know where the Scripture records
+the sealing up of the great pyramid; but it is all but certain that
+during the very time when the pyramid was being built astronomical
+observations were in progress which, for their interpretation, involved
+of necessity a continual reference to the ratio in question. No one who
+considers the wonderful accuracy with which, nearly two thousand years
+before the Christian era, the Chaldæans had determined the famous cycle
+of the Saros, can doubt that they must have observed the heavenly bodies
+for several centuries before they could have achieved such a success;
+and the study of the motions of the celestial bodies compels 'men to
+trouble themselves' about the famous ratio of the circumference to the
+diameter.
+
+We now come upon a new relation (contained in the dimensions of the
+pyramid as thus determined) which, by a strange coincidence, causes the
+height of the pyramid to appear to symbolise the distance of the sun.
+There were 5813 pyramid inches, or 5819 British inches, in the height of
+the pyramid according to the relations already indicated. Now, in the
+sun's distance, according to an estimate recently adopted and freely
+used,[22] there are 91,400,000 miles or 5791 thousand millions of
+inches--that is, there are approximately as many thousand millions of
+inches in the sun's distance as there are inches in the height of the
+pyramid. If we take the relation as exact we should infer for the sun's
+distance 5819 thousand millions of inches, or 91,840,000 miles--an
+immense improvement on the estimate which for so many years occupied a
+place of honour in our books of astronomy. Besides, there is strong
+reason for believing that, when the results of recent observations are
+worked out, the estimated sun distance will be much nearer this pyramid
+value than even to the value 91,400,000 recently adopted. This result,
+which one would have thought so damaging to faith in the evidence from
+coincidence--nay, quite fatal after the other case in which a close
+coincidence had appeared by merest accident--is regarded by the
+pyramidalist as a perfect triumph for their faith.
+
+They connect it with another coincidence, viz. that, assuming the height
+determined in the way already indicated, then it so happens that the
+height bears to half a diagonal of the base the ratio 9 to 10. Seeing
+that the perimeter of the base symbolises the annual motion of the earth
+round the sun, while the height represents the radius of a circle with
+that perimeter, it follows that the height should symbolise the sun's
+distance. 'That line, further,' says Professor Smyth (speaking on behalf
+of Mr. W. Petrie, the discoverer of this relation), 'must represent'
+this radius 'in the proportion of 1 to 1,000,000,000' (or _ten_ raised
+to power _nine_), 'because amongst other reasons 10 to 9 is practically
+the shape of the great pyramid.' For this building 'has such an angle at
+the corners, that for every ten units its structure advances inwards on
+the diagonal of the base, it practically rises upwards, or points to
+sunshine' (_sic_) 'by _nine_. Nine, too, out of the ten characteristic
+parts (viz. five angles and five sides) being the number of those parts
+which the sun shines on in such a shaped pyramid, in such a latitude
+near the equator, out of a high sky, or, as the Peruvians say, when the
+sun sets on the pyramid with all its rays.' The coincidence itself on
+which this perverse reasoning rests is a singular one--singular, that
+is, as showing how close an accidental coincidence may run. It amounts
+to this, that if the number of days in the year be multiplied by 100,
+and a circle be drawn with a circumference containing 100 times as many
+inches as there are days in the year, the radius of the circle will be
+very nearly one 1,000,000,000th part of the sun's distance. Remembering
+that the pyramid inch is assumed to be one 500,000,000th part of the
+earth's diameter, we shall not be far from the truth in saying that, as
+a matter of fact, the earth by her orbital motion traverses each day a
+distance equal to two hundred times her own diameter. But, of course,
+this relation is altogether accidental. It has no real cause in
+nature.[23]
+
+Such relations show that mere numerical coincidences, however close,
+have little weight as evidence, except where they occur in series. Even
+then they require to be very cautiously regarded, seeing that the
+history of science records many instances where the apparent law of a
+series has been found to be falsified when the theory has been extended.
+Of course this reason is not quoted in order to throw doubt on the
+supposition that the height of the pyramid was intended to symbolise the
+sun's distance. That supposition is simply inadmissible if the
+hypothesis, according to which the height was already independently
+determined in another way, is admitted. Either hypothesis might be
+admitted were we not certain that the sun's distance could not possibly
+have been known to the builders of the pyramid; or both hypotheses may
+be rejected: but to admit both is out of the question.
+
+Considering the multitude of dimensions of length, surface, capacity,
+and position, the great number of shapes, and the variety of material
+existing within the pyramid, and considering, further, the enormous
+number of relations (presented by modern science) from among which to
+choose, can it be wondered at if fresh coincidences are being
+continually recognised? If a dimension will not serve in one way, use
+can be found for it in another; for instance, if some measure of length
+does not correspond closely with any known dimension of the earth or of
+the solar system (an unlikely supposition), then it can be understood to
+typify an interval of time. If, even after trying all possible changes
+of that kind, no coincidence shows itself (which is all but impossible),
+then all that is needed to secure a coincidence is that the dimensions
+should be manipulated a little.
+
+Let a single instance suffice to show how the pyramidalists (with
+perfect honesty of purpose) hunt down a coincidence. The slant tunnel
+already described has a transverse height, once no doubt uniform, now
+giving various measures from 47·14 pyramid inches to 47·32 inches, so
+that the vertical height from the known inclination of the tunnel would
+be estimated at somewhere between 52·64 inches and 52·85. Neither
+dimension corresponds very obviously with any measured distance in the
+earth or solar system. Nor when we try periods, areas, etc., does any
+very satisfactory coincidence present itself. But the difficulty is
+easily turned into a new proof of design. Putting all the observations
+together (says Professor Smyth), 'I deduced 47·24 pyramid inches to be
+the transverse height of the entrance passage; and computing from thence
+with the observed angle of inclination the vertical height, that came
+out 52·76 of the same inches. But the sum of those two heights, or the
+height taken up and down, equals 100 inches, which length, as elsewhere
+shown, is the general pyramid linear representation of a day of
+twenty-four hours. And the mean of the two heights, or the height taken
+one way only, and impartially to the middle point between them, equals
+fifty inches; which quantity is, therefore, the general pyramid linear
+representation of only half a day. In which case, let us ask what the
+entrance passage has to do with half rather than a whole day?'
+
+On relations such as these, which, if really intended by the architect,
+would imply an utterly fatuous habit of concealing elaborately what he
+desired to symbolise, the pyramidalists base their belief that 'a Mighty
+Intelligence did both think out the plans for it, and compel unwilling
+and ignorant idolators, in a primal age of the world, to work mightily
+both for the future glory of the one true God of Revelation, and to
+establish lasting prophetic testimony touching a further development,
+still to take place, of the absolutely Divine Christian dispensation.'
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+_THE MYSTERY OF THE PYRAMIDS._
+
+
+Few subjects of inquiry have proved more perplexing than the question of
+the purpose for which the pyramids of Egypt were built. Even in the
+remotest ages of which we have historical record, nothing seems to have
+been known certainly on this point. For some reason or other, the
+builders of the pyramids concealed the object of these structures, and
+this so successfully that not even a tradition has reached us which
+purports to have been handed down from the epoch of the pyramids'
+construction. We find, indeed, some explanations given by the earliest
+historians; but they were professedly only hypothetical, like those
+advanced in more recent times. Including ancient and modern theories, we
+find a wide range of choice. Some have thought that these buildings were
+associated with the religion of the early Egyptians; others have
+suggested that they were tombs; others, that they combined the purposes
+of tombs and temples, that they were astronomical observatories,
+defences against the sands of the Great Desert, granaries like those
+made under Joseph's direction, places of resort during excessive
+overflows of the Nile; and many other uses have been suggested for them.
+But none of these ideas are found on close examination to be tenable as
+representing the sole purpose of the pyramids, and few of them have
+strong claims to be regarded as presenting even a chief object of these
+remarkable structures. The significant and perplexing history of the
+three oldest pyramids--the Great Pyramid of Cheops, Shofo, or Suphis,
+the pyramid of Chephren, and the pyramid of Mycerinus; and the most
+remarkable of all the facts known respecting the pyramids generally,
+viz., the circumstance that one pyramid after another was built as
+though each had become useless soon after it was finished, are left
+entirely unexplained by all the theories above mentioned, save one only,
+the tomb theory, and that does not afford by any means a satisfactory
+explanation of the circumstances.
+
+I propose to give here a brief account of some of the most suggestive
+facts known respecting the pyramids, and, after considering the
+difficulties which beset the theories heretofore advanced, to indicate a
+theory (new so far as I know) which seems to me to correspond better
+with the facts than any heretofore advanced; I suggest it, however,
+rather for consideration than because I regard it as very convincingly
+supported by the evidence. In fact, to advance any theory at present
+with confident assurance of its correctness, would be simply to indicate
+a very limited acquaintance with the difficulties surrounding the
+subject.
+
+Let us first consider a few of the more striking facts recorded by
+history or tradition, noting, as we proceed, whatever ideas they may
+suggest as to the intended character of these structures.
+
+It is hardly necessary to say, perhaps, that the history of the Great
+Pyramid is of paramount importance in this inquiry. Whatever purpose
+pyramids were originally intended to subserve, must have been conceived
+by the builders of _that_ pyramid. New ideas may have been superadded by
+the builders of later pyramids, but it is unlikely that the original
+purpose can have been entirely abandoned. Some great purpose there was,
+which the rulers of ancient Egypt proposed to fulfil by building very
+massive pyramidal structures on a particular plan. It is by inquiring
+into the history of the first and most massive of these structures, and
+by examining its construction, that we shall have the best chance of
+finding out what that great purpose was.
+
+According to Herodotus, the kings who built the pyramids reigned not
+more than twenty-eight centuries ago; but there can be little doubt that
+Herodotus misunderstood the Egyptian priests from whom he derived his
+information, and that the real antiquity of the pyramid-kings was far
+greater. He tells us that, according to the Egyptian priests, Cheops 'on
+ascending the throne plunged into all manner of wickedness. He closed
+the temples, and forbade the Egyptians to offer sacrifice, compelling
+them instead to labour one and all in his service, viz., in building the
+Great Pyramid.' Still following his interpretation of the Egyptian
+account, we learn that one hundred thousand men were employed for twenty
+years in building the Great Pyramid, and that ten years were occupied in
+constructing a causeway by which to convey the stones to the place and
+in conveying them there. 'Cheops reigned fifty years; and was succeeded
+by his brother Chephren, who imitated the conduct of his predecessor,
+built a pyramid--but smaller than his brother's--and reigned fifty-six
+years. Thus during one hundred and six years, the temples were shut and
+never opened.' Moreover, Herodotus tells us that 'the Egyptians so
+detested the memory of these kings, that they do not much like even to
+mention their names. Hence they commonly call the pyramids after
+Philition, a shepherd who at that time fed his flocks about the place.'
+'After Chephren, Mycerinus, son of Cheops, ascended the throne, he
+reopened the temples, and allowed the people to resume the practice of
+sacrifice. He, too, left a pyramid, but much inferior in size to his
+father's. It is built, for half of its height, of the stone of
+Ethiopia,' or, as Professor Smyth (whose extracts from Rawlinson's
+translation I have here followed) adds 'expensive red granite.' 'After
+Mycerinus, Asychis ascended the throne. He built the eastern gateway of
+the Temple of Vulcan (Phtha); and, being desirous of eclipsing all his
+predecessors on the throne, left as a monument of his reign a pyramid of
+brick.'
+
+This account is so suggestive, as will presently be shown, that it may
+be well to inquire whether it can be relied on. Now, although there can
+be no doubt that Herodotus misunderstood the Egyptians in some matters,
+and in particular as to the chronological order of the dynasties,
+placing the pyramid kings far too late, yet in other respects he seems
+not only to have understood them correctly, but also to have received a
+correct account from them. The order of the kings above named
+corresponds with the sequence given by Manetho, and also found in
+monumental and hieroglyphic records. Manetho gives the names Suphis I.,
+Suphis II., and Mencheres, instead of Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus;
+while, according to the modern Egyptologists, Herodotus's Cheops was
+Shofo, Shufu, or Koufou; Chephren was Shafre, while he was also called
+Nou-Shofo or Noum-Shufu as the brother of Shofo; and Mycerinus was
+Menhere or Menkerre. But the identity of these kings is not questioned.
+As to the true dates there is much doubt, and it is probable that the
+question will long continue open; but the determination of the exact
+epochs when the several pyramids were built is not very important in
+connection with our present inquiry. We may, on the whole, fairly take
+the points quoted above from Herodotus, and proceed to consider the
+significance of the narrative, with sufficient confidence that in all
+essential respects it is trustworthy.
+
+There are several very strange features in the account.
+
+In the first place, it is manifest that Cheops (to call the first king
+by the name most familiar to the general reader) attached great
+importance to the building of his pyramid. It has been said, and perhaps
+justly, that it would be more interesting to know the plan of the
+architect who devised the pyramid than the purpose of the king who built
+it. But the two things are closely connected. The architect must have
+satisfied the king that some highly important purpose in which the king
+himself was interested, would be subserved by the structure. Whether the
+king was persuaded to undertake the work as a matter of duty, or only to
+advance his own interests, may not be so clear. But that the king was
+most thoroughly in earnest about the work is certain. A monarch in those
+times would assuredly not have devoted an enormous amount of labour and
+material to such a scheme unless he was thoroughly convinced of its
+great importance. That the welfare of his people was not considered by
+Cheops in building the Great Pyramid is almost equally certain. He
+might, indeed, have had a scheme for their good which either he did not
+care to explain to them or which they could not understand. But the most
+natural inference from the narrative is that his purpose had no
+reference whatever to their welfare. For though one could understand his
+own subjects hating him while he was all the time working for their
+good, it is obvious that his memory would not have been hated if some
+important good had eventually been gained from his scheme. Many a
+far-seeing ruler has been hated while living on account of the very work
+for which his memory has been revered. But the memory of Cheops and his
+successors was held in detestation.
+
+May we, however, suppose that, though Cheops had not the welfare of his
+own people in his thoughts, his purpose was nevertheless not selfish,
+but intended in some way to promote the welfare of the human race? I say
+his purpose, because, whoever originated the scheme, Cheops carried it
+out; it was by means of his wealth and through his power that the
+pyramid was built. This is the view adopted by Professor Piazzi Smyth
+and others, in our own time, and first suggested by John Taylor.
+'Whereas other writers,' says Smyth, 'have generally esteemed that the
+mysterious persons who directed the building of the Great Pyramid (and
+to whom the Egyptians, in their traditions, and for ages afterwards,
+gave an immoral and even abominable character) must therefore have been
+very bad indeed, so that the world at large has always been fond of
+standing on, kicking, and insulting that dead lion, whom they really
+knew not; he, Mr. John Taylor, seeing how religiously bad the Egyptians
+themselves were, was led to conclude, on the contrary, that those _they_
+hated (and could never sufficiently abuse) might, perhaps, have been
+pre-eminently good; or were, at all events, of _different religious
+faith_ from themselves.' 'Combining this with certain unmistakable
+historical facts,' Mr. Taylor deduced reasons for believing that the
+directors of the building designed to record in its proportions, and in
+its interior features, certain important religious and scientific
+truths, not for the people then living, but for men who were to come
+4000 years or so after.
+
+I have already considered at length (see the preceding Essay) the
+evidence on which this strange theory rests. But there are certain
+matters connecting it with the above narrative which must here be
+noticed. The mention of the shepherd Philition, who fed his flocks about
+the place where the Great Pyramid was built, is a singular feature of
+Herodotus's narrative. It reads like some strange misinterpretation of
+the story related to him by the Egyptian priests. It is obvious that if
+the word Philition did not represent a people, but a person, this
+person must have been very eminent and distinguished--a shepherd-king,
+not a mere shepherd. Rawlinson, in a note on this portion of the
+narrative of Herodotus, suggests that Philitis was probably a
+shepherd-prince from Palestine, perhaps of Philistine descent, 'but so
+powerful and domineering, that it may be traditions of his oppressions
+in that earlier age which, mixed up afterwards in the minds of later
+Egyptians with the evils inflicted on their country by the subsequent
+shepherds of better known dynasties, lent so much fear to their
+religious hate of Shepherd times and that name.' Smyth, somewhat
+modifying this view, and considering certain remarks of Manetho
+respecting an alleged invasion of Egypt by shepherd-kings, 'men of an
+ignoble race (from the Egyptian point of view) who had the confidence to
+invade our country, and easily subdued it to their power without a
+battle,' comes to the conclusion that some Shemite prince, 'a
+contemporary of, but rather older than, the Patriarch Abraham,' visited
+Egypt at this time, and obtained such influence over the mind of Cheops
+as to persuade him to erect the pyramid. According to Smyth, the prince
+was no other than Melchizedek, king of Salem, and the influence he
+exerted was supernatural. With such developments of the theory we need
+not trouble ourselves. It seems tolerably clear that certain
+shepherd-chiefs who came to Egypt during Cheops' reign were connected in
+some way with the designing of the Great Pyramid. It is clear also that
+they were men of a different religion from the Egyptians, and persuaded
+Cheops to abandon the religion of his people. Taylor, Smyth, and the
+Pyramidalists generally, consider this sufficient to prove that the
+pyramid was erected for some purpose connected with religion. 'The
+pyramid,' in fine, says Smyth, 'was charged by God's inspired
+shepherd-prince, in the beginning of human time, to keep a certain
+message secret and inviolable for 4000 years, and it has done so; and in
+the next thousand years it was to enunciate that message to all men,
+with more than traditional force, more than all the authenticity of
+copied manuscripts or reputed history; and that part of the pyramid's
+usefulness is now beginning.'
+
+There are many very obvious difficulties surrounding this theory; as,
+for example (i.) the absurd waste of power in setting supernatural
+machinery at work 4000 years ago with cumbrous devices to record its
+object, when the same machinery, much more simply employed now, would
+effect the alleged purpose far more thoroughly; (ii.) the enormous
+amount of human misery and its attendant hatreds brought about by this
+alleged divine scheme; and (iii.) the futility of an arrangement by
+which the pyramid was only to subserve its purpose when it had lost that
+perfection of shape on which its entire significance depended, according
+to the theory itself. But, apart from these, there is a difficulty,
+nowhere noticed by Smyth or his followers, which is fatal, I conceive,
+to this theory of the pyramid's purpose. The second pyramid, though
+slightly inferior to the first in size, and probably far inferior in
+quality of masonry, is still a structure of enormous dimensions, which
+must have required many years of labour from tens of thousands of
+workmen. Now, it seems impossible to explain why Chephren built this
+second pyramid, if we adopt Smyth's theory respecting the first pyramid.
+For either Chephren knew the purpose for which the Great Pyramid was
+built, or he did not know it. If he knew that purpose, and it was that
+indicated by Smyth, then he also knew that no second pyramid was wanted.
+On that hypothesis, all the labour bestowed on the second pyramid was
+wittingly and wilfully wasted. This, of course is incredible. But, on
+the other hand, if Chephren did not know what was the purpose for which
+the Great Pyramid was built, what reason could Chephren have had for
+building a pyramid at all? The only answer to this question seems to be
+that Chephren built the second pyramid in hopes of finding out why his
+brother had built the first, and this answer is simply absurd. It is
+clear enough that whatever purpose Cheops had in building the first
+pyramid, Chephren must have had a similar purpose in building the
+second; and we require a theory which shall at least explain why the
+first pyramid did not subserve for Chephren the purpose which it
+subserved or was meant to subserve for Cheops. The same reasoning may be
+extended to the third pyramid, to the fourth, and in fine to all the
+pyramids, forty or so in number, included under the general designation
+of the Pyramids of Ghizeh or Jeezeh. The extension of the principle to
+pyramids later than the second is especially important as showing that
+the difference of religion insisted on by Smyth has no direct bearing on
+the question of the purpose for which the Great Pyramid itself was
+constructed. For Mycerinus either never left or else returned to the
+religion of the Egyptians. Yet he also built a pyramid, which, though
+far inferior in size to the pyramids built by his father and uncle, was
+still a massive structure, and relatively more costly even than theirs,
+because built of expensive granite. The pyramid built by Asychis, though
+smaller still, was remarkable as built of brick; in fact, we are
+expressly told that Asychis desired to eclipse all his predecessors in
+such labours, and accordingly left this brick pyramid as a monument of
+his reign.
+
+We are forced, in fact, to believe that there was some special relation
+between the pyramid and its builder, seeing that each one of these kings
+wanted a pyramid of his own. This applies to the Great Pyramid quite as
+much as to the others, despite the superior excellence of that
+structure. Or rather, the argument derives its chief force from the
+superiority of the Great Pyramid. If Chephren, no longer perhaps having
+the assistance of the shepherd-architects in planning and superintending
+the work, was unable to construct a pyramid so perfect and so stately as
+his brother's, the very fact that he nevertheless built a pyramid shows
+that the Great Pyramid did not fulfil for Chephren the purpose which it
+fulfilled for Cheops. But, if Smyth's theory were true, the Great
+Pyramid would have fulfilled finally and for all men the purpose for
+which it was built. Since this was manifestly not the case, that theory
+is, I submit, demonstrably erroneous.
+
+It was probably the consideration of this point, viz. that each king had
+a pyramid constructed for himself, which led to the theory that the
+pyramids were intended to serve as tombs. This theory was once very
+generally entertained. Thus we find Humboldt, in his remarks on American
+pyramids, referring to the tomb theory of the Egyptian pyramids as
+though it were open to no question. 'When we consider,' he says, 'the
+pyramidical monuments of Egypt, of Asia, and of the New Continent, from
+the same point of view, we see that, though their form is alike, their
+destination was altogether different. The group of pyramids of Ghizeh
+and at Sakhara in Egypt; the triangular pyramid of the Queen of the
+Scythians, Zarina, which was a stadium high and three in circumference,
+and which was decorated with a colossal figure; the fourteen Etruscan
+pyramids, which are said to have been enclosed in the labyrinth of the
+king Porsenna, at Clusium--were reared to serve as the sepulchres of the
+illustrious dead. Nothing is more natural to men than to commemorate the
+spot where rest the ashes of those whose memory they cherish whether it
+be, as in the infancy of the race, by simple mounds of earth, or, in
+later periods, by the towering height of the tumulus. Those of the
+Chinese and of Thibet have only a few metres of elevation. Farther to
+the west the dimensions increase; the tumulus of the king Alyattes,
+father of Croesus, in Lydia, was six stadia, and that of Ninus was
+more than ten stadia in diameter. In the north of Europe the sepulchre
+of the Scandinavian king Gormus and the queen Daneboda, covered with
+mounds of earth, are three hundred metres broad, and more than thirty
+high.'
+
+But while we have abundant reason for believing that in Egypt, even in
+the days of Cheops and Chephren, extreme importance was attached to the
+character of the place of burial for distinguished persons, there is
+nothing in what is known respecting earlier Egyptian ideas to suggest
+the probability that any monarch would have devoted many years of his
+subjects' labour, and vast stores of material, to erect a mass of
+masonry like the Great Pyramid, solely to receive his own body after
+death. Far less have we any reason for supposing that many monarchs in
+succession would do this, each having a separate tomb built for him. It
+might have been conceivable, had only the Great Pyramid been erected,
+that the structure had been raised as a mausoleum for all the kings and
+princes of the dynasty. But it seems utterly incredible that such a
+building as the Great Pyramid should have been erected for one king's
+body only--and that, not in the way described by Humboldt, when he
+speaks of men commemorating the spot where rest the remains of those
+whose memory they cherish, but at the expense of the king himself whose
+body was to be there deposited. Besides, the first pyramid, the one
+whose history must be regarded as most significant of the true purpose
+of these buildings, was not built by an Egyptian holding in great favour
+the special religious ideas of his people, but by one who had adopted
+other views and those not belonging, so far as can be seen, to a people
+among whom sepulchral rites were held in exceptional regard.
+
+A still stronger objection against the exclusively tombic theory
+resides in the fact that this theory gives no account whatever of the
+characteristic features of the pyramids themselves. These buildings are
+all, without exception, built on special astronomical principles. Their
+square bases are so placed as to have two sides lying east and west, and
+two lying north and south, or, in other words, so that their four faces
+front the four cardinal points. One can imagine no reason why a tomb
+should have such a position. It is not, indeed, easy to understand why
+any building at all, except an astronomical observatory, should have
+such a position. A temple perhaps devoted to sun-worship, and generally
+to the worship of the heavenly bodies, might be built in that way. For
+it is to be noticed that the peculiar figure and position of the
+pyramids would bring about the following relations:--When the sun rose
+and set south of the east and west points, or (speaking generally)
+between the autumn and the spring equinoxes, the rays of the rising and
+setting sun illuminated the southern face of the pyramid; whereas during
+the rest of the year, that is, during the six months between the spring
+and autumn equinoxes, the rays of the rising and setting sun illuminated
+the northern face. Again, all the year round the sun's rays passed from
+the eastern to the western face at solar noon. And lastly, during seven
+months and a half of each year, namely, for three months and three
+quarters before and after midsummer, the noon rays of the sun fell on
+all four faces of the pyramid, or, according to a Peruvian expression
+(so Smyth avers), the sun shone on the pyramid 'with all his rays.' Such
+conditions as these might have been regarded as very suitable for a
+temple devoted to sun-worship. Yet the temple theory is as untenable as
+the tomb theory. For, in the first place, the pyramid form--as the
+pyramids were originally built, with perfectly smooth slant-faces, not
+terraced into steps as now through the loss of the casing-stones--was
+entirely unsuited for all the ordinary requirements of a temple of
+worship. And further, this theory gives no explanation of the fact that
+each king built a pyramid, and each king only one. Similar difficulties
+oppose the theory that the pyramids were intended to serve as
+astronomical observatories. For while their original figure, however
+manifestly astronomical in its relations, was quite unsuited for
+observatory work, it is manifest that if such had been the purpose of
+pyramid-building, so soon as the Great Pyramid had once been built, no
+other would be needed. Certainly none of the pyramids built afterwards
+could have subserved any astronomical purpose which the first did not
+subserve, or have subserved nearly so well as the Great Pyramid those
+purposes (and they are but few) which that building may be supposed to
+have fulfilled as an astronomical observatory.
+
+Of the other theories mentioned at the beginning of this paper none seem
+to merit special notice, except perhaps the theory that the pyramids
+were made to receive the royal treasures, and this theory rather because
+of the attention it received from Arabian literati, during the ninth and
+tenth centuries, than because of any strong reasons which can be
+suggested in its favour. 'Emulating,' says Professor Smyth, 'the
+enchanted tales of Bagdad,' the court poets of Al Mamoun (son of the
+far-famed Haroun al Raschid) 'drew gorgeous pictures of the contents of
+the pyramid's interior.... All the treasures of Sheddad Ben Ad the great
+Antediluvian king of the earth, with all his medicines and all his
+sciences, they declared were there, told over and over again. Others,
+though, were positive that the founder-king was no other than Saurid Ibn
+Salhouk, a far greater one than the other; and these last gave many more
+minute particulars, some of which are at least interesting to us in the
+present day, as proving that, amongst the Egypto-Arabians of more than
+a thousand years ago, the Jeezeh pyramids, headed by the grand one,
+enjoyed a pre-eminence of fame vastly before all the other pyramids of
+Egypt put together; and that if any other is alluded to after the Great
+Pyramid (which has always been the notable and favourite one, and
+chiefly was known then as the East pyramid), it is either the second one
+at Jeezeh, under the name of the West pyramid; or the third one,
+distinguished as the Coloured pyramid, in allusion to its red granite,
+compared with the white limestone casings of the other two (which,
+moreover, from their more near, but by no means exact, equality of size,
+went frequently under the affectionate designation of "the pair").'
+
+The report of Ibn Abd Alkohm, as to what was to be found in each of
+these three pyramids, or rather of what, according to him, was put into
+them originally by King Saurid, runs as follows: 'In the Western
+pyramid, thirty treasuries filled with store of riches and utensils, and
+with signatures made of precious stones, and with instruments of iron
+and vessels of earth, and with arms which rust not, and with glass which
+might be bended and yet not broken, and with strange spells, and with
+several kinds of _alakakirs_ (magical precious stones) single and
+double, and with deadly poisons, and with other things besides. He made
+also in the East' (the Great Pyramid) 'divers celestial spheres and
+stars, and what they severally operate in their aspects, and the
+perfumes which are to be used to them, and the books which treat of
+these matters. He put also into the coloured pyramid the commentaries of
+the priests in chests of black marble, and with every priest a book, in
+which the wonders of his profession and of his actions and of his nature
+were written, and what was done in his time, and what is and what shall
+be from the beginning of time to the end of it.' The rest of this
+worthy's report relates to certain treasurers placed within these three
+pyramids to guard their contents, and (like all or most of what I have
+already quoted) was a work of imagination. Ibn Abd Alkohm, in fact, was
+a romancist of the first water.
+
+Perhaps the strongest argument against the theory that the pyramids were
+intended as strongholds for the concealment of treasure, resides in the
+fact that, search being made, no treasure has been discovered. When the
+workmen employed by Caliph Al Mamoun, after encountering manifold
+difficulties, at length broke their way into the great ascending passage
+leading to the so-called King's Chamber, they found 'a right noble
+apartment, thirty-four feet long, seventeen broad, and nineteen high, of
+polished red granite throughout, walls, floor, and ceiling, in blocks
+squared and true, and put together with such exquisite skill that the
+joints are barely discernible to the closest inspection. But where is
+the treasure--the silver and the gold, the jewels, medicines, and
+arms?--These fanatics look wildly around them, but can see nothing, not
+a single _dirhem_ anywhere. They trim their torches, and carry them
+again and again to every part of that red-walled, flinty hall, but
+without any better success. Nought but pure polished red granite, in
+mighty slabs, looks upon them from every side. The room is clean,
+garnished too, as it were, and, according to the ideas of its founders,
+complete and perfectly ready for its visitors so long expected, so long
+delayed. But the gross minds who occupy it now, find it all barren, and
+declare that there is nothing whatever for them in the whole extent of
+the apartment from one end to another; nothing except an empty stone
+chest without a lid.'
+
+It is, however, to be noted that we have no means of learning what had
+happened between the time when the pyramid was built and when Caliph Al
+Mamoun's workmen broke their way into the King's Chamber. The place
+may, after all, have contained treasures of some kind; nor, indeed, is
+it incompatible with other theories of the pyramid to suppose that it
+was used as a safe receptacle for treasures. It is certain, however,
+that this cannot have been the special purpose for which the pyramids
+were designed. We should find in such a purpose no explanation whatever
+of any of the most stringent difficulties encountered in dealing with
+other theories. There could be no reason why strangers from the East
+should be at special pains to instruct an Egyptian monarch how to hide
+and guard his treasures. Nor, if the Great Pyramid had been intended to
+receive the treasures of Cheops, would Chephren have built another for
+his own treasures, which must have included those gathered by Cheops.
+But, apart from this, how inconceivably vast must a treasure-hoard be
+supposed to be, the safe guarding of which would have repaid the
+enormous cost of the great Pyramid in labour and material! And then, why
+should a mere treasure-house have the characteristics of an astronomical
+observatory? Manifestly, if the pyramids were used at all to receive
+treasures, it can only have been as an entirely subordinate though
+perhaps convenient means of utilising these gigantic structures.
+
+Having thus gone through all the suggested purposes of the pyramids save
+two or three which clearly do not possess any claim to serious
+consideration, and having found none which appear to give any sufficient
+account of the history and principal features of these buildings, we
+must either abandon the inquiry or seek for some explanation quite
+different from any yet suggested. Let us consider what are the principal
+points of which the true theory of the pyramids should give an account.
+
+In the first place, the history of the pyramids shows that the erection
+of the first great pyramid was in all probability either suggested to
+Cheops by wise men who visited Egypt from the East, or else some
+important information conveyed to him by such visitors caused him to
+conceive the idea of building the pyramid. In either case we may
+suppose, as the history indeed suggests, that these learned men, whoever
+they may have been, remained in Egypt to superintend the erection of the
+structure. It may be that the architectural work was not under their
+supervision; in fact, it seems altogether unlikely that shepherd-rulers
+would have much to teach the Egyptians in the matter of architecture.
+But the astronomical peculiarities which form so significant a feature
+of the Great Pyramid were probably provided for entirely under the
+instructions of the shepherd chiefs who had exerted so strange an
+influence upon the mind of King Cheops.
+
+Next, it seems clear that self-interest must have been the predominant
+reason in the mind of the Egyptian king for undertaking this stupendous
+work. It is true that his change of religion implies that some higher
+cause influenced him. But a ruler who could inflict such grievous
+burdens on his people in carrying out his purpose that for ages
+afterwards his name was held in utter detestation, cannot have been
+solely or even chiefly influenced by religious motives. It affords an
+ample explanation of the behaviour of Cheops, in closing the temples and
+forsaking the religion of his country, to suppose that the advantages
+which he hoped to secure by building the pyramid depended in some way on
+his adopting this course. The visitors from the East may have refused to
+give their assistance on any other terms, or may have assured him that
+the expected benefit could not be obtained if the pyramid were erected
+by idolaters. It is certain, in any case, that they were opposed to
+idolatry; and we have thus some means of inferring who they were and
+whence they came. We know that one particular branch of one particular
+race in the East was characterised by a most marked hatred of idolatry
+in all its forms. Terah and his family, or, probably, a sect or division
+of the Chaldæan people, went forth from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into
+the land of Canaan--and the reason why they went forth we learn from a
+book of considerable historical interest (the book of Judith) to have
+been because 'they would not worship the gods of their fathers who were
+in the land of the Chaldæans.' The Bible record shows that members of
+this branch of the Chaldæan people visited Egypt from time to time. They
+were shepherds, too, which accords well with the account of Herodotus
+above quoted. We can well understand that persons of this family would
+have resisted all endeavours to secure their acquiescence in any scheme
+associated with idolatrous rites. Neither promises nor threats would
+have had much influence on them. It was a distinguished member of the
+family, the patriarch Abraham, who said: 'I have lift up mine hand unto
+the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I
+will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet, and that I will not
+take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram
+rich.' Vain would all the promises and all the threats of Cheops have
+been to men of this spirit. Such men might help him in his plans,
+suggested, as the history shows, by teachings of their own, but it must
+be on their own conditions, and those conditions would most certainly
+include the utter rejection of idolatrous worship by the king in whose
+behalf they worked, as well as by all who shared in their labours. It
+seems probable that they convinced both Cheops and Chephren, that unless
+these kings gave up idolatry, the purpose, whatever it was, which the
+pyramid was erected to promote, would not be fulfilled. The mere fact
+that the Great Pyramid was built either directly at the suggestion of
+these visitors, or because they had persuaded Cheops of the truth of
+some important doctrine, shows that they must have gained great
+influence over his mind. Rather we may say that he must have been so
+convinced of their knowledge and power as to have accepted with
+unquestioning confidence all that they told him respecting the
+particular subject over which they seemed to possess so perfect a
+mastery.
+
+But having formed the opinion, on grounds sufficiently assured, that the
+strangers who visited Egypt and superintended the building of the Great
+Pyramid were kinsmen of the patriarch Abraham, it is not very difficult
+to decide what was the subject respecting which they had such exact
+information. They or their parents had come from the land of the
+Chaldæans, and they were doubtless learned in all the wisdom of their
+Chaldæan kinsmen. They were masters, in fact, of the astronomy of their
+day, a science for which the Chaldæans had shown from the earliest ages
+the most remarkable aptitude. What the actual extent of their
+astronomical knowledge may have been it would be difficult to say. But
+it is certain, from the exact knowledge which later Chaldæans possessed
+respecting long astronomical cycles, that astronomical observations must
+have been carried on continuously by that people for many hundreds of
+years. It is highly probable that the astronomical knowledge of the
+Chaldæans in the days of Terah and Abraham was much more accurate than
+that possessed by the Greeks even after the time of Hipparchus.[24] We
+see indeed, in the accurate astronomical adjustment of the Great
+Pyramid, that the architects must have been skilful astronomers and
+mathematicians; and I may note here, in passing, how strongly this
+circumstance confirms the opinion that the visitors were kinsmen of
+Terah and Abraham. All we know from Herodotus and Manetho, all the
+evidence from the circumstances connected with the religion of the
+pyramid-kings, and the astronomical evidence given by the pyramids
+themselves, tends to assure us that members of that particular branch of
+the Chaldæan family which went out from Ur of the Chaldees because they
+would not worship the gods of the Chaldæans, extended their wanderings
+to Egypt, and eventually superintended the erection of the Great Pyramid
+so far as astronomical and mathematical relations were concerned.
+
+But not only have we already decided that the pyramids were not intended
+solely or chiefly to sub serve the purpose of astronomical
+observatories, but it is certain that Cheops would not have been
+personally much interested in any astronomical information which these
+visitors might be able to communicate. Unless he saw clearly that
+something was to be gained from the lore of his visitors, he would not
+have undertaken to erect any astronomical buildings at their suggestion,
+even if he had cared enough for their knowledge to pay any attention to
+them whatever. Most probably the reply Cheops would have made to any
+communications respecting mere astronomy, would have run much in the
+style of the reply made by the Turkish Cadi, Imaum Ali Zadè to a friend
+of Layard's who had apparently bored him about double stars and comets:
+'Oh my soul! oh my lamb!' said Ali Zadè, 'seek not after the things
+which concern thee not. Thou camest unto us, and we welcomed thee: go in
+peace. Of a truth thou hast spoken many words; and there is no harm
+done, for the speaker is one and the listener is another. After the
+fashion of thy people thou hast wandered from one place to another until
+thou art happy and content in none. Listen, oh my son! There is no
+wisdom equal unto the belief in God! He created the world, and shall we
+liken ourselves unto Him in seeking to penetrate into the mysteries of
+His creation? Shall we say, Behold this star spinneth round that star,
+and this other star with a tail goeth and cometh in so many years! Let
+it go! He from whose hand it came will guide and direct it. But thou
+wilt say unto me, Stand aside, oh man, for I am more learned than thou
+art, and have seen more things. If thou thinkest that thou art in this
+respect better than I am, thou art welcome. I praise God that I seek not
+that which I require not. Thou art learned in the things I care not for;
+and as for that which thou hast seen, I defile it. Will much knowledge
+create thee a double belly, or wilt thou seek paradise with thine eyes?'
+Such, omitting the references to the Creator, would probably have been
+the reply of Cheops to his visitors, had they only had astronomical
+facts to present him with. Or, in the plenitude of his kingly power, he
+might have more decisively rejected their teaching by removing their
+heads.
+
+But the shepherd-astronomers had knowledge more attractive to offer than
+a mere series of astronomical discoveries. Their ancestors had
+
+  Watched from the centres of their sleeping flocks
+  Those radiant Mercuries, that seemed to move
+  Carrying through æther in perpetual round
+  Decrees and resolutions of the gods;
+
+and though the visitors of King Cheops had themselves rejected the
+Sabaistic polytheism of their kinsmen, they had not rejected the
+doctrine that the stars in their courses affect the fortunes of men. We
+know that among the Jews, probably the direct descendants of the
+shepherd-chiefs who visited Cheops, and certainly close kinsmen of
+theirs, and akin to them also in their monotheism, the belief in
+astrology was never regarded as a superstition. In fact, we can trace
+very clearly in the books relating to this people that they believed
+confidently in the influences of the heavenly bodies. Doubtless the
+visitors of King Cheops shared the belief of their Chaldæan kinsmen that
+astrology is a true science, 'founded' indeed (as Bacon expresses their
+views) 'not in reason and physical contemplations, but in the direct
+experience and observation of past ages.' Josephus records the Jewish
+tradition (though not as a tradition but as a fact) that 'our first
+father, Adam, was instructed in astrology by divine inspiration,' and
+that Seth so excelled in the science, that, 'foreseeing the Flood and
+the destruction of the world thereby, he engraved the fundamental
+principles of his art (astrology) in hieroglyphical emblems, for the
+benefit of after ages, on two pillars of brick and stone.' He says
+farther on that the Patriarch Abraham, 'having learned the art in
+Chaldæa, when he journeyed into Egypt taught the Egyptians the sciences
+of arithmetic and astrology.' Indeed, the stranger called Philitis by
+Herodotus may, for aught that appears, have been Abraham himself; for it
+is generally agreed that the word Philitis indicated the race and
+country of the visitors, regarded by the Egyptians as of Philistine
+descent and arriving from Palestine. However, I am in no way concerned
+to show that the shepherd-astronomers who induced Cheops to build the
+Great Pyramid were even contemporaries of Abraham and Melchizedek. What
+seems sufficiently obvious is all that I care to maintain, namely, that
+these shepherd-astronomers were of Chaldæan birth and training, and
+therefore astrologers, though, unlike their Chaldæan kinsmen, they
+rejected Sabaism or star-worship, and taught the belief in one only
+Deity.
+
+Now, if these visitors were astrologers, who persuaded Cheops, and were
+honestly convinced themselves, that they could predict the events of any
+man's life by the Chaldæan method of casting nativities, we can readily
+understand many circumstances connected with the pyramids which have
+hitherto seemed inexplicable. The pyramid built by a king would no
+longer be regarded as having reference to his death and burial, but to
+his birth and life, though after his death it might receive his body.
+Each king would require to have his own nativity-pyramid, built with due
+symbolical reference to the special celestial influences affecting his
+fortunes. Every portion of the work would have to be carried out under
+special conditions, determined according to the mysterious influences
+ascribed to the different planets and their varying positions--
+
+        now high, now low, then hid.
+  Progressive, retrograde, or standing still.
+
+If the work had been intended only to afford the means of predicting the
+king's future, the labour would have been regarded by the monarch as
+well bestowed. But astrology involved much more than the mere prediction
+of future events. Astrologers claimed the power of ruling the
+planets--that is, of course, not of ruling the motions of those bodies,
+but of providing against evil influences or strengthening good
+influences which they supposed the celestial orbs to exert in particular
+aspects. Thus we can understand that while the mere basement layers of
+the pyramid would have served for the process of casting the royal
+nativity, with due mystic observances, the further progress of building
+the pyramid would supply the necessary means and indications for ruling
+the planets most potent in their influence upon the royal career.
+
+Remembering the mysterious influence which astrologers ascribed to
+special numbers, figures, positions, and so forth, the care with which
+the Great Pyramid was so proportioned as to indicate particular
+astronomical and mathematical relations is at once explained. The four
+sides of the square base were carefully placed with reference to the
+cardinal points, precisely like the four sides of the ordinary square
+scheme of nativity.[25] The eastern side faced the Ascendant, the
+southern faced the Mid-heaven, the western faced the Descendant, and the
+northern faced the Imum Coeli. Again, we can understand that the
+architects would have made a circuit of the base correspond in length
+with the number of days in the year--a relation which, according to
+Prof. P. Smyth, is fulfilled in this manner, that the four sides contain
+one hundred times as many pyramid inches as there are days in the year.
+The pyramid inch, again, is itself mystically connected with
+astronomical relations, for its length is equal to the five hundred
+millionth part of the earth's diameter, to a degree of exactness
+corresponding well with what we might expect Chaldæan astronomers to
+attain. Prof. Smyth, indeed, believes that it was exactly equal to that
+proportion of the earth's polar diameter--a view which would correspond
+with his theory that the architects of the Great Pyramid were assisted
+by divine inspiration; but what is certainly known about the sacred
+cubit, which contained twenty-five of these inches, corresponds better
+with the diameter which the Chaldæan astronomers, if they worked very
+carefully, would have deduced from observations made in their own
+country, on the supposition which they would naturally have made that
+the earth is a perfect globe, not compressed at the poles. It is not
+indeed at all certain that the sacred cubit bore any reference to the
+earth's dimensions; but this seems tolerably well made out--that the
+sacred cubit was about 25 inches in length, and that the circuit of the
+pyramid's base contained a hundred inches for every day of the year.
+Relations such as these are precisely what we might expect to find in
+buildings having an astrological significance. Similarly, it would
+correspond well with the mysticism of astrology that the pyramid should
+be so proportioned as to make the height be the radius of a circle whose
+circumference would equal the circuit of the pyramid's base. Again, that
+long slant tunnel, leading downwards from the pyramid's northern face,
+would at once find a meaning in this astrological theory. The slant
+tunnel pointed to the pole-star of Cheops' time, when due north below
+the true pole of the heavens. This circumstance had no observational
+utility. It could afford no indication of time, because a pole-star
+moves very slowly, and the pole-star of Cheops' day must have been in
+view through that tunnel for more than an hour at a time. But, apart
+from the mystical significance which an astrologer would attribute to
+such a relation, it may be shown that this slant tunnel is precisely
+what the astrologer would require in order to get the horoscope
+correctly.
+
+Another consideration remains to be mentioned which, while strengthening
+the astrological theory of the pyramids, may bring us even nearer to the
+true aim of those who planned and built these structures.
+
+It is known also that the Chaldæans from the earliest times pursued the
+study of alchemy in connection with astrology, not hoping to discover
+the philosopher's stone by chemical investigations alone, but by
+carrying out such investigations under special celestial influence. The
+hope of achieving this discovery, by which he would at once have had the
+means of acquiring illimitable wealth, would of itself account for the
+fact that Cheops expended so much labour and material in the erection of
+the Great Pyramid, seeing that, of necessity, success in the search for
+the philosopher's stone would be a main feature of his fortunes, and
+would therefore be astrologically indicated in his nativity-pyramid, or
+perhaps even be secured by following mystical observances proper for
+ruling his planets.
+
+The elixir of life may also have been among the objects which the
+builders of the pyramids hoped to discover.
+
+It may be noticed, as a somewhat significant circumstance, that, in the
+account given by Ibn Abd Alkohm of the contents of the various pyramids,
+those assigned to the Great Pyramid relate entirely to astrology and
+associated mysteries. It is, of course, clear that Abd Alkohm drew
+largely on his imagination. Yet it seems probable that there was also
+some basis of tradition for his ideas. And certainly one would suppose
+that, as he assigned a treasurer to the East pyramid ('a statue of black
+agate, his eyes open and shining, sitting on a throne with a lance'), he
+would have credited the building with treasure also, had not some
+tradition taught otherwise. But he says that King Saurid placed in the
+East pyramid, not treasures, but 'divers celestial spheres and stars,
+and what they severally operate in their aspects, and the perfumes which
+are to be used to them, and the books which treat of these matters.'[26]
+
+But, after all, it must be admitted that the strongest evidence in
+favour of the astrological (and alchemical) theory of the pyramids is to
+be found in the circumstance that all other theories seem untenable. The
+pyramids were undoubtedly erected for some purpose which was regarded by
+their builders as most important. This purpose certainly related to the
+personal fortunes of the kingly builders. It was worth an enormous
+outlay of money, labour, and material. This purpose was such,
+furthermore, that each king required to have his own pyramid. It was in
+some way associated with astronomy, for the pyramids are built with most
+accurate reference to celestial aspects. It also had its mathematical
+and mystical bearings, seeing that the pyramids exhibit mathematical and
+symbolical peculiarities not belonging to their essentially structural
+requirements. And lastly, the erection of the pyramids was in some way
+connected with the arrival of certain learned persons from Palestine,
+and presumably of Chaldæan origin. All these circumstances accord well
+with the theory I have advanced; while only some of them, and these not
+the most characteristic, accord with any of the other theories.
+Moreover, no fact known respecting the pyramids or their builders is
+inconsistent with the astrological (and alchemical) theory. On the
+whole, then, if it cannot be regarded as demonstrated (in its general
+bearing, of course, for we cannot expect any theory about the pyramids
+to be established in minute details), the astrological theory may fairly
+be described as having a greater degree of probability in its favour
+than any hitherto advanced.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+_SWEDENBORG'S VISIONS OF OTHER WORLDS._
+
+
+If it were permitted to men to select a sign whereby they should know
+that a message came from the Supreme Being, probably the man of science
+would select for the sign the communication of some scientific fact
+beyond the knowledge of the day, but admitting of being readily put to
+the test. The evidence thus obtained in favour of a revelation would
+correspond in some sense to that depending on prophecies; but it would
+be more satisfactory to men having that particular mental bent which is
+called the scientific. Whether this turn of mind is inherent or the
+result of training, it certainly leads men of science to be more
+exacting in considering the value of evidence than any men, except
+perhaps lawyers. In the case of the student of science, St. Paul's
+statement that 'prophecies' 'shall fail' has been fulfilled, whereas it
+may be doubted whether evidence from 'knowledge' would in like manner
+'vanish away.' On the contrary, it would grow stronger and stronger, as
+knowledge from observation, from experiment, and from calculation
+continually increased. It can scarcely be said that this has happened
+with such quasi-scientific statements as have actually been associated
+with revelation. If we regard St. Paul's reference to knowledge as
+relating to such statements as these, then nothing could be more
+complete than the fulfilment of his own prediction, 'Whether there be
+prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease;
+whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.' The evidence from
+prophecies fails for the exact inquirer, who perceives the doubts which
+exist (among the most earnest believers) as to the exact meaning of the
+prophetic words, and even in some cases as to whether prophecies have
+been long since fulfilled or relate to events still to come. The
+evidence from 'tongues' has ceased, and those are dust who are said to
+have spoken in strange tongues. The knowledge which was once thought
+supernatural has utterly vanished away. But if, in the ages of faith,
+some of the results of modern scientific research had been revealed, as
+the laws of the solar system, the great principle of the conservation of
+energy, or the wave theory of light, or if some of the questions which
+still remain for men of science to solve had been answered in those
+times, the evidence for the student of science would have been
+irresistible. Of course he will be told that even then he would have
+hardened his heart; that the inquiry after truth tending naturally to
+depravity of mind, he would reject even evidence based on his beloved
+laws of probability; that his 'wicked and adulterous generation seeketh
+"in vain" after a sign,' and that if he will not accept Moses and the
+prophets, neither would he believe though one rose from the dead. Still
+the desire of the student of science to base his faith on convincing
+evidence (in a matter as important to him as to those who abuse him)
+does seem to have something reasonable in it after all. The mental
+qualities which cause him to be less easily satisfied than others, came
+to him in the same way as his bodily qualities; and even if the result
+to which his mental training leads him is as unfortunate as some
+suppose, that training is not strictly speaking so heinously sinful that
+nothing short of the eternal reprobation meted out to him by earthly
+judges can satisfy divine justice. So that it may be thought not a
+wholly unpardonable sin to speak of a sign which, had it been accorded,
+would have satisfied even the most exacting student of science. Apart,
+too, from all question of faith, the mere scientific interest of
+divinely inspired communications respecting natural laws and processes
+would justify a student of science in regarding them as most desirable
+messages from a being of superior wisdom and benevolence. If prophecies
+and tongues, why not knowledge, as evidence of a divine mission?
+
+Such thoughts are suggested by the claim of some religious teachers to
+the possession of knowledge other than that which they could have gained
+by natural means. The claim has usually been quite honest. The teacher
+of religion tests the reality of his mission in simple _à priori_
+confidence that he has such a mission, and that therefore some one or
+other of the tests he applies will afford the required evidence. To one,
+says St. Paul, is given the word of wisdom; to another, the word of
+knowledge; to another, faith; to another, the gift of healing; to
+another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, the
+discerning of spirits; to another, divers kinds of tongues: and so
+forth. If a man like Mahomet, who believes in his mission to teach,
+finds that he cannot satisfactorily work miracles--that mountains will
+not be removed at his bidding--then some other evidence satisfies him of
+the reality of his mission. Swedenborg, than whom, perhaps, no more
+honest man ever lived, said and believed that to him had been granted
+the discerning of spirits. 'It is to be observed,' he said, 'that a man
+may be instructed by spirits and angels if his interiors be so open as
+to enable him to speak and be in company with them, for man in his
+essence is a spirit, and is with spirits as to his interiors; so that
+he whose interiors are opened by the Lord may converse with them, as
+man with man. _This privilege I have enjoyed daily now for twelve
+years._'
+
+It indicates the fulness of Swedenborg's belief in this privilege that
+he did not hesitate to describe what the spirits taught him respecting
+matters which belong rather to science than to faith; though it must be
+admitted that probably he supposed there was small reason for believing
+that his statements could ever be tested by the results of scientific
+research. The objects to which his spiritual communications related were
+conveniently remote. I do not say this as desiring for one moment to
+suggest that he purposely selected those objects, and not others which
+might be more readily examined. He certainly believed in the reality of
+the communications he described. But possibly there is some law in
+things visionary, corresponding to the law of mental operation with
+regard to scientific theories; and as the mind theorises freely about a
+subject little understood, but cautiously where many facts have been
+ascertained, so probably exact knowledge of a subject prevents the
+operation of those illusions which are regarded as supernatural
+communications. It is in a dim light only that the active imagination
+pictures objects which do not really exist; in the clear light of day
+they can no longer be imagined. So it is with mental processes.
+
+Probably there is no subject more suitable in this sense for the
+visionary than that of life in other worlds. It has always had an
+attraction for imaginative minds, simply because it is enwrapped in so
+profound a mystery; and there has been little to restrain the fancy,
+because so little is certainly known of the physical condition of other
+worlds. Recently, indeed, a somewhat sudden and severe check has been
+placed on the liveliness of imagination which had enabled men formerly
+to picture to themselves the inhabitants of other orbs in space.
+Spectroscopic analysis and exact telescopic scrutiny will not permit
+some speculations to be entertained which formerly met with favour. Yet
+even now there has been but a slight change of scene and time. If men
+can no longer imagine inhabitants of one planet because it is too hot,
+or of another because it is too cold, of one body because it is too
+deeply immersed in vaporous masses, or of another because it has neither
+atmosphere nor water, we have only to speculate about the unseen worlds
+which circle round those other suns, the stars; or, instead of changing
+the region of space where we imagine worlds, we can look backward to the
+time when planets now cold and dead were warm with life, or forward to
+the distant future when planets now glowing with fiery heat shall have
+cooled down to a habitable condition.
+
+Swedenborg's imaginative mind seems to have fully felt the charm of this
+interesting subject. It was, indeed, because of the charm which he found
+in it, that he was readily persuaded into the belief that knowledge had
+been supernaturally communicated to him respecting it. 'Because I had a
+desire,' he says, 'to know if there are other earths, and to learn their
+nature and the character of their inhabitants, it was granted me by the
+Lord to converse and have intercourse with spirits and angels who had
+come from other earths, with some for a day, with some for a week, and
+with some for months. From them I have received information respecting
+the earths from and near which they are, the modes of life, customs and
+worship of their inhabitants, besides various other particulars of
+interest, all which, having come to my knowledge in this way, I can
+describe as things which I have seen and heard.'
+
+It is interesting (psychologically) to notice how the reasoning which
+had convinced Swedenborg of the existence of other inhabited worlds is
+attributed by him to the spirits. 'It is well known in the other life,'
+he says, 'that there are many earths with men upon them; for there (that
+is, in the spiritual life) every one who, from a love of truth and
+consequent use, desires it, is allowed to converse with the spirits of
+other earths, so as to be assured that there is a plurality of worlds,
+and be informed that the human race is not confined to one earth only,
+but extends to numberless earths.... I have occasionally conversed on
+this subject with the spirits of our earth, and the result of our
+conversation was that a man of enlarged understanding may conclude from
+various considerations that there are many earths with human inhabitants
+upon them. For it is an inference of reason that masses so great as the
+planets are, some of which exceed this earth in magnitude, are not empty
+bodies, created only to be carried in their motion round the sun, and to
+shine with their scanty light for the benefit of one earth only; but
+that they must have a nobler use. He who believes, as every one ought to
+believe, that the Deity created the universe for no other end than the
+existence of the human race, and of heaven from it (for the human race
+is the seminary of heaven), must also believe that wherever there is an
+earth there are human inhabitants. That the planets which are visible to
+us, being within the boundary of our solar system, are earths, may
+appear from various considerations. They are bodies of earthy matter,
+because they reflect the sun's light, and when seen through the
+telescope appear, not as stars shining with a flaming lustre, but as
+earths, variegated with obscure spots. Like our earth, they are carried
+round the sun by a progressive motion, through the path of the Zodiac,
+whence they have years and seasons of the year, which are spring,
+summer, autumn, and winter; and they rotate upon their axes, which makes
+days, and times of the day, as morning, midday, evening, and night. Some
+of them also have satellites, which perform their revolutions about
+their globes, as the moon does about ours. The planet Saturn, as being
+farthest from the sun, has besides an immense luminous ring, which
+supplies that earth with much, though reflected, light. How is it
+possible for anyone acquainted with these facts, and who thinks from
+reason, to assert that such bodies are uninhabited?'
+
+Remembering that this reasoning was urged by the spirits, and that
+during twelve years Swedenborg's interiors had been opened in such sort
+that he could converse with spirits from other worlds, it is surprising
+that he should have heard nothing about Uranus or Neptune, to say
+nothing of the zone of asteroids, or again, of planets as yet unknown
+which may exist outside the path of Neptune. He definitely commits
+himself, it will be observed, to the statement that Saturn is the planet
+farthest from the sun. And elsewhere, in stating where in these
+spiritual communications the 'idea' of each planet was conceived to be
+situated, he leaves no room whatever for Uranus and Neptune, and makes
+no mention of other bodies in the solar system than those known in his
+day. This cannot have been because the spirits from then unknown planets
+did not feel themselves called upon to communicate with the spirit of
+one who knew nothing of their home, for he received visitors from worlds
+in the starry heavens far beyond human ken. It would almost seem, though
+to the faithful Swedenborgian the thought will doubtless appear very
+wicked, that the system of Swedenborg gave no place to Uranus and
+Neptune, simply because he knew nothing about those planets. Otherwise,
+what a noble opportunity there would have been for establishing the
+truth of Swedenborgian doctrines by revealing to the world the existence
+of planets hitherto unknown. Before the reader pronounces this a task
+beneath the dignity of the spirits and angels who taught Swedenborg it
+will be well for him to examine the news which they actually imparted.
+
+I may as well premise, however, that it does not seem to me worth while
+to enter here at any length into Swedenborg's descriptions of the
+inhabitants of other worlds, because what he has to say on this subject
+is entirely imaginative. There is a real interest for us in his ideas
+respecting the condition of the planets, because those ideas were based
+(though unconsciously) upon the science of his day, in which he was no
+mean proficient. And even where his mysticism went beyond what his
+scientific attainments suggested, a psychological interest attaches to
+the workings of his imagination. It is as curious a problem to trace his
+ideas to their origin as it sometimes is to account for the various
+phases of a fantastic dream, such a dream, for instance, as that which
+Armadale, the doctor, and Midwinter, in 'Armadale,' endeavour to connect
+with preceding events. But Swedenborg's visions of the behaviour and
+appearance of the inhabitants of other earths have little interest,
+because it is hopeless to attempt to account for even their leading
+features. For instance, what can we make of such a passage as the
+following, relating to the spirits who came from Mercury?--'Some of them
+are desirous to appear, not like the spirits of other earths as men, but
+as crystalline globes. Their desire to appear so, although they do not,
+arises from the circumstance that the knowledges of things immaterial
+are in the other life represented by crystals.'
+
+Yet some even of these more fanciful visions significantly indicate the
+nature of Swedenborg's philosophy. One can recognise his disciples and
+his opponents among the inhabitants of various favoured and unhappy
+worlds, and one perceives how the wiser and more dignified of his
+spiritual visitors are made to advocate his own views, and to deride
+those of his adversaries. Some of the teachings thus circuitously
+advanced are excellent.
+
+For instance, Swedenborg's description of the inhabitants of Mercury and
+their love of abstract knowledge contains an instructive lesson. 'The
+spirits of Mercury imagine,' he says, 'that they know so much, that it
+is almost impossible to know more. But it has been told them by the
+spirits of our earth, that they do not know many things, but few, and
+that the things which they know not are comparatively infinite, and in
+relation to those they do know are as the waters of the largest ocean to
+those of the smallest fountain; and further, that the first advance to
+wisdom is to know, acknowledge, and perceive that what we do know,
+compared with what we do not know, is so little as hardly to amount to
+anything.'[27] So far we may suppose that Swedenborg presents his own
+ideas, seeing that he is describing what has been told the Mercurial
+spirits by the spirits of our earth, of whom (during these spiritual
+conversations) he was one. But he proceeds to describe how angels were
+allowed to converse with the Mercurial spirits in order to convince them
+of their error. 'I saw another angel,' says he, after describing one
+such conversation, 'conversing with them; he appeared at some altitude
+to the right; he was from our earth, and he enumerated very many things
+of which they were ignorant.... As they had been proud on account of
+their knowledges, on hearing this they began to humble themselves. Their
+humiliation was represented by the sinking of the company which they
+formed, for that company then appeared as a volume or roll, ... as if
+hollowed in the middle and raised at the sides.... They were told what
+that signified, that is, what they thought in their humiliation, and
+that those who appeared elevated at the sides were not as yet in any
+humiliation. Then I saw that the volume was separated, and that those
+who were not in humiliation were remanded back towards their earth, the
+rest remaining.'
+
+Little being known to Swedenborg, as indeed little is known to the
+astronomers of our own time, about Mercury, we find little in the
+visions relating to that planet which possesses any scientific interest.
+He asked the inhabitants who were brought to him in visions about the
+sun of the system, and they replied that it looks larger from Mercury
+than as seen from other worlds. This of course was no news to
+Swedenborg. They explained further, that the inhabitants enjoy a
+moderate temperature, without extremes of heat or cold. 'It was given to
+me,' proceeds Swedenborg, 'to tell them that it was so provided by the
+Lord, that they might not be exposed to excessive heat from their
+greater proximity to the sun, since heat does not arise from the sun's
+nearness, but from the height and density of the atmosphere, as appears
+from the cold on high mountains even in hot climates; also that heat is
+varied according to the direct or oblique incidence of the sun's rays,
+as is plain from the seasons of winter and summer in every region.' It
+is curious to find thus advanced, in a sort of lecture addressed to
+visionary Mercurials, a theory which crops up repeatedly in the present
+day, because the difficulty which suggests it is dealt with so
+unsatisfactorily for the most part in our text-books of science.
+Continually we hear of some new paradoxist who propounds as a novel
+doctrine the teaching that the atmosphere, and not the sun, is the cause
+of heat. The mistake was excusable in Swedenborg's time. In fact it so
+chanced that, apart from the obvious fact on which the mistake is
+usually based--the continued presence, namely, of snow on the summits of
+high mountains even in the torrid zone--it had been shown shortly before
+by Newton, that the light fleecy clouds seen sometimes even in the
+hottest weather above the wool-pack or cumulus clouds are composed of
+minute crystals of ice. Seeing that these tiny crystals can exist under
+the direct rays of the sun in hot summer weather, many find it difficult
+to understand how those rays can of themselves have any heating power.
+Yet in reality the reasoning addressed by Swedenborg to his Mercurial
+friends was entirely erroneous. If he could have adventured as far forth
+into time as he did into space, and could have attended in the spirit
+the lectures of one John Tyndall, a spirit of our earth, he would have
+had this matter rightly explained to him. In reality the sun's heat is
+as effective directly at the summit of the highest mountain as at the
+sea-level. A thermometer exposed to the sun in the former position
+indicates indeed a slightly higher temperature than one similarly
+exposed to the sun (when at the same altitude) at the sea-level. But the
+air does not get warmed to the same degree, simply because, owing to
+its rarity and relative dryness, it fails to retain any portion of the
+heat which passes through it.
+
+It is interesting to notice how Swedenborg's scientific conceptions of
+the result of the (relatively) airless condition of our moon suggested
+peculiar fancies respecting the lunar inhabitants. Interesting, I mean,
+psychologically: for it is curious to see scientific and fanciful
+conceptions thus unconsciously intermingled. Of the conscious
+intermingling of such conceptions instances are common enough. The
+effects of the moon's airless condition have been often made the subject
+of fanciful speculations. The reader will remember how Scheherazade, in
+'The Poet at the Breakfast Table,' runs on about the moon. 'Her delight
+was unbounded, and her curiosity insatiable. If there were any living
+creatures there, what odd things they must be. They couldn't have any
+lungs nor any hearts. What a pity! Did they ever die? How could they
+expire if they didn't breathe? Burn up? No air to burn in. Tumble into
+some of those horrid pits, perhaps, and break all to bits. She wondered
+how the young people there liked it, or whether there were any young
+people there. Perhaps nobody was young and nobody was old, but they were
+like mummies all of them--what an idea!--two mummies making love to each
+other! So she went on in a rattling, giddy kind of way, for she was
+excited by the strange scene in which she found herself, and quite
+astonished the young astronomer with her vivacity.' But Swedenborg's
+firm belief that the fancies engendered in his mind were scientific
+realities is very different from the conscious play of fancy in the
+passage just quoted. It must be remembered that Swedenborg regarded his
+visions with as much confidence as though they were revelations made by
+means of scientific instruments; nay, with even more confidence, for he
+knew that scientific observations may be misunderstood, whereas he was
+fully persuaded that his visions were miraculously provided for his
+enlightenment, and that therefore he would not be allowed to
+misunderstand aught that was thus revealed to him.
+
+'It is well known to spirits and angels,' he says, 'that there are
+inhabitants in the moon, and in the moons or satellites which revolve
+about Jupiter and Saturn. Even those who have not seen and conversed
+with spirits who are from them entertain no doubt of their being
+inhabited, for they, too, are earths, and where there is an earth there
+is man; man being the end for which every earth exists, and without an
+end nothing was made by the Great Creator. Every one who thinks from
+reason in any degree enlightened, must see that the human race is the
+final cause of creation.'
+
+The moon being inhabited then by human beings, but being very
+insufficiently supplied with air, it necessarily follows that these
+human beings must be provided in some way with the means of existing in
+that rare and tenuous atmosphere. Tremendous powers of inspiration and
+expiration would be required to make that air support the life of the
+human body. Although Swedenborg could have had no knowledge of the exact
+way in which breathing supports life (for Priestley was his junior by
+nearly half a century), yet he must clearly have perceived that the
+quantity of air inspired has much to do with the vitalising power of the
+indraught. No ordinary human lungs could draw in an adequate supply of
+air from such an atmosphere as the moon's; but by some great increase of
+breathing power it might be possible to live there: at least, in
+Swedenborg's time there was no reason for supposing otherwise. Reason,
+then, having convinced him that the lunar inhabitants must possess
+extraordinary breathing apparatus, and presumably most powerful voices,
+imagination presented them to him accordingly. 'Some spirits appeared
+overhead,' he says, 'and thence were heard voices like thunder; for
+their voices sounded precisely like thunder from the clouds after
+lightning. I supposed it was a great multitude of spirits who had the
+art of giving voices with such a sound. The more simple spirits who were
+with me derided them, which greatly surprised me. But the cause of their
+derision was soon discovered, which was, that the spirits who thundered
+were not many, but few, and were as little as children, and that on
+former occasions they (the thunderers) had terrified them by such
+sounds, and yet were unable to do them the least harm. That I might know
+their character, some of them descended from on high, where they
+thundered; and, what surprised me, one carried another on his back, and
+the two thus approached me. Their faces appeared not unhandsome, but
+longer than those of other spirits. In stature they were like children
+of seven years old, but the frame was more robust, so that they were
+like men. It was told me by the angels that they were from the moon. He
+who was carried by the other came to me, applying himself to my left
+side under the elbow, and thence spoke. He said, that when they utter
+their voices they thunder in this way,'--and it seems likely enough that
+if there are any living speaking beings in the moon, their voice, could
+they visit the earth, would be found to differ very markedly from the
+ordinary human voice. 'In the spiritual world their thunderous voices
+have their use. For by their thundering the spirits from the moon
+terrify spirits who are inclined to injure them, so that the lunar
+spirits go in safety where they will. To convince me the sound they make
+was of this kind, he (the spirit who was carried by the other) retired,
+but not out of sight, and thundered in like manner. They showed,
+moreover, that the voice was thundered by being uttered from the abdomen
+like an eructation. It was perceived that this arose from the
+circumstance that the inhabitants of the moon do not, like the
+inhabitants of other earths, speak from the lungs, but from the abdomen,
+and thus from air collected there, the reason of which is that the
+atmosphere with which the moon is surrounded is not like that of other
+earths.'
+
+In his intercourse with spirits from Jupiter, Swedenborg heard of
+animals larger than those that live on the earth. It has been a
+favourite idea of many believers in other worlds than ours, that though
+in each world the same races of animals exist, they would be differently
+proportioned; and there has been much speculation as to the probable
+size of men and other animals in worlds much larger or much smaller than
+the earth. When as yet ideas about other worlds were crude, the idea
+prevailed that giants exist in the larger orbs, and pygmies in the
+smaller. Whether this idea had its origin in conceptions as to the
+eternal fitness of things or not, does not clearly appear. It seems
+certainly at first view natural enough to suppose that the larger beings
+would want more room and so inhabit the larger dwelling-places. It was a
+pleasing thought that, if we could visit Jupiter or Saturn, we should
+find the human inhabitants there
+
+  In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons;
+
+but that if we could visit our moon or Mercury, or whatever smaller
+worlds there are, we should find men
+
+  Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room
+  Throng numberless, like that pygmæan race
+  Beyond the Indian mount; or fairy elves,
+  Whose midnight revels, by a forest side
+  Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
+  Or dreams he sees.
+
+Later the theory was started that the size of beings in various worlds
+depends on the amount of light received from the central sun. Thus
+Wolfius asserted that the inhabitants of Jupiter are nearly fourteen
+feet high, which he proved by comparing the quantity of sunlight which
+reaches the Jovians with that which we Terrenes receive. Recently,
+however, it has been noted that the larger the planet, the smaller in
+all probability must be the inhabitants, if any. For if there are two
+planets of the same density but unequal size, gravity must be greater at
+the surface of the larger planet, and where gravity is great large
+animals are cumbered by their weight. It is easy to see this by
+comparing the muscular strength of two men similarly proportioned, but
+unequal in height. Suppose one man five feet in height, the other six;
+then the cross section of any given muscle will be less for the former
+than for the latter in the proportion of twenty-five (five times five)
+to thirty-six (six times six). Roughly, the muscular strength of the
+bigger man will be half as great again as that of the smaller. But the
+weights of the men will be proportioned as 125 (five times five times
+five) to 216 (six times six times six), so that the weight of the bigger
+man exceeds that of the smaller nearly as seven exceeds four, or by
+three-fourths. The taller man exceeds the smaller, then, much more in
+weight than he does in strength; he is accordingly less active in
+proportion to his size. Within certain limits, of course, size increases
+a man's effective as well as his real strength. For instance, our tall
+man in the preceding illustration cannot lift his own weight as readily
+as the small man can lift his; but he can lift a weight of three hundred
+pounds as easily as the small man can lift a weight of two hundred
+pounds. When we get beyond certain limits of height, however, we get
+absolute weakness as the result of the increase of weight. Swift's
+Brobdingnags, for instance, would have been unable to stand upright; for
+they were six times as tall as men, and therefore each Brobdingnag
+would have weighed 216 times as much as a man, but would have possessed
+only thirty-six times the muscular power. Their weight would have been
+greater, then, in a sixfold greater degree than their strength, and, so
+far as their mere weight was concerned, their condition would have
+resembled that of an ordinary man under a load five times exceeding his
+own weight. As no man could walk or stand upright under such a load, so
+the Brobdingnags would have been powerless to move, despite, or rather
+because of, their enormous stature. Applying the general considerations
+here enunciated to the question of the probable size of creatures like
+ourselves in other planets, we see that men in Jupiter should be much
+smaller, men in Mercury much larger, than men on the earth. So also with
+other animals.
+
+But Swedenborg's spirit visitors from these planets taught differently.
+'The horses of our earth,' he says, 'when seen by the spirits of
+Jupiter, appeared to me smaller than usual, though rather robust; which
+arose from the idea those spirits had respecting them. They informed me
+that among them there are animals similar, though much larger; but that
+they are wild, and in the woods, and that when they come in sight they
+cause terror though they are harmless; they added that their terror of
+them is natural or innate.'[28] On the other hand the inhabitants of
+Mercury, who might be thirteen feet high yet as active as our men,
+appeared slenderer than Terrene men. 'I was desirous to know,' says
+Swedenborg, 'what kind of face and person the people in Mercury have,
+compared with those of the people on our earth. There therefore stood
+before me a female exactly resembling the women on that earth. Her face
+was beautiful, but it was smaller than that of a woman of our earth; she
+was more slender, but of equal height; she wore a linen head-dress, not
+artfully yet gracefully disposed. A man also was presented. He, too, was
+more slender than the men of our earth; he wore a garment of deep blue,
+closely fitted to his body without folds or flowing skirts. Such, I
+learn, were the personal form and costume of the humans of that earth.
+Afterwards there was shown me a species of the oxen and cows, which did
+not indeed differ much from those on our earth, except that they were
+smaller, and made some approach to the stag and hind species.' We have
+seen, too, that the lunar spirits were no larger than children seven
+years old.
+
+One passage of Swedenborg's description of Jupiter is curious. 'Although
+on that earth,' he says, 'spirits speak with men' (_i.e._ with Jovian
+men) 'man in his turn does not speak with spirits, except to say, when
+instructed, _that he will do so no more_,'--which we should regard as a
+bull if it were not news from the Jovian spirit world. 'Nor is man
+allowed to tell anyone that a spirit has spoken to him; if he does so,
+he is punished. Those spirits of Jupiter when they were with me, at
+first supposed they were with a man of their own earth; but when in my
+turn I spoke with them, and thought of publishing what passed between us
+and so relating it to others, then, because they were not allowed to
+chastise me, they discovered they were with a stranger.'
+
+It has been a favourite idea with those who delight in the argument from
+design, that the moons of the remoter planets have been provided for the
+express purpose of making up for the small amount of sunlight which
+reaches those planets. Jupiter receives only about one twenty-seventh
+part of the light which we receive from the sun; but then, has he not
+four moons to make his nights glorious? Saturn is yet farther away from
+the sun, and receives only the ninetieth part of the light we get from
+the sun; but then he has eight moons and his rings, and the nocturnal
+glory of his skies must go far to compensate the Saturnians for the
+small quantity of sunlight they receive. The Saturnian spirits who
+visited Swedenborg were manifestly indoctrinated with these ideas. For
+they informed him that the nocturnal light of Saturn is so great that
+some Saturnians worship it, calling it the Lord. These wicked spirits
+are separated from the rest, and are not tolerated by them. 'The
+nocturnal light,' say the spirits, 'comes from the immense ring which at
+a distance encircles that earth, and from the moons which are called the
+satellites of Saturn.' And again, being questioned further 'concerning
+the great ring which appears from our earth to rise above the horizon of
+that planet, and to vary its situations, they said that it does not
+appear to them as a ring, but only as a snow-white substance in heaven
+in various directions.' Unfortunately for our faith in the veracity of
+these spirits, it is certain that the moons of Saturn cannot give nearly
+so much light as ours, while the rings are much more effective as
+darkeners than as illuminators. One can readily calculate the apparent
+size of each of the moons as seen from Saturn, and thence show that the
+eight discs of the moons together are larger than our moon's disc in
+about the proportion of forty-five to eight. So that if they were all
+shining as brightly as our full moon and all full at the same time,
+their combined light would exceed hers in that degree. But they are not
+illuminated as our moon is. They are illuminated by the same remote sun
+which illuminates Saturn, while our moon is illuminated by a sun giving
+her as much light as we ourselves receive. Our moon then is illuminated
+ninety times more brightly than the moons of Saturn, and as her disc is
+less than all theirs together, not as one to ninety, but as sixteen to
+ninety, it follows that all the Saturnian moons, if full at the same
+time, would reflect to Saturn one-sixteenth part of the light which we
+receive from the full moon.[29] As regards the rings of Saturn, nothing
+can be more certain than that they tend much more to deprive Saturn of
+light then to make up by reflection for the small amount of light which
+Saturn receives directly from the sun. The part of the ring which lies
+between the planet and the sun casts a black shadow upon Saturn, this
+shadow sometimes covering an extent of surface many times exceeding the
+entire surface of our earth. The shadow thus thrown upon the planet
+creeps slowly, first one way, then another, northwards and southwards
+over the illuminated hemisphere of the planet (as pictured in the 13th
+plate of my treatise on Saturn), requiring for its passage from the
+arctic to the antarctic regions and back again to the arctic regions of
+the planet, a period nearly equal to that of a generation of terrestrial
+men. Nearly thirty of our years the process lasts, during half of which
+time the northern hemisphere suffers, and during the other half the
+southern. The shadow band, which be it remembered stretches right
+athwart the planet from the extreme eastern to the extreme western side
+of the illuminated hemisphere, is so broad during the greater part of
+the time that in some regions (those corresponding to our temperate
+zones) the shadow takes two years in passing, during which time the sun
+cannot be seen at all, unless for a few moments through some chinks in
+the rings, which are known to be not solid bodies, but made up of
+closely crowded small moons. And the slow passage of this fearful
+shadow, which advances at the average rate of some twenty miles a day,
+but yet hangs for years over the regions athwart which it sweeps, occurs
+in the very season when the sun's small direct supply of heat would
+require to be most freely compensated by nocturnal light--in the winter
+season, namely, of the planet. Moreover, not only during the time of the
+shadow's passage, but during the entire winter half of the Saturnian
+year, the ring reflects no light during the night time, the sun being on
+the other or summer side of the ring's plane.[30] The only nocturnal
+effect which would be observable would be the obliteration of the stars
+covered by the ring system. It is strange that, this being so, the
+spirits from Saturn should have made no mention of the circumstance;
+and even more strange that these spirits and others should have asserted
+that the moons and rings of Saturn compensate for the small amount of
+light directly received from the sun. Most certainly a Swedenborg of our
+own time would find the spirits from Saturn more veracious and more
+communicative about these matters, though even what _he_ would hear from
+the spirits would doubtless appear to sceptics of the twenty-first
+century to be no more than he could have inferred from the known facts
+of the science of his day.
+
+But Swedenborg was not content merely to receive visits from the
+inhabitants of other planets in the solar system. He was visited also by
+the spirits of earths in the starry heaven; nay, he was enabled to visit
+those earths himself. For man, even while living in the world, 'is a
+spirit as to his interiors, the body which he carries about in the world
+only serving him for performing functions in this natural or terrestrial
+sphere, which is the lowest.' And to certain men it is granted not only
+to converse as a spirit with angels and spirits, but to traverse in a
+spiritual way the vast distances which separate world from world and
+system from system, all the while remaining in the body. Swedenborg was
+one of these. 'The interiors of my spirit,' he says, 'are opened by the
+Lord, so that while I am in the body I can at the same time be with
+angels in heaven, and not only converse with them, but behold the
+wonderful things which are there and describe them, that henceforth it
+may no more be said, "Who ever came from heaven to assure us it exists
+and tell us what is there?" He who is unacquainted with the arcana of
+heaven cannot believe that man can see earths so remote, and give any
+account of them from sensible experience. But let him know that spaces
+and distances, and consequently progressions, existing in the natural
+world, in their origin and first causes are changes of the state of the
+interiors; that with angels and spirits progressions appear according to
+changes of state; and that by changes of state they may be apparently
+translated from one place to another, and from one earth to another,
+even to earths at the boundaries of the universe; so likewise may man as
+to his spirit, his body still remaining in its place. This has been the
+case with me.'
+
+Before describing his visits to earths in the starry heavens, Swedenborg
+is careful to indicate the probability that such earths exist. 'It is
+well known to the learned world,' he says, 'that every star is a sun in
+its place, remaining fixed like the sun of our earth.' The proper
+motions of the stars had, alas! not been discovered in Swedenborg's day,
+nor does he seem to have been aware what a wild chase he was really
+entering upon in his spiritual progressions. Conceive the pursuit of
+Sirius or Vega as either sun rushed through space with a velocity of
+thirty or forty miles in every second of time! To resume, however, the
+account which Swedenborg gives of the ideas of the learned world of his
+day. 'It is the distance which makes a star appear in a small form;
+consequently' (the logical necessity is not manifest, however) 'each
+star, like the sun of our system, has around it planets which are
+earths; and the reason these are not visible to us is because of their
+immense distance and their having no light but from their own star,
+which light cannot be reflected so far as to reach us.' 'To what other
+end,' proceeds this most convincing reasoning, 'can be so immense a
+heaven with such a multitude of stars? For man is the end for which the
+universe was created. It has been ascertained by calculation that
+supposing there were in the universe a million earths, and on every
+earth three hundred millions of men and two hundred generations within
+six thousand years, and that to every man or spirit was allotted a space
+of three cubic ells, the collective number of men or spirits could not
+occupy a space equal to a thousandth part of this earth, thus not more
+than that occupied by one of the satellites of Jupiter or Saturn; a
+space on the universe almost undiscernible, for a satellite is hardly
+visible to the naked eye. What would this be for the Creator of the
+universe, to whom the whole universe filled with earths could not be
+enough' (for what?), 'seeing that he is infinite.' However, it is not on
+this reasoning alone that Swedenborg relies. He tells us, honestly
+beyond all doubt, that he knows the truth of what he relates. 'The
+information I am about to give,' he says, 'respecting the earths in the
+starry heaven is from experimental testimony; from which it will
+likewise appear how I was translated thither as to my spirit, the body
+remaining in its place.'
+
+His progress in his first star-hunt was to the right, and continued for
+about two hours. He found the boundary of our solar system marked first
+by a white but thick cloud, next by a fiery smoke ascending from a great
+chasm. Here some guards appeared, who stopped some of the company,
+because these had not, like Swedenborg and the rest, received permission
+to pass. They not only stopped those unfortunates, but tortured them,
+conduct for which terrestrial analogues might possibly be discovered.
+
+Having reached another system, he asked the spirits of one of the earths
+there how large their sun was and how it appeared. They said it was less
+than the sun of our earth, and has a flaming appearance. Our sun, in
+fact, is larger than other suns in space, for from that earth starry
+heavens are seen, and a star larger than the rest appears, which, say
+those spirits, 'was declared from heaven' to be the sun of Swedenborg's
+earthly home.
+
+What Swedenborg saw upon that earth has no special interest. The men
+there, though haughty, are loved by their respective wives because they,
+the men, are good. But their goodness does not appear very manifest from
+anything in the narrative. The only man seen by Swedenborg took from his
+wife 'the garment which she wore, and threw it over his own shoulders;
+loosening the lower part, which flowed down to his feet like a robe
+(much as a man of our earth might be expected to loosen the tie-back of
+the period, if he borrowed it in like manner) he thus walked about
+clad.'
+
+He next visited an earth circling round a star, which he learned was one
+of the smaller sort, not far from the equator. Its greater distance was
+plain from the circumstance that Swedenborg was two days in reaching it.
+In this earth he very nearly fell into a quarrel with the spirits. For
+hearing that they possess remarkable keenness of vision, he 'compared
+them with eagles which fly aloft, and enjoy a clear and extensive view
+of objects beneath.' At this they were indignant, supposing, poor
+spirits, 'that he compared them to eagles as to their rapacity, and
+consequently thought them wicked.' He hastened to explain, however, that
+he 'did not liken them to eagles as to their rapacity, but as to
+sharpsightedness.'
+
+Swedenborg's account of a third earth in the star-depths contains a very
+pretty idea for temples and churches. The temples in that earth 'are
+constructed,' he says, of trees, not cut down, but growing in the place
+where they were first planted. On that earth, it seems, there are trees
+of an extraordinary size and height; these they set in rows when young,
+and arrange in such an order that they may serve when they grow up to
+form porticoes and colonnades. In the meanwhile, by cutting and pruning,
+they fit and prepare the tender shoots to entwine one with another, and
+join together so as to form the groundwork and floor of the temple to be
+constructed, and to rise at the sides as walls, and above to bend into
+arches to form the roof. In this manner they construct the temple with
+admirable art, elevating it high above the ground. They prepare also an
+ascent into it, by continuous branches of the trees, extended from the
+trunk and firmly connected together. Moreover, they adorn the temple
+without and within in various ways, by disposing the foliage into
+particular forms; thus they build entire groves. But it was not
+permitted me to see the nature of these temples, only I was informed
+that the light of their sun is let in by apertures amongst the branches,
+and is everywhere transmitted through crystals; whereby the light
+falling on the walls is refracted in colours like those of the rainbow,
+particularly blue and orange, of which they are fondest. Such is their
+architecture, which they prefer to the most magnificent palaces of our
+earth.'
+
+Other earths in the starry heavens were visited by Swedenborg, but the
+above will serve sufficiently to illustrate the nature of his
+observations. One statement, by the way, was made to him which must have
+seemed unlikely ever to be contravened, but which has been shown in our
+time to be altogether erroneous. In the fourth star-world he visited, he
+was told that that earth, which travels round its sun in 200 days of
+fifteen hours each, is one of the least in the universe, being scarcely
+500 German miles, say 2000 English miles, in circumference. This would
+make its diameter about 640 English miles. But there is not one of the
+whole family of planetoids which has a diameter so great as this, and
+many of these earths must be less than fifty miles in diameter. Now
+Swedenborg remarks that he had his information from the angels, 'who
+made a comparison in all these particulars with things of a like nature
+on our earth, according to what they saw in me or in my memory. Their
+conclusions were formed by angelic ideas, whereby are instantly known
+the measure of space and time in a just proportion with respect to space
+and time elsewhere. Angelic ideas, which are spiritual, in such
+calculations infinitely excel human ideas, which are natural.' He must
+therefore have met, unfortunately, with untruthful angels.
+
+The real source of Swedenborg's inspirations will be tolerably
+obvious--to all, at least, who are not Swedenborgians. But our account
+of his visions would not be complete in a psychological sense without a
+brief reference to the personal allusions which the spirits and angels
+made during their visits or his wanderings. His distinguished rival,
+Christian Wolf, was encountered as a spirit by spirits from Mercury, who
+'perceived that what he said did not rise above the sensual things of
+the natural man, because in speaking he thought of honour, and was
+desirous, as in the world (for in the other world every one is like his
+former self), to connect various things into series, and from these
+again continually to deduce others, and so form several chains of such,
+which they did not see or acknowledge to be true, and which, therefore,
+they declared to be chains which neither cohered in themselves nor with
+the conclusions, calling them the obscurity of authority;' so they
+ceased to question him further, and presently left him. Similarly, a
+spirit who in this world had been a 'prelate and a preacher,' and 'very
+pathetic, so that he could deeply move his hearers,' got no hearing
+among the spirits of a certain earth in the starry heavens; for they
+said they could tell 'from the tone of the voice whether a discourse
+came from the heart or not;' and as his discourse came not from the
+heart, 'he was unable to teach them, whereupon he was silent.'
+Convenient thus to have spirits and angels to confirm our impressions of
+other men, living or dead.
+
+Apart from the psychological interest attaching to Swedenborg's strange
+vision, one cannot but be strongly impressed by the idea pervading them,
+that to beings suitably constituted all that takes place in other worlds
+might be known. Modern science recognises a truth here; for in that
+mysterious ether which occupies all space, messages are at all times
+travelling by which the history of every orb is constantly recorded. No
+world, however remote or insignificant; no period, however distant--but
+has its history thus continually proclaimed in ever widening waves. Nay,
+by these waves also (to beings who could read their teachings aright)
+the future is constantly indicated. For, as the waves which permeate the
+ether could only be situated as they actually are, at any moment,
+through past processes, each one of which is consequently indicated by
+those ethereal waves, so also there can be but one series of events in
+the future, as the sequel of the relations actually indicated by the
+ethereal undulations. These, therefore, speak as definitely and
+distinctly of the future as of the past. Could we but rid us of the
+gross habiliments of flesh, and by some new senses be enabled to feel
+each order of ethereal undulations, even of those only which reach our
+earth, all knowledge of the past and future would be within our power.
+The consciousness of this underlies the fancies of Swedenborg, just as
+it underlies the thought of him who sang--
+
+  There's not an orb which thou behold'st
+  But in his motion like an angel sings,
+  Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.
+  But while this muddy vesture of decay
+  Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+_OTHER WORLDS AND OTHER UNIVERSES._
+
+     If any one shall gravely tell me that I have spent my time idly in
+     a vain and fruitless inquiry after what I can never become sure of,
+     the answer is that at this rate he would put down all natural
+     philosophy, as far as it concerns itself in searching into the
+     nature of such things. In such noble and sublime studies as these,
+     'tis a glory to arrive at probability, and the search itself
+     rewards the pains. But there are many degrees of probable, some
+     nearer to the truth than others, in the determining of which lies
+     the chief exercise of our judgment. And besides the nobleness and
+     pleasure of the studies, may we not be so bold as to say that they
+     are no small help to the advancement of wisdom and
+     morality?--HUYGHENS, _Conjectures concerning the Planetary Worlds_.
+
+
+The interest with which astronomy is studied by many who care little or
+nothing for other sciences is due chiefly to the thoughts which the
+celestial bodies suggest respecting life in other worlds than ours.
+There is no feeling more deeply seated in the human heart--not the
+belief in higher than human powers, not the hope of immortality, not
+even the fear of death--than the faith in realms of life where other
+conditions are experienced than those we are acquainted with here. It is
+not vulgar curiosity or idle fancy that suggests the possibilities of
+life in other worlds. It has been the conviction of the profoundest
+thinkers, of men of highest imagination. The mystery of the star-depths
+has had its charm for the mathematician as well as for the poet; for
+the exact observer as for the most fruitful theoriser; nay, for the man
+of business as for him whose life is passed in communing with nature. If
+we analyse the interest with which the generality of men inquire into
+astronomical matters apparently not connected with the question of life
+in other worlds, we find in every case that it has been out of this
+question alone or chiefly that that interest has sprung. The great
+discoveries made during the last few years respecting the sun for
+example, might seem remote from the subject of life in other worlds. It
+is true that Sir William Herschel thought the sun might be the abode of
+living creatures; and Sir John Herschel even suggested the possibility
+that the vast streaks of light called the solar willow-leaves, objects
+varying from two hundred to a thousand miles in length, might be living
+creatures whose intense lustre was the measure of their intense
+vitality. But modern discoveries had rendered all such theories
+untenable. The sun is presented to us as a mighty furnace, in whose
+fires the most stubborn elements are not merely melted but vaporised.
+The material of the sun has been analysed, the motions and changes
+taking place on his surface examined, the laws of his being determined.
+How, it might be asked, is the question of life in other worlds involved
+in these researches? The faith of Sir David Brewster in the sun as the
+abode of life being dispelled, how could discoveries respecting the sun
+interest those who care about the subject of the plurality of worlds?
+The answer to these questions is easily found. The real interest which
+solar researches have possessed for those who are not astronomers has
+resided in the evidence afforded respecting the sun's position as the
+fire, light, and life of the system of worlds whereof our world is one.
+The mere facts discovered respecting the sun would be regarded as so
+much dry detail were they not brought directly into relation with our
+earth and its wants, and therefore with the wants of the other earths
+which circle round the sun; but when thus dealt with they immediately
+excite attention and interest. I do not speak at random in asserting
+this, but describe the result of widely ranging observation. I have
+addressed hundreds of audiences in Great Britain and America on the
+subject of recent solar discoveries, and I have conversed with many
+hundreds of persons of various capacity and education, from men almost
+uncultured to men of the highest intellectual power; and my invariable
+experience has been that solar research derives its chief interest when
+viewed in relation to the sun's position as the mighty ruler, the
+steadfast sustainer, the beneficent almoner of the system of worlds to
+which our earth belongs. It is the same with other astronomical
+subjects. Few care for the record of lunar observations, save in
+relation to the question whether the moon is or has been the abode of
+living creatures. The movements of comets and meteors, and the
+discoveries recently made respecting their condition, have no interest
+except in relation to the position of these bodies in the economy of
+solar systems, or to the possible part which they may at one time have
+performed in building up worlds and suns. None save astronomers, and few
+only of these, care for researches into the star-depths, except in
+connection with the thought that every star is a sun and therefore
+probably the light and fire of a system of worlds like those which
+circle around our own sun.
+
+It is singular how variously this question of life in other worlds has
+been viewed at various stages of astronomical progress. From the time of
+Pythagoras, who first, so far as is known, propounded the general theory
+of the plurality of worlds, down to our own time, when Brewster and
+Chalmers on the one hand, and Whewell on the other, have advocated
+rival theories probably to be both set aside for a theory at once
+intermediate to and more widely ranging in time and space than either,
+the aspect of the subject has constantly varied, as new lights have been
+thrown upon it from different directions. It may be interesting briefly
+to consider what has been thought in the past on this strangely
+attractive question, and then to indicate the view towards which modern
+discoveries seem manifestly to point--a view not likely to undergo other
+change than that resulting from clearer vision and closer approach. In
+other words, I shall endeavour to show that the theory to which we are
+now led by all the known facts is correct in general, though, as fresh
+knowledge is obtained, it may undergo modification in details. We now
+see the subject from the right point of view, though as science
+progresses we may come to see it more clearly and definedly.
+
+When men believed the earth to be a flat surface above which the heavens
+were arched as a tent or canopy, they were not likely to entertain the
+belief in other worlds than ours. During the earlier ages of mankind
+ideas such as these prevailed. The earth had been fashioned into its
+present form and condition, the heavens had been spread over it, the
+sun, and moon, and stars had been set in the heavens for its use and
+adornment, and there was no thought of any other world.
+
+But while this was the general belief, there was already a school of
+philosophy where another doctrine had been taught. Pythagoras had
+adopted the belief of Apollonius Pergæus that the sun is the centre of
+the planetary paths, the earth one among the planets--a belief
+inseparable from the doctrine of the plurality of worlds. Much argument
+has been advanced to show that this belief never was adopted before the
+time of Copernicus, and unquestionably it must be admitted that the
+theory was not presented in the clear and simple form to which we have
+become accustomed. But it is not necessary to weigh the conflicting
+arguments for and against the opinion that Pythagoras and others
+regarded the earth as not the fixed centre of the universe. The certain
+fact that the doctrine of the plurality of worlds was entertained (I do
+not say adopted) by them, proves sufficiently that they cannot have
+believed the earth to be fixed and central. The idea of other worlds
+like our earth is manifestly inconsistent with the belief that the earth
+is the central body around which the whole universe revolves.
+
+That this is so is well illustrated by the fate of the unfortunate
+Giordano Bruno. He was one of the first disciples of Copernicus, and,
+having accepted the doctrine that the earth travels round the sun as one
+among his family of planets, was led very naturally to the belief that
+the other planets are inhabited. He went farther, and maintained that as
+the earth is not the only inhabited world in the solar system, so the
+sun is not the only centre of a system of inhabited worlds, but each
+star a sun like him, about which many planets revolve. This was one of
+the many heresies for which Bruno was burned at the stake. It is easy,
+also, to recognise in the doctrine of many worlds as the natural sequel
+of the Copernican theory, rather than in the features of this theory
+itself, the cause of the hostility with which theologians regarded it,
+until, finding it proved, they discovered that it is directly taught in
+the books which they interpret for us so variously. The Copernican
+theory was not rejected--nay, it was even countenanced--until this
+particular consequence of the theory was recognised. But within a few
+years from the persecution of Bruno, Galileo was imprisoned, and the
+last years of his life made miserable, because it had become clear that
+in setting the earth adrift from its position as centre of the
+universe, he and his brother Copernicans were sanctioning the belief in
+other worlds than ours. Again and again, in the attacks made by
+clericals and theologians upon the Copernican theory, this lamentable
+consequence was insisted upon. Unconscious that they were advancing the
+most damaging argument which could be conceived for the cause they had
+at heart, they maintained, honestly but unfortunately, that with the new
+theory came the manifest inference that our earth is not the only and by
+no means the most important world in the universe--a doctrine manifestly
+inconsistent (so they said) with the teachings of the Scriptures.
+
+It was naturally only by a slow progression that men were able to
+advance into the domain spread before them by the Copernican theory, and
+to recognise the real minuteness of the earth both in space and time.
+They more quickly recognised the earth's insignificance in space,
+because the new theory absolutely forced this fact upon them. If the
+earth, whose globe they knew to be minute compared with her distance
+from the sun, is really circling around the sun in a mighty orbit many
+millions of miles in diameter, it follows of necessity that the fixed
+stars must lie so far away that even the span of the earth's orbit is
+reduced to nothing by comparison with the vast depths beyond which lie
+even the nearest of those suns. This was Tycho Brahe's famous and
+perfectly sound argument against the Copernican theory. 'The stars
+remain fixed in apparent position all the time, yet the Copernicans tell
+us that the earth from which we view the stars is circling once a year
+in an orbit many millions of miles in diameter; how is it that from so
+widely ranging a point of view we do not see widely different celestial
+scenery? Who can believe that the stars are so remote that by comparison
+the span of the earth's path is a mere point?' Tycho's argument was of
+course valid.[31] Of two things one. Either the earth does not travel
+round the sun, or the stars are much farther away than men had conceived
+possible in Tycho's time. His mistake lay in rejecting the correct
+conclusion because simply it made the visible universe seem many
+millions of times vaster than he had supposed. Yet the universe, even as
+thus enlarged, was but a point to the universe visible in our day, which
+in turn will dwindle to a point compared with the universe as men will
+see it a few centuries hence; while that or the utmost range of space
+over which men can ever extend their survey is doubtless as nothing to
+the real universe of occupied space.
+
+Such has been the progression of our ideas as to the position of the
+earth in space. Forced by the discoveries of Copernicus to regard our
+earth as a mere point compared with the distances of the nearest fixed
+stars, men gradually learned to recognise those distances which at first
+had seemed infinite as in their turn evanescent even by comparison with
+that mere point of space over which man is able by instrumental means to
+extend his survey.
+
+Though there has been a similar progression in men's ideas as to the
+earth's position in time, that progression has not been carried to a
+corresponding extent. Men have not been so bold in widening their
+conceptions of time as in widening their conceptions of space. It is
+here and thus that, in my judgment, the subject of life in other worlds
+has been hitherto incorrectly dealt with. Men have given up as utterly
+idle the idea that the existence of worlds is to be limited to the
+special domain of space to which our earth belongs; but they are content
+to retain the conception that the domain of time to which our earth's
+history belongs, 'this bank and shoal of time' on which the life of the
+earth is cast, is the period to which the existence of other worlds than
+ours should be referred.
+
+This, which is to be noticed in nearly all our ordinary treatises on
+astronomy, appears as a characteristic peculiarity of works advocating
+the theory of the plurality of worlds. Brewster and Dick and Chalmers,
+all in fact who have taken that doctrine under their special protection,
+reason respecting other worlds as though, if they failed to prove that
+other orbs are inhabited _now_, or are at least _now_ supporting life in
+some way or other, they failed of their purpose altogether. The idea
+does not seem to have occurred to them that there is room and verge
+enough in eternity of time not only for activity but for rest. They must
+have all the orbs of space busy at once in the one work which they seem
+able to conceive as the possible purpose of those bodies--the support of
+life. The argument from analogy, which they had found effective in
+establishing the general theory of the plurality of worlds, is forgotten
+when its application to details would suggest that not _all_ orbs are
+_at all times_ either the abode of life or in some way subserving the
+purposes of life.
+
+We find, in all the forms of life with which we are acquainted, three
+characteristic periods--first the time of preparation for the purposes
+of life; next, the time of fitness for those purposes; and thirdly, the
+time of decadence tending gradually to death. We see among all objects
+which exist in numbers, examples of all these stages existing at the
+same time. In every race of living creatures there are the young as yet
+unfit for work, the workers, and those past work; in every forest there
+are saplings, seed-bearing trees, and trees long past the seed-bearing
+period. We know that planets, or rather, speaking more generally, the
+orbs which people space, pass through various stages of development,
+during some only of which they can reasonably be regarded as the abode
+of life or supporting life; yet the eager champion of the theory of many
+worlds will have them all in these life-bearing or life-supporting
+stages, none in any of the stages of preparation, none in any of the
+stages of decrepitude or death.
+
+This has probably had its origin in no small degree from the disfavour
+with which in former years the theory of the growth and development of
+planets and systems of planets was regarded. Until the evidence became
+too strong to be resisted, the doctrine that our earth was once a baby
+world, with many millions of years to pass through before it could be
+the abode of life, was one which only the professed atheist (so said too
+many divines) could for a moment entertain; while the doctrine that not
+the earth alone, but the whole of the solar system, had developed from a
+condition utterly unlike that through which it is now passing, could
+have had its origin only in the suggestions of the Evil One. Both
+doctrines were pronounced to be so manifestly opposed to the teachings
+of Moses, and not only so, but so manifestly inconsistent with the
+belief in a Supreme Being, that--that further argument was unnecessary,
+and denunciation only was required. So confident were divines on these
+points, that it would not have been very wonderful if some few students
+of science had mistaken assertion for proof, and so concluded that the
+doctrines towards which science was unmistakably leading them really
+were inconsistent with what they had been taught to regard as the Word
+of God. Whether multiplied experiences taught men of science to wait
+before thus deciding, or however matters fell out, it certainly befell
+before very long that the terrible doctrine of cosmical development was
+supported by such powerful evidence, astronomical and terrestrial, as to
+appear wholly irresistible. Then, not only was the doctrine accepted by
+divines, but shown to be manifestly implied in the sacred narrative of
+the formation of the earth and heavens, sun, and moon, and stars; while
+upon those unfortunate students of science who had not changed front in
+good time, and were found still arguing on the mistaken assumption that
+the development of our system was not accordant with that ancient
+narrative, freshly forged bolts were flung from the Olympus of
+orthodoxy.
+
+So far as the other argument--from the inconsistency of the development
+theory with belief in a Supreme Being--was concerned, the student of
+science was independent of the interpretations which divines claim the
+sole right of assigning to the ancient books. Science has done so much
+more than divinity (which in fact has done nothing) to widen our
+conceptions of space and time, that she may justly claim full right to
+deal with any difficulties arising from such enlargement of our ideas.
+With the theological difficulty science would not care to deal at all,
+were she not urged to do so by the denunciations of divines; and when,
+so urged, she touches that difficulty, she is quickly told that the
+difficulty is insuperable, and not long after that it has no existence,
+and (on both accounts) that it should have been left alone. But with the
+difficulty arising from the widening of our ideas respecting space and
+time, science may claim good, almost sole, right to deal. The path to a
+solution of the problem is not difficult to find. At a first view, it
+does seem to those whose vision had been limited to a contracted field,
+that the wide domain of time and space in which processes of development
+are found to take place is the universe itself, that to deny the
+formation of our earth by a special creative act is to deny the
+existence of a Creator, that to regard the beginning of our earth as a
+process of development is to assert that development has been in
+operation from the beginning of all things. But when we recognise
+clearly that vastness and minuteness, prolonged and brief duration, are
+merely relative, we perceive that in considering our earth's history we
+have to deal only with small parts of space and brief periods of time,
+by comparison with all space and all time. Our earth is very large
+compared with a tree or an animal, but very small compared with the
+solar system, a mere point compared with the system of stars to which
+the sun belongs, and absolutely as nothing compared with the universe of
+space; and in like manner, while the periods of her growth and
+development occupy periods very long-lasting compared with those
+required for the growth and development of a tree or an animal, they are
+doubtless but brief compared with the eras of the development of our
+solar system, a mere instant compared with the eras of the development
+of star-systems, and absolutely evanescent compared with eternity. We
+have no more reason for rejecting the belief in a Creator because our
+earth or the solar system is found to have developed to its present
+condition from an embryonic primordial state, than we have had ever
+since men first found that animals and trees are developed from the
+germ. The region of development is larger, the period of development
+lasts longer, but neither the one nor the other is infinite; and being
+finite, both one and the other are simply nothing by comparison with
+infinity. It is a startling thought, doubtless, that periods of time
+compared with which the life of a man, the existence of a nation, nay,
+the duration of the human race itself, sink into insignificance, should
+themselves in turn be dwarfed into nothingness by comparison with
+periods of a still higher order. But the thought is not more startling
+than that other thought which we have been compelled to admit--the
+thought that the earth on which we live, and the solar system to which
+it belongs, though each so vast that all known material objects are as
+nothing by comparison, are in turn as nothing compared with the depths
+of space separating us from even the nearest among the fixed stars. One
+thought, as I have said, we have been compelled to admit, the other has
+not as yet been absolutely forced upon us. Though men have long since
+given up the idea that the earth and heavens have endured but a few
+thousand years, it is still possible to believe that the birth of our
+solar system, whether by creative act or by the beginning of processes
+of development, belongs to the beginning of all time. But this view
+cannot be regarded as even probable. Although it has never been proved
+that any definite relation must subsist between time (occupied by
+events) and space (occupied by matter), the mind naturally accepts the
+belief that such a relation exists. As we find the universe enlarging
+under the survey of science, our conceptions of the duration of the
+universe enlarge also. When the earth was supposed to be the most
+important object in creation, men might reasonably assign to time itself
+(regarded as the interval between the beginning of the earth and the
+consummation of all things when the earth should perish) a moderate
+duration; but it is equally reasonable that, as the insignificance of
+the earth's domain in space is recognised, men should recognise also the
+presumable insignificance of the earth's existence in time.
+
+In this respect, although we have nothing like the direct evidence
+afforded by the measurement of space, we yet have evidence which can
+scarcely be called in question. We find in the structure of our earth
+the signs of its former condition. We see clearly that it was once
+intensely hot! and we know from experimental researches on the cooling
+of various earths that many millions of years must have been required by
+the earth in cooling down from its former igneous condition. We may
+doubt whether Bischoff's researches can be relied upon in details, and
+so be unwilling to assign with him a period of 350 millions of years to
+a single stage of the process of cooling. But that the entire process
+lasted tens of millions and probably hundreds of millions of years
+cannot be doubted. Recognising such enormous periods as these in the
+development of one of the smallest fruits of the great solar tree of
+life, we cannot but admit at least the reasonableness of believing that
+the larger fruits (Jupiter, for instance, with 340 times as much matter,
+and Saturn with 100 times) must require periods still vaster, probably
+many times larger. Indeed, science shows not only that this view is
+reasonable, but that no other view is possible. For the mighty root of
+the tree of life, the great orb of the sun, containing 340 _thousand_
+times as much matter as the earth, yet mightier periods would be needed.
+The growth and development of these, the parts of the great system, must
+of necessity require much shorter time-intervals than the growth and
+development of the system regarded as a whole. The enormous period when
+the germs only of the sun and planets existed as yet, when the chaotic
+substance of the system had not yet blossomed into worlds, the mighty
+period which is to follow the death of the last surviving member of the
+system, when the whole scheme will remain as the dead trunk of a tree
+remains after the last leaf has fallen, after the last movement of sap
+within the trunk--these periods must be infinite compared with those
+which measure the duration of even the mightiest separate members of the
+system.
+
+But all this has been left unnoticed by those who have argued in support
+of the Brewsterian doctrine of a plurality of worlds. They argue as if
+it had never been shown that every member of the solar system, as of
+all other such systems in space, has to pass through an enormously long
+period of preparation before becoming fit to be the abode of life, and
+that after being fit for life (for a period very long to our
+conceptions, but by comparison with the other exceedingly short) it must
+for countless ages remain as an extinct world. Or else they reason as
+though it had been proved that the relatively short life-bearing periods
+in the existence of the several planets must of necessity synchronise,
+instead of all the probabilities lying overwhelmingly the other way.
+
+While this has been (in my judgment) a defect in what may be called the
+Brewsterian theory of other worlds, a defect not altogether dissimilar
+has characterised the opposite or Whewellite theory. Very useful service
+was rendered to astronomy by Whewell's treatise upon, or rather against,
+the plurality of worlds, calling attention as it did to the utter
+feebleness of the arguments on which men had been content to accept the
+belief that other planets and other systems are inhabited. But some
+among the most powerfully urged arguments against that belief tacitly
+relied on the assumption of a similarity of general condition among the
+members of the solar system. For instance, the small mean density of
+Jupiter and Saturn had, on the Brewsterian theory, been explained as
+probably due to vast hollow spaces in those planets' interiors--an
+explanation which (if it could be admitted) would leave us free to
+believe that Jupiter and Saturn may be made of the same materials as our
+own earth. With this was pleasantly intermixed the conception that the
+inhabitant of these planets may have his 'home in subterranean cities
+warmed by central fires, or in crystal caves cooled by ocean tides, or
+may float with the Nereids upon the deep, or mount upon wings as eagles,
+or rise upon the pinions of the dove, that he may flee away and be at
+rest,' with much more in the same fanciful vein. We now know that there
+can be no cavities more than a few miles below the crust of a planet,
+simply because, under the enormous pressures which would exist, the most
+solid matter would be perfectly plastic. But while Whewell's general
+objection to the theory that Jupiter or Saturn is in the same condition
+as our earth thus acquires new force, the particular explanation which
+he gave of the planet's small density is open to precisely the same
+general objection. For he assumes that, because the planet's mean
+density is little greater than that of water, the planet is probably a
+world of water and ice with a cindery nucleus, or in fact just such a
+world as would be formed if a sufficient quantity of water in the same
+condition as the water of our seas were placed at Jupiter's greater
+distance from the sun, around a nucleus of earthy or cindery matter
+large enough to make the density of the entire planet thus formed equal
+to that of Jupiter, or about one-third greater than the density of
+water. In this argument there are in reality two assumptions, of
+precisely the same nature as those which Whewell set himself to combat.
+It is first assumed that some material existing on a large scale in our
+earth, and nearly of the same density as Jupiter, must constitute the
+chief bulk of that planet, and secondly that the temperature of
+Jupiter's globe must be that which a globe of such material would have
+if placed where Jupiter is. The possibility that Jupiter may be in an
+entirely different stage of planetary life--or, in other words, that the
+youth, middle life, and old age of that planet may belong to quite
+different eras from the corresponding periods of our earth's life--is
+entirely overlooked. Rather, indeed, it may be said that the extreme
+probability of this, on any hypothesis respecting the origin of the
+solar system, and its absolute certainty on the hypothesis of the
+development of that system, are entirely overlooked.
+
+A fair illustration of the erroneous nature of the arguments which have
+been used, not only in advocating rival theories respecting the
+plurality of worlds, but also in dealing with subordinate points, may be
+presented as follows:
+
+Imagine a wide extent of country covered with scattered trees of various
+size, and with plants and shrubs, flowers and herbs, down to the
+minutest known. Let us suppose a race of tiny creatures to subsist on
+one of the fruits of a tree of moderate size, their existence as a race
+depending entirely on the existence of the fruit on which they subsist,
+while the existence of the individuals of their race lasts but for a few
+minutes. Furthermore, let there be no regular fruit season either on
+their tree or in their region of vegetable life, but fruits forming,
+growing, and decaying all the time.
+
+Let us next conceive these creatures to be possessed of a power of
+reasoning respecting themselves, their fruit world, the tree on which it
+hangs, and to some degree even respecting such other trees, plants,
+flowers, and so forth, as the limited range of their vision might be
+supposed to include. It would be a natural thought with them, when first
+they began to exercise this power of reasoning, that their fruit home
+was the most important object in existence, and themselves the chief and
+noblest of living beings. It would also be very natural that they should
+suppose the formation of their world to correspond with the beginning of
+time, and the formation of their race to have followed the formation of
+their world by but a few seconds. They would conclude that a Supreme
+Being had fashioned their world and themselves by special creative acts,
+and that what they saw outside their fruit world had been also specially
+created, doubtless to subserve their wants.
+
+Let us now imagine that gradually, by becoming more closely observant
+than they had been, by combining together to make more complete
+observations, and above all by preserving the records of observations
+made by successive generations, these creatures began to obtain clearer
+ideas respecting their world and the surrounding regions of space. They
+would find evidence that the fruit on which they lived had not been
+formed precisely as they knew it, but had undergone processes of
+development. The distressing discovery would be made that this
+development could not possibly have taken place in a few seconds, but
+must have required many hours, nay, even several of those enormous
+periods called by us days.
+
+This, however, would only be the beginning of their troubles. Gradually
+the more advanced thinkers and the closest observers would perceive that
+not only had their world undergone processes of development, but that
+its entire mass had been formed by such processes--that in fact it had
+not been created at all, in the sense in which they had understood the
+word, but had _grown_. This would be very dreadful to these creatures,
+because they would not readily be able to dispossess their minds of the
+notion that they were the most important beings in the universe, their
+domain of space coextensive with the universe, the duration of their
+world coextensive with time.
+
+But passing over the difficulties thus arising, and the persecution and
+abuse to which those would be subjected who maintained the dangerous
+doctrine that their fruit home had been developed, not created, let us
+consider how these creatures would regard the question of other worlds
+than their own. At first they would naturally be unwilling to admit the
+possibility that other worlds as important as their own could exist. But
+if after a time they found reason to believe that their world was only
+one of several belonging to a certain tree system, the idea would occur
+to them, and would gradually come to be regarded as something more than
+probable, that those other fruit worlds, like their own, might be the
+abode of living creatures. And probably at first, while as yet the
+development of their own world was little understood, they would
+conceive the notion that all the fruits, large or small, upon their tree
+system were in the same condition as their own, and either inhabited by
+similar races or at least in the same full vigour of life-bearing
+existence. But so soon as they recognised the law of development of
+their own world, and the relation between such development and their own
+requirements, they would form a different opinion, if they found that
+only during certain stages of their world's existence life could exist
+upon it. If, for instance, they perceived that their fruit world must
+once have been so bitter and harsh in texture that no creatures in the
+least degree like themselves could have lived upon it, and that it was
+passing slowly but surely through processes by which it would become one
+day dry and shrivelled and unable to support living creatures, they
+would be apt, if their reasoning powers were fairly developed, to
+inquire whether other fruits which they saw around them on their tree
+system were either in the former or in the latter condition. If they
+found reason to believe certain fruits were in one or other of these
+stages, they would regard such fruits as not yet the abode of life or as
+past the life-supporting era. It seems probable even that another idea
+would suggest itself to some among their bolder thinkers. Recognising in
+their own world in several instances what to their ideas resembled
+absolute waste of material or of force, it might appear to them quite
+possible that some, perhaps even a large proportion, of the fruits upon
+their tree were not only not supporting life at the particular epoch of
+observation, but never had supported life and never would--that, through
+some cause or other, life would never appear upon such fruits even when
+they were excellently fitted for the support of life. They might even
+conceive that some among the fruits of their tree had failed or would
+fail to come to the full perfection of fruit life.
+
+Looking beyond their own tree--that is, the tree to which their own
+fruit world belonged--they would perceive other trees, though their
+visual powers might not enable them to know whether such trees bore
+fruit, whether they were in other respects like their own, whether those
+which seemed larger or smaller were really so, or owed their apparent
+largeness to nearness, or their apparent smallness to great distance.
+They would be apt perhaps to generalise a little too daringly respecting
+these remote tree systems, concluding too confidently that a shrub or a
+flower was a tree system like their own, or that a great tree, every
+branch of which was far larger than their entire tree system, belonged
+to the same order and bore similar fruit. They might mistake, also, in
+forgetting the probable fact that as every fruit in their own tree
+system had its own period of life, very brief compared with the entire
+existence of the fruit, so every tree might have its own fruit-bearing
+season. Thus, contemplating a tree which they supposed to be like their
+own in its nature, they might say, 'Yonder is a tree system crowded with
+fruits, each the abode of many myriads of creatures like ourselves:'
+whereas in reality the tree might be utterly unlike their own, might not
+yet have reached or might long since have passed the fruit-bearing
+stage, might when in that stage bear fruit utterly unlike any they could
+even imagine, and each such fruit during its brief life-bearing
+condition might be inhabited by living beings utterly unlike any
+creatures they could conceive.
+
+Yet again, we can very well imagine that the inhabitants of our fruit
+world, though they might daringly overleap the narrow limits of space
+and time within which their actual life or the life of their race was
+cast, though they might learn to recognise the development of their own
+world and of others like it, even from the very blossom, would be
+utterly unable to conceive the possibility that the tree itself to which
+their world belonged had developed by slow processes of growth from a
+time when it was less even than their own relatively minute home.
+
+Still less would it seem credible to them, or even conceivable, that the
+whole forest region to which they belonged, containing many orders of
+trees differing altogether from their own tree system, besides plants
+and shrubs, and flowers and herbs (forms of vegetation of whose use they
+could form no just conception whatever), had itself grown; that once the
+entire forest domain had been under vast masses of water--the substance
+which occasionally visited their world in the form of small drops; that
+such changes were but minute local phenomena of a world infinitely
+higher in order than their own; that that world in turn was but one of
+the least of the worlds forming a yet higher system; and so on _ad
+infinitum_. Such ideas would seem to them not merely inconceivable, but
+many degrees beyond the widest conceptions of space and time which they
+could regard as admissible.
+
+Our position differs only in degree, not in kind, from that of these
+imagined creatures, and the reasoning which we perceive (though they
+could not) to be just for such creatures is just for us also. It was
+perfectly natural that before men recognised the evidences of
+development in the structure of our earth they should regard the earth
+and all things upon the earth and visible from the earth as formed by
+special creative acts precisely as we see them now. But so soon as they
+perceived that the earth is undergoing processes of development and has
+undergone such processes in the past, it was reasonable, though at
+first painful, to conclude that on this point they had been mistaken.
+Yet as we recognise the absurdity of the supposition that, because
+fruits and trees grow, and were not made in a single instant as we know
+them, therefore there is no Supreme Being, so may we justly reject as
+absurd the same argument, enlarged in scale, employed to induce the
+conclusion that because planets and solar systems have been developed to
+their present condition, and were not created in their present form,
+therefore there is no Creator, no God. I do not know that the argument
+ever has been used in this form; but it has been used to show that those
+who believe in the development of worlds and systems must of necessity
+be atheists, an even more mischievous conclusion than the other; for
+none who had not examined the subject would be likely to adopt the
+former conclusion, but many might be willing to believe that a number of
+their fellow-men hold obnoxious tenets, without inquiring closely or at
+all into the reasoning on which the assertion had been based.
+
+But it is more important to notice how our views respecting other worlds
+should be affected by those circumstances in the evidence _we_ have,
+which correspond with the features of the evidence on which the imagined
+inhabitants of the fruit world would form their opinion. It was natural
+that when men first began to reason about themselves and their home they
+should reject the idea of other worlds like ours, and perhaps it was
+equally natural that when first the idea was entertained that the
+planets may be worlds like ours, men should conceive that all those
+worlds are in the same condition as ours. But it would be, or rather it
+_is_, as unreasonable for men to maintain such an opinion now, when the
+laws of planetary development are understood, when the various
+dimensions of the planets are known, and when the shortness of the
+life-supporting period of a planet's existence compared with the entire
+duration of the planet has been clearly recognised, as it would be for
+the imagined inhabitants of a small fruit on a tree to suppose that all
+the other fruits on the tree, though some manifestly far less advanced
+in development and others far more advanced than their own, were the
+abode of the same forms of life, though these forms were seen to require
+those conditions, and no other, corresponding to the stage of
+development through which their own world was passing.
+
+Viewing the universe of suns and worlds in the manner here suggested, we
+should adopt a theory of other worlds which would hold a position
+intermediate between the Brewsterian and the Whewellite theories. (It is
+not on this account that I advocate it, let me remark in passing, but
+simply because it accords with the evidence, which is not the case with
+the others.) Rejecting on the one hand the theory of the plurality of
+worlds in the sense implying that all existing worlds are inhabited, and
+on the other hand the theory of but one world, we should accept a theory
+which might be entitled the Paucity of Worlds, only that relative not
+absolute paucity must be understood. It is absolutely certain that this
+theory is the correct one, if we admit two postulates, neither of which
+can be reasonably questioned--viz., first, that the life-bearing era of
+any world is short compared with the entire duration of that world; and
+secondly, that there can have been no cause which set all the worlds in
+existence, not simultaneously, which would be amazing enough, but (which
+would be infinitely more surprising) in such a way that after passing
+each through its time of preparation, longer for the large worlds and
+shorter for the small worlds, they all reached at the same time the
+life-bearing era. But quite apart from this antecedent probability,
+amounting as it does to absolute certainty if these two highly probably
+postulates are admitted, we have the actual evidence of the planets we
+can examine--that evidence proving incontestably, as I have shown
+elsewhere, that such planets as Jupiter and Saturn are still in the
+state of preparation, still so intensely hot that no form of life could
+possibly exist upon them, and that such bodies as our moon have long
+since passed the life-bearing stage, and are to all intents and purposes
+defunct.
+
+But may we not go farther? Recognising in our own world, in many
+instances, what to our ideas resembles waste--waste seeds, waste lives,
+waste races, waste regions, waste forces--recognising superfluity and
+superabundance in all the processes and in all the works of nature,
+should it not appear at least possible that some, perhaps even a large
+proportion, of the worlds in the multitudinous systems peopling space,
+are not only not now supporting life, but never have supported life and
+never will? Does this idea differ in kind, however largely to our feeble
+conceptions it may seem to differ in degree, from the idea of the
+imagined creatures on a fruit, that some or even many fruits excellently
+fitted for the support of life might not subserve that purpose? And as
+those creatures might conceive (as we _know_) that some fruits, even
+many, fail to come to the full perfection of fruit life, may not we
+without irreverence conceive (as higher beings than ourselves may
+_know_) that a planet or a sun may fail in the making? We cannot say
+that in such a case there would be a waste or loss of material, though
+we may be unable to conceive how the lost sun or planet could be
+utilised. Our imagined insect reasoners would be unable to imagine that
+fruits plucked from their tree system were otherwise than wasted, for
+they would conceive that their idea of the purpose of fruits was the
+only true one; yet they would be altogether mistaken, as we may be in
+supposing the main purpose of planetary existence is the support of
+life.
+
+In like manner, when we pass in imagination beyond the limits of our
+own system, we may learn a useful lesson from the imagined creatures'
+reasoning about other tree systems than that to which their world
+belonged. Astronomers have been apt to generalise too daringly
+respecting remote stars and star systems, as though our solar system
+were a true picture of all solar systems, the system of stars to which
+our sun belongs a true picture of all star systems. They have been apt
+to forget that, as every world in our own system has its period of life,
+short by comparison with the entire duration of the world, so each solar
+system, each system of such systems, may have its own life-bearing
+season, infinitely long according to our conceptions, but very short
+indeed compared with the entire duration of which the life-bearing
+season would be only a single era.
+
+Lastly, though men may daringly overleap the limits of time and space
+within which their lives are cast, though they may learn to recognise
+the development of their own world and of others like it even from the
+blossom of nebulosity, they seem unable to rise to the conception that
+the mighty tree which during remote æons bore those nebulous blossoms
+sprang itself from cosmical germs. We are unable to conceive the nature
+of such germs; the processes of development affecting them belong to
+other orders than any processes we know of, and required periods
+compared with which the inconceivable, nay, the inexpressible periods
+required for the development of the parts of our universe, are as mere
+instants. Yet have we every reason which analogy can afford to believe
+that even the development of a whole universe such as ours should be
+regarded as but a minute local phenomenon of a universe infinitely
+higher in order, that universe in turn but a single member of a system
+of such universes, and so on, even _ad infinitum_. To reject the belief
+that this is possible is to share the folly of beings such as we have
+conceived regarding their tiny world as a fit centre whence to measure
+the universe, while yet, from such a stand-point, this little earth on
+which we live would be many degrees beyond the limits where for them the
+inconceivable would begin. To reject the belief that this is not only
+possible, but real, is to regard the few short steps by which man has
+advanced towards the unknown as a measurable approach towards limits of
+space, towards the beginning and the end of all things. Until it can be
+shown that space is bounded by limits beyond which neither matter nor
+void exists, that time had a beginning before which it was not and tends
+to an end after which it will exist no more, we may confidently accept
+the belief that the history of our earth is as evanescent in time as the
+earth itself is evanescent in space, and that nothing we can possibly
+learn about our earth, or about the system it belongs to, or about
+systems of such systems, can either prove or disprove aught respecting
+the scheme and mode of government of the universe itself. It is true now
+as it was in days of yore, and it will remain true as long as the earth
+and those who dwell on it endure, that what men know is nothing, the
+unknown infinite.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+_SUNS IN FLAMES._
+
+
+In November 1876 news arrived of a catastrophe the effects of which must
+in all probability have been disastrous, not to a district, or a
+country, or a continent, or even a world, but to a whole system of
+worlds. The catastrophe happened many years ago--probably at least a
+hundred--yet the messenger who brought the news has not been idle on his
+way, but has sped along at a rate which would suffice to circle this
+earth eight times in the course of a second. That messenger has had,
+however, to traverse millions of millions of miles, and only reached our
+earth November 1876. The news he brought was that a sun like our own was
+in conflagration; and on a closer study of his message something was
+learned as to the nature of the conflagration, and a few facts tending
+to throw light on the question (somewhat interesting to ourselves)
+whether our own sun is likely to undergo a similar mishap at any time.
+What would happen if he did, we know already. The sun which has just met
+with this disaster--that is, which so suffered a few generations
+ago--blazed out for a time with several hundred times its former lustre.
+If our sun were to increase as greatly in light and heat, the creatures
+on the side of our earth turned towards him at the time would be
+destroyed in an instant. Those on the dark or night hemisphere would not
+have to wait for their turn till the earth, by rotating, carried them
+into view of the destroying sun. In much briefer space the effect of his
+new fires would be felt all over the earth's surface. The heavens would
+be dissolved and the elements would melt with fervent heat. In fact no
+description of such a catastrophe, as affecting the night half of the
+earth, could possibly be more effective and poetical than St. Peter's
+account of the day of the Lord, coming 'as a thief in the night; in the
+which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
+shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are
+therein being burned up;' though I imagine the apostle would have been
+scarce prepared to admit that the earth was in danger from a solar
+conflagration. Indeed, according to another account, the sun was to be
+turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before that great and
+notable day of the Lord came--a description corresponding well with
+solar and lunar eclipses, the most noteworthy 'signs in the heavens,'
+but agreeing very ill with the outburst of a great solar conflagration.
+
+Before proceeding to inquire into the singular and significant
+circumstances of the recent outburst, it may be found interesting to
+examine briefly the records which astronomy has preserved of similar
+catastrophes in former years. These may be compared to the records of
+accidents on the various railway lines in a country or continent. Those
+other suns which we can stars are engines working the mighty mechanism
+of planetary systems, as our sun maintains the energies of our own
+system; and it is a matter of some interest to us to inquire in how many
+cases, among the many suns within the range of vision, destructive
+explosions occur. We may take the opportunity, later, to inquire into
+the number of cases in which the machinery of solar systems appears to
+have broken down.
+
+The first case of a solar conflagration on record is that of the new
+star observed by Hipparchus some 2000 years ago. In his time, and indeed
+until quite recently, an object of this kind was called a new star, or a
+temporary star. But we now know that when a star makes its appearance
+where none had before been visible, what has really happened has been
+that a star too remote to be seen has become visible through some rapid
+increase of splendour. When the new splendour dies out again, it is not
+that a star has ceased to exist; but simply that a faint star which had
+increased greatly in lustre has resumed its original condition.
+Hipparchus's star must have been a remarkable object, for it was visible
+in full daylight, whence we may infer that it was many times brighter
+than the blazing Dog-star. It is interesting in the history of science,
+as having led Hipparchus to draw up a catalogue of stars, the first on
+record. Some moderns, being sceptical, rejected this story as a fiction;
+but Biot examining Chinese Chronicles[32] relating to the times of
+Hipparchus, finds that in 134 B.C. (about nine years before the date of
+Hipparchus's catalogue) a new star was recorded as having appeared in
+the constellation Scorpio.
+
+The next new star (that is, stellar conflagration) on record is still
+more interesting, as there appears some reason for believing that before
+long we may see another outburst of the same star. In the years 945,
+1264, and 1572, brilliant stars appeared in the region of the heavens
+between Cepheus and Cassiopeia. Sir J. Herschel remarks, that, 'from the
+imperfect account we have of the places of the two earlier, as compared
+with that of the last, which was well determined, as well as from the
+tolerably near coincidence of the intervals of their appearance, we may
+suspect them, with Goodricke, to be one and the same star, with a period
+of 312 or perhaps of 156 years.' The latter period may very reasonably
+be rejected, as one can perceive no reason why the intermediate returns
+of the star to visibility should have been overlooked, the star having
+appeared in a region which never sets. It is to be noted that, the
+period from 945 to 1264 being 319 years, and that from 1264 to 1572 only
+308 years, the period of this star (if Goodricke is correct in supposing
+the three outbursts to have occurred in the same star) would seem to be
+diminishing. At any time, then, this star might now blaze out in the
+region between Cassiopeia and Cepheus, for more than 304 years have
+already passed since its last outburst.
+
+As the appearance of a new star led Hipparchus to undertake the
+formation of his famous catalogue, so did the appearance of the star in
+Cassiopeia, in 1572, lead the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe to construct
+a new and enlarged catalogue. (This, be it remembered, was before the
+invention of the telescope.) Returning one evening (November 11, 1572,
+old style) from his laboratory to his dwelling-house, he found, says Sir
+J. Herschel, 'a group of country people gazing at a star, which he was
+sure did not exist an hour before. This was the star in question.'
+
+The description of the star and its various changes is more interesting
+at the present time, when the true nature of these phenomena is
+understood, than it was even in the time when the star was blazing in
+the firmament. It will be gathered from that description and from what I
+shall have to say farther on about the results of recent observations on
+less splendid new stars, that, if this star should reappear in the next
+few years, our observers will probably be able to obtain very important
+information from it. The message from it will be much fuller and more
+distinct than any we have yet received from such stars, though we have
+learned quite enough to remain in no sort of doubt as to their general
+nature.
+
+The star remained visible, we learn, about sixteen months, during which
+time it kept its place in the heavens without the least variation. 'It
+had all the radiance of the fixed stars, and twinkled like them; and was
+in all respects like Sirius, except that it surpassed Sirius in
+brightness and magnitude.' It appeared larger than Jupiter, which was at
+that time at his brightest, and was scarcely inferior to Venus. _It did
+not acquire this lustre gradually_, but shone forth at once of its full
+size and brightness, 'as if,' said the chroniclers of the time, 'it had
+been of instantaneous creation.' For three weeks it shone with full
+splendour, during which time it could be seen at noonday 'by those who
+had good eyes, and knew where to look for it.' But before it had been
+seen a month, it became visibly smaller, and from the middle of December
+1572 till March 1574, when it entirely disappeared, it continually
+diminished in magnitude. 'As it decreased in size, it varied in colour:
+at first its light was white and extremely bright; it then became
+yellowish; afterwards of a ruddy colour like Mars; and finished with a
+pale livid white resembling the colour of Saturn.' All the details of
+this account should be very carefully noted. It will presently be seen
+that they are highly characteristic.
+
+Those who care to look occasionally at the heavens to know whether this
+star has returned to view may be interested to learn whereabouts it
+should be looked for. The place may be described as close to the back of
+the star-gemmed chair in which Cassiopeia is supposed to sit--a little
+to the left of the seat of the chair, supposing the chair to be looked
+at in its normal position. But as Cassiopeia's chair is always inverted
+when the constellation is most conveniently placed for observation, and
+indeed as nine-tenths of those who know the constellation suppose the
+chair's legs to be the back, and _vice versâ_, it may be useful to
+mention that the star was placed somewhat thus with respect to the
+straggling W formed by the five chief stars of Cassiopeia. There is a
+star not very far from the place here indicated, but rather nearer to
+the middle angle of the W. This, however, is not a bright star; and
+cannot possibly be mistaken for the expected visitant. (The place of
+Tycho's star is indicated in my School Star-Atlas and also in my larger
+Library Atlas. The same remark applies to both the new stars in the
+Serpent-Bearer, presently to be described.)
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In August 1596 the astronomer Fabricius observed a new star in the neck
+of the Whale, which also after a time disappeared. It was not noticed
+again till the year 1637, when an observer rejoicing in the name of
+Phocyllides Holwarda observed it, and, keeping a watch, after it had
+vanished, upon the place where it had appeared, saw it again come into
+view nine months after its disappearance. Since then it has been known
+as a variable star with a period of about 331 days 8 hours. When
+brightest this star is of the second magnitude. It indicates a somewhat
+singular remissness on the part of the astronomers of former days, that
+a star shining so conspicuously for a fortnight, once in each period of
+331-1/3 days, should for so many years have remained undetected. It
+may, perhaps, be thought that, noting this, I should withdraw the
+objection raised above against Sir J. Herschel's idea that the star in
+Cassiopeia may return to view once in 156 years, instead of once in 312
+years. But there is a great difference between a star which at its
+brightest shines only as a second-magnitude star, so that it has twenty
+or thirty companions of equal or greater lustre above the horizon along
+with it, and a star which surpasses three-fold the splendid Sirius. We
+have seen that even in Tycho Brahe's day, when probably the stars were
+not nearly so well known by the community at large, the new star in
+Cassiopeia had not shone an hour before the country people were gazing
+at it with wonder. Besides, Cassiopeia and the Whale are constellations
+very different in position. The familiar stars of Cassiopeia are visible
+on every clear night, for they never set. The stars of the Whale, at
+least of the part to which the wonderful variable star belongs, are
+below the horizon during rather more than half the twenty-four hours;
+and a new star there would only be noticed, probably (unless of
+exceeding splendour), if it chanced to appear during that part of the
+year when the Whale is high above the horizon between eventide and
+midnight, or in the autumn and early winter.
+
+It is a noteworthy circumstance about the variable star in the Whale,
+deservedly called Mira, or The Wonderful, that it does not always return
+to the same degree of brightness. Sometimes it has been a very bright
+second-magnitude star when at its brightest, at others it has barely
+exceeded the third magnitude. Hevelius relates that during the four
+years between October 1672 and December 1676, Mira did not show herself
+at all! As this star fades out, it changes in colour from white to red.
+
+Towards the end of September 1604, a new star made its appearance in
+the constellation Ophiuchus, or the Serpent-Bearer. Its place was near
+the heel of the right foot of 'Ophiuchus huge.' Kepler tells us that it
+had no hair or tail, and was certainly not a comet. Moreover, like the
+other fixed stars, it kept its place unchanged, showing unmistakably
+that it belonged to the star-depths, not to nearer regions. 'It was
+exactly like one of the stars, except that in the vividness of its
+lustre, and the quickness of its sparkling, it exceeded anything that he
+had ever seen before. It was every moment changing into some of the
+colours of the rainbow, as yellow, orange, purple, and red; though it
+was generally white when it was at some distance from the vapours of the
+horizon.' In fact, these changes of colour must not be regarded as
+indicating aught but the star's superior brightness. Every very bright
+star, when close to the horizon, shows these colours, and so much the
+more distinctly as the star is the brighter. Sirius, which surpasses the
+brightest stars of the northern hemisphere full four times in lustre,
+shows these changes of colour so conspicuously that they were regarded
+as specially characteristic of this star, insomuch that Homer speaks of
+Sirius (not by name, but as the 'star of autumn') shining most
+beautifully 'when laved of ocean's wave'--that is, when close to the
+horizon. And our own poet, Tennyson, following the older poet, sings how
+
+          the fiery Sirius alters hue,
+  And bickers into red and emerald.
+
+The new star was brighter than Sirius, and was about five degrees lower
+down, when at its highest above the horizon, than Sirius when _he_
+culminates. Five degrees being equal to nearly ten times the apparent
+diameter of the moon, it will be seen how much more favourable the
+conditions were in the case of Kepler's star for those coloured
+scintillations which characterised that orb. Sirius never rises very
+high above the horizon. In fact, at his highest (near midnight in
+winter, and, of course, near midday in summer) he is about as high above
+the horizon as the sun at midday in the first week in February. Kepler's
+star's greatest height above the horizon was little more than
+three-fourths of this, or equal to about the sun's elevation at midday
+on January 13 or 14 in any year.
+
+Like Tycho Brahe's star, Kepler's was brighter even than Jupiter, and
+only fell short of Venus in splendour. It preserved its lustre for about
+three weeks, after which time it gradually grew fainter and fainter
+until some time between October 1605 and February 1606, when it
+disappeared. The exact day is unknown, as during that interval the
+constellation of the Serpent-Bearer is above the horizon in the day-time
+only. But in February 1606, when it again became possible to look for
+the new star in the night-time, it had vanished. It probably continued
+to glow with sufficient lustre to have remained visible, but for the
+veil of light under which the sun concealed it, for about sixteen months
+altogether. In fact, it seems very closely to have resembled Tycho's
+star, not only in appearance and in the degree of its greatest
+brightness, but in the duration of its visibility.
+
+In the year 1670 a new star appeared in the constellation Cygnus,
+attaining the third magnitude. It remained visible, but not with this
+lustre, for nearly two years. After it had faded almost out of view, it
+flickered up again for awhile, but soon after it died out, so as to be
+entirely invisible. Whether a powerful telescope would still have shown
+it is uncertain, but it seems extremely probable. It may be, indeed,
+that this new star in the Swan is the same which has made its appearance
+within the last few weeks; but on this point the evidence is uncertain.
+
+On April 20, 1848, Mr. Hind (Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac,
+and discoverer of ten new members of the solar system) noticed a new
+star of the fifth magnitude in the Serpent-Bearer, but in quite another
+part of that large constellation than had been occupied by Kepler's
+star. A few weeks later, it rose to the fourth magnitude. But afterwards
+its light diminished until it became invisible to ordinary eyesight. It
+did not vanish utterly, however. It is still visible with telescopic
+power, shining as a star of the eleventh magnitude, that is five
+magnitudes below the faintest star discernible with the unaided eye.
+
+This is the first new star which has been kept in view since its
+apparent creation. But we are now approaching the time when it was found
+that as so-called new stars continue in existence long after they have
+disappeared from view, so also they are not in reality new, but were in
+existence long before they became visible to the naked eye.
+
+On May 12, 1866, shortly before midnight, Mr. Birmingham, of Tuam,
+noticed a star of the second magnitude in the Northern Crown, where
+hitherto no star visible to the naked eye had been known. Dr. Schmidt,
+of Athens, who had been observing that region of the heavens the same
+night, was certain that up to 11 P.M., Athens local time, there was no
+star above the fourth magnitude in the place occupied by the new star.
+So that, if this negative evidence can be implicitly relied on, the new
+star must have sprung at least from the fourth, and probably from a much
+lower magnitude, to the second, in less than three hours--eleven o'clock
+at Athens corresponding to about nine o'clock by Irish railway time. A
+Mr. Barker, of London, Canada, put forward a claim to having seen the
+new star as early as May 4--a claim not in the least worth
+investigating, so far as the credit of first seeing the new star is
+concerned, but exceedingly important in its bearing on the nature of the
+outburst affecting the star in Corona. It is unpleasant to have to throw
+discredit on any definite assertion of facts; unfortunately, however,
+Mr. Barker, when his claim was challenged, laid before Mr. Stone, of the
+Greenwich Observatory, such very definite records of observations made
+on May 4, 8, 9, and 10, that we have no choice but either to admit these
+observations, or to infer that he experienced the delusive effects of a
+very singular trick of memory. He mentions in his letter to Mr. Stone
+that he had sent full particulars of his observations on those early
+dates to Professor Watson, of Ann Arbor University, on May 17; but
+(again unfortunately) instead of leaving that letter to tell its own
+story in Professor Watson's hands, he asked Professor Watson to return
+it to him: so that when Mr. Stone very naturally asked Professor Watson
+to furnish a copy of this important letter, Professor Watson had to
+reply, 'About a month ago, Mr. Barker applied to me for this letter, and
+I returned it to him, as requested, without preserving a copy. I can,
+however,' he proceeded, 'state positively that he did not mention any
+actual observation earlier than May 14. He said he thought he had
+noticed a strange star in the Crown about two weeks before the date of
+his first observation--May 14--but not particularly, and that he did not
+recognise it until the 14th. He did not give any date, and did not even
+seem positive as to identity.... When I returned the letter of May 17, I
+made an endorsement across the first page, in regard to its genuineness,
+and attached my signature. I regret that I did not preserve a copy of
+the letter in question; but if the original is produced, it will appear
+that my recollection of its contents is correct.' I think no one can
+blame Mr. Stone, if, on the receipt of this letter, he stated that he
+had not the 'slightest hesitation' in regarding Mr. Barker's earlier
+observations as 'not entitled to the slightest credit.'[33]
+
+It may be fairly taken for granted that the new star leapt very quickly,
+if not quite suddenly, to its full splendour. Birmingham, as we have
+seen, was the first to notice it, on May 12. On the evening of May 13,
+Schmidt of Athens discovered it independently, and a few hours later it
+was noticed by a French engineer named Courbebaisse. Afterwards,
+Baxendell of Manchester, and others independently saw the star. Schmidt,
+examining Argelander's charts of 324,000 stars (charts which I have had
+the pleasure of mapping in a single sheet), found that the star was not
+a new one, but had been set down by Argelander as between the ninth and
+tenth magnitudes. Referring to Argelander's list, we find that the star
+had been twice observed--viz., on May 18, 1855, and on March 31, 1856.
+
+Birmingham wrote at once to Mr. Huggins, who, in conjunction with the
+late Dr. Miller, had been for some time engaged in observing stars and
+other celestial objects with the spectroscope. These two observers at
+once directed their telescope armed with spectroscopic adjuncts--the
+telespectroscope is the pleasing name of the compound instrument--to the
+new-comer. The result was rather startling. It may be well, however,
+before describing it, to indicate in a few words the meaning of various
+kinds of spectroscopic evidence.
+
+The light of the sun, sifted out by the spectroscope, shows all the
+colours but not all the tints of the rainbow. It is spread out into a
+large rainbow-tinted streak, but at various places (a few thousand)
+along the streak there are missing tints; so that in fact the streak is
+crossed by a multitude of dark lines. We know that these lines are due
+to the absorptive action of vapours existing in the atmosphere of the
+sun, and from the position of the lines we can tell what the vapours
+are. Thus, hydrogen by its absorptive action produces four of the bright
+lines. The vapour of iron is there, the vapour of sodium, magnesium, and
+so on. Again, we know that these same vapours, which, by their
+absorptive action, cut off rays of certain tints, emit light of just
+those tints. In fact, if the glowing mass of the sun could be suddenly
+extinguished, leaving his atmosphere in its present intensely heated
+condition, the light of the faint sun which would thus be left us would
+give (under spectroscopic scrutiny) those very rays which now seem
+wanting. There would be a spectrum of multitudinous bright lines,
+instead of a rainbow-tinted spectrum crossed by multitudinous dark
+lines. It is, indeed, only by contrast that the dark lines appear dark,
+just as it is only by contrast that the solar spots seem dark. Not only
+the penumbra but the umbra of a sun-spot, not only the umbra but the
+nucleus, not only the nucleus but the deeper black which seems to lie at
+the core of the nucleus, shine really with a lustre far exceeding that
+of the electric light, though by contrast with the rest of the sun's
+surface the penumbra looks dark, the umbra darker still, the nucleus
+deep black, and the core of the nucleus jet black. So the dark lines
+across the solar spectrum mark where certain rays are relatively faint,
+though in reality intensely lustrous. Conceive another change than that
+just imagined. Conceive the sun's globe to remain as at present, but the
+atmosphere to be excited to many times its present degree of light and
+splendour: then would all these dark lines become bright, and the
+rainbow-tinted background would be dull or even quite dark by contrast.
+This is not a mere fancy. At times, local disturbances take place in the
+sun which produce just such a change in certain constituents of the
+sun's atmosphere, causing the hydrogen, for example, to glow with so
+intense a heat that, instead of its lines appearing dark, they stand out
+as bright lines. Occasionally, too, the magnesium in the solar
+atmosphere (over certain limited regions only, be it remembered) has
+been known to behave in this manner. It was so during the intensely hot
+summer of 1872, insomuch that the Italian observer Tacchini, who noticed
+the phenomenon, attributed to such local overheating of the sun's
+magnesium vapour the remarkable heat from which we then for a time
+suffered.
+
+Now, the stars are suns, and the spectrum of a star is simply a
+miniature of the solar spectrum. Of course, there are characteristic
+differences. One star has more hydrogen, at least more hydrogen at work
+absorbing its rays, and thus has the hydrogen lines more strongly
+marked than they are in the solar spectrum. Another star shows the lines
+of various metals more conspicuously, indicating that the glowing
+vapours of such elements, iron, copper, mercury, tin, and so forth,
+either hang more densely in the star's atmosphere than in our sun's, or,
+being cooler, absorb their special tints more effectively. But speaking
+generally, a stellar spectrum is like the solar spectrum. There is the
+rainbow-tinted streak, which implies that the source of light is glowing
+solid, liquid, or highly compressed vaporous matter, and athwart the
+streak there are the multitudinous dark lines which imply that around
+the glowing heart of the star there are envelopes of relatively cool
+vapours.
+
+We can understand, then, the meaning of the evidence obtained from the
+new star in the Northern Crown.
+
+In the first place, the new star showed the rainbow-tinted streak
+crossed by dark lines, which indicated its sun-like nature. _But,
+standing out on that rainbow-tinted streak as on a dark background, were
+four exceedingly bright lines--lines so bright, though fine, that
+clearly most of the star's light came from the glowing vapours to which
+these lines belonged._ Three of the lines belonged to hydrogen, the
+fourth was not identified with any known line.
+
+Let us distinguish between what can certainly be concluded from this
+remarkable observation, and what can only be inferred with a greater or
+less degree of probability.
+
+It is absolutely certain that when Messrs. Huggins and Miller made their
+observation (by which time the new star had faded from the second to the
+third magnitude), enormous masses of hydrogen around the star were
+glowing with a heat far more intense than that of the star itself within
+the hydrogen envelope. It is certain that the increase in the star's
+light, rendering the star visible which before had been far beyond the
+range of ordinary eyesight, was due to the abnormal heat of the
+hydrogen surrounding that remote sun.
+
+But it is not so clear whether the intense glow of the hydrogen was
+caused by combustion or by intense heat without combustion. The
+difference between the two causes of increased light is important;
+because on the opinion we form on this point must depend our opinion as
+to the probability that our sun may one day experience a similar
+catastrophe, and also our opinion as to the state of the sun in the
+Northern Crown after the outburst. To illustrate the distinction in
+question, let us take two familiar cases of the emission of light. A
+burning coal glows with red light, and so does a piece of iron placed in
+a coal fire. But the coal and the iron are undergoing very different
+processes. The coal is burning, and will presently be consumed; the iron
+is not burning (except in the sense that it is burning hot, which means
+only that it will make any combustible substance burn which is brought
+into contact with it), and it will not be consumed though the coal fire
+be maintained around it for days and weeks and months. So with the
+hydrogen flames which play at all times over the surface of our own sun.
+They are not burning like the hydrogen flames which are used for the
+oxy-hydrogen lantern. Were the solar hydrogen so burning, the sun would
+quickly be extinguished. They are simply aglow with intensity of heat,
+as a mass of red-hot iron is aglow; and, so long as the sun's energies
+are maintained, the hydrogen around him will glow in this way without
+being consumed. As the new fires of the star in the Crown died out
+rapidly, it is possible that in their case there was actual combustion.
+On the other hand, it is also possible, and perhaps on the whole more
+probable, that the hydrogen surrounding the star was simply set glowing
+with increased lustre owing to some cause not as yet ascertained.
+
+Let us see how these two theories have been actually worded by the
+students of science themselves who have maintained them.
+
+'The sudden blazing forth of this star,' says Mr. Huggins, 'and then the
+rapid fading away of its light, suggest the rather bold speculation that
+in consequence of some great internal convulsion, a large volume of
+hydrogen and other gases was evolved from it, the hydrogen, by its
+combination with some other element,' in other words, by _burning_,
+'giving out the light represented by the bright lines, and at the same
+time heating to the point of vivid incandescence the solid matter of the
+star's surface.' 'As the liberated hydrogen gas became exhausted' (I now
+quote not Huggins's own words, but words describing his theory in a book
+which he has edited) 'the flame gradually abated, and, with the
+consequent cooling, the star's surface became less vivid, and the star
+returned to its original condition.'
+
+On the other hand, the German physicists, Meyer and Klein, consider the
+sudden development of hydrogen, in quantities sufficient to explain such
+an outburst, exceedingly unlikely. They have therefore adopted the
+opinion, that the sudden blazing out of the star was occasioned by the
+violent precipitation of some mighty mass, perhaps a planet, upon the
+globe of that remote sun, 'by which the momentum of the falling mass
+would be changed into molecular motion, or in other words into heat and
+light.' It might even be supposed, they urge, that the star in the
+Crown, by its swift motion, may have come in contact with one of the
+star clouds which exist in large numbers in the realms of space. 'Such a
+collision would necessarily set the star in a blaze and occasion the
+most vehement ignition of its hydrogen.'
+
+Fortunately, our sun is safe for many millions of years to come from
+contact from any one of its planets. The reader must not, however, run
+away with the idea that the danger consists only in the gradual
+contraction of planetary orbits sometimes spoken of. That contraction,
+if it is taking place at all, of which we have not a particle of
+evidence, would not draw Mercury to the sun's surface for at least ten
+million millions of years. The real danger would be in the effects which
+the perturbing action of the larger planets might produce on the orbit
+of Mercury. That orbit is even now very eccentric, and must at times
+become still more so. It might, but for the actual adjustment of the
+planetary system, become so eccentric that Mercury could not keep clear
+of the sun; and a blow from even small Mercury (only weighing, in fact,
+390 millions of millions of millions of tons), with a velocity of some
+300 miles per second, would warm our sun considerably. But there is no
+risk of this happening in Mercury's case--though the unseen and much
+more shifty Vulcan (in which planet I beg to express here my utter
+disbelief) might, perchance, work mischief if he really existed.
+
+As for star clouds lying in the sun's course, we may feel equally
+confident. The telescope assures us that there are none immediately on
+the track, and we know, also, that, swiftly though the sun is carrying
+us onwards through space,[34] many millions of years must pass before he
+is among the star families towards which he is rushing.
+
+Of the danger from combustion, or from other causes of ignition than
+those considered by Meyer and Klein, it still remains to speak. But
+first, let us consider what new evidence has been thrown upon the
+subject by the observations made on the star which flamed out last
+November.
+
+The new star was first seen by Professor Schmidt, who has had the good
+fortune of announcing to astronomers more than one remarkable
+phenomenon. It was he who discovered in November 1866 that a lunar
+crater had disappeared, an announcement quite in accordance with the
+facts of the case. We have seen that he was one of the independent
+discoverers of the outburst in the Northern Crown. On November 24, at
+the early hour of 5.41 in the evening (showing that Schmidt takes time
+by the forelock at his observatory), he noticed a star of the third
+magnitude in the constellation of the Swan, not far from the tail of
+that southward-flying celestial bird. He is quite sure that on November
+20, the last preceding clear evening, the star was not there. At
+midnight its light was very yellow, and it was somewhat brighter than
+the neighbouring star Eta Pegasi, on the Flying Horse's southernmost
+knee (if anatomists will excuse my following the ordinary usage which
+calls the wrist of the horse's fore-arm the knee). He sent news of the
+discovery forthwith to Leverrier, the chief of the Paris observatory;
+and the observers there set to work to analyse the light of the
+stranger. Unfortunately the star's suddenly acquired brilliancy rapidly
+faded. M. Paul Henry estimated the star's brightness on December 2 as
+equal only to that of a fifth-magnitude star. Moreover, the colour,
+which had been very yellow on November 24, was by this time 'greenish,
+almost blue.' On December 2, M. Cornu, observing during a short time
+when the star was visible through a break between clouds, found that the
+star's spectrum consisted almost entirely of bright lines. On December
+5, he was able to determine the position of these lines, though still
+much interrupted by clouds. He found three bright lines of hydrogen, the
+strong (really double) line of sodium, the (really triple) line of
+magnesium, and two other lines. One of these last seemed to agree
+exactly in position with a bright line belonging to the corona seen
+around the sun during total eclipse.[35]
+
+The star has since faded gradually in lustre until, at present, it is
+quite invisible to the naked eye.
+
+We cannot doubt that the catastrophe which befell this star is of the
+same general nature as is that which befell the star in the Northern
+Crown. It is extremely significant that all the elements which
+manifested signs of intense heat in the case of the star in the Swan,
+are characteristic of our sun's outer appendages. We know that the
+coloured flames seen around the sun during total solar eclipse consist
+of glowing hydrogen, and of glowing matter giving a line so near the
+sodium line that in the case of a stellar spectrum it would, probably,
+not be possible to distinguish one from the other. Into the prominences
+there are thrown from time to time masses of glowing sodium, magnesium,
+and (in less degree) iron and other metallic vapours. Lastly, in that
+glorious appendage, the solar corona, which extends for hundreds of
+thousands of miles from the sun's surface, there are enormous quantities
+of some element, whose nature is as yet unknown, showing under
+spectroscopic analysis the bright line which seems to have appeared in
+the spectrum of the flaming sun in the Swan.
+
+This evidence seems to me to suggest that the intense heat which
+suddenly affected this star had its origin from without. At the same
+time, I cannot agree with Meyer and Klein in considering that the cause
+of the heat was either the downfall of a planetary mass on the star, or
+the collision of the star with a star-cloudlet, or nebula, traversing
+space in one direction while the star swept onwards in another. A planet
+could not very well come into final conflict with its sun at one fell
+swoop. It would gradually draw nearer and nearer, not by the narrowing
+of its path, but by the change of the path's shape. The path would, in
+fact, become more and more eccentric; until, at length, at its point of
+nearest approach, the planet would graze its primary, exciting an
+intense heat where it struck, but escaping actual destruction that time.
+The planet would make another circuit, and again graze its sun, at or
+near the same part of the planet's path. For several circuits this would
+continue, the grazes not becoming more effective each time, but rather
+less. The interval between them, however, would grow continually less
+and less. At last the time would come when the planet's path would be
+reduced to the circular form, its globe touching its sun's all the way
+round, and then the planet would very quickly be reduced to vapour, and
+partly burned up, its substance being absorbed by its sun. But all the
+successive grazes would be indicated to us by accessions in the star's
+lustre, the period between each seeming outburst being only a few months
+at first, and becoming gradually less and less (during a long course of
+years, perhaps even of centuries), until the planet was finally
+destroyed. Nothing of this sort has happened in the case of any
+so-called new star.
+
+As for the rush of a star through a nebulous mass, that is a theory
+which would scarcely be entertained by any one acquainted with the
+enormous distances separating the gaseous star-clouds properly called
+nebulæ. There may be small clouds of the same sort scattered much more
+densely through space; but we have not a particle of evidence that this
+actually is the case. All we certainly _know_ about star-cloudlets
+suggest that the distances separating them from each other are
+comparable with those which separate star from star, in which case the
+idea of a star coming into collision with a star-cloudlet, and still
+more the idea of this occurring several times in a century, is wild in
+the extreme.
+
+On the whole, the theory seems more probable than any of these, that
+enormous flights of large meteoric masses travel around those stars
+which thus occasionally break forth in conflagration, such flights
+travelling on exceedingly eccentric paths, and requiring enormously long
+periods to complete each circuit of their vast orbits. In conceiving
+this, we are not imagining anything new. Such a meteoric flight would
+differ only in degree not kind from meteoric flights which are known to
+circle around our own sun. I am not sure, indeed, that it can be
+definitely asserted that our sun has no meteoric appendages of the same
+nature as those which, if this theory be true, excite to intense
+periodic activity the sun round which they circle. We know that comets
+and meteors are closely connected, every comet being probably (many
+certainly) attended by flights of meteoric masses. The meteors which
+produce the celebrated November showers of falling stars follow in the
+track of a comet invisible to the naked eye. May we not reasonably
+suppose, then, that those glorious comets which have not only been
+visible but conspicuous, shining even in the day-time, and brandishing
+round tails which, like that of the 'wonder in heaven, the great
+dragon,' seemed to 'draw the third part of the stars of heaven,' are
+followed by much denser flights of much more massive meteors? Now some
+among these giant comets have paths which carry them very close to our
+sun. Newton's comet, with its tail a hundred millions of miles in
+length, all but grazed the sun's globe. The comet of 1843, whose tail,
+says Sir J. Herschel, 'stretched half-way across the sky,' must actually
+have grazed the sun, though but lightly, for its nucleus was within
+80,000 miles of his surface, and its head was more than 160,000 miles in
+diameter. And these are only two among the few comets whose paths are
+known. At any time we might be visited by a comet mightier than either,
+travelling on an orbit intersecting the sun's surface, followed by
+flights of meteoric masses enormous in size and many in number, which,
+falling on the sun's globe with the enormous velocity corresponding to
+their vast orbital range and their near approach to the sun--a velocity
+of some 360 miles per second--would, beyond all doubt, excite his whole
+frame, and especially his surface regions, to a degree of heat far
+exceeding what he now emits.
+
+We have had evidence of the tremendous heat to which the sun's surface
+would be excited by the downfall of a shower of large meteoric masses.
+Carrington and Hodgson, on September 1, 1859, observed (independently)
+the passage of two intensely bright bodies across a small part of the
+sun's surface--the bodies first increasing in brightness, then
+diminishing, then fading away. It is generally believed that these were
+meteoric masses raised to fierce heat by frictional resistance. Now so
+much brighter did they appear, or rather did that part of the sun's
+surface appear through which they had rushed, that Carrington supposed
+the dark glass screen used to protect the eye had broken, and Hodgson
+described the brightness of this part of the sun as such that the part
+shone like a brilliant star on the background of the glowing solar
+surface. Mark, also, the consequences of the downfall of those two
+bodies only. A magnetic disturbance affected the whole frame of the
+earth at the very time when the sun had been thus disturbed. Vivid
+auroras were seen not only in both hemispheres, but in latitudes where
+auroras are very seldom witnessed. 'By degrees,' says Sir J. Herschel,
+'accounts began to pour in of great auroras seen not only in these
+latitudes, but at Rome, in the West Indies, in the tropics within
+eighteen degrees of the equator (where they hardly ever appear); nay,
+what is still more striking, in South America and in Australia--where,
+at Melbourne, on the night of September 2, the greatest aurora ever seen
+there made its appearance. These auroras were accompanied with unusually
+great electro-magnetic disturbances in every part of the world. In many
+places the telegraph wires struck work. They had too many private
+messages of their own to convey. At Washington and Philadelphia, in
+America, the electric signal-men received severe electric shocks. At a
+station in Norway the telegraphic apparatus was set fire to; and at
+Boston, in North America, a flame of fire followed the pen of Bain's
+electric telegraph, which writes down the message upon chemically
+prepared paper.' Seeing that where the two meteors fell the sun's
+surface glowed thus intensely, and that the effect of this accession of
+energy upon our earth was thus well marked, can it be doubted that a
+comet, bearing in its train a flight of many millions of meteoric
+masses, and falling directly upon the sun, would produce an accession of
+light and heat whose consequences would be disastrous? When the earth
+has passed through the richer portions (not the actual nuclei, be it
+remembered) of meteor systems, the meteors visible from even a single
+station have been counted by tens of thousands, and it has been computed
+that millions must have fallen upon the whole earth. These were meteors
+following in the train of very small comets. If a very large comet
+followed by no denser a flight of meteors, but each meteoric mass much
+larger, fell directly upon the sun, it would not be the outskirts but
+the nucleus of the meteoric train which would impinge upon him. They
+would number thousands of millions. The velocity of downfall of each
+mass would be more than 360 miles per second. And they would continue to
+pour in upon him for several days in succession, millions falling every
+hour. It seems not improbable that, under this tremendous and
+long-continued meteoric hail, his whole surface would be caused to glow
+as intensely as that small part whose brilliancy was so surprising in
+the observation made by Carrington and Hodgson. In that case, our sun,
+seen from some remote star whence ordinarily he is invisible, would
+shine out as a new sun, for a few days, while all things living on our
+earth, and whatever other members of the solar system are the abode of
+life, would inevitably be destroyed.
+
+The reader must not suppose that this idea has been suggested merely in
+the attempt to explain outbursts of stars. The following passage from a
+paper of considerable scientific interest by Professor Kirkwood, of
+Bloomington, Indiana, a well-known American astronomer, shows that the
+idea had occurred to him for a very different reason. He speaks here of
+a probable connection between the comet of 1843 and the great sun-spot
+which appeared in June 1843. I am not sure, however, but that we may
+regard the very meteors which seem to have fallen on the sun on
+September 1, 1859, as bodies travelling in the track of the comet of
+1843--just as the November meteors seen in 1867-8, 9, etc., until 1872,
+were bodies certainly following in the track of the telescopic comet of
+1866. 'The opinion has been expressed by more than one astronomer,' he
+says, speaking of Carrington's observation, 'that this phenomenon was
+produced by the fall of meteoric matter upon the sun's surface. Now, the
+fact may be worthy of note that the comet of 1843 actually grazed the
+sun's atmosphere about three months before the appearance of the great
+sun-spot of the same year. Had it approached but little nearer, the
+resistance of the atmosphere would probably have brought its entire mass
+to the solar surface. Even at its actual distance it must have produced
+considerable atmospheric disturbance. But the recent discovery that a
+number of comets are associated with meteoric matter, travelling in
+nearly the same orbits, suggests the inquiry whether an enormous
+meteorite following in the comet's train, and having a somewhat less
+perihelion distance, may not have been precipitated upon the sun, thus
+producing the great disturbance observed so shortly after the comet's
+perihelion passage.'
+
+There are those, myself among the number, who consider the periodicity
+of the solar spots, that tide of spots which flows to its maximum and
+then ebbs to its minimum in a little more than eleven years, as only
+explicable on the theory that a small comet having this period, and
+followed by a meteor train, has a path intersecting the sun's surface.
+In an article entitled 'The Sun a Bubble,' which appeared in the
+'Cornhill Magazine' for October 1874, I remarked that from the observed
+phenomena of sun-spots we might be led to suspect the existence of some
+as yet undetected comet with a train of exceptionally large meteoric
+masses, travelling in a period of about eleven years round the sun, and
+having its place of nearest approach to that orb so close to the solar
+surface that, when the main flight is passing, the stragglers fall upon
+the sun's surface. In this case, we could readily understand that, as
+this small comet unquestionably causes our sun to be variable to some
+slight degree in brilliancy, in a period of about eleven years, so some
+much larger comet circling around Mira, in a period of about 331 days,
+may occasion those alternations of brightness which have been described
+above. It may be noticed in passing, that it is by no means certain that
+the time when the sun is most spotted is the time when he gives out
+least light. Though at such times his surface is dark where the spots
+are, yet elsewhere it is probably brighter than usual; at any rate, all
+the evidence we have tends to show that when the sun is most spotted,
+his energies are most active. It is then that the coloured flames leap
+to their greatest height and show their greatest brilliancy, then also
+that they show the most rapid and remarkable changes of shape.
+
+Supposing there really is, I will not say danger, but a possibility,
+that our sun may one day, through the arrival of some very large comet
+travelling directly towards him, share the fate of the suns whose
+outbursts I have described above, we might be destroyed unawares, or we
+might be aware for several weeks of the approach of the destroying
+comet. Suppose, for example, the comet, which might arrive from any part
+of the heavens, came from out that part of the star-depths which is
+occupied by the constellation Taurus--then, if the arrival were so timed
+that the comet, which might reach the sun at any time, fell upon him in
+May or June, we should know nothing of that comet's approach: for it
+would approach in that part of the heavens which was occupied by the
+sun, and his splendour would hide as with a veil the destroying enemy.
+On the other hand, if the comet, arriving from the same region of the
+heavens, so approached as to fall upon the sun in November or December,
+we should see it for several weeks. For it would then approach from the
+part of the heavens high above the southern horizon at midnight.
+Astronomers would be able in a few days after it was discovered to
+determine its path and predict its downfall upon the sun, precisely as
+Newton calculated the path of _his_ comet and predicted its near
+approach to the sun. It would be known for weeks then that the event
+which Newton contemplated as likely to cause a tremendous outburst of
+solar heat, competent to destroy all life upon the surface of our earth,
+was about to take place; and, doubtless, the minds of many students of
+science would be exercised during that interval in determining whether
+Newton was right or wrong. For my own part, I have very little doubt
+that, though the change in the sun's condition in consequence of the
+direct downfall upon his surface of a very large comet would be but
+temporary, and in that sense slight--for what are a few weeks in the
+history of an orb which has already existed during thousands of millions
+of years?--yet the effect upon the inhabitants of the earth would be by
+no means slight. I do not think, however, that any students of science
+would remain, after the catastrophe, to estimate or to record its
+effects.
+
+Fortunately, all that we have learned hitherto from the stars favours
+the belief that, while a catastrophe of this sort may be possible, it is
+exceedingly unlikely. We may estimate the probabilities precisely in the
+same way that an insurance company estimates the chance of a railway
+accident. Such a company considers the number of accidents which occur
+among a given number of railway journeys, and from the smallness of the
+number of accidents compared with the largeness of the number of
+journeys estimates the safety of railway travelling. Our sun is one
+among many millions of suns, any one of which (though all but a few
+thousands are actually invisible) would become visible to the naked eye,
+if exposed to the same conditions as have affected the suns in flames
+described in the preceding pages. Seeing, then, that during the last
+two thousand years or thereabouts, only a few instances of the kind,
+certainly not so many as twenty, have been recorded, while there is
+reason to believe that some of these relate to the same star which has
+blazed out more than once, we may fairly consider the chance exceedingly
+small that during the next two thousand, or even the next twenty
+thousand years, our sun will be exposed to a catastrophe of the kind.
+
+We might arrive at this conclusion independently of any considerations
+tending to show that our sun belongs to a safe class of system-rulers,
+and that all, or nearly all, the great solar catastrophes have occurred
+among suns of a particular class. There are, however, several
+considerations of the kind which are worth noting.
+
+In the first place, we may dismiss as altogether unlikely the visit of a
+comet from the star-depths to our sun, on a course carrying the comet
+directly upon the sun's surface. But if, among the comets travelling in
+regular attendance upon the sun, there be one whose orbit intersects the
+sun's globe, then that comet must several times ere this have struck the
+sun, raising him temporarily to a destructive degree of heat. Now, such
+a comet must have a period of enormous length, for the races of animals
+now existing upon the earth must all have been formed since that comet's
+last visit--on the assumption, be it remembered, that the fall of a
+large comet upon the sun, or rather the direct passage of the sun
+through the meteoric nucleus of a large comet, would excite the sun to
+destructive heat. If all living creatures on the earth are to be
+destroyed when some comet belonging to the solar system makes its next
+return to the sun, that same comet at its last visit must have raised
+the sun to an equal, or even greater intensity of heat, so that either
+no such races as at present exist had then come into being, or, if any
+such existed, they must at that time have been utterly destroyed. We
+may fairly believe that all comets of the destructive sort have been
+eliminated. Judging from the evidence we have on the subject, the
+process of the formation of the solar system was one which involved the
+utilisation of cometic and meteoric matter; and it fortunately so
+chanced that the comets likely otherwise to have been most
+mischievous--those, namely, which crossed the track of planets, and
+still more those whose paths intersected the globe of the sun--were
+precisely those which would be earliest and most thoroughly used up in
+this way.
+
+Secondly, it is noteworthy that all the stars which have blazed out
+suddenly, except one, have appeared in a particular region of the
+heavens--the zone of the Milky Way (all, too, on one half of that zone).
+The single exception is the star in the Northern Crown, and that star
+appeared in a region which I have found to be connected with the Milky
+Way by a well-marked stream of stars, not a stream of a few stars
+scattered here and there, but a stream where thousands of stars are
+closely aggregated together, though not quite so closely as to form a
+visible extension of the Milky Way. In my map of 324,000 stars this
+stream can be quite clearly recognised; but, indeed, the brighter stars
+scattered along it form a stream recognisable with the naked eye, and
+have long since been regarded by astronomers as such, forming the stars
+of the Serpent and the Crown, or a serpentine streak followed by a loop
+of stars shaped like a coronet. Now the Milky Way, and the outlying
+streams of stars connected with it, seem to form a region of the stellar
+universe where fashioning processes are still at work. As Sir W.
+Herschel long since pointed out, we can recognise in various parts of
+the heavens various stages of development, and chief among the regions
+where as yet Nature's work seems incomplete, is the Galactic
+zone--especially that half of it where the Milky Way consists of
+irregular streams and clouds of stellar light. As there is no reason for
+believing that our sun belongs to this part of the galaxy, but on the
+contrary good ground for considering that he belongs to the class of
+insulated stars, few of which have shown signs of irregular variation,
+while none have ever blazed suddenly out with many hundred times their
+former lustre, we may fairly infer a very high degree of probability in
+favour of the belief that, for many ages still to come, the sun will
+continue steadily to discharge his duties as fire, light, and life of
+the solar system.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+_THE RINGS OF SATURN._
+
+
+The rings of Saturn, always among the most interesting objects of
+astronomical research, have recently been subjected to close scrutiny
+under high telescopic powers by Mr. Trouvelot, of the Harvard
+Observatory, Cambridge, U.S. The results which he has obtained afford
+very significant evidence respecting these strange appendages, and even
+throw some degree of light on the subject of cosmical evolution. The
+present time, when Saturn is the ruling planet of the night, seems
+favourable for giving a brief account of recent speculations respecting
+the Saturnian ring-system, especially as the observations of Mr.
+Trouvelot appear to remove all doubt as to the true nature of the rings,
+if indeed any doubt could reasonably be entertained after the
+investigations made by European and American astronomers when the dark
+inner ring had but recently been recognised.
+
+It may be well to give a brief account of the progress of observation
+from the time when the rings were first discovered.
+
+In passing, I may remark that the failure of Galileo to ascertain the
+real shape of these appendages has always seemed to me to afford
+striking evidence of the importance of careful reasoning upon all
+observations whose actual significance is not at once apparent. If
+Galileo had been thus careful to analyse his observations of Saturn, he
+could not have failed to ascertain their real meaning. He had seen the
+planet apparently attended by two large satellites, one on either side,
+'as though supporting the aged Saturn upon his slow course around the
+sun.' Night after night he had seen these attendants, always similarly
+placed, one on either side of the planet, and at equal distances from
+it. Then in 1612 he had again examined the planet, and lo, the
+attendants had vanished, 'as though Saturn had been at his old tricks,
+and had devoured his children.' But after a while the attendant orbs had
+reappeared in their former positions, had seemed slowly to grow larger,
+until at length they had presented the appearance of two pairs of mighty
+arms encompassing the planet. If Galileo had reasoned upon these changes
+of appearance, he could not have failed, as it seems to me, to interpret
+their true meaning. The three forms under which the rings had been seen
+by him sufficed to indicate the true shape of the appendage. Because
+Saturn was seen with two attendants of apparently equal size and always
+equi-distant from him, it was certain that there must be some appendage
+surrounding him, and extending to that distance from his globe. Because
+this appendage disappeared, it was certain that it must be thin and
+flat. Because it appeared at another time with a dark space between the
+arms and the planet, it was certain that the appendage is separated by a
+wide gap from the body of the planet. So that Galileo might have
+concluded--not doubtfully, but with assured confidence--that the
+appendage is a thin flat ring nowhere attached to the planet, or, as
+Huyghens said some forty years later, Saturn '_annulo cingitur tenui,
+plano, nusquam cohærente_.' Whether such reasoning would have been
+accepted by the contemporaries of Galileo may be doubtful. The
+generality of men are not content with reasoning which is logically
+sound, but require evidence which they can easily understand. Very
+likely Huyghens' proof from direct observation, though in reality not a
+whit more complete and far rougher, would have been regarded as the
+first true proof of the existence of Saturn's ring, just as Sir W.
+Herschel's observation of one star actually moving round another was
+regarded as the first true proof of the physical association of certain
+stars, a fact which Michell had proved as completely and far more neatly
+half a century earlier, by a method, however, which was 'caviare to the
+general.'
+
+However, as matters chanced, the scientific world was not called upon to
+decide between the merits of a discovery made by direct observation and
+one effected by means of abstract reasoning. It was not until Saturn had
+been examined with much higher telescopic power than Galileo could
+employ, that the appendage which had so perplexed the Florentine
+astronomer was seen to be a thin flat ring, nowhere touching the planet,
+and considerably inclined to the plane in which Saturn travels. We
+cannot wonder that the discovery was regarded as a most interesting one.
+Astronomers had heretofore had to deal with solid masses, either known
+to be spheroidal, like the earth, the sun, the moon, Jupiter, and Venus,
+or presumed to be so, like the stars. The comets might be judged to be
+vaporous masses of various forms; but even these were supposed to
+surround or to attend upon globe-shaped nuclear masses. Here, however,
+in the case of Saturn's ring, was a quoit-shaped body travelling around
+the sun in continual attendance upon Saturn, whose motions, no matter
+how they varied in velocity or direction, were so closely followed by
+this strange attendant that the planet remained always centrally poised
+within the span of its ring-girdle. To appreciate the interest with
+which this strange phenomenon was regarded, we must remember that as yet
+the law of gravity had not been recognised. Huyghens discovered the
+ring (or rather perceived its nature) in 1659, but it was not till 1666
+that Newton first entertained the idea that the moon is retained in its
+orbit about the earth by the attractive energy which causes unsupported
+bodies to fall earthwards; and he was unable to demonstrate the law of
+gravity before 1684. Now, in a general sense, we can readily understand
+in these days how a ring around a planet continues to travel along with
+the planet despite all changes of velocity or direction of motion. For
+the law of gravity teaches that the same causes which tend to change the
+direction and velocity of the planet's motion tend in precisely the same
+degree to change the direction and velocity of the ring's motion. But
+when Huyghens made his discovery it must have appeared a most mysterious
+circumstance that a ring and planet should be thus constantly
+associated--that during thousands of years no collision should have
+occurred whereby the relatively delicate structure of the ring had been
+destroyed.
+
+Only six years later a discovery was made by two English observers,
+William and Thomas Ball, which enhanced the mystery. Observing the
+northern face of the ring, which was at that time turned earthwards,
+they perceived a black stripe of considerable breadth dividing the ring
+into two concentric portions. The discovery did not attract so much
+attention as it deserved, insomuch that when Cassini, ten years later,
+announced the discovery of a corresponding dark division on the southern
+surface, none recalled the observation made by the brothers Ball.
+Cassini expressed the opinion that the ring is really divided into two,
+not merely marked by a dark stripe on its southern face. This conclusion
+would, of course, have been an assured one, had the previous observation
+of a dark division on the northern face been remembered. With the
+knowledge which we now possess, indeed, the darkness of the seeming
+stripe would be sufficient evidence that there must be a real division
+there between the rings; for we know that no mere darkness of the ring's
+substance could account for the apparent darkness of the stripe. It has
+been well remarked by Professor Tyndall, that if the moon's whole
+surface could be covered with black velvet, she would yet appear white
+when seen on the dark background of the sky. And it may be doubted
+whether a circular strip of black velvet 2000 miles wide, placed where
+we see the dark division between the rings, would appear nearly as dark
+as that division. Since we could only admit the possibility of some
+substance resembling our darker rocks occupying this position (for we
+know of nothing to justify the supposition that a substance as dark as
+lampblack or black velvet could be there), we are manifestly precluded
+from supposing that the dark space is other than a division between two
+distinct rings.
+
+Yet Sir W. Herschel, in examining the rings of Saturn with his powerful
+telescopes, for a long time favoured the theory that there is no real
+division. He called it the 'broad black mark,' and argued that it can
+neither indicate the existence of a zone of hills upon the ring, nor of
+a vast cavernous groove, for in either case it would present changes of
+appearance (according to the ring's changes of position) such as he was
+unable to detect. It was not until the year 1790, eleven years after his
+observations had commenced, that, perceiving a corresponding broad black
+mark upon the ring's southern face, Herschel expressed a 'suspicion'
+that the ring is divided into two concentric portions by a circular gap
+nearly 2000 miles in width. He expressed at the same time, very
+strongly, his belief that this division was the only one in Saturn's
+ring-system.
+
+A special interest attached at that time to the question whether the
+ring is divided or not, for Laplace had then recently published the
+results of his mathematical inquiry into the movements of such a ring as
+Saturn's, and, having _proved_ that a single solid ring of such enormous
+width could not continue to move around the planet, had expressed the
+_opinion_ that Saturn's ring consists in reality of many concentric
+rings, each turning, with its own proper rotation rate, around the
+central planet. It is singular that Herschel, who, though not versed in
+the methods of the higher mathematics, had considerable native power as
+a mathematician, was unable to perceive the force of Laplace's
+reasoning. Indeed, this is one of those cases where clearness of
+perception rather than profundity of mathematical insight was required.
+Laplace's equations of motion did not express all the relations
+involved, nor was it possible to judge, from the results he deduced, how
+far the stability of the Saturnian rings depended on the real structure
+of these appendages. One who was well acquainted with mechanical
+matters, and sufficiently versed in mathematics to understand how to
+estimate generally the forces acting upon the ring-system, could have
+perceived as readily the general conditions of the problem as the most
+profound mathematician. One may compare the case to the problem of
+determining whether the action of the moon in causing the tidal wave
+modifies in any manner the earth's motion of rotation. We know that as a
+mathematical question this is a very difficult one. The Astronomer
+Royal, for example, not long ago dealt with it analytically, and deduced
+the conclusion that there is no effect on the earth's rotation,
+presently however, discovering by a lucky chance a term in the result
+which indicates an effect of that kind. But if we look at the matter in
+its mechanical aspect, we perceive at once, without any profound
+mathematical research, that the retardation so hard to detect
+mathematically must necessarily take place. As Sir E. Beckett says in
+his masterly work, _Astronomy without Mathematics_, 'the conclusion is
+as evident without mathematics as with them, when once it has been
+suggested.' So when we consider the case of a wide flat ring surrounding
+a mighty planet like Saturn, we perceive that nothing could possibly
+save such a ring from destruction if it were really one solid structure.
+
+To recognise this the more clearly, let us first notice the dimensions
+of the planet and rings.
+
+We have in Saturn a globe about 70,000 miles in mean diameter, an
+equatorial diameter being about 73,000 miles, the polar diameter 66,000
+miles. The attractive force of this mighty mass upon bodies placed on
+its surface is equal to about one-fifth more than terrestrial gravity if
+the body is near the pole of Saturn, and is almost exactly the same as
+terrestrial gravity if the body is at the planet's equator. Its action
+on the matter of the ring is, of course, very much less, because of the
+increased distance, but still a force is exerted on every part of the
+ring which is comparable with the familiar force of terrestrial gravity.
+The outer edge of the outer ring lies about 83,500 miles from the
+planet's centre, the inner edge of the inner ring (I speak throughout of
+the ring-system as known to Sir W. Herschel and Laplace) about 54,500
+miles from the centre, the breadth of the system of bright rings being
+about 29,000 miles. Between the planet's equator and the inner edge of
+the innermost bright ring there intervenes a space of about 20,000
+miles. Roughly speaking, it may be said that the attraction of the
+planet on the substance of the ring's inner edge is less than gravity at
+Saturn's equator (or, which is almost exactly the same thing, is less
+than terrestrial gravity) in about the proportion of 9 to 20; or, still
+more roughly, the inner edge of Saturn's inner bright ring is drawn
+inwards by about half the force of gravity at the earth's surface. The
+outer edge is drawn towards Saturn by a force less than terrestrial
+gravity in the proportion of about 3 to 16--say roughly that the force
+thus exerted by Saturn on the matter of the outer edge of the
+ring-system is equivalent to about one-fifth of the force of gravity at
+the earth's surface.
+
+It is clear, first, that if the ring-system did not rotate, the forces
+thus acting on the material of the rings would immediately break them
+into fragments, and, dragging these down to the planet's equator, would
+leave them scattered in heaps upon that portion of Saturn's surface. The
+ring would in fact be in that case like a mighty arch, each portion of
+which would be drawn towards Saturn's centre by its own weight. This
+weight would be enormous if Bessel's estimate of the mass of the
+ring-system is correct. He made the mass of the ring rather greater than
+the mass of the earth--an estimate which I believe to be greatly in
+excess of the truth. Probably the rings do not amount in mass to more
+than a fourth part of the earth's mass. But even that is enormous, and
+subjected as is the material of the rings to forces varying from
+one-half to a fifth of terrestrial gravity, the strains and pressures
+upon the various parts of the system would exceed thousands of times
+those which even the strongest material built up into their shape could
+resist. The system would no more be able to resist such strains and
+pressures than an arch of iron spanning the Atlantic would be able to
+sustain its own weight against the earth's attraction.
+
+It would be necessary then that the ring-system should rotate around the
+planet. But it is clear that the proper rate of rotation for the outer
+portion would be very different from the rate suited for the inner
+portion. In order that the inner portion should travel around Saturn
+entirely relieved of its weight, it should complete a revolution in
+about seven hours twenty-three minutes. The outer portion, however,
+should revolve in about thirteen hours fifty-eight minutes, or nearly
+fourteen hours. Thus the inner part should rotate in little more than
+half the time required by the outer part. The result would necessarily
+be that the ring-system would be affected by tremendous strains, which
+it would be quite unable to resist. The existence of the great division
+would manifestly go far to diminish the strains. It is easily shown that
+the rate of turning where the division is, would be once in about eleven
+hours and twenty-five minutes, not differing greatly from the mean
+between the rotation-periods for the outside and for the inside edges of
+the system. Even then, however, the strains would be hundreds of times
+greater than the material of the ring could resist. A mass comparable in
+weight to our earth, compelled to rotate in (say) nine hours when it
+ought to rotate in eleven or in seven, would be subjected to strains
+exceeding many times the resistances which the cohesive power of its
+substance could afford. That would be the condition of the inner ring.
+And in like manner the outer ring, if it rotated in about twelve hours
+and three-quarters, would have its outer portions rotating too fast and
+its inner portions too slowly, because their proper periods would be
+fourteen hours and eleven hours and a half respectively. Nothing but the
+division of the ring into a number of narrow hoops could possibly save
+it from destruction through the internal strains and pressures to which
+its material would be subjected.
+
+Even this complicated arrangement, however, would not save the
+ring-system. If we suppose a fine hoop to turn around a central
+attracting body as the rings of Saturn rotate around the planet, it may
+be shown that unless the hoop is so weighted that its centre of gravity
+is far from the planet, there will be no stability in the resulting
+motions; the hoop will before long be made to rotate eccentrically, and
+eventually be brought into destructive collision with the central
+planet.
+
+It was here that Laplace left the problem. Nothing could have been more
+unsatisfactory than his result, though it was accepted for nearly half a
+century unquestioned. He had shown that a weighted fine hoop may
+possibly turn around a central attracting mass without destructive
+changes of position, but he had not proved more than the bare
+possibility of this, while nothing in the appearance of Saturn's rings
+suggests that any such arrangement exists. Again, manifestly a multitude
+of narrow hoops, so combined as to form a broad flat system of rings,
+would be constantly in collision _inter se_. Besides, each one of them
+would be subjected to destructive strains. For though a fine uniform
+hoop set rotating at a proper rate around an attracting mass at its
+centre would be freed from all strains, the case is very different with
+a hoop so weighted as to have its centre of gravity greatly displaced.
+Laplace had saved the theoretical stability of the motions of a fine
+ring at the expense of the ring's power of resisting the strains to
+which it would be exposed. It seems incredible that such a result
+(expressed, too, very doubtingly by the distinguished mathematician who
+had obtained it) should have been accepted so long almost without
+question. There is nothing in nature in the remotest degree resembling
+the arrangement imagined by Laplace, which indeed appears on _à priori_
+grounds impossible. It was not claimed for it that it removed the
+original difficulties of the problem; and it introduced others fully as
+serious. So strong, however, is authority in the scientific world that
+none ventured to express any doubts except Sir W. Herschel, who simply
+denied that the two rings were divided into many, as Laplace's theory
+required. As time went on and the signs of many divisions were at times
+recognised, it was supposed that Laplace's reasoning had been justified;
+and despite the utter impossibility of the arrangement he had suggested,
+that arrangement was ordinarily described as probably existing.
+
+At length, however, a discovery was made which caused the whole question
+to be reopened.
+
+On November 10, 1850, W. Bond, observing the planet with the telescope
+of the Harvard Observatory, perceived within the inner bright ring a
+feeble illumination which he was at a loss to understand. On the next
+night the faint light was better seen. On the 15th, Tuttle, who was
+observing with Bond, suggested the idea that the light within the inner
+bright ring was due to a dusky ring inside the system of bright rings.
+On November 25, Mr. Dawes in England perceived this dusky ring, and
+announced the discovery before the news had reached England that Bond
+had already seen the dark ring. The credit of the discovery is usually
+shared between Bond and Dawes, though the usual rule in such matters
+would assign the discovery to Bond alone. It was found that the dark
+ring had already been seen at Rome so far back as 1828, and again by
+Galle at Berlin in May 1838. The Roman observations were not
+satisfactory. Those by Galle, however, were sufficient to have
+established the fact of the ring's existence; indeed, in 1839 Galle
+measured the dark ring. But very little attention was attracted to this
+interesting discovery, insomuch that when Bond and Dawes announced their
+observation of the dark ring in 1850, the news was received by
+astronomers with all the interest attaching to the detection of before
+unnoted phenomena.
+
+It may be well to notice under what conditions the dark ring was
+detected in 1850. In September 1848 the ring had been turned edgewise
+towards the sun, and as rather more than seven years are occupied in
+the apparent gradual opening out of the ring from that edge view to its
+most open appearance (when the outline of the ring-system is an eclipse
+whose lesser axis is nearly equal to half the greater), it will be seen
+that in November 1850 the rings were but slightly opened. Thus the
+recognition of the dark ring within the bright system was made under
+unfavourable conditions. For four preceding years--that is, from the
+year 1846--the rings had been as little or less opened; and again for
+several years preceding 1846, though the rings had been more open, the
+planet had been unfavourably placed for observation in northern
+latitudes, crossing the meridian at low altitudes. Still, in 1838 and
+1839, when the rings were most open, although the planet was never seen
+under favourable conditions, the opening of the rings, then nearly at
+its greatest, made the recognition of the dark ring possible; and we
+have seen that Galle then made the discovery. When Bond rediscovered the
+dark ring, everything promised that before long the appendage would be
+visible with telescopes far inferior in power to the great Harvard
+refractor. Year after year the planet was becoming more favourably
+placed for observation, while all the time the rings were opening out.
+Accordingly it need not surprise us to learn that in 1853 the dark ring
+was seen with a telescope less than three inches and a half in aperture.
+Even so early as 1851, Mr. Hartnup, observing the planet with a
+telescope eight inches and a half in aperture, found that 'the dark ring
+could not be overlooked for an instant.'
+
+But while this increase in the distinctness of the dark ring was to be
+expected, from the mere fact that the ring was discovered under
+relatively unfavourable conditions, yet the fact that Saturn was thus
+found to have an appendage of a remarkable character, perfectly obvious
+even with moderate telescopic power, was manifestly most surprising.
+The planet had been studied for nearly two centuries with telescopes
+exceeding in power those with which the dark ring was now perceived.
+Some among these telescopes were not only of great power, but employed
+by observers of the utmost skill. The elder Herschel had for a quarter
+of a century studied Saturn with his great reflectors eighteen inches in
+aperture, and had at times turned on the planet his monstrous (though
+not mighty) four-feet mirror. Schröter had examined the dark space
+within the inner bright ring for the special purpose of determining
+whether the ring-system is really disconnected from the globe. He had
+used a mirror nineteen inches in aperture, and he had observed that the
+dark space seen on either side of Saturn inside the ring-system not only
+appeared dark, but actually darker than the surrounding sky. This was
+presumably (though not quite certainly) an effect of contrast only, the
+dark space being bounded all round by bright surfaces. If real, the
+phenomenon signified that whereas the space outside the ring, where the
+satellites of the planet travel, was occupied by some sort of cosmical
+dust, the space within the ring-system was, as it were, swept and
+garnished, as though all the scattered matter which might otherwise have
+occupied that region had been either attracted to the body of the planet
+or to the rings.[36] But manifestly the observation was entirely
+inconsistent with the supposition that there existed in Schröter's time
+a dark or dusky ring within the bright system. Again, the elder Struve
+made the most careful measurement of the whole of the ring-system in
+1826, when the system was as well placed for observation as in 1856
+(or, in other words, as well placed as it can possibly be); but though
+he used a telescope nine inches and a half in aperture, and though his
+attention was specially attracted to the inner edge of the inner bright
+ring (_which seemed to him indistinct_), he did not detect the dark
+ring. Yet we have seen that in 1851, under much less favourable
+conditions, a less practised observer, using a telescope of less
+aperture, found that the dark ring could not be overlooked for an
+instant. It is manifest that all these considerations point to the
+conclusion that the dark ring is a new formation, or, at the least, that
+it has changed notably in condition during the present century.
+
+I have hitherto only considered the appearance of the dusky ring as seen
+on either side of the planet's globe within the bright rings. The most
+remarkable feature of the appendage remains still to be mentioned--the
+fact, namely, that the bright body of the planet can be seen through
+this dusky ring. Where the dark ring crosses the planet, it appears as a
+rather dark belt, which might readily be mistaken for a belt upon the
+planet's surface; for the outline of the planet can be seen through the
+ring as through a film of smoke or a crape veil.
+
+Now it is worthy of notice that whereas the dark ring was not detected
+outside the planet's body until 1838, nor generally recognised by
+astronomers until 1850, the dark belt across the planet, really caused
+by the dusky ring, was observed more than a century earlier. In 1715 the
+younger Cassini saw it, and perceived that it was not curved enough for
+a belt really belonging to the planet. Hadley again observed that the
+belt attended the ring as this opened out and closed, or, in other
+words, that the dark belt belonged to the ring, not to the body of the
+planet. And in many pictures of Saturn's system a dark band is shown
+along the inner edge of the inner bright ring where it crosses the body
+of the planet. It seems to me that we have here a most important piece
+of evidence respecting the rings. It is clear that the inner part of the
+inner bright ring has for more than a century and a half (how much more
+we do not know) been partially transparent, and it is probable that
+within its inner edge there has been all the time a ring of matter; but
+this ring has only within the last half-century gathered consistency
+enough to be discernible. It is manifest that the existence of the dark
+belt shown in the older pictures would have led directly to the
+detection of the dark ring, had not this appendage been exceedingly
+faint. Thus, while the observation of the dark belt across the planet's
+face proves the dusky ring to have existed in some form long before it
+was perceived, the same fact only helps to render us certain that the
+dark ring has changed notably in condition during the present century.
+
+The discovery of this singular appendage, an object unique in the solar
+system, naturally attracted fresh attention to the question of the
+stability of the rings. The idea was thrown out by the elder Bond that
+the new ring may be fluid, or even that the whole ring-system may be
+fluid, and the dark ring simply thinner than the rest. It was thought
+possible that the ring-system is of the nature of a vast ocean, whose
+waves are steadily advancing upon the planet's globe. The mathematical
+investigation of the subject was also resumed by Professor Benjamin
+Pierce, of Harvard, and it was satisfactorily demonstrated that the
+stability of a system of actual rings of solid matter required so nice
+an adjustment of so many narrow rings as to render the system far more
+complex than even Laplace had supposed. 'A stable formation can,' he
+said, 'be nothing other than a very great number of separate narrow
+rigid rings, each revolving with its proper relative velocity.' As was
+well remarked by the late Professor Nichol, 'If this arrangement or
+anything like it were real, how many new conditions of instability do we
+introduce. Observation tells us that the division between such rings
+must be extremely narrow, so that the slightest disturbance by external
+or internal causes would cause one ring to impinge upon another; and we
+should thus have the seed of perpetual catastrophes.' Nor would such a
+constitution protect the system against dissolution. 'There is no escape
+from the difficulties, therefore, but through the final rejection of the
+idea that Saturn's rings are rigid or in any sense a solid formation.'
+
+The idea that the ring-system may be fluid came naturally next under
+mathematical scrutiny. Strangely enough, the physical objections to the
+theory of fluidity appear to have been entirely overlooked. Before we
+could accept such a theory, we must admit the existence of elements
+differing entirely from those with which we are familiar. No fluid known
+to us could retain the form of the rings of Saturn under the conditions
+to which they are exposed. But the mathematical examination of the
+subject disposed so thoroughly of the theory that the rings can consist
+of continuous fluid masses, that we need not now discuss the physical
+objections to the theory.
+
+There remains only the theory that the Saturnian ring-system consists of
+discrete masses analogous to the streams of meteors known to exist in
+great numbers within the solar system. The masses may be solid or fluid,
+may be strewn in relatively vacant space, or may be surrounded by
+vaporous envelopes; but that they are discrete, each free to travel on
+its own course, seemed as completely demonstrated by Pierce's
+calculations as anything not actually admitting of direct observation
+could possibly be. The matter was placed beyond dispute by the
+independent analysis to which Clerk Maxwell subjected the mathematical
+problem. It had been selected in 1855 as the subject for the Adams Prize
+Essay at Cambridge, and Clerk Maxwell's essay, which obtained the prize,
+showed conclusively that only a system of many small bodies, each free
+to travel upon its course under the varying attractions to which it was
+subjected by Saturn itself, and by the Saturnian satellites, could
+possibly continue to girdle a planet as the rings of Saturn girdle him.
+
+It is clear that all the peculiarities hitherto observed in the
+Saturnian ring-system are explicable so soon as we regard that system as
+made up of multitudes of small bodies. Varieties of brightness simply
+indicate various degrees of condensation of these small satellites. Thus
+the outer ring had long been observed to be less bright than the inner.
+Of course it did not seem impossible that the outer ring might be made
+of different materials; yet there was something bizarre in the
+supposition that two rings forming the same system were thus different
+in substance. It would not have been at all noteworthy if different
+parts of the same ring differed in luminosity--in fact, it was much more
+remarkable that each zone of the system seemed uniformly bright all
+round. But that one zone should be of one tint, another of an entirely
+different tint, was a strange circumstance so long as the only available
+interpretation seemed to be that one zone was made (throughout) of one
+substance, the other of another. If this was strange when the difference
+between the inner and outer bright rings was alone considered, how much
+stranger did it seem when the multitudinous divisions in the rings were
+taken into account! Why should the ring-system, 30,000 miles in width,
+be thus divided into zones of different material? An arrangement so
+artificial is quite unlike all that is elsewhere seen among the
+subjects of the astronomer's researches. But when the rings are regarded
+as made up of multitudes of small bodies, we can quite readily
+understand how the nearly circular movements of all of these, at
+different rates, should result in the formation of rings of aggregation
+and rings of segregation, appearing at the earth's distance as bright
+rings and faint rings. The dark ring clearly corresponds in appearance
+with a ring of thinly scattered satellites. Indeed, it seems impossible
+otherwise to account for the appearance of a dusky belt across the globe
+of the planet where the dark ring crosses the disc. If the material of
+the dark ring were some partly transparent solid or fluid substance, the
+light of the planet received through the dark ring added to the light
+reflected by the dark ring itself, would be so nearly equivalent to the
+light received from the rest of the planet's disc, that either no dark
+belt would be seen, or the darkening would be barely discernible. In
+some positions a bright belt would be seen, not a dark one. But a ring
+of scattered satellites would cast as its shadow a multitude of black
+spots, which would give to the belt in shadow a dark grey aspect. A
+considerable proportion of these spots would be hidden by the satellites
+forming the dark ring, and in every case where a spot was wholly or
+partially hidden by a satellite, the effect (at our distant station
+where the separate satellites of the dark ring are not discernible)
+would simply be to reduce _pro tanto_ the darkness of the grey belt of
+shadow. But certainly more than half the shadows of the satellites would
+remain in sight; for the darkness of the ring at the time of its
+discovery showed that the satellites were very sparsely strewn. And
+these shadows would be sufficient to give to the belt a dusky hue, such
+as it presented when first discovered.[37]
+
+The observations which have recently been made by Mr. Trouvelot
+indicate changes in the ring-system, and especially in the dark ring,
+which place every other theory save that to which we have thus been led
+entirely out of the question. It should be noted that Mr. Trouvelot has
+employed telescopes of unquestionable excellence and varying in aperture
+from six inches to twenty-six inches, the latter aperture being that of
+the great telescope of the Washington Observatory (the largest refractor
+in the world).
+
+He has noted in the first place that the interior edge of the outer
+bright ring, which marks the outer limit of the great division, is
+irregular, but whether the irregularity is permanent or not he does not
+know. The great division itself is found not to be actually black, but,
+as was long since noted by Captain Jacob, of the Madras Observatory, a
+very dark brown, as though a few scattered satellites travelled along
+this relatively vacant zone of the system. Mr. Trouvelot has further
+noticed that the shadow of the planet upon the rings, and especially
+upon the outer ring, changes continually in shape, a circumstance which
+he attributes to irregularities in the surface of the rings. For my own
+part, I should be disposed to attribute these changes in the shape of
+the planet's shadow (noted by other observers also) to rapid changes in
+the deep cloud-laden atmosphere of the planet. Passing on, however, to
+less doubtful observations, we find that the whole system of rings has
+presented a clouded and spotted aspect during the last four years. Mr.
+Trouvelot specially describes this appearance as observed on the parts
+of the ring outside the disc, called by astronomers the _ansæ_ (because
+of their resemblance to handles), and it would seem, therefore, that the
+spotted and cloudy portions are seen only where the background on which
+the rings are projected is black. This circumstance clearly suggests
+that the darkness of these parts is due to the background, or, in other
+words, that the sky is in reality seen through those parts of the
+ring-system, just as the darkness of the slate-coloured interior ring is
+attributed, on the satellite theory, to the background of sky visible
+through the scattered flight of satellites forming the dark ring. The
+matter composing the dark ring has been observed by Mr. Trouvelot to be
+gathered in places into compact masses, which prevent the light of the
+planet from being seen through those portions of the dark ring where the
+matter is thus massed together. It is clear that such peculiarities
+could not possibly present themselves in the case of a continuous solid
+or fluid ring-system, whereas they would naturally occur in a ring
+formed of multitudes of minute bodies travelling freely around the
+planet.
+
+The point next to be mentioned is still more decisive. When the dark
+ring was carefully examined with powerful telescopes during the ten
+years following its discovery by Bond, at which time it was most
+favourably placed for observation, it was observed that the outline of
+the planet could be seen across the entire breadth of the dark ring. All
+the observations agreed in this respect. It was, indeed, noticed by
+Dawes that outside the planet's disc the dark ring showed varieties of
+tint, its inner half being darker than its outer portion. Lassell,
+observing the planet under most favourable conditions with his two-feet
+mirror at Malta, could not perceive these varieties of tint, which
+therefore we may judge to have been either not permanent or very
+slightly marked. But, as I have said, all observers agreed that the
+outline of the planet could be seen athwart the entire width of the
+dark ring. Mr. Trouvelot, however, has found that during the last four
+years the planet has not been visible through the whole width of the
+dark ring, but only through the inner half of the ring's breadth. It
+appears, then, that either the inner portion is getting continually
+thinner and thinner--that is, the satellites composing it are becoming
+continually more sparsely strewn--or that the outer portion is becoming
+more compact, doubtless by receiving stray satellites from the interior
+of the inner bright ring.
+
+It is clear that in Saturn's ring-system, if not in the planet itself,
+mighty changes are still taking place. It may be that the rings are
+being so fashioned under the forces to which they are subjected as to be
+on their way to becoming changed into separate satellites, inner members
+of that system which at present consists of eight secondary planets.
+But, whatever may be the end towards which these changes are tending, we
+see processes of evolution taking place which may be regarded as
+typifying the more extensive and probably more energetic processes
+whereby the solar system itself reached its present condition. I
+ventured more than ten years ago, in the preface to my treatise upon the
+planet Saturn, to suggest the possibility 'that in the variations
+perceptibly proceeding in the Saturnian ring-system a key may one day be
+found to the law of development under which the solar system has reached
+its present condition.' This suggestion seems to me strikingly confirmed
+by the recent discoveries. The planet Saturn and its appendages, always
+interesting to astronomers, are found more than ever worthy of close
+investigation and scrutiny. We may here, as it were, seize nature in the
+act, and trace out the actual progress of developments which at present
+are matters rather of theory than of observation.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+_COMETS AS PORTENTS_
+
+                                The blazing star,
+  Threat'ning the world with famine, plague, and war;
+  To princes death; to kingdoms many curses;
+  To all estates inevitable losses;
+  To herdsmen rot; to ploughmen hapless seasons;
+  To sailors storms; to cities civil treasons.
+
+
+Although comets are no longer regarded with superstitious awe as in old
+times, mystery still clings to them. Astronomers can tell what path a
+comet is travelling upon, and say whence it has come and whither it will
+go, can even in many cases predict the periodic returns of a comet, can
+analyse the substance of these strange wanderers, and have recently
+discovered a singular bond of relationship between comets and those
+other strange visitants from the celestial depths, the shooting stars.
+But astronomy has hitherto proved unable to determine the origin of
+comets, the part they perform in the economy of the universe, their real
+structure, the causes of the marvellous changes of shape which they
+undergo as they approach the sun, rush round him, and then retreat. As
+Sir John Herschel has remarked: 'No one, hitherto, has been able to
+assign any single point in which we should be a bit better or worse off,
+materially speaking, if there were no such thing as a comet. Persons,
+even thinking persons, have busied themselves with conjectures; such as
+that they may serve for fuel for the sun (into which, however, they
+never fall), or that they may cause warm summers, which is a mere fancy,
+or that they may give rise to epidemics, or potato-blights, and so
+forth.' And though, as he justly says, 'this is all wild talking,' yet
+it will probably continue until astronomers have been able to master the
+problems respecting comets which hitherto have foiled their best
+efforts. The unexplained has ever been and will ever be marvellous to
+the general mind. Just as unexplored regions of the earth have been
+tenanted in imagination by
+
+    anthropophagi and men whose heads
+Do grow beneath their shoulders,
+
+so do wondrous possibilities exist in the unknown and the ill-understood
+phenomena of nature.
+
+In old times, when the appearance and movements of comets were supposed
+to be altogether uncontrolled by physical laws, it was natural that
+comets should be regarded as signs from heaven, tokens of Divine wrath
+towards some, and of the interposition of Divine providence in favour of
+others. As Seneca well remarked: 'There is no man so dull, so obtuse, so
+turned to earthly things, who does not direct all the powers of his mind
+towards things Divine when some novel phenomenon appears in the heavens.
+While all follows its usual course up yonder, familiarity robs the
+spectacle of its grandeur. For so is man made. However wonderful may be
+what he sees day after day, he looks on it with indifference; while
+matters of very little importance attract and interest him if they
+depart from the accustomed order. The host of heavenly constellations
+beneath the vault of heaven, whose beauty they adorn, attract no
+attention; but if any unusual appearance be noticed among them, at once
+all eyes are turned heavenwards. The sun is only looked on with
+interest when he is undergoing eclipse. Men observe the moon only under
+like conditions.... So thoroughly is it a part of our nature to admire
+the new rather than the great. The same is true of comets. When one of
+these fiery bodies of unusual form appears, every one is eager to know
+what it means; men forget other objects to inquire about the new
+arrival; they know not whether to wonder or to tremble; for many spread
+fear on all sides, drawing from the phenomenon most grave prognostics.'
+
+There is no direct reference to comets in the Bible, either in the Old
+Testament or the New. It is possible that some of the signs from heaven
+recorded in the Bible pages were either comets or meteors, and that even
+where in some places an angel or messenger from God is said to have
+appeared and delivered a message, what really happened was that some
+remarkable phenomenon in the heavens was interpreted in a particular
+manner by the priests, and the interpretation afterwards described as
+the message of an angel. The image of the 'flaming sword which turned
+every way' may have been derived from a comet; but we can form no safe
+conclusion about this, any more than we can upon the question whether
+the 'horror of great darkness' which fell upon Abraham (Genesis xv. 12)
+when the sun was going down, was caused by an eclipse;[38] or whether
+the going back of the shadow upon the dial of Ahaz was caused by a mock
+sun. The star seen by the wise men from the east may have been a comet,
+since the word translated 'star' signifies any bright object seen in the
+heavens, and is in fact the same word which Homer, in a passage
+frequently referred to, uses to signify either a comet or a meteor. The
+way in which it appeared to go before them, when (directed by Herod, be
+it noticed) they went to Bethlehem, almost due south of Jerusalem, would
+correspond to a meridian culmination low down--for the star had
+manifestly not been visible in the earlier evening, since we are told
+that they rejoiced when they saw the star again. It was probably a comet
+travelling southwards; and, as the wise men had travelled from the east,
+it had very likely been first seen in the west as an evening star,
+wherefore its course was retrograde--that is, supposing it _was_ a
+comet.[39] It may possibly have been an apparition of Halley's comet,
+following a course somewhat similar to that which it followed in the
+year 1835, when the perihelion passage was made on November 15, and the
+comet running southwards disappeared from northern astronomers, though
+in January it was '_received_' by Sir J. Herschel, to use his own
+expression, 'in the southern hemisphere.' There was an apparition of
+Halley's comet in the year 66, or seventy years after the Nativity; and
+the period of the comet varies, according to the perturbing influences
+affecting the comet's motion, from sixty-nine to eighty years.
+
+Homer does not, to the best of my recollection, refer anywhere directly
+to comets. Pope, indeed, who made very free with Homer's references to
+the heavenly bodies,[40] introduces a comet--and a red one, too!--into
+the simile of the heavenly portent in Book IV.:--
+
+  As the red comet from Saturnius sent
+  To fright the nations with a dire portent
+  (A fatal sign to armies in the plain,
+  Or trembling sailors on the wintry main),
+  With sweeping glories glides along in air,
+  And shakes the sparkles from its blazing hair:
+  Between two armies thus, in open sight,
+  Shot the bright goddess in a trail of light.
+
+But Homer says nothing of this comet. If Homer had introduced a comet,
+we may be sure it would not have shaken sparkles from its blazing tail.
+Homer said simply that 'Pallas rushed from the peaks of heaven, like the
+bright star sent by the son of crafty-counselled Kronus (as a sign
+either to sailors, or the broad array of the nations), from which many
+sparks proceed.' Strangely enough, Pingré and Lalande, the former noted
+for his researches into ancient comets, the latter a skilful astronomer,
+agree in considering that Homer really referred to a comet, and they
+even regard this comet as an apparition of the comet of 1680. They cite
+in support of this opinion the portent which followed the prayer of
+Anchises, 'Æneid,' Book II. 692, etc.: 'Scarce had the old man ceased
+from praying, when a peal of thunder was heard on the left, and a star,
+gliding from the heavens amid the darkness, rushed through space
+followed by a long train of light; we saw the star,' says Æneas,
+'suspended for a moment above the roof, brighten our home with its
+fires, then, tracing out a brilliant course, disappear in the forests of
+Ida; then a long train of flame illuminated us, and the place around
+reeked with the smell of sulphur. Overcome by these startling portents,
+my father arose, invoked the gods, and worshipped the holy star.' It is
+impossible to recognise here the description of a comet. The noise, the
+trail of light, the visible motion, the smell of sulphur, all correspond
+with the fall of a meteorite close by; and doubtless Virgil simply
+introduced into the narrative the circumstances of some such phenomenon
+which had been witnessed in his own time. To base on such a point the
+theory that the comet of 1680 was visible at the time of the fall of
+Troy, the date of which is unknown, is venturesome in the extreme. True,
+the period calculated for the comet of 1680, when Pingré and Lalande
+agreed in this unhappy guess, was 575 years; and if we multiply this
+period by five we obtain 2875 years, taking 1680 from which leaves 1195
+years B.C., near enough to the supposed date of the capture of Troy.
+Unfortunately, Encke (the eminent astronomer to whom we owe that
+determination of the sun's distance which for nearly half a century held
+its place in our books, but has within the last twenty years been
+replaced by a distance three millions of miles less) went over afresh
+the calculations of the motions of that famous comet, and found that,
+instead of 575 years, the most probable period is about 8814 years. The
+difference amounts only to 8239 years; but even this small difference
+rather impairs the theory of Lalande and Pingré.[41]
+
+Three hundred and seventy-one years before the Christian era, a comet
+appeared which Aristotle (who was a boy at the time) has described.
+Diodorus Siculus writes thus respecting it: 'In the first year of the
+102d Olympiad, Alcisthenes being Archon of Athens, several prodigies
+announced the approaching humiliation of the Lacedæmonians; a blazing
+torch of extraordinary size, which was compared to a flaming beam, was
+seen during several nights.' Guillemin, from whose interesting work on
+Comets I have translated the above passage, remarks that this same comet
+was regarded by the ancients as having not merely presaged but produced
+the earthquakes which caused the towns of Helice and Bura to be
+submerged. This was clearly in the thoughts of Seneca when he said of
+this comet that as soon as it appeared it brought about the submergence
+of Bura and Helice.
+
+In those times, however, comets were not regarded solely as signs of
+disaster. As the misfortunes of one nation were commonly held to be of
+advantage to other nations, so the same comet might be regarded very
+differently by different nations or different rulers. Thus the comet of
+the year 344 B.C. was regarded by Timoleon of Corinth as presaging the
+success of his expedition against Corinth. 'The gods announced,' said
+Diodorus Siculus, 'by a remarkable portent, his success and future
+greatness; a blazing torch appeared in the heavens at night, and went
+before the fleet of Timoleon until he arrived in Sicily.' The comets of
+the years 134 B.C. and 118 B.C. were not regarded as portents of death,
+but as signalising, the former the birth, the latter the accession, of
+Mithridates. The comet of 43 B.C. was held by some to be the soul of
+Julius Cæsar on its way to the abode of the gods. Bodin, a French lawyer
+of the sixteenth century, regarded this as the usual significance of
+comets. He was, indeed, sufficiently modest to attribute the opinion to
+Democritus, but the whole credit of the discovery belonged to himself.
+He maintained that comets only indicate approaching misfortunes because
+they are the spirits or souls of illustrious men, who for many years
+have acted the part of guardian angels, and, being at last ready to die,
+celebrate their last triumph by voyaging to the firmament as flaming
+stars. 'Naturally,' he says, 'the appearance of a comet is followed by
+plague, pestilence, and civil war; for the nations are deprived of the
+guidance of their worthy rulers, who, while they were alive, gave all
+their efforts to prevent intestine disorders.' Pingré comments justly on
+this, saying that 'it must be classed among base and shameful
+flatteries, not among philosophic opinions.'
+
+Usually, however, it must be admitted that the ancients, like the men of
+the Middle Ages, regarded comets as harbingers of evil. 'A fearful star
+is the comet,' says Pliny, 'and not easily appeased, as appeared in the
+late civil troubles when Octavius was consul; a second time by the
+intestine war of Pompey and Cæsar; and, in our own time, when, Claudius
+Cæsar having been poisoned, the empire was left to Domitian, in whose
+reign there appeared a blazing comet.' Lucan tells us of the second
+event here referred to, that during the war 'the darkest nights were lit
+up by unknown stars' (a rather singular way of saying that there were no
+dark nights); 'the heavens appeared on fire, flaming torches traversed
+in all directions the depths of space; a comet, that fearful star which
+overthrows the powers of the earth, showed its horrid hair.' Seneca also
+expressed the opinion that some comets portend mischief: 'Some comets,'
+he said, 'are very cruel and portend the worst misfortunes; they bring
+with them and leave behind them the seeds of blood and slaughter.'
+
+It was held, indeed, by many in those times a subject for reproach that
+some were too hard of heart to believe when these signs were sent. It
+was a point of religious faith that 'God worketh' these 'signs and
+wonders in heaven.' When troubles were about to befall men, 'nation
+rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, with great
+earthquakes in divers places, and famines, and pestilences, and fearful
+sights,' then 'great signs shall there be from heaven.' Says Josephus,
+commenting on the obstinacy of the Jews in such matters, 'when they were
+at any time premonished from the lips of truth itself, by prodigies and
+other premonitory signs of their approaching ruin, they had neither eyes
+nor ears nor understanding to make a right use of them, but passed them
+over without heeding or so much as thinking of them; as, for example,
+what shall we say of the comet in the form of a sword that hung over
+Jerusalem for a whole year together?' This was probably the comet
+described by Dion Cassius (_Hist. Roman._ lxv. 8) as having been visible
+between the months of April and December in the year 69 A.D. This or the
+comet of 66 A.D. might have been Halley's comet. The account of Josephus
+as to the time during which it was visible would not apply to Halley's,
+or, indeed, to any known comet whatever; doubtless he exaggerated. He
+says: 'The comet was of the kind called _Xiphias_, because their tail
+resembles the blade of a sword,' and this would apply fairly well to
+Halley's comet as seen in 1682, 1759, and 1835; though it is to be
+remembered that comets vary very much even at successive apparitions,
+and it would be quite unsafe to judge from the appearance of a comet
+seen eighteen centuries ago that it either was or was not the same as
+some comet now known to be periodic.
+
+The comet of 79 A.D. is interesting as having given rise to a happy
+retort from Vespasian, whose death the comet was held to portend. Seeing
+some of his courtiers whispering about the comet, 'That hairy star,' he
+said, 'does not portend evil to me. It menaces rather the king of the
+Parthians. He is a hairy man, but I am bald.'
+
+Anna Comnena goes even beyond Josephus. He only rebuked other men for
+not believing so strongly as he did himself in the significance of
+comets--a rebuke little needed, indeed, if we can judge from what
+history tells us of the terrors excited by comets. But the judicious
+daughter of Alexius was good enough to approve of the wisdom which
+provided these portents. Speaking of a remarkable comet which appeared
+before the irruption of the Gauls into the Roman empire, she says: 'This
+happened by the usual administration of Providence in such cases; for it
+is not fit that so great and strange an alteration of things as was
+brought to pass by that irruption of theirs should be without some
+previous denunciation and admonishment from heaven.'
+
+Socrates, the historian (b. 6, c. 6), says that when Gainas besieged
+Constantinople, 'so great was the danger which hung over the city, that
+it was presignified and portended by a huge blazing comet which reached
+from heaven to the earth, the like whereof no man had ever seen before.'
+And Cedrenus, in his 'Compendium of History,' states that a comet
+appeared before the death of Johannes Tzimicas, the emperor of the East,
+which foreshadowed not alone his death, but the great calamities which
+were to befall the Roman empire by reason of their civil wars. In like
+manner, the comet of 451 announced the death of Attila, that of 455 the
+death of Valentinian. The death of Merovingius was announced by the
+comet of 577, of Chilperic by that of 584, of the Emperor Maurice by
+that of 602, of Mahomet by that of 632, of Louis the Debonair by that of
+837, and of the Emperor Louis II. by that of 875. Nay, so confidently
+did men believe that comets indicated the approaching death of great
+men, that they did not believe a very great man _could_ die without a
+comet. So they inferred that the death of a very great man indicated the
+arrival of a comet; and if the comet chanced not to be visible, so much
+the worse--not for the theory, but--for the comet. 'A comet of this
+kind,' says Pingré, 'was that of the year 814, presaging the death of
+Charlemagne.' So Guillemin quotes Pingré; but he should rather have
+said, such was the comet whose arrival was announced by Charlemagne's
+death--and in no other way, for it was not seen by mortal man.
+
+The reader who chances to be strong as to his dates may have observed
+that some of the dates above mentioned for comets do not accord exactly
+with the dates of the events associated with those comets. Thus Louis
+the Debonair did not die in 837, but in 840. This, however, is a matter
+of very little importance. If some men, after their comet has called for
+them, are 'an unconscionable time in dying,' as Charles II. said of
+himself, it surely must not be considered the fault of the comet. Louis
+himself regarded the comet of 837 as his death-warrant; the astrologers
+admitted as much: what more could be desired? The account of the matter
+given in a chronicle of the time, by a writer who called himself 'The
+Astronomer,' is curious enough: 'During the holy season of Easter, a
+phenomenon, ever fatal and of gloomy foreboding, appeared in the
+heavens. As soon as the emperor, who paid attention to such phenomena,
+received the first announcement of it, he gave himself no rest until he
+had called a certain learned man and myself before him. As soon as I
+arrived, he anxiously asked me what I thought of such a sign. I asked
+time of him, in order to consider the aspect of the stars, and to
+discover the truth by their means, promising to acquaint him on the
+morrow; but the emperor, persuaded that I wished to gain time, which was
+true, in order not to be obliged to announce anything fatal to him, said
+to me: "Go on the terrace of the palace, and return at once to tell me
+what you have seen, for I did not see this star last evening, and you
+did not point it out to me; but I know that it is a comet; tell me what
+you think it announces to me." Then, scarcely allowing me time to say a
+word, he added: "There is still another thing you keep back: it is that
+a change of reign and the death of a prince are announced by this sign."
+And as I advanced the testimony of the prophet, who said: "Fear not the
+signs of the heavens as the nations fear them," the prince, with his
+grand nature and the wisdom which never forsook him, said: "We must only
+fear Him who has created both us and this star. But, as this phenomenon
+may refer to us, let us acknowledge it as a warning from heaven."'
+Accordingly, Louis himself and all his court fasted and prayed, and he
+built churches and monasteries. But all was of no avail. In little more
+than three years he died; showing, as the historian Raoul Glaber
+remarked, that 'these phenomena of the universe are never presented to
+man without surely announcing some wonderful and terrible event.' With a
+range of three years in advance, and so many kings and princes as there
+were about in those days, and are still, it would be rather difficult
+for a comet to appear without announcing some such wonderful and
+terrible event as a royal death.
+
+The year 1000 A.D. was by all but common consent regarded as the date
+assigned for the end of the world. For a thousand years Satan had been
+chained, and now he was to be loosened for a while. So that when a comet
+made its appearance, and, terrible to relate, continued visible for nine
+days, the phenomenon was regarded as something more than a nine days'
+wonder. Besides the comet, a very wonderful meteor was seen. 'The
+heavens opened, and a kind of flaming torch fell upon the earth, leaving
+behind a long track of light like the path of a flash of lightning. Its
+brightness was so great that it frightened not only those who were in
+the fields, but even those who were in their houses. As this opening in
+the sky slowly closed men saw with horror the figure of a dragon, whose
+feet were blue, and whose head' [like that of Dickens's dwarf] 'seemed
+to grow larger and larger.' A picture of this dreadful meteor
+accompanies the account given by the old chronicler. For fear the exact
+likeness of the dragon might not be recognised (and, indeed, to see it
+one must 'make believe a good deal'), there is placed beside it a
+picture of a dragon to correspond, which picture is in turn labelled
+'Serpens cum ceruleis pedibus.' It was considered very wicked in the
+year 1000 to doubt that the end of all things was at hand. But somehow
+the world escaped that time.
+
+In the year 1066 Halley's comet appeared to announce to the Saxons the
+approaching conquest of England by William the Norman. A contemporary
+poet made a singular remark, which may have some profound poetical
+meaning, but certainly seems a little indistinct on the surface. He said
+that 'the comet had been more favourable to William than nature had been
+to Cæsar; the latter had no hair, but William had received some from the
+comet.' This is the only instance, so far as I know, in which a comet
+has been regarded as a perruquier. A monk of Malmesbury spoke more to
+the purpose, according to then received ideas, in thus apostrophising
+the comet: 'Here art thou again, cause of tears to many mothers! It is
+long since I saw thee last, but I see thee now more terrible than ever;
+thou threatenest my country with complete ruin.'
+
+Halley's comet, with its inconveniently short period of about
+seventy-seven years, has repeatedly troubled the nations and been
+regarded as a sign sent from Heaven:
+
+  Ten million cubic miles of head,
+    Ten billion leagues of tail,
+
+all provided for the sole purpose of warning one petty race of
+earth-folks against the evils likely to be brought against them by
+another. This comet has appeared twenty-four times since the date of its
+first recorded appearance, which some consider to have been 12 B.C., and
+others refer to a few years later. It may be interesting to quote here
+Babinet's description of the effects ascribed in 1455 to this comet,
+often the terror of nations, but the triumph of mathematicians, as the
+first whose motions were brought into recognisable obedience to the laws
+of gravity.[42]
+
+'The Mussulmans, with Mahomet II. at their head, were besieging
+Belgrade, which was defended by Huniade, surnamed the Exterminator of
+the Turks. Halley's comet appeared and the two armies were seized with
+equal fear. Pope Calixtus III., himself seized by the general terror,
+ordered public prayers and timidly anathematised the comet and the
+enemies of Christianity. He established the prayer called the noon
+_Angelus_, the use of which is continued in all Catholic churches. The
+Franciscans (_Frères Mineurs_) brought 40,000 defenders to Belgrade,
+besieged by the conqueror of Constantinople, the destroyer of the
+Eastern Empire. At last the battle began; it continued two days without
+ceasing. A contest of two days caused 40,000 combatants to bite the
+dust. The Franciscans, unarmed, crucifix in hand, were in the front
+rank, invoking the papal exorcism against the comet, and turning upon
+the enemy that heavenly wrath of which none in those times dared doubt.'
+
+The great comet of 1556 has been regarded as the occasion of the Emperor
+Charles V.'s abdication of the imperial throne; a circumstance which
+seems rendered a little doubtful by the fact that he had already
+abdicated when the comet appeared--a mere detail, perhaps, but
+suggesting the possibility that cause and effect may have been
+interchanged by mistake, and that it was Charles's abdication which
+occasioned the appearance of the comet. According to Gemma's account the
+comet was conspicuous rather from its great light than from the length
+of its tail or the strangeness of its appearance. 'Its head equalled
+Jupiter in brightness, and was equal in diameter to nearly half the
+apparent diameter of the moon.' It appeared about the end of February,
+and in March presented a terrible appearance, according to Ripamonte.
+'Terrific indeed,' says Sir J. Herschel, 'it might well have been to the
+mind of a prince prepared by the most abject superstition to receive
+its appearance as a warning of approaching death, and as specially sent,
+whether in anger or in mercy, to detach his thoughts from earthly
+things, and fix them on his eternal interests. Such was its effect on
+the Emperor Charles V., whose abdication is distinctly ascribed by many
+historians to this cause, and whose words on the occasion of his first
+beholding it have even been recorded--
+
+  "His ergo indiciis me mea fata vocant"--
+
+the language and the metrical form of which exclamation afford no ground
+for disputing its authenticity, when the habits and education of those
+times are fairly considered.' It is quite likely that, having already
+abdicated the throne, Charles regarded the comet as signalling his
+retirement from power--an event which he doubtless considered a great
+deal too important to be left without some celestial record. But the
+words attributed to him are in all probability apocryphal.
+
+The comet of 1577 was remarkable for the strangeness of its aspect,
+which in some respects resembled that of the comet of 1858, called
+Donati's. It required only the terror with which such portentous objects
+were witnessed in the Middle Ages to transform the various streamers,
+curved and straight, extending from such an object, into swords and
+spears, and other signs of war and trouble. Doubtless, we owe to the
+fears of the Middle Ages the strange pictures claiming to present the
+actual aspect of some of the larger comets. Halley's comet did not
+escape. It was compared to a straight sword at one visit, to a curved
+scimitar in 1456, and even at its last return in 1835 there were some
+who recognised in the comet a resemblance to a misty head. Other comets
+have been compared to swords of fire, bloody crosses, flaming daggers,
+spears, serpents, fiery dragons, fish, and so forth. But in this
+respect no comet would seem to have been comparable with that of 1528,
+of which Andrew Paré writes as follows: 'This comet was so horrible and
+dreadful, and engendered such terror in the minds of men, that they
+died, some from fear alone, others from illness engendered by fear. It
+was of immense length and blood-red colour; at its head was seen the
+figure of a curved arm, holding a large sword in the hand as if
+preparing to strike. At the point of this sword were three stars; and on
+either side a number of axes, knives, and swords covered with blood,
+amongst which were many hideous human faces with bristling beards and
+hair.'
+
+Such peculiarities of shape, and also those affecting the position and
+movements of comets, were held to be full of meaning. As Bayle pointed
+out in his 'Thoughts about the Comet of 1680,' these fancies are of
+great antiquity. Pliny tells us that in his time astrologers claimed to
+interpret the meaning of a comet's position and appearance, and that
+also of the direction towards which its rays pointed. They could,
+moreover, explain the effects produced by the fixed stars whose rays
+were conjoined with the comet's. If a comet resembles a flute, then
+musicians are aimed at; when comets are in the less dignified parts of
+the constellations, they presage evil to immodest persons; if the head
+of a comet forms an equilateral triangle or a square with fixed stars,
+then it is time for mathematicians and men of science to tremble. When
+they are in the sign of the Ram, they portend great wars and widespread
+mortality, the abasement of the great and the elevation of the small,
+besides fearful droughts in regions over which that sign predominates;
+in the Virgin, they imply many grievous ills to the female portion of
+the population; in the Scorpion, they portend a plague of reptiles,
+especially locusts; in the Fishes, they indicate great troubles from
+religious differences, besides war and pestilence. When, like the one
+described by Milton, they 'fire the length of Ophiuchus huge,' they show
+that there will be much mortality caused by poisoning.
+
+The comet of 1680, which led Bayle to write the treatise to which
+reference has just been made, was one well calculated to inspire terror.
+Indeed, if the truth were known, that comet probably brought greater
+danger to the inhabitants of the earth than any other except the comet
+of 1843--the danger not, however, being that derived from possible
+collision between the earth and a comet, but that arising from the
+possible downfall of a large comet upon the sun, and the consequent
+enormous increase of the sun's heat. That, according to Newton, is the
+great danger men have to fear from comets; and the comet of 1680 was one
+which in that sense was a very dangerous one. There is no reason why a
+comet from outer space should not fall straight towards the sun, as at
+one time the comet of 1680 was supposed to be doing. All the comfort
+that science can give the world on that point is that such a course for
+a comet is only one out of many millions of possible courses, all fully
+as likely; and that, therefore, the chance of a comet falling upon the
+sun is only as one in many millions. Still, the comet of 1680 made a
+very fair shot at the sun, and a very slight modification of its course
+by Jupiter or Saturn might have brought about the catastrophe which
+Newton feared. Whether, if a comet actually fell upon the sun, anything
+very dreadful would happen, is not so clear. Newton's ideas respecting
+comets were formed in ignorance of many physical facts and laws which in
+our day render reasoning upon the subject comparatively easy. Yet, even
+in our time, it is not possible to assert confidently that such fears
+are idle. During the solar outburst witnessed by Carrington and Hodgson
+in September 1859, it is supposed that the sun swallowed a large
+meteoric mass; and, as great cornets are probably followed by many such
+masses, it seems reasonable to infer that if such a comet fell upon the
+sun, his surface being pelted with such exceptionally large masses,
+stoned with these mighty meteoric balls, would glow all over (or nearly
+so) as brightly as a small spot of that surface glowed upon that
+occasion. Now that portion was so bright that Carrington thought 'that
+by some chance a ray of light had penetrated a hole in the screen
+attached to the object-glass by which the general image is thrown in
+shade, for the brilliancy was fully equal to that of direct sunlight.'
+Manifestly, if the whole surface of the sun, or any large portion of the
+surface, were caused to glow with that exceeding brilliancy, surpassing
+ordinary sunlight in the same degree that ordinary sunlight surpassed
+the shaded solar image in Carrington's observations, the result would be
+disastrous in the extreme for the inhabitants of that half of the earth
+which chanced to be in sunlight at the time; and if (as could scarcely
+fail to happen) the duration of that abnormal splendour were more than
+half a day, then the whole earth would probably be depopulated by the
+intense heat. The danger, as I have said, is slight--partly because
+there is small chance of a collision between the sun and a comet, partly
+because we have no certain reasons for assuming that a collision would
+be followed by the heating of the sun for a while to a very high
+temperature. Looking around at the suns which people space, and
+considering their history, so far as it has been made known to us, for
+the last two thousand years, we find small occasion for fear. Those suns
+seem to have been for the most part safe from any sudden or rapid
+accessions of heat; and if they travel thus safely in their mighty
+journeys through space, we may well believe that our sun also is safe.
+Nevertheless, there _have_ been catastrophes here and there. Now one sun
+and now another has blazed out with a hundred times its usual lustre,
+gradually losing its new fires and returning to its customary
+brightness; but after what destruction among those peopling its system
+of worlds who shall say? Spectroscopic analysis, that powerful help to
+the modern astronomical inquirer, has shown in one of these cases that
+just such changes had taken place as we might fairly expect would follow
+if a mighty comet fell into the sun. If this interpretation be correct,
+then we are not wholly safe. Any day might bring us news of a comet
+sailing full upon our sun from out the depths of space. Then astronomers
+would perhaps have the opportunity of ascertaining the harmlessness of a
+collision between the ruler of our system and one of the long-tailed
+visitors from the celestial spaces. Or possibly, astronomers and the
+earth's inhabitants generally might find out the reverse, though the
+knowledge would not avail them much, seeing that the messenger who would
+bring it would be the King of Terrors himself.
+
+It was well, perhaps, that Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation,
+and the application of this law to the comets of 1680 and 1682 (the
+latter our old friend Halley's comet, then properly so called as studied
+by him), came in time to aid in removing to some slight degree the old
+superstitions respecting comets. For in England many remembered the
+comets of the Great Plague and of the Great Fire of London. These comets
+came so closely upon the time of the Plague and the Fire respectively,
+that it was not wonderful if even the wiser sort were struck by the
+coincidence and could scarcely regard it as accidental. It is not easy
+for the student of science in our own times, when the movements of
+comets are as well understood as those of the most orderly planets, to
+place himself in the position of men in the times when no one knew on
+what paths comets came, or whither they retreated after they had visited
+our sun. Taught as men were, on the one hand, that it was wicked to
+question what seemed to be the teaching of the Scriptures, that changes
+or new appearances in the heavens were sent to warn mankind of
+approaching troubles, and perplexed as they were, on the other, by the
+absence of any real knowledge respecting comets and meteors, it was not
+so easy as we might imagine from our own way of viewing these matters,
+to shake off a superstition which had ruled over men's minds for
+thousands of years.
+
+No sect had been free from this superstition. Popes and priests had
+taught their followers to pray against the evil influences of comets and
+other celestial portents; Luther and Melanchthon had condemned in no
+measured terms the rashness and impiety of those who had striven to show
+that the heavenly bodies and the earth move in concordance with
+law--those 'fools who wish to reverse the entire science of astronomy.'
+A long interval had elapsed between the time when the Copernican theory
+was struggling for existence--when, but that more serious heresies
+engaged men's attention and kept religious folk by the ears, that
+astronomical heresy would probably have been quenched in blood--and the
+forging by Newton of the final link of the chain of reasoning on which
+modern astronomy is based; but in those times the minds of men moved
+more slowly than in ours. The masses still held to the old beliefs about
+the heavenly bodies. Defoe, indeed, speaking of the terror of men at the
+time of the Great Plague, says that they 'were more addicted to
+prophecies and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives' tales,
+than ever they were before or since.' But in reality, it was only
+because of the great misery then prevailing that men seemed more
+superstitious than usual; for misery brings out the superstitions--the
+fetishisms, if we may so speak--which are inherent in many minds, but
+concealed from others in prosperous times, out of shame, or perhaps a
+worthier feeling. Even in our own times great national calamities would
+show that many superstitions exist which had been thought extinct, and
+we should see excited among the ill-educated that particular form of
+persecution which arises, not from zeal for religion and not from
+intolerance, but from the belief that the troubles have been sent
+because of unbelief and the fear that unless some expiation be made the
+evil will not pass away from the midst of the people. It is at such
+times of general affliction that minds of the meaner sort have proved
+'zealous even to slaying.'
+
+The influence of strange appearances in the heavens on even thoughtful
+and reasoning minds, at such times of universal calamity, is well shown
+by Defoe's remarks on the comets of the years 1664 and 1666. 'The old
+women,' he says, 'and the phlegmatic, hypochondriacal part of the other
+sex, whom I could almost call old women too, remarked that those two
+comets passed directly over the city' [though that appearance must have
+depended on the position whence these old women, male and female,
+observed the comet], 'and that so very near the houses, that it was
+plain they imported something peculiar to the city alone; and that the
+comet before the Pestilence was of a faint, dull, languid colour, and
+its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow; but that the comet before the
+Fire was bright and sparkling, or, as others said, flaming, and its
+motion swift and furious: and that accordingly one foretold a heavy
+judgment, slow but severe, terrible and frightful, as was the Plague;
+but the other foretold a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery, as was the
+Conflagration. Nay, so particular some people were, that, as they looked
+upon that comet preceding the Fire, they fancied that they not only saw
+it pass swiftly and fiercely, and could perceive the motion with their
+eye, but even that they heard it; that it made a mighty rushing noise,
+fierce and terrible, though at a distance and but just perceivable. I
+saw both these stars, and must confess had I had so much the common
+notion of such things in my head, that I was apt to look upon them as
+the forerunners and warnings of God's judgments, and especially when,
+the Plague having followed the first, I yet saw another of the same
+kind, I could not but say, God had not yet sufficiently scourged the
+city' [London].
+
+The comets of 1680 and 1682, though they did not bring plagues or
+conflagrations immediately, yet were not supposed to have been
+altogether without influence. The convenient fiction, indeed, that some
+comets operate quickly and others slowly, made it very difficult for a
+comet to appear to which some evil effects could not be ascribed. If any
+one can find a single date, since the records of history have been
+carefully kept, which was so fortunately placed that, during no time
+following it within five years, no prince, king, emperor, or pope died,
+no war was begun, or ended disastrously for one side or the other
+engaged in it, no revolution was effected, neither plague nor pestilence
+occurred, neither droughts nor floods afflicted any nation, no great
+hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic outbursts, or other trouble was
+recorded, he will then have shown the bare possibility that a comet
+might have appeared which seemed to presage neither abrupt nor
+slow-moving calamities. But it is not possible to name such a date, nor
+even a date which was not followed within two years at the utmost by a
+calamity such as superstition might assign to a comet. And so closely
+have such calamities usually followed, that scarce a comet could appear
+which might not be regarded as the precursor of very quickly approaching
+calamity. Even if a comet had come which seemed to bring no trouble,
+nay, if many such comets had come, men would still have overlooked the
+absence of any apparent fulfilment of the predicted troubles. Henry IV.
+well remarked, when he was told that astrologers predicted his death
+because a certain comet had been observed: 'One of these days they will
+predict it truly, and people will remember better the single occasion
+when the prediction will be fulfilled than the many other occasions when
+it has been falsified by the event.'
+
+The troubles connected with the comets of 1680 and 1682 were removed
+farther from the dates of the events themselves than usual, at least so
+far as the English interpretation of the comets was concerned. 'The
+great comet in 1680,' says one, 'followed by a lesser comet in 1682, was
+evidently the forerunner of all those remarkable and disastrous events
+that ended in the revolution of 1688. It also evidently presaged the
+revocation of the edict of Nantes, and the cruel persecution of the
+Protestants, by the French king Louis XIV., afterwards followed by those
+terrible wars which, with little intermission, continued to ravage the
+finest parts of Europe for nearly twenty-four years.'
+
+If in some respects the fears inspired by comets have been reduced by
+modern scientific discoveries respecting these bodies, yet in other
+respects the very confidence engendered by the exactness of modern
+astronomical computations has proved a source of terror. There is
+nothing more remarkable, for instance, in the whole history of cometary
+superstition, than the panic which spread over France in the year 1773,
+in consequence of a rumour that the mathematician Lalande had predicted
+the occurrence of a collision between a comet and the earth, and that
+disastrous effects would inevitably follow. The foundation of the rumour
+was slight enough in all conscience. It had simply been announced that
+Lalande would read before the Academy of Sciences a paper entitled
+'Reflections on those Comets which can approach the Earth.' That was
+absolutely all; yet, from that one fact, not only were vague rumours of
+approaching cometic troubles spread abroad, but the statement was
+definitely made that on May 20 or 21, 1773, 'a comet would encounter the
+earth.'[43] So great was the fear thus excited, that, in order to calm
+it, Lalande inserted in the 'Gazette de France' of May 7, 1773, the
+following advertisement:--'M. Lalande had not time to read his memoir
+upon comets which may approach the earth and cause changes in her
+motions; but he would observe that it is impossible to assign the epochs
+of such events. The next comet whose return is expected is the one which
+should return in eighteen years; but it is not one of those which can
+hurt the earth.'
+
+This note had not the slightest effect in restoring peace to the minds
+of unscientific Frenchmen. M. Lalande's study was crowded with anxious
+persons who came to inquire about his memoir. Certain devout folk, 'as
+ignorant as they were imbecile,' says a contemporary journal, begged the
+Archbishop of Paris to appoint forty hours' prayer to avert the danger
+and prevent the terrible deluge. For this was the particular form most
+men agreed that the danger would take. That prelate was on the point,
+indeed, of complying with their request, and would have done so, but
+that some members of the Academy explained to him that by so doing he
+would excite ridicule.
+
+Far more effective, and, to say truth, far better judged, was the irony
+of Voltaire, in his deservedly celebrated 'Letter on the Pretended
+Comet.' It ran as follows:--
+
+  'Grenoble, May 17, 1773.
+
+'Certain Parisians who are not philosophers, and who, if we are to
+believe them, will not have time to become such, have informed me that
+the end of the world approaches, and will occur without fail on the 20th
+of this present month of May. They expect, that day, a comet, which is
+to take our little globe from behind and reduce it to impalpable powder,
+according to a certain prediction of the Academy of Sciences which has
+not yet been made.
+
+'Nothing is more likely than this event; for James Bernouilli, in his
+"Treatise upon the Comet" of 1680, predicted expressly that the famous
+comet of 1680 would return with terrible uproar (_fracas_) on May 19,
+1719; he assured us that in truth its perruque would signify nothing
+mischievous, but that its tail would be an infallible sign of the wrath
+of heaven. If James Bernouilli mistook, it is, after all, but a matter
+of fifty-four years and three days.
+
+'Now, so small an error as this being regarded by all geometricians as
+of little moment in the immensity of ages, it is manifest that nothing
+can be more reasonable than to hope (_sic, espérer_) for the end of the
+world on the 20th of this present month of May 1773, or in some other
+year. If the thing should not come to pass, "omittance is no quittance"
+(_ce qui est différé, n'est pas perdu_).
+
+'There is certainly no reason for laughing at M. Trissotin, triple
+idiot though he is (_tout Trissotin qu'il est_), when he says to Madame
+Philaminte (Molière's "Femmes Savantes," acte iv. scène 3),
+
+'Nous l'avons en dormant, madame, échappé belle;
+Un monde près de nous a passé tout du long,
+Est chu tout au travers de notre tourbillon;
+Et, s'il eût en chemin rencontré notre terre,
+Elle eût été brisée en morceaux comme verre.
+
+'A comet coursing along its parabolic orbit may come full tilt against
+our earth. But then, what will happen? Either that comet will have a
+force equal to that of our earth, or greater, or less. If equal, we
+shall do the comet as much harm as it will do us, action and reaction
+being equal; if greater, the comet will bear us away with it; if less,
+we shall bear away the comet.
+
+'This great event may occur in a thousand ways, and no one can affirm
+that our earth and the other planets have not experienced more than one
+revolution, through the mischance of encountering a comet on their path.
+
+'The Parisians will not desert their city on the 20th inst.; they will
+sing songs, and the play of "The Comet and the World's End" will be
+performed at the Opéra Comique.'
+
+The last touch is as fine in its way as Sydney Smith's remark that, if
+London were destroyed by an earthquake, the surviving citizens would
+celebrate the event by a public dinner among the ruins. Voltaire's
+prediction was not fulfilled exactly to the letter, but what actually
+happened was even funnier than what his lively imagination had
+suggested. It was stated by a Parisian Professor in 1832 (as a reason
+why the Academy of Sciences should refute an assertion then rife to the
+effect that Biela's comet would encounter the earth that year) that
+during the cometic panic of 1773 'there were not wanting people who
+knew too well the art of turning to their advantage the alarm inspired
+by the approaching comet, and _places in Paradise were sold at a very
+high rate_.[44] The announcement of the comet of 1832 may produce
+similar effects,' he said, 'unless the authority of the Academy apply a
+prompt remedy; and this salutary intervention is at this moment implored
+by many benevolent persons.'
+
+In recent years the effects produced on the minds of men by comets have
+been less marked than of yore, and appear to have depended a good deal
+on circumstances. The comet of the year 1858 (called Donati's), for
+example, occasioned no special fears, at least until Napoleon III. made
+his famous New-Year's day speech, after which many began to think the
+comet had meant mischief. But the comet of 1861, though less
+conspicuous, occasioned more serious fears. It was held by many in Italy
+to presage a very great misfortune indeed, viz. the restoration of
+Francis II. to the throne of the Two Sicilies. Others thought that the
+downfall of the temporal power of the Papacy and the death of Pope Pius
+IX. were signified. I have not heard that any very serious consequences
+were expected to follow the appearance of Coggia's comet in 1874. The
+great heat which prevailed during parts of the summer of 1876 was held
+by many to be connected in some way with a comet which some very
+unskilful telescopist constructed in his imagination out of the glare of
+Jupiter in the object-glass of his telescope. Another benighted person,
+seeing the Pleiades low down through a fog, turned them into a comet,
+about the same time. Possibly the idea was, that since comets are
+supposed to cause great heats, great heats may be supposed to indicate a
+comet somewhere; and with minds thus prepared, it was not wonderful,
+perhaps, that telescopic glare, or an imperfect view of our old friends
+the Pleiades, should have been mistaken for a vision of the
+heat-producing comet.
+
+It should be a noteworthy circumstance to those who still continue to
+look on comets as signs of great catastrophes, that a war more
+remarkable in many respects than any which has ever yet been waged
+between two great nations--a war swift in its operations and decisive in
+its effects--a war in which three armies, each larger than all the
+forces commanded by Napoleon I. during the campaign of 1813, were
+captured bodily--should have been begun and carried on to its
+termination without the appearance of any great comet. The civil war in
+America, a still more terrible calamity to that great nation than the
+success of Moltke's operations to the French, may be regarded by
+believers as presignified by the great comet of 1861. But it so chances
+that the war between France and Germany occurred near the middle of one
+of the longest intervals recorded in astronomical annals as unmarked by
+a single conspicuous comet--the interval between the years 1862 and
+1874.
+
+If the progress of just ideas respecting comets has been slow, it must
+nevertheless be regarded as on the whole satisfactory. When we remember
+that it was not a mere idle fancy which had to be opposed, not mere
+terrors which had to be calmed, but that the idea of the significance of
+changes in the heavens had come to be regarded by mankind as a part of
+their religion, it cannot but be thought a hopeful sign that all
+reasoning men in our time have abandoned the idea that comets are sent
+to warn the inhabitants of this small earth. Obeying in their movements
+the same law of gravitation which guides the planets in their courses,
+the comets are tracked by the skilful mathematician along those remote
+parts of their course where even the telescope fails to keep them in
+view. Not only are they no longer regarded as presaging the fortunes of
+men on this earth, but men on this earth are able to predict the
+fortunes of comets. Not only is it seen that they cannot influence the
+fates of the earth or other planets, but we perceive that the earth and
+planets by their attractive energies influence, and in no unimportant
+degree, the fates of these visitants from outer space. Encouraging,
+truly, is the lesson taught us by the success of earnest study and
+careful inquiry in determining some at least among the laws which govern
+bodies once thought the wildest and most erratic creatures in the whole
+of God's universe.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+_THE LUNAR HOAX._
+
+     Then he gave them an account of the famous moon hoax, which came
+     out in 1835. It was full of the most barefaced absurdities, yet
+     people swallowed it all; and even Arago is said to have treated it
+     seriously as a thing that could not well be true, for Mr. Herschel
+     would have certainly notified him of these marvellous discoveries.
+     The writer of it had not troubled himself to invent probabilities,
+     but had borrowed his scenery from the 'Arabian Nights' and his
+     lunar inhabitants from 'Peter Wilkins.'--OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (in
+     _The Poet at the Breakfast-Table_).
+
+
+In one of the earliest numbers of 'Macmillan's Magazine, the late
+Professor De Morgan, in an article on Scientific Hoaxing, gave a brief
+account of the so-called 'lunar hoax'--an instance of scientific
+trickery frequently mentioned, though probably few are familiar with the
+real facts. De Morgan himself possessed a copy of the second English
+edition of the pamphlet, published in London in 1836. But the original
+pamphlet edition, published in America in September 1835, is not easily
+to be obtained. The proprietors of the New York 'Sun,' in which the
+fictitious narrative first appeared, published an edition of 60,000
+copies, and every copy was sold in less than a month. Lately a single
+copy of that edition was sold for three dollars seventy-five cents.[45]
+
+The pamphlet is interesting in many respects, and I propose to give
+here a brief account of it. But first it may be well to describe briefly
+the origin of the hoax.
+
+It is said that after the French revolution of 1830 Nicollet, a French
+astronomer of some repute, especially for certain lunar observations of
+a very delicate and difficult kind, left France in debt and also in bad
+odour with the republican party. According to this story, Arago the
+astronomer was especially obnoxious to Nicollet, and it was as much with
+the view of revenging himself on his foe as from a wish to raise a
+little money that Nicollet wrote the moon-fable. It is said further that
+Arago was entrapped, as Nicollet desired, and circulated all over Paris
+the wonders related in the pamphlet, until Nicollet wrote to his friend
+Bouvard explaining the trick. So runs the story, but the story cannot be
+altogether true. Nicollet may have prepared the narrative and partly
+written it, but there are passages in the pamphlet as published in
+America which no astronomer could have written. Possibly there is some
+truth in De Morgan's supposition that the original work was French. This
+may have been Nicollet's: and the American edition was probably enlarged
+by the translator, who, according to this account, was Richard Alton
+Locke,[46] to whom in America the whole credit, or discredit, of the
+hoax is commonly attributed. There can be no doubt that either the
+French version was much more carefully designed than the American, or
+there was no truth in the story that Arago was deceived by the
+narrative; for in its present form the story, though clever, could not
+for an instant have deceived any one acquainted with the most elementary
+laws of optics. The whole story turns on optical rather than on
+astronomical considerations; but every astronomer of the least skill is
+acquainted with the principles on which the construction of optical
+instruments depends. Though the success of the deception recently
+practised on M. Chasles by the forger of the Pascal papers has been
+regarded as showing how easily mathematicians may be entrapped, yet even
+M. Chasles would not have been deceived by bad mathematics; and Arago, a
+master of the science of optics, could not but have detected optical
+blunders which would be glaring to the average Cambridge undergraduate.
+
+But let us turn to the story itself.
+
+The account opens with a passage unmistakably from an American hand,
+though purporting, be it remembered, to be quoted from the 'Supplement
+to the Edinburgh Journal of Science.' 'In this unusual addition to our
+journal, we have the happiness of making known to the British public,
+and thence to the whole civilised world, recent discoveries in astronomy
+which will build an imperishable monument to the age in which we live,
+and confer upon the present generation of the human race a proud
+distinction through all future time. It has been poetically said' [where
+and by whom?] 'that the stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of
+man, as the intellectual sovereign of the animal creation. He may now
+fold the zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of his mental
+supremacy.' To the American mind enwrapment in the star-jewelled zodiac
+may appear as natural as their ordinary oratorical references to the
+star-spangled banner; but the idea is essentially transatlantic, and not
+even the most poetical European astronomer could have risen to such a
+height of imagery.
+
+Passing over several pages of introductory matter, we come to the
+description of the method by which a telescope of sufficient magnifying
+power to show living creatures in the moon was constructed by Sir John
+Herschel. It had occurred, it would seem, to the elder Herschel to
+construct an improved series of parabolic and spherical reflectors
+'uniting all the meritorious points in the Gregorian and Newtonian
+instruments, with the highly interesting achromatic discovery of
+Dolland'(_sic_). [This is much as though one should say that a clever
+engineer had conceived the idea of constructing an improved series of
+railway engines, combining all the meritorious points in stationary and
+locomotive engines, with _Isaac_ Watts' highly ingenious discovery of
+screw propulsion. For the Gregorian and Newtonian instruments simply
+differ in sending the rays received from the great mirror in different
+directions, and Dolland's discovery relates to the ordinary forms of
+telescopes with large lens, not with large mirror.] However,
+accumulating infirmities and eventually death prevented Sir William
+Herschel from applying his plan, which 'evinced the most profound
+research in optical science, and the most dexterous ingenuity in
+mechanical contrivance. But his son, Sir John Herschel, nursed and
+cradled in the observatory, and a practical astronomer from his boyhood,
+determined upon testing it at whatever cost. Within two years of his
+father's death he completed his new apparatus, and adapted it to the old
+telescope with nearly perfect success.' A short account of the
+observations made with this instrument, now magnifying six thousand
+times, follows, in which most of the astronomical statements are very
+correctly and justly worded, being, in fact, borrowed from a paper by
+Sir W. Herschel on observation of the moon with precisely that power.
+
+But this great improvement upon all former telescopes still left the
+observer at a distance of forty miles from the moon; and at that
+distance no object less than about twenty yards in diameter could be
+distinguished, and even objects of that size 'would appear only as
+feeble, shapeless points.' Sir John 'had the satisfaction to know that
+if he could leap astride a cannon-ball, and travel upon its wings of
+fury for the respectable period of several millions of years, he would
+not obtain a more enlarged view of the more distant stars than he could
+now possess in a few minutes of time; and that it would require an
+ultra-railroad speed of fifty miles an hour for nearly the livelong
+year, to secure him a more favourable inspection of the gentle luminary
+of the night;' but 'the exciting question whether this "observed" of all
+the sons of men, from the days of Eden to those of Edinburgh, be
+inhabited by beings, like ourselves, of consciousness and curiosity, was
+left to the benevolent index of natural analogy, or to the severe
+tradition that the moon is tenanted only by the hoary _solitaire_, whom
+the criminal code of the nursery had banished thither for collecting
+fuel on the Sabbath-day.'[47] But the time had arrived when the great
+discovery was to be made, by which at length the moon could be brought
+near enough, by telescopic power, for living creatures on her surface to
+be seen if any exist.
+
+The account of the sudden discovery of the new method, during a
+conversation between Sir John Herschel and Sir David Brewster, is one of
+the most cleverly conceived (though also one of the absurdest) passages
+in the pamphlet. 'About three years ago, in the course of a
+conversational discussion with Sir David Brewster upon the merits of
+some ingenious suggestions by the latter, in his article on Optics in
+the "Edinburgh Encyclopædia," p. 644, for improvements in Newtonian
+reflectors, Sir John Herschel adverted to the convenient simplicity of
+the old astronomical telescopes that were without tubes, and the
+object-glass of which, placed upon a high pole, threw the focal image to
+a distance of 150 and even 200 feet. Dr. Brewster readily admitted that
+a tube was not necessary, provided the focal image were conveyed into a
+dark apartment and there properly received by reflectors.... The
+conversation then became directed to that all-invincible enemy, the
+paucity of light in powerful magnifiers. After a few moments' silent
+thought, Sir John diffidently enquired whether it would not be possible
+to effect _a transfusion of artificial light through the focal object of
+vision_! Sir David, somewhat startled at the originality of the idea,
+paused awhile, and then hesitatingly referred to the refrangibility of
+rays, and the angle of incidence. Sir John, grown more confident,
+adduced the example of the Newtonian reflector, in which the
+refrangibility was corrected by the second speculum, and the angle of
+incidence restored by the third.'
+
+All this part of the narrative is simply splendid in absurdity.
+Hesitating references to refrangibility and the angle of incidence would
+have been sheerly idiotic under the supposed circumstances; and in the
+Newtonian reflector (which has only two specula or mirrors) there is no
+refrangibility to be corrected; apart from which, 'correcting
+refrangibility' has no more meaning than 'restoring the angle of
+incidence.'
+
+'"And," continued Sir John, "why cannot the illuminating microscope, say
+the hydro-oxygen, be applied to render distinct, and, if necessary, even
+to magnify, the focal object?" Sir David sprung from his chair' [and
+well he might, though not] 'in an ecstasy of conviction, and, leaping
+half-way to the ceiling, exclaimed, "Thou art the man!" Each philosopher
+anticipated the other in presenting the prompt illustration that if the
+rays of the hydro-oxygen microscope, passed through a drop of water
+containing the larvæ of a gnat and other objects invisible to the naked
+eye, rendered them not only keenly but firmly magnified to dimensions of
+many feet; so could the same artificial light, passed through the
+faintest focal object of a telescope, both distinctify (to coin a new
+word for an extraordinary occasion) and magnify its feeblest component
+members. The only apparent desideratum was a recipient for the focal
+image which should transfer it, without refranging it, to the surface on
+which it was to be viewed under the revivifying light of the microscopic
+reflectors.'
+
+Singularly enough, the idea here mentioned does not appear to many so
+absurd as it is in reality. It is known that the image formed by the
+large lens of an ordinary telescope or the large mirror of a reflecting
+telescope is a real image; not a merely virtual image like that which is
+seen in a looking-glass. It can be received on a sheet of paper or other
+white surface just as the image of surrounding objects can be thrown
+upon the white table of the camera obscura. It is this real image, in
+fact, which we look at in using a telescope of any sort, the portion of
+such a telescope nearest to the eye being in reality a microscope for
+viewing the image formed by the great lens or mirror, as the case may
+be. And it does not seem to some altogether absurd to speak of
+illuminating this image by transfused light, or of casting by means of
+an illuminating microscope a vastly enlarged picture of this image upon
+a screen. But of course the image being simply formed by the passage of
+rays (which originally came from the object whose image they form)
+through a certain small space, to send _other_ rays (coming from some
+other luminous object) through the same small space, is not to improve,
+but, so far as any effect is produced at all, to impair, the
+distinctness of the image. In fact, if these illuminating rays reached
+the eye, they would seriously impair the distinctness of the image.
+Their effect may be compared exactly with the effect of rays of light
+cast upon the image in a camera obscura; and, to see what the effect of
+such rays would be, we need only consider why it is that the camera _is_
+made 'obscura,' or dark. The effect of the transfusion of light through
+a telescopic image may be easily tried by any one who cares to make the
+experiment. He has only to do away with the tube of his telescope
+(substituting two or three straight rods to hold the glass in its
+place), and then in the blaze of a strong sun to direct the telescope on
+some object lying nearly towards the sun. Or if he prefer artificial
+light for the experiment, then at night let him direct the telescope so
+prepared upon the moon, while a strong electric light is directed upon
+the place where the focal image is formed (close in front of the eye).
+The experiment will not suggest very sanguine hopes of good result from
+the transfusion of artificial light. Yet, to my own knowledge, not a few
+who were perfectly well aware that the lunar hoax was not based on
+facts, have gravely reasoned that the principle suggested might be
+sound, and, in fact, that they could see no reason why astronomers
+should not try it, even though it had been first suggested as a joke.
+
+To return, however, to the narrative. 'The co-operative philosophers,
+having hit upon their method, determined to test it practically. They
+decided that a medium of the purest plate-glass (which it is said they
+obtained, by consent, be it observed, from the shop-window of M.
+Desanges, the jeweller to his ex-majesty Charles X., in High Street) was
+the most eligible they could discover. It answered perfectly with a
+telescope which magnified a hundred times, and a microscope of about
+thrice that power.' Thus fortified by experiment, and 'fully sanctioned
+by the high optical authority of Sir David Brewster, Sir John laid his
+plan before the Royal Society, and particularly directed to it the
+attention of his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, the ever munificent
+patron of science and the arts. It was immediately and enthusiastically
+approved by the committee chosen to investigate it, and the chairman,
+who was the Royal President' (this continual reference to royalty is
+manifestly intended to give a British tone to the narrative),
+'subscribed his name for a contribution of £10,000, with a promise that
+he would zealously submit the proposed instrument as a fit object for
+the patronage of the privy purse. He did so without delay; and his
+Majesty, on being informed that the estimated expense was £70,000,
+naïvely enquired if the costly instrument would conduce to any
+improvement in _navigation_. On being informed that it undoubtly would,
+the sailor king promised a _carte blanche_ for any amount which might be
+required.'
+
+All this is very clever. The 'sailor king' comes in as effectively to
+give _vraisemblance_ to the narrative as 'Crabtree's little bronze
+Shakspeare that stood over the fireplace,' and the 'postman just come to
+the door with a double letter from Northamptonshire.'
+
+Then comes a description of the construction of the object-glass,
+twenty-four feet in diameter, 'just six times the size of the elder
+Herschel's;' who, by the way, never made a telescope with an
+object-glass. The account of Sir John Herschel's journey from England,
+and even some details of the construction of the observatory, were based
+on facts, indeed, so many persons in America as well as in England were
+acquainted with some of these circumstances, that it was essential to
+follow the facts as closely as possible. Of course, also, some
+explanation had to be given of the circumstance that nothing had before
+been heard respecting the gigantic instrument taken out by Sir John
+Herschel. 'Whether,' says the story, 'the British Government were
+sceptical concerning the promised splendour of the discoveries, or
+wished them to be scrupulously veiled until they had accumulated a
+full-orbed glory for the nation and reign in which they originated, is a
+question which we can only conjecturally solve. But certain it is that
+the astronomer's royal patrons enjoined a masonic taciturnity upon him
+and his friends until he should have officially communicated the results
+of his great experiment.'
+
+It was not till the night of January 10, 1835, that the mighty telescope
+was at length directed towards our satellite. The part of the moon
+selected was on the eastern part of her disc. 'The whole immense power
+of the telescope was applied, and to its focal image about one half of
+the power of the microscope. On removing the screen of the latter, the
+field of view was covered throughout its entire area with a beautifully
+distinct and even vivid representation of _basaltic rock_. Its colour
+was a greenish brown; and the width of the columns, as defined by their
+interstices on the canvas, was invariably twenty-eight inches. No
+fracture whatever appeared in the mass first presented; but in a few
+seconds a shelving pile appeared, of five or six columns' width, which
+showed their figure to be hexagonal, and their articulations similar to
+those of the basaltic formation at Staffa. This precipitous cliff was
+profusely covered with a dark red flower, precisely similar, says Dr.
+Grant, to the Papaver Rhoeus, or Rose Poppy, of our sublunary
+cornfields; and this was the first organic production of nature in a
+foreign world ever revealed to the eyes of men.'
+
+It would be wearisome to go through the whole series of observations
+thus fabled, and only a few of the more striking features need be
+indicated. The discoveries are carefully graduated in interest. Thus we
+have seen how, after recognising basaltic formations, the observers
+discovered flowers: they next see a lunar forest, whose 'trees were of
+one unvaried kind, and unlike any on earth except the largest kind of
+yews in the English churchyards.' (There is an American ring in this
+sentence, by the way, as there is in one, a few lines farther on, where
+the narrator having stated that by mistake the observers had the Sea of
+Clouds instead of a more easterly spot in the field of view, proceeds to
+say: 'However, the moon was a free country, and we not as yet attached
+to any particular province.') Next a lunar ocean is described, 'the
+water nearly as blue as that of the deep sea, and breaking in large
+white billows upon the strand, while the action of very high tides was
+quite manifest upon the face of the cliffs for more than a hundred
+miles.' After a description of several valleys, hills, mountains and
+forests, we come to the discovery of animal life. An oval valley
+surrounded by hills, red as the purest vermilion, is selected as the
+scene. 'Small collections of trees, of every imaginable kind, were
+scattered about the whole of this luxuriant area; and here our
+magnifiers blessed our panting hopes with specimens of conscious
+existence. In the shade of the woods we beheld brown quadrupeds having
+all the external characteristics of the bison, but more diminutive than
+any species of the bos genus in our natural history.' Then herds of
+agile creatures like antelopes are described, 'abounding on the
+acclivitous glades of the woods.' In the contemplation of these
+sprightly animals the narrator becomes quite lively. 'This beautiful
+creature,' says he, 'afforded us the most exquisite amusement. The
+mimicry of its movements upon our white painted canvas was as faithful
+and luminous as that of animals within a few yards of the camera
+obscura. Frequently, when attempting to put our fingers upon its beard,
+it would suddenly bound away as if conscious of our earthly
+impertinence; but then others would appear, whom we could not prevent
+nibbling the herbage, say or do to them what we would.'
+
+A strange amphibious creature, of a spherical form, rolling with great
+velocity along a pebbly beach, is the next object of interest, but is
+presently lost sight of in a strong current setting off from the angle
+of an island. After this there are three or four pages descriptive of
+various lunar scenes and animals, the latter showing a tendency,
+singular considering the circumstances, though very convenient for the
+narrator, to become higher and higher in type as the discoveries
+proceed, until an animal somewhat of the nature of the missing link is
+discovered. It is found in the Endymion (a circular walled plain) in
+company with a small kind of reindeer, the elk, the moose, and the
+horned bear, and is described as the biped beaver. It 'resembles the
+beaver of the earth in every other respect than in its destitution of a
+tail, and its invariable habit of walking upon only two feet. It carries
+its young in its arms like a human being, and moves with an easy gliding
+motion. Its huts are constructed better and higher than those of many
+tribes of human savages, and, from the appearance of smoke in nearly all
+of them, there is no doubt of its being acquainted with the use of fire.
+Still, its head and body differ only in the points stated from that of
+the beaver; and it was never seen except on the borders of lakes and
+rivers, in which it has been observed to immerse for a period of several
+seconds.'
+
+The next step towards the climax brings us to domestic animals, 'good
+large sheep, which would not have disgraced the farms of Leicestershire
+or the shambles of Leadenhall Market; we fairly laughed at the
+recognition of so familiar an acquaintance in so distant a land.
+Presently they appeared in great numbers, and, on reducing the lenses,
+we found them in flocks over a great part of the valley. I need not say
+how desirous we were of finding shepherds to these flocks, and even a
+man with blue apron and rolled-up sleeves would have been a welcome
+sight to us, if not to the sheep; but they fed in peace, lords of their
+own pastures, without either protector or destroyer in human shape.'
+
+In the meantime, discussion had arisen as to the lunar locality where
+men, or creatures resembling them, would most likely be found. Herschel
+had a theory on the subject--viz., that just where the balancing or
+libratory swing of the moon brings into view the greatest extent beyond
+the eastern or western parts of that hemisphere which is turned
+earthwards in the moon's mean or average position, lunar inhabitants
+would probably be found, and nowhere else. This, by the way (speaking
+seriously), is a rather curious anticipation of a view long subsequently
+advanced by Hansen, and for a time adopted by Sir J. Herschel, that
+possibly the remote hemisphere of the moon may be a fit abode for living
+creatures, the oceans and atmosphere which are wanting on the nearer
+hemisphere having been (on this hypothesis) drawn over to the remoter
+because of a displacement of the moon's centre of gravity. I ventured in
+one of my first books on astronomy to indicate objections to this
+theory, the force of which Sir J. Herschel admitted in a letter
+addressed to me on the subject.
+
+Taking, then, an opportunity when the moon had just swung to the extreme
+limit of her balancing, or, to use technical terms, when she had
+attained her maximum libration in longitude, the observers approached
+the level opening to Lake Langrenus, as the narrator calls this fine
+walled plain, which, by the way, is fully thirty degrees of lunar
+longitude within the average western limit of the moon's visible
+hemisphere. 'Here the valley narrows to a mile in width, and displays
+scenery on both sides picturesque and romantic beyond the powers of a
+prose description. Imagination, borne on the wings of poetry, could
+alone gather similes to portray the wild sublimity of this landscape,
+where dark behemoth crags stood over the brows of lofty precipices, as
+if a rampart in the sky; and forests seemed suspended in mid-air. On the
+eastern side there was one soaring crag, crested with trees, which hung
+over in a curve like three-fourths of a Gothic arch, and being of a rich
+crimson colour, its effect was most strange upon minds unaccustomed to
+the association of such grandeur with such beauty. But, whilst gazing
+upon them in a perspective of about half a mile, we were thrilled with
+astonishment to perceive four successive flocks of large winged
+creatures, wholly unlike any kind of birds, descend with a slow even
+motion from the cliffs on the western side and alight upon the plain.
+They were first noticed by Dr. Herschel, who exclaimed: "Now, gentlemen,
+my theories against your proofs, which you have often found a pretty
+even bet, we have here something worth looking at. I was confident that
+if ever we found beings in human shape it would be in this longitude,
+and that they would be provided by their Creator with some extraordinary
+powers of locomotion." ... We counted three parties of these creatures,
+of twelve, nine, and fifteen in each, walking erect towards a small wood
+near the base of the eastern precipices. Certainly they _were_ like
+human beings, for their wings had now disappeared, and their attitude in
+walking was both erect and dignified.... They averaged four feet in
+height, were covered, except on the face, with short and glossy
+copper-coloured hair, lying snugly upon their backs, from the top of the
+shoulders to the calves of the legs. The face, which was of a yellowish
+flesh colour, was a slight improvement upon that of the large orang
+outang, being more open and intelligent in its expression, and having a
+much greater expansion of forehead. The mouth, however, was very
+prominent, though somewhat relieved by a thick beard upon the lower jaw,
+and by lips far more human than those of any species of the simia genus.
+In general symmetry of body and limbs they were infinitely superior to
+the orang outang; so much so, that, but for their long wings, Lieutenant
+Drummond said they would look as well on a parade ground as some of the
+old Cockney militia.... These creatures were evidently engaged in
+conversation; their gesticulation, more particularly the varied action
+of their hands and arms, appeared impassioned and emphatic. We hence
+inferred that they were rational beings, and, although not perhaps of so
+high an order as others which we discovered the next month on the shores
+of the Bay of Rainbows, that they were capable of producing works of art
+and contrivance.... They possessed wings of great expansion, similar in
+construction to those of the bat, being a semi-transparent membrane
+united in curvilinear divisions by means of straight radii, united at
+the back by the dorsal integuments. But what astonished us very much
+was the circumstance of this membrane being continued from the shoulders
+to the legs, united all the way down, though gradually decreasing in
+width' (very much as Fuseli depicted the wings of his Satanic Majesty,
+though H.S.M. would seem to have the advantage of the lunar Bat-men in
+not being influenced by gravity[48]). 'The wings seemed completely under
+the command of volition, for those of the creatures whom we saw bathing
+in the water spread them instantly to their full width, waved them as
+ducks do theirs to shake off the water, and then as instantly closed
+them again in a compact form. Our further observation of the habits of
+these creatures, who were of both sexes, led to results so very
+remarkable, that I prefer they should be first laid before the public in
+Dr. Herschel's own work, where I have reason to know they are fully and
+faithfully stated, however incredulously they may be received.... We
+scientifically denominated them the Vespertilio-homo or Bat-man; and
+they are doubtless innocent and happy creatures, notwithstanding that
+some of their amusements would but ill comport with our terrestrial
+notions of decorum.' The omitted passages were suppressed in obedience
+to Dr. Grant's private injunction. 'These, however, and other prohibited
+passages,' were to be presently 'published by Dr. Herschel, with the
+certificates of the civil and military authorities of the colony, and of
+several Episcopal, Wesleyan, and other ministers, who in the month of
+March last were permitted, under stipulation of temporary secrecy, to
+visit the observatory, and become eye-witnesses of the wonders which
+they were requested to attest. We are confident that his forthcoming
+volumes will be at once the most sublime in science, and the most
+intense in general interest, that ever issued from the press.'
+
+The actual climax of the narrative, however, is not yet reached. The
+inhabitants of Langrenus, though rational, do not belong to the highest
+orders of intelligent Lunarians. Herschel, ever ready with theories, had
+pointed out that probably the most cultivated races would be found
+residing on the slopes of some active volcano, and, in particular, that
+the proximity of the flaming mountain Bullialdus (about twenty degrees
+south and ten east of the vast crater Tycho, the centre whence extend
+those great radiations which give to the moon something of the
+appearance of a peeled orange) 'must be so great a local convenience to
+dwellers in this valley during the long periodical absence of solar
+light, as to render it a place of popular resort for the inhabitants of
+all the adjacent regions, more especially as its bulwark of hills
+afforded an infallible security against any volcanic eruption that could
+occur.' Our observers therefore applied their full power to explore it.
+'Rich, indeed, was our reward. The very first object in this valley that
+appeared upon our canvas was a magnificent work of art. It was a
+temple--a fane of devotion or of science, which, when consecrated to the
+Creator, is devotion of the loftiest order, for it exhibits His
+attributes purely, free from the masquerade attire and blasphemous
+caricature of controversial creeds, and has the seal and signature of
+His own hand to sanction its aspirations. It was an equi-angular temple,
+built of polished sapphire, or of some resplendent blue stone, which,
+like it, displayed a myriad point of golden light twinkling and
+scintillating in the sunbeams.... The roof was composed of yellow metal,
+and divided into three compartments, which were not triangular planes
+inclining to the centre, but subdivided, curved, and separated so as to
+present a mass of violently agitated flames rising from a common source
+of conflagration, and terminating in wildly waving points. This design
+was too manifest and too skilfully executed to be mistaken for a single
+moment. Through a few openings in these metallic flames we perceived a
+large sphere of a darker kind of metal nearly of a clouded copper
+colour, which they enclosed and seemingly raged around, as if
+hieroglyphically consuming it.... What did the ingenious builders mean
+by the globe surrounded by flames? Did they, by this, record any past
+calamity of _their_ world, or predict any future one of _ours_?' (Why,
+by the way, should the past theory be assigned to the moon and the
+future one to our earth?) 'I by no means despair of ultimately solving
+not only these but a thousand other questions which present themselves
+respecting the objects in this planet; for not the millionth part of her
+surface has yet been explored, and we have been more desirous of
+collecting the greatest possible number of new facts than of indulging
+in speculative theories, however seductive to the imagination.'
+
+After this we have an account of the behaviour of the Vespertilio-homo
+at meals. 'They seemed eminently happy, and even polite; for individuals
+would select large and bright specimens of fruit, and throw them
+archwise across to some friend who had extracted the nutriment from
+those scattered around him.' However, the lunar men are not on the whole
+particularly interesting beings according to this account. 'So far as we
+could judge, they spent their happy hours in collecting various fruits
+in the woods, in eating, flying, bathing, and loitering about the
+summits of precipices.' One may say of them what Huxley is reported to
+have said of the spirits as described by spiritualists, that no student
+of science would care to waste his time inquiring about such a stupid
+set of people.
+
+Such are the more interesting and characteristic portions of a
+narrative, running in the original to forty or fifty large octavo pages.
+In its day the story attracted a good deal of notice, and, even when
+every one had learned the trick, many were still interested in a
+_brochure_ which was so cleverly conceived and had deceived so many. To
+this day the lunar hoax is talked of in America, where originally it had
+its chief--or, one may rather say, its only real--success as a hoax. It
+reached England too late to deceive any but those who were unacquainted
+with Herschel's real doings, and no editors of public journals, I
+believe, gave countenance to it at all. In America, on the contrary,
+many editors gave the narrative a distinguished place in their columns.
+Some indeed expressed doubts, and others followed the safe course of the
+'Philadelphia Inquirer,' which informed its readers that 'after an
+attentive perusal of the whole story they could decide for themselves;'
+adding that, 'whether true or false, the narrative is written with
+consummate ability and possesses intense interest.' But others were more
+credulous. According to the 'Mercantile Advertiser' the story carried
+'intrinsic evidence of being an authentic document.' The 'Albany Daily
+Advertiser' had read the article 'with unspeakable emotions of pleasure
+and astonishment.' The 'New York Times' announced that 'the writer (Dr.
+Andrew Grant) displays the most extensive and accurate knowledge of
+astronomy; and the description of Sir John's recently improved
+instruments, the principle on which the inestimable improvements were
+founded, the account of the wonderful discoveries in the moon, etc., all
+are probable and plausible, and have an air of intense verisimilitude.'
+The 'New Yorker' considered the discoveries 'of astounding interest,
+creating a new era in astronomy and science generally.'[49]
+
+In our time a trick of the kind could hardly be expected to succeed so
+well, even if as cleverly devised and as well executed. The facts of
+popular astronomy and of general popular science have been more widely
+disseminated. America, too, more than any other great nation, has
+advanced in the interval. It was about two years after this pamphlet had
+appeared, that J. Quincy Adams used the following significant language
+in advocating the erection of an astronomical observatory at Washington:
+'It is with no feeling of pride as an American that the remark may be
+made, that on the comparatively small territorial surface of Europe
+there are existing more than 130 of these lighthouses of the skies;
+while throughout the whole American hemisphere there is but one.' At
+present, some of the finest observatories in the world belong to
+American cities, or are attached to American colleges; and much of the
+most interesting astronomical work of this country has been achieved by
+American observers.
+
+Yet we still hear from time to time of the attempted publication of
+hoaxes of greater or less ingenuity. It is singular (and I think
+significant) how often these relate to the moon. There would seem to be
+some charm about our satellite for the minds of paradoxists and hoaxers
+generally. Nor are these tricks invariably detected at once by the
+general public, or even by persons of some culture. I remember being
+gravely asked (in January 1874) whether an account given in the 'New
+York World,' purporting to describe how the moon's frame was gradually
+cracking, threatening eventually to fall into several separate
+fragments, was in reality based on fact. In the far West, at Lincoln,
+Nebraska, a lawyer asked me, not long since, why I had not described the
+great discoveries recently made by means of a powerful reflector erected
+near Paris. According to the 'Chicago Times,' this powerful instrument
+had shown buildings in the moon, and bands of workers could be seen with
+it who manifestly were undergoing some kind of penal servitude, for they
+were chained together. It was clear, from the presence of these and the
+absence of other inhabitants, that the side of the moon turned
+earthwards is a dreary and unpleasant place of abode, the real 'happy
+hunting grounds' of the moon lying on her remote and unseen hemisphere.
+
+As gauges of general knowledge, scientific hoaxes have their uses, just
+as paradoxical works have. No one, certainly no student of science, can
+thoroughly understand how little some persons know about science, until
+he has observed how much will be believed, if only published with the
+apparent authority of a few known names, and announced with a sufficient
+parade of technical verbiage; nor is it so easy as might be thought,
+even for those who are acquainted with the facts, to disprove either a
+hoax or a paradox. Nothing, indeed, can much more thoroughly perplex and
+confound a student of science than to be asked to prove, for example,
+that the earth is not flat, or the moon not inhabited by creatures like
+ourselves; for the circumstance that such a question is asked implies
+ignorance so thorough of the very facts on which the proof must be
+based, as to render argument all but hopeless from the outset. I have
+had a somewhat wide experience of paradoxists, and have noted the
+experience of De Morgan and others who, like him, have tried to convince
+them of their folly. The conclusion at which I have arrived is, that to
+make a rope of sand were an easy task compared with the attempt to
+instil the simpler facts of science into paradoxical heads.
+
+I would make some remarks, in conclusion, upon scientific or
+quasi-scientific papers not intended to deceive, but yet presenting
+imaginary scenes, events, and so forth, described more or less in
+accordance with scientific facts. Imaginary journeys to the sun, moon,
+planets, and stars; travels over regions on the earth as yet unexplored;
+voyages under the sea, through the bowels of the earth, and other such
+narratives, may, perhaps, be sometimes usefully written and read, so
+long as certain conditions are fulfilled by the narrator. In the first
+place, while adopting, to preserve the unities, the tone of one relating
+facts which actually occurred, he should not suffer even the simplest
+among his readers to lie under the least misapprehension as to the true
+nature of the narrative. Again, since of necessity established facts
+must in such a narrative appear in company with the results of more or
+less probable surmise, the reader should have some means of
+distinguishing where fact ends and surmise begins. For example, in a
+paper I once wrote, entitled 'A Journey to Saturn,' I was not
+sufficiently careful to note that while the appearances described in the
+approach towards the planet were in reality based on the observed
+appearances as higher and higher telescopic powers are applied to the
+planet, others supposed to have been seen by the visitors to Saturn when
+actually within his system, were only such as might possibly or probably
+be seen, but for which we have no real evidence. In consequence of this
+omission, I received several inquiries about these matters. 'Is it
+true,' some wrote, 'that the small satellite Hyperion' (scarce
+discernible in powerful telescopes, while Titan and Japetus on either
+side are large) 'is only one of a ring of small satellites travelling
+between the orbits of the larger moons?'--as the same planets travel
+between the paths of Mars and Jupiter. Others asked on what grounds it
+was said that the voyagers found small moons circling about Titan, the
+giant moon of the Saturnian system, as the moons of Jupiter and Saturn
+circle around those giant members of the solar system. In each case, I
+was reduced to the abject necessity of explaining that there was no
+evidence for the alleged state of things, which, however, might
+nevertheless exist. Scientific fiction which has to be interpreted in
+that way is as bad as a joke that has to be explained. In my 'Journey to
+the Sun' I was more successful (it was the earlier essay, however);
+insomuch that Professor Young, of Dartmouth College (Hanover, N.H.), one
+of the most skilful solar observers living, assured me that, with
+scarcely a single exception, the various phenomena described
+corresponded exactly with the ideas he had formed respecting the
+probable condition of our luminary.[50]
+
+But I must confess that my own experience has not been, on the whole,
+favourable to that kind of popular science writing. It appears to me
+that the more thoroughly the writer of such an essay has studied any
+particular scientific subject, the less able must he be to write a
+fictitious narrative respecting it. Just as those ignorant of any
+subject are often the readiest to theorise about it, because least
+hampered by exact knowledge, so I think that the careful avoidance of
+any exact study of the details of a scientific subject must greatly
+facilitate the writing of a fictitious narrative respecting it. But
+unfortunately a narrative written under such conditions, however
+interesting to the general reader, can scarcely forward the propagation
+of scientific knowledge, one of the qualities claimed for fables of the
+kind. As an instance in point, I may cite Jules Verne's 'Voyage to the
+Moon,' where (apart, of course, from the inherent and intentional
+absurdity of the scheme itself), the circumstances which are described
+are calculated to give entirely erroneous ideas about the laws of
+motion. Nothing could be more amusing, but at the same time nothing more
+scientifically absurd, than the story of the dead dog Satellite, which,
+flung out of the travelling projectile, becomes a veritable satellite,
+moving always beside the voyagers; for, with whatever velocity the dog
+had been expelled by them, with that same velocity would he have
+retreated continually from their projectile abode, whose own attraction
+on the dog would have had no appreciable effect in checking his
+departure. Again, the scene when the projectile reaches the neutral
+point between the earth and moon, so that there is no longer any gravity
+to keep the travellers on the floor of their travelling car, is well
+conceived (though, in part, somewhat profane); but in reality the state
+of things described as occurring there would have prevailed throughout
+the journey. The travellers would no more be drawn earthwards (as
+compared with the projectile itself) than we travellers on the earth are
+drawn sunwards with reference to the earth. The earth's attracting force
+on the projectile and on the travellers would be equal all through the
+journey, not solely when the projectile reached the neutral point; and
+being equal on both, would not draw them together. It may be argued that
+the attractions were equal before the projectile set out on its journey,
+and therefore, if the reasoning just given were correct, the travellers
+ought not to have had any weight keeping them on the floor of the
+projectile before it started, 'which is absurd.' But the pressure upon
+the floor of the projectile at rest is caused by the floor being kept
+from moving; let it be free to obey gravity, and there will no longer be
+any pressure: and throughout the journey to the moon, the projectile,
+like the travellers it contains, is obeying the action of gravity.
+Unfortunately, those who are able to follow the correct reasoning in
+such matters are not those to whom Jules Verne's account would suggest
+wrong ideas about matters dynamical; the young learner who _is_ misled
+by such narratives is neither able to reason out the matter for himself,
+nor to understand the true reasoning respecting it. He is, therefore,
+apt to be set quite at sea by stories of the kind, and especially by the
+specious reasoning introduced to explain the events described. In fine,
+it would seem that such narratives must be valued for their intrinsic
+interest, just like other novels or romances, not for the quality
+sometimes claimed for them of combining instruction with amusement.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+_ON SOME ASTRONOMICAL PARADOXES._
+
+
+For many years the late Professor De Morgan contributed to the columns
+of the 'Athenæum' a series of papers in which he dealt with the strange
+treatises in which the earth is flattened, the circle squared, the angle
+divided into three, the cube doubled (the famous problem which the
+Delphic oracle set astronomers), and the whole of modern astronomy shown
+to be a delusion and a snare. He treated these works in a quaint
+fashion: not unkindly, for his was a kindly nature; not even earnestly,
+though he was thoroughly in earnest; yet in such sort as to rouse the
+indignation of the unfortunate paradoxists. He was abused roundly for
+what he said, but much more roundly when he declined further
+controversy. Paradoxists of the ignorant sort (for it must be remembered
+that not all are ignorant) are, indeed, well practised in abuse, and
+have long learned to call mathematicians and astronomers cheats and
+charlatans. They freely used their vocabulary for the benefit of De
+Morgan, whom they denounced as a scurrilous scribbler, a defamatory,
+dishonest, abusive, ungentlemanly, and libellous trickster.
+
+He bore this shower of abuse with exceeding patience and good nature. He
+had not been wholly unprepared for it, in fact; and, as he had a purpose
+in dealing with the paradoxists, he was satisfied to continue that quiet
+analysis of their work which so roused their indignation. He found in
+them a curious subject of study; and he found an equally curious subject
+of study in their disciples. The simpler--not to say more
+foolish--paradoxists, whose wonderful discoveries are merely amazing
+misapprehensions, were even more interesting to De Morgan than the
+craftier sort who make a living, or try to make a living, out of their
+pretended theories. Indeed, these last he treated, as they deserved,
+with a scathing satire quite different from his humorous and not
+ungenial comments on the wonderful theories of the honest paradoxists.
+
+There is one special use to which the study of paradox-literature may be
+applied, which--so far as I know--has not hitherto been much attended
+to. It may be questioned whether half the strange notions into which
+paradoxists fall must not be ascribed to the vagueness of too many of
+our scientific treatises. A half-understood explanation, or a carelessly
+worded account of some natural phenomenon, leads the paradoxist, whose
+nature is compounded of conceit and simplicity, to originate a theory of
+his own on the subject. Once such a theory has been devised, it takes
+complete possession of the paradoxist's mind. All the facts of which he
+thenceforward hears, which bear in the least on his favourite craze,
+appear to give evidence in its favour, even though in reality they are
+most obviously opposed to it. He learns to look upon himself as an
+unappreciated Newton, and to see the bitterest malevolence in those who
+venture to question his preposterous notions. He is fortunate if he do
+not suffer his theories to withdraw him from his means of earning a
+livelihood, or if he do not waste his substance in propounding and
+defending them.
+
+One of the favourite subjects for paradox-forming is the accepted theory
+of the solar system. Our books on astronomy too often present this
+theory in such sort that it seems only a _successor_ of Ptolemy's; and
+the impression is conveyed that, like Ptolemy's, it may be one day
+superseded by some other theory. This is quite enough for the
+paradoxist. If a new theory is to replace the one now accepted, why
+should not _he_ be the new Copernicus? He starts upon the road without a
+tithe of the knowledge that old Ptolemy possessed, unaware of the
+difficulties which Ptolemy met and dealt with--free, therefore, because
+of his perfect ignorance, to form theories at which Ptolemy would have
+smiled. He has probably heard of the
+
+      centrics and eccentrics scribbled o'er
+  Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb,
+
+which disfigured the theories of the ancients; but he is quite
+unconscious that every one of those scribblings had a real meaning, each
+being intended to account for some observed peculiarity of planetary
+motion, which _must_ be accounted for by any theory which is to claim
+acceptance. In this happy unconsciousness that there are any
+peculiarities requiring explanation, knowing nothing of the strange
+paths which the planets are seen to follow on the heavenly vault,
+
+  Their wand'ring course now high, now low, then hid,
+  Progressive, retrograde, or standing still,
+
+he placidly puts forward--and presently very vehemently urges--a theory
+which accounts for none of these things.
+
+It has often seemed to me that a large part of the mischief--for let it
+be remembered that the published errors of the paradoxist are indicative
+of much unpublished misapprehension--arises from the undeserved contempt
+with which our books of astronomy too often treat the labours of
+Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, and others who advocated erroneous theories. If
+the simple truth were told, that the theory of Ptolemy was a masterpiece
+of ingenuity and that it was worked out by his followers in a way which
+merits the highest possible praise, while the theory of Tycho Brahe was
+placed in reality on a sounder basis than that of Copernicus, and
+accounted as well and as simply for observed appearances, the student
+would begin to realise the noble nature of the problem which those great
+astronomers dealt with. And again, if stress were laid upon the fact
+that Tycho Brahe devoted years upon years of his life to secure such
+observations of the planets as might settle the questions at issue, the
+student would learn something of the spirit in which the true lover of
+science proceeds.
+
+It seems to me, also, that far too little is said about the kind of work
+by which Kepler and Newton finally established the accepted theories.
+There is a strange charm in the history of those twenty years of
+Kepler's life during which he was analysing the observations made by
+Tycho Brahe. Surrounded with domestic trials and anxieties, which might
+well have claimed his whole attention, tried grievously by ill-health
+and bodily anguish, he laboured all those years upon erroneous theories.
+The very worst of these had infinitely more evidence in its favour than
+the best which the paradoxists have brought forth. There was not one of
+those theories which nine out of ten of his scientific contemporaries
+would not have accepted ungrudgingly. Yet he wrought these theories one
+after another to their own disproof. _Nineteen_ of them he tried and
+rejected--the twentieth was the true theory of the solar system. Perhaps
+nothing in the whole history of astronomy affords a nobler lesson to the
+student of science--unless, indeed, it be the calm philosophy with which
+Newton for eighteen years suffered the theory of the universe to remain
+in abeyance, because faulty measurements of the earth prevented his
+calculations from agreeing with observed facts. But, as Professor
+Tyndall has well remarked--and the paradoxist should lay the lesson
+well to heart--'Newton's action in this matter was the normal action of
+the scientific mind. If it were otherwise--if scientific men were not
+accustomed to demand verification, if they were satisfied with the
+imperfect while the perfect is attainable--their science, instead of
+being, as it is, a fortress of adamant, would be a house of clay, ill
+fitted to bear the buffetings of the theologic storms to which it has
+been from time to time, and is at present, exposed.'
+
+The fame of Newton has proved to many paradoxists an irresistible
+attraction; it has been to these unfortunates as the candle to the
+fluttering moth. Circle-squaring, as we shall presently see, has had its
+attractions, nor have earth-fixing and earth-flattening been neglected;
+but attacking the law of gravitation has been the favourite work of
+paradoxists. Newton has been praised as surpassing the whole human race
+in genius; mathematicians and astronomers have agreed to laud him as
+unequalled; why should not Paradoxus displace him and be praised in like
+manner? It would be unfair, perhaps, to say that the paradoxist
+consciously argues thus. He doubtless in most instances convinces
+himself that he has really detected some flaw in the theory of
+gravitation. Yet it is impossible not to recognise, as the real motive
+of every paradox-monger, the desire to have that said of him which has
+been said of Newton: '_Genus humanum ingenio superavit._'
+
+I remember a curious instance of this which occurred soon after the
+appearance of the comet of 1858. It chanced that, while that object was
+under discussion, reference was made to the action of a repulsive force
+exerted by the sun upon the matter of the comet's tail. On this, some
+one addressed a long letter to a Glasgow newspaper, announcing that he
+had long ago proved that the sun's attraction alone is insufficient to
+account for the planetary motions. His reasoning was amazingly simple.
+If the sun's attraction is powerful enough to keep the outer planets in
+their course, it must be too powerful for Venus and Mercury close by the
+sun; if it only just suffices to keep these in their course, it cannot
+possibly be powerful enough to restrain the outer planets. The writer of
+this letter said that he had been very badly treated by scientific
+bodies. He had announced his discovery to the Royal Astronomical
+Society, the Royal Society, the Imperial Academy at Paris, and other
+scientific bodies; but they had one and all refused to listen to him. He
+had forsaken or neglected his trade for several years in order to give
+attention to the new and (as he thought) the true theory of the
+universe. He complained in a specially bitter manner of the unfavourable
+comments which men of science had made upon his views in private letters
+addressed to him in reply to his communications.
+
+There is something melancholy even in what is most ridiculous in cases
+of this sort. The simplicity which supposes that considerations so
+obvious as those adduced could escape the scrutiny, not of Newton only,
+but of all who have followed in the same track during two centuries, is
+certainly stupendous; nor can one fail to smile at seeing a difficulty,
+such as might naturally suggest itself to a beginner, and such as
+half-a-dozen words from an expert would clear up, regarded gravely as a
+discovery calculated to make its author famous for all time. Yet, when
+one considers the probable consequences of the blunder to the unhappy
+enthusiast, and perchance to his family, it is difficult not to feel a
+sense of pity, quite apart from that pity allied to contempt which is
+excited by his mistake. A few words added to the account of Newton's
+theory, which the paradoxist had probably read in some astronomical
+treatise, would have prevented all this mischief. Indeed, this
+difficulty, which, as we have said, is a natural one, should be dealt
+with and removed in any account of the planetary system intended for
+beginners. The simple statement that the outer planets move more slowly
+than the inner, and so _require_ a smaller force to keep them in their
+course, would have sufficed, not, perhaps, altogether to remove the
+difficulty, but to show the beginner where the explanation was to be
+looked for.
+
+It was in connection with this subject of gravitation that one of the
+most well-meaning of the paradoxists--the late Mr. James Reddie--came
+under Professor De Morgan's criticism. Mr. Reddie was something more
+than well-meaning. He was earnestly desirous of advancing the interests
+of science, as well as of defending religion from what he mistakenly
+supposed to be the dangerous teachings of the Newtonians. He founded for
+these purposes the Victoria Institute, of which society he was the
+secretary from the time of its institution until his decease, some years
+since; and, probably, many who declined to join that society because of
+the Anti-Newtonian proclivities of its secretary, were unaware that to
+that secretary the institute owed its existence.
+
+It so chanced that I had myself a good deal of correspondence with Mr.
+Reddie (who was, however, personally unknown to me). This correspondence
+served to throw quite a new light on the mental habitudes and ways of
+thinking of the honest paradoxist. I believe that Professor De Morgan
+hardly gave Mr. Reddie credit for the perfect honesty which he really
+possessed. It may have been that a clear reasoner like De Morgan could
+hardly (despite his wide experience) appreciate the confusion of mind
+which is the normal characteristic of the paradoxist. But certainly the
+very candid way in which Mr. Reddie admitted, in the correspondence
+above named, that he had not known some facts and had misunderstood
+others, afforded to my mind the most satisfactory proofs of his
+straightforwardness.
+
+It may be instructive to consider a few of those paradoxes of Mr.
+Reddie's which Professor De Morgan found chief occasion to pulverise.
+
+In a letter to the Astronomer-Royal Mr. Reddie announced that he was
+about to write 'a paper intended to be hereafter published, elaborating
+more minutely and discussing more rigidly than before the glaring
+fallacies, dating from the time of Newton, relating to the motion of the
+moon.' He proceeded to 'indicate the nature of the issues he intended to
+raise.' He had discovered that the moon does not, as a matter of fact,
+go round the earth at the rate of 2288 miles an hour, as astronomers
+say, but follows an undulatory path round the sun at a rate varying
+between 65,000 and 70,000 miles an hour; because, while the moon seems
+to go round the earth, the latter is travelling onwards at the rate of
+67,500 miles an hour round the sun. Of course he was quite right in his
+facts, and quite wrong in his inferences; as the Astronomer-Royal
+pointed out in a brief letter, closing with the remark that, 'as a very
+closely occupied man,' Mr. Airy could 'not enter further into the
+matter.' But further Mr. Reddie persisted in going, though he received
+no more letters from Greenwich. His reply to Sir G. Airy contained, in
+fact, matter enough for a small pamphlet.
+
+Now here was certainly an amazing fact. A well-known astronomical
+relation, which astronomers have over and over again described and
+explained, is treated as though it were something which had throughout
+all ages escaped attention. It is not here the failure to comprehend the
+_rationale_ of a simple explanation which is startling, but the notion
+that an obvious fact had been wholly overlooked.
+
+Of like nature was the mistake which brought Mr. Reddie more especially
+under Professor De Morgan's notice. It is known that the sun, carrying
+with him his family of planets, is speeding swiftly through space--his
+velocity being estimated as probably not falling short of 20,000 miles
+per hour. It follows, of course, that the real paths of the planets in
+space are not closed curves, but spirals of different orders. How, then,
+can the theory of Copernicus be right, according to which the planets
+circle in closed orbits round the sun? Here was Mr. Reddie's difficulty;
+and like the other, it appeared to his mind as a great discovery. He was
+no whit concerned by the thought that astronomers ought surely to have
+noticed the difficulty before. It did not seem in the least wonderful
+that he, lightly reading a book or two of popular astronomy, should
+discover that which Laplace, the Herschels, Leverrier, Airy, Adams, and
+a host of others, who have given their whole lives to astronomy, had
+failed to notice. Accordingly, Mr. Reddie forwarded to the British
+Association (in session at Newcastle) a paper controverting the theory
+of the sun's motion. The paper was declined with thanks by that bigoted
+body 'as opposed to Newtonian astronomy.' 'That paper I published,' says
+Mr. Reddie, 'in September 1863, with an appendix, in both thoroughly
+exhibiting the illogical reasoning and absurdities involved in the
+theory; and with what result? The members of Section A of the British
+Association, and Fellows of the Royal Society and of the Royal
+Astronomical Society, to whom I sent copies of my paper, were, without
+exception, _dumb_.' Professor De Morgan, however, having occasion to
+examine Mr. Reddie's publications some time after, was in no sort dumb,
+but in very plain and definite terms exhibited their absurdity. After
+all, however, the real absurdity consisted, not in the statements which
+Mr. Reddie made, nor even in the conclusions which he drew from them,
+but in the astounding simplicity which could suppose that astronomers
+were unaware of the facts which their own labours had revealed.
+
+In my correspondence with Mr. Reddie I recognised the real source of the
+amazing self-complacency displayed by the true paradoxist. The very
+insufficiency of the knowledge which a paradoxist possesses of his
+subject, affords the measure of his estimate of the care with which
+other men have studied that subject. Because the paradoxist is ready to
+pronounce an opinion about matters he has not studied, it does not seem
+strange to him that Newton and his followers should be equally ready to
+discuss subjects they had not inquired into.
+
+Another very remarkable instance was afforded by Mr. Reddie's treatment
+of the subject of comets. And here, by the way, I shall quote a remark
+made by Sir John Herschel soon after the appearance of the comet of
+1861. 'I have received letters,' he said, 'about the comets of the last
+few years, enough to make one's hair stand on end at the absurdity of
+the theories they propose, and at the ignorance of the commonest laws of
+optics, of motion, of heat, and of general physics, they betray in their
+writers.' In the present instance, the correspondence showed that the
+paradoxist supposed the parabolic paths of some comets to be regarded by
+astronomers as analogous to the parabolic paths traversed by
+projectiles. He expressed considerable astonishment when I informed him
+that, in the first place, projectiles do not travel on truly parabolic
+paths; and secondly, that in all respects their motion differs
+essentially from that which astronomers ascribe to comets. These last
+move more and more quickly until they reach what is called the vertex of
+the parabola (the point of such a path which lies nearest to the sun):
+projectiles, on the contrary, move more and more slowly as they approach
+the corresponding point of their path; and further, the comet first
+approaches and then recedes from the centre of attraction--the
+projectile first recedes from and then approaches the attracting centre.
+
+The earth-flatteners form a considerable section of the paradoxical
+family. They experienced a practical rebuff, a few years since, which
+should to some degree have shaken their faith in the present chief of
+their order. To do this chief justice, he is probably far less confident
+about the flatness of the earth than any of his disciples. Under the
+assumed name of Parallax he visited most of the chief towns of England,
+propounding what he calls his system of zetetic astronomy. Why he should
+call himself Parallax it would be hard to say; unless it be that the
+verb from which the word is derived signifies primarily to shift about
+or dodge, and secondarily to alter a little, especially for the worse.
+His employment of the word zetetic is less doubtful, as he claims for
+his system that it alone is founded on the true seeking out of Nature's
+secrets.
+
+The experimental basis of the theory of Parallax is mainly this: Having
+betaken himself to a part of the Bedford Canal, where there is an
+uninterrupted water-line of about six miles, he tested the water surface
+for signs of curvature, and (as he said) found none.
+
+It chanced, unfortunately, that a disciple--Mr. John Hampden, of
+Swindon--accepted the narrative of this observation in an unquestioning
+spirit; and was so confident that the Bedford Canal has a truly plane
+surface, that he wagered five hundred pounds on his opinion, challenging
+the believers in the earth's rotundity to repeat the experiment. The
+challenge was accepted by Mr. Wallace, the eminent naturalist; and the
+result may be anticipated. Three boats were to be moored in a line,
+three miles or so between each. Each carried a mast of given length. If,
+when the summits of the first and last masts were seen in a line
+through a telescope, the summit of the middle mast was not found to be
+above the line, then Mr. Hampden was to receive five hundred pounds from
+Mr. Wallace. If, on the contrary, the top of the middle mast was found,
+as the accepted theory said it should be, to be several feet above the
+line joining the tops of the two outer masts, then Mr. Hampden was to
+lose the five hundred pounds he had so rashly ventured. Everything was
+conducted in accordance with the arrangements agreed upon. The editor of
+a well-known sporting paper acted as stakeholder, and unprejudiced
+umpires were to decide as to what actually was seen through the
+telescope. It need scarcely be said that the accepted theory held its
+own, and that Mr. Hampden lost his money. He scarcely bore the loss with
+so good a grace as was to have been expected from a philosopher merely
+desirous of ascertaining the truth. His wrath was not expended on
+Parallax, whom he might have suspected of having led him astray; nor
+does he seem to have been angry with himself, as would have seemed
+natural. All his anger was reserved for those who still continued to
+believe in the earth's rotundity. Whether he believed that the Bedford
+water had risen under the middle boat to oblige Mr. Wallace, or how it
+came to pass that his own chosen experiment had failed him, does not
+appear.
+
+The subsequent history of this matter has been unpleasant. It
+illustrates, unfortunately but too well, the mischief which may ensue
+from the tricks of those who make a trade of paradox--tricks which would
+be scarce possible, however, if text-books of science were more
+carefully written, and by those only who are really acquainted with the
+subject of which they treat.
+
+The book which originally led to Mr. Hampden's misfortunes, and has
+misled not a few, ought to have deceived none. I have already mentioned
+the statement on which Parallax (whose true name is Rowbotham) rested
+his theory. Of course, if that statement had been true--if he had, with
+his eye a few inches from the surface of the water of the Bedford Canal,
+seen an object close to the surface six miles from him--there manifestly
+would have been something wrong in the accepted theory about the earth's
+rotundity. So, also, if a writer were to announce a new theory of
+gravity, stating as the basis of his theory that a heavy missile which
+he had thrown into the air had gone upwards on a serpentine course to
+the moon, any one who accepted the statement would be logically bound to
+admit at least that the fact described was inconsistent with the
+accepted theory. But no one would accept such a statement; and no one
+should have accepted Mr. Rowbotham's statement.
+
+His statement was believed, however, and perhaps is still believed by
+many. Twenty years ago De Morgan wrote that 'the founder of the zetetic
+astronomy gained great praise from provincial newspapers for his
+ingenuity in proving that the earth is a flat, surrounded by ice,' with
+the north polar ice in the middle. 'Some of the journals rather incline
+to this view; but the "Leicester Advertiser" thinks that the statement
+"would seem to invalidate some of the most important conclusions of
+modern astronomy;" while the "Norfolk Herald" is clear that "there must
+be great error on one side or the other." ... The fact is worth noting
+that from 1849-1857 arguments on the roundness or flatness of the earth
+did itinerate. I have no doubt they did much good, for very few persons
+have any distinct idea of the evidence for the rotundity of the earth.
+The "Blackburn Standard" and "Preston Guardian" (December 12 and 16,
+1849) unite in stating that the lecturer ran away from his second
+lecture at Burnley, having been rather too hard pressed, at the end of
+his first lecture, to explain why the large hull of a ship disappeared
+before the masts. The persons present and waiting for the second
+lecture assuaged their disappointment by concluding that the lecturer
+had slipped off the ice edge of his flat disc, and that he would not be
+seen again till he peeped up on the opposite side.' ... 'The zetetic
+system,' proceeds De Morgan, 'still lives in lectures and books; as it
+ought to do, for there is no way of teaching a truth comparable to
+opposition. The last I heard of it was in lectures at Plymouth, in
+October 1864. Since this time a prospectus has been issued of a work
+entitled "The Earth not a Globe;" but whether it has been published I do
+not know.'
+
+The book was published soon after the above was written, and De Morgan
+gives the following quaint account of it: 'August 28, 1865. The zetetic
+astronomy has come into my hands. When in 1851 I went to see the Great
+Exhibition I heard an organ played by a performer who seemed very
+desirous of exhibiting one particular stop. "What do you think of that
+stop?" I was asked. "That depends on the name of it," said I "Oh! what
+can the name of it have to do with the sound? 'that which we call a
+rose,' etc." "The name has everything to do with it: if it be a flute
+stop I think it very harsh; but if it be a railway-whistle stop, I think
+it very sweet." So as to this book: if it be childish, it is clever; if
+it be mannish, it is unusually foolish. The flat earth floating
+tremulously on the sea; the sun moving always over the flat, giving day
+when near enough, and night when too far off; the self-luminous moon,
+with a semi-transparent invisible moon created to give her an eclipse
+now and then; the new law of perspective, by which the vanishing of the
+hull before the masts, usually thought to prove the earth globular,
+really proves it flat;--all these and other things are well fitted to
+form exercises for a person who is learning the elements of astronomy.
+The manner in which the sun dips into the sea, especially in tropical
+climates, upsets the whole. Mungo Park, I think, gives an African
+hypothesis which explains phenomena better than this. The sun dips into
+the Western ocean, and the people there cut him in pieces, fry him in a
+pan, and then join him together again; take him round the under way, and
+set him up in the East. I hope this book will be read, and that many
+will be puzzled by it; for there are many whose notions of astronomy
+deserve no better fate. There is no subject on which there is so little
+accurate conception as on that of the motions of the heavenly
+bodies.[51] The author, though confident in the extreme, neither
+impeaches the honesty of those whose opinion he assails, nor allots them
+any future inconvenience: in these points he is worthy to live on a
+globe and to rotate in twenty-four hours.'
+
+I chanced to reside near Plymouth when Mr. Rowbotham lectured there in
+October 1864. It will readily be understood that, in a town where there
+are so many naval men, his lectures were not altogether so successful as
+they have sometimes been in small inland towns. Numbers of naval
+officers, however, who were thoroughly well assured of the fact that the
+earth is a globe, were not able to demolish the crafty arguments of
+Parallax publicly, during the discussions which he challenged at the
+close of each lecture. He was too skilled in that sort of evasion which
+his assumed name (as interpreted by Liddell and Scott) suggests, to be
+readily cornered. When an argument was used which he could not easily
+meet, or seem to meet, he would say simply: 'Well, sir, you have now had
+your fair share of the discussion; let some one else have his turn.' It
+was stated in the newspapers that one of his audience was so wrathful
+with the lecturer on account of these evasions, that he endeavoured to
+strike Parallax with a knobbed stick at the close of the second lecture;
+but probably there was no real foundation for the story.
+
+Mr. Rowbotham did a very bold thing, however, at Plymouth. He undertook
+to prove, by observations made with a telescope upon the Eddystone
+Lighthouse from the Hoe and from the beach, that the surface of the
+water is flat. From the beach usually only the lantern can be seen. From
+the Hoe the whole of the lighthouse is visible under favourable
+conditions. Duly on the morning appointed, Mr. Rowbotham appeared. From
+the Hoe a telescope was directed towards the lighthouse, which was well
+seen, the morning being calm and still, and tolerably clear. On
+descending to the beach it was found that, instead of the whole lantern
+being visible as usual, only half could be seen--a circumstance
+doubtless due to the fact that the air's refractive power, which usually
+diminishes the dip due to the earth's curvature by about one-sixth part,
+was less efficient that morning than usual. The effect of the
+peculiarity was manifestly unfavourable to Mr. Rowbotham's theory. The
+curvature of the earth produced a greater difference than usual between
+the appearance of a distant object as seen from a certain high station
+and from a certain low station (though still the difference fell short
+of that which would be shown if there were no air). But Parallax claimed
+the peculiarity observable that morning as an argument in favour of his
+flat earth. It is manifest, he said, that there is something wrong about
+the accepted theory; for it tells us that so much less of the lighthouse
+should be seen from the beach than from the Hoe, whereas less still was
+seen. And many of the Plymouth folk went away from the Hoe that morning,
+and from the second lecture, in which Parallax triumphantly quoted the
+results of the observation, with the feeling which had been expressed
+seven years before in the 'Leicester Advertiser,' that 'some of the most
+important conclusions of modern astronomy had been seriously
+invalidated.' If our books of astronomy, in referring to the effects of
+the earth's curvature, had only been careful to point out how surveyors
+and sailors and those who build lighthouses take into account the
+modifying effects of atmospheric refraction, and how these effects have
+long been known to vary with the temperature and pressure of the air,
+this mischief would have been avoided. It would not be fair to say of
+the persons misled on that occasion by Parallax that they deserved no
+better; since the fault is not theirs as readers, but that of careless
+or ill-informed writers.
+
+Another experiment conducted by Parallax the same morning was creditable
+to his ingenuity. Nothing better, perhaps, was ever devised to deceive
+people, apparently by ocular evidence, into the belief that the earth is
+flat--nor is there any clearer evidence of the largeness of the earth's
+globe compared with our ordinary measures. On the Hoe, some ninety or a
+hundred feet above the sea-level, he had a mirror suspended in a
+vertical position facing the sea, and invited the bystanders to look in
+that mirror at the sea-horizon. To all appearance the line of the
+horizon corresponded exactly with the level of the eye-pupils of the
+observer. Now, of course, when we look into a mirror whose surface is
+exactly vertical, the line of sight to the eye-pupils of our image in
+the mirror is exactly horizontal; whereas the line of sight from the
+eyes to the image of the sea-horizon is depressed exactly as much as the
+line from the eyes to the real sea-horizon. Here, then, seemed to be
+proof positive that there is no depression of the sea-horizon; for the
+horizontal line to the image of the eye-pupil seemed to coincide exactly
+with the line to the image of the sea-horizon. It is not necessary to
+suppose here that the mirror was wrongly adjusted, though the slightest
+error of adjustment would affect the result either favourably or
+unfavourably for Parallax's flat-earth theory. It is a matter of fact
+that, if the mirror were perfectly vertical, only very acute vision
+could detect the depression of the image of the sea-horizon below the
+image of the eye-pupil. The depression can easily be calculated for any
+given circumstances. Parallax encouraged observers to note very closely
+the position of the eye-pupil in the image, so that most of them
+approached the image within about ten inches, or the glass within about
+five. Now, in such a case, for a height of one hundred feet above the
+sea-level the image of the sea-horizon would be depressed below the
+image of the eye-pupil by less than three hundredths of an inch--an
+amount which could not be detected by one eye in a hundred. The average
+diameter of the pupil itself is one-fifth of an inch, or about seven
+times as great as the depression of the sea-horizon in the case
+supposed. It would require very close observation and a good eye to
+determine whether a horizontal line seen on either side of the head were
+on the level of the centres of the eye-pupils, or lower by about
+one-seventh of the breadth of either pupil.
+
+The experiment is a pretty one, however, and well worth trying by any
+one who lives near to the sea-shore and sea-cliffs. But there is a much
+more effective experiment which can be much more easily tried--only it
+is open to the disadvantage that it at once demolishes the argument of
+our friend Parallax. It occurred to me while I was writing the above
+paragraph. Let a very small mirror (it need not be larger than a
+sixpence) be so suspended to a small support and so weighted that when
+left to itself it hangs with its face perfectly vertical--an arrangement
+which any competent optician will easily secure--and let a fine
+horizontal line or several horizontal lines be marked on the mirror;
+which, by the way, should be a metallic one, as its indications will
+then be altogether more trustworthy. This mirror can be put into the
+waistcoat pocket and conveniently carried to much greater height than
+the mirror used by Parallax. Now, at some considerable height--say five
+or six hundred feet above the sea-level, but a hundred or even fifty
+will suffice--look into this small mirror while _facing_ the sea. The
+true horizon will then be seen to be visibly below the centre of the
+eye-pupil--visibly in this case because the horizontal line traced on
+the mirror can be made to coincide with the sea-horizon exactly, and
+will then be found _not_ to coincide with the centre of the eye-pupil.
+Such an instrument could be readily made to show the distance of the
+sea-horizon, which at once determines the height of the observer above
+the sea-level. For this purpose all that would be necessary would be a
+means of placing the eye at some definite distance from the small
+mirror, and a fine vertical scale on the mirror to show the exact
+depression of the sea-horizon. For balloonists such an instrument would
+sometimes be useful, as showing the elevation independently of the
+barometer, whenever any portion of the sea-horizon was in view.
+
+The mention of balloon experiences leads me to another delusive argument
+of the earth-flatteners.[52] It has been the experience of all
+aeronauts that, as the balloon rises, the appearance of the earth is by
+no means what would be expected from the familiar teachings in our books
+of astronomy. There is a picture in most of these books representing the
+effect of ascent above the sea-level in depressing the line of sight to
+the horizon, and bringing more and more into view the convexity of the
+earth's globe. One would suppose, from the picture, that when an
+observer is at a great height the earth would appear to rise under him,
+like some great round and well-curved shield whose convexity was towards
+him. Instead of this, the aeronaut finds the earth presenting the
+appearance of a great hollow basin, or of the concave side of a
+well-curved shield. The horizon seems to rise as he rises, while the
+earth beneath him sinks lower and lower. A somewhat similar phenomenon
+may be noted when, after ascending the landward side of a high cliff, we
+come suddenly upon a view of the sea--invariably the sea-horizon is
+higher than we expected to find it. _Only_, in this case, the surface of
+the sea seems to rise from the beach below towards the distant horizon
+convexly not concavely; the reason of which I take to be this, that the
+waves, and especially long rollers or uniform large ripples, teach the
+eye to form true conceptions of the shape of the sea-surface even when
+the eye is deceived as to the position of the sea-horizon. Indeed, I
+should much like to know what would be the appearance of the sea from a
+balloon when no land was in sight (though I do not particularly wish to
+make the observation myself): the convexity discernible, for the reason
+just named, would contend strangely with the concavity imagined, for the
+reason now to be indicated.
+
+The deception arises from the circumstance that the scene displayed
+below and around the balloon is judged by the eye from the experience of
+more familiar scenes. The horizon is depressed, but so little that the
+eye cannot detect the depression, especially where the boundary of the
+horizon is irregular. It is here that the text-book pictures mislead;
+for they show the depression as far too great to be overlooked, setting
+the observer sometimes about two thousand miles above the sea-level. The
+eye, then, judges the horizon to be where it usually is--on the same
+level as the observer; but looking downwards, the eye perceives, and at
+once appreciates if it does not even exaggerate, the great depth at
+which the earth lies below the balloon. The appearance, then, as judged
+by the eye, is that of a mighty basin whose edge rises up all round to
+the level of the balloon, while its bottom lies two or three miles or
+more below the balloon.
+
+The zetetic faithful reason about this matter as though the impressions
+of the senses were trustworthy under all conditions, familiar or
+otherwise; whereas, in point of fact, we know that the senses often
+deceive, even under familiar conditions, and almost always deceive under
+conditions, which are not familiar. A person, for example, accustomed to
+the mist and haze of our British air, is told by the sense of sight,
+when he is travelling where a clearer atmosphere prevails, that a
+mountain forty miles from him is a hill a few miles away. On the other
+hand, an Italian travelling through the Highlands is impressed with the
+belief that all the features of the scenery are much larger (because he
+supposes them much more remote) than they really are. A hundred such
+instances of deception might easily be cited. The conditions under which
+the aeronaut observes the earth are certainly less familiar than those
+under which the Briton views the Alps and Apennines, or the Italian
+views Ben Lomond or Ben Lawers. It would be rash, therefore, even if no
+other evidence were available, to reject the faith that the earth is a
+globe because, as seen from a balloon, it looks like a basin. Indeed, to
+be strictly logical, the followers of Parallax ought on this account to
+adopt the faith that the earth is not flat, but basin-shaped, which
+hitherto they have not been ready to do.
+
+We have seen that Parallax describes a certain experiment on the Bedford
+Level, which, if made as he states, would have shown certainly that
+something was wrong in the accepted system--for a six-mile straight-edge
+along water would be as severe a blow to the belief in a round earth, as
+a straight line on the sea-surface from Queenstown to New York. Another
+curious experiment adorns his little book, which, if it could be
+repeated successfully before a dozen trustworthy witnesses, would rather
+astonish men of science. Having, he says, by certain
+reasoning--altogether erroneous, but that is a detail--convinced himself
+that, on the accepted theory, a bullet fired vertically upwards ought to
+fall far to the west of the place whence it was fired, he carefully
+fixed an air-gun in a vertical position, and fired forty bullets
+vertically upwards. All these fell close to the gun--which is not
+surprising, though it must have made such an experiment rather
+dangerous; but two fell back into the barrel itself--which certainly was
+very surprising indeed. One might fairly challenge the most experienced
+gunner in the world to achieve one such vertical shot in a thousand
+trials; two in forty bordered on the miraculous.
+
+The earth-flatteners I have been speaking of claim, as one of their
+objects, the defence of Scripture. But some of the earth-flatteners of
+the last generation (or a little farther back) took quite another view
+of the matter. For instance, Sir Richard Phillips, a more vehement
+earth-flattener than Parallax, was so little interested in defending
+the Scriptures, that in 1793 he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment
+for selling a book regarded as atheistic. In 1836 he attempted the
+conversion of Professor De Morgan, opening the correspondence with the
+remark that he had 'an inveterate abhorrence of all the pretended wisdom
+of philosophy derived from the monks and doctors of the Middle Ages, and
+not less those of higher name who merely sought to make the monkish
+philosophy more plausible, or so to disguise it as to mystify the mob of
+small thinkers.' He seems himself to have succeeded in mystifying many
+of those whom he intended to convert. Admiral Smyth gives the following
+account of an interview he had with Phillips: 'This pseudo-mathematical
+knight once called upon me at Bedford, without any previous
+acquaintance, to discuss "those errors of Newton, which he almost
+blushed to name," and which were inserted in the "Principia" to "puzzle
+the vulgar." He sneered with sovereign contempt at the "Trinity of
+Gravitating Force, Projectile Force, and Void Space," and proved that
+all change of place is accounted for by motion.' [Startling hypothesis!]
+'He then exemplified the conditions by placing some pieces of paper on a
+table, and slapping his hand down close to them, thus making them fly
+off, which he termed applying the momentum. All motion, he said, is in
+the direction of the forces; and atoms seek the centre by "terrestrial
+centripetation"--a property which causes universal pressure; but in what
+these attributes of pushing and pulling differ from gravitation and
+attraction was not expounded. Many of his "truths" were as mystified as
+the conundrums of Rabelais; so nothing was made of the motion.'
+
+A favourite subject of paradoxical ideas has been the moon's motion of
+rotation. Strangely enough, De Morgan, who knew more about past
+paradoxists than any man of his time, seems not to have heard of the
+dispute between Keill and Bentley over this matter in 1690. He says,
+'there was a dispute on the subject, in 1748, between James Ferguson and
+an anonymous opponent; and I think there have been others;' but the
+older and more interesting dispute he does not mention. Bentley, who was
+no mathematician, pointed out in a lecture certain reasons for believing
+that the moon does not turn on her axis, or has no axis on which she
+turns. Keill, then only nineteen years old, pointed out that the
+arguments used by Bentley proved that the moon does rotate instead of
+showing that she does not. (Twenty years later Keill was appointed
+Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford. He was the first holder of
+that office to teach the Newtonian astronomy.)
+
+In recent times, as most of my readers know, the paradox that the moon
+does not rotate has been revived more than once. In 1855 it was
+sustained by Mr. Jellinger Symons, one of whose staunchest supporters,
+Mr. H. Perigal, had commenced the attack a few years earlier. Of course,
+the gist of the argument against the moon's rotation lies in the fact
+that the moon always keeps the same face turned towards the earth, or
+very nearly so. If she did so exactly, and if her distance from the
+earth were constantly the same, then her motion would be exactly the
+same as though she were rigidly connected with the earth, and turned
+round an axis at the earth. The case may be thus illustrated: Through
+the middle of a large orange thrust one short rod vertically, and
+another long rod horizontally; thrust the further end of the latter
+through a small apple, and now turn the whole affair round the short
+vertical rod as an axis. Then the apple will move with respect to the
+orange as the moon would move with respect to the earth on the
+suppositions just made. No one in this case would say that the apple was
+turning round on its axis, since its motion would be one of rotation
+round the upright axis through the orange. Therefore, say the opponents
+of the moon's rotation, no one should say that the moon turns round on
+her axis.
+
+Of course, the answer would be obvious even if the moon's motions were
+as supposed. The moon is not connected with the earth as the apple is
+with the orange in the illustrative case. If the apple, without rigid
+connection with the orange, were carried round the orange so as to move
+precisely as if it were so connected, it would unquestionably have to
+rotate on its axis, as any one will find who may try the experiment.
+Thus for the straight rod thrust through the apple substitute a straight
+horizontal bar carrying a small basin of water in which the apple
+floats. Sway the bar steadily and slowly round, and it will be found (if
+a mark is placed on the apple) that the apple no longer keeps the same
+face towards the centre of motion; but that, to cause it to do so, a
+slow motion of rotation must be communicated to the apple in the same
+direction and at the same rate (neglecting the effects of the friction
+of the water against the sides of the basin) as the bar is rotating. In
+my 'Treatise on the Moon' I have described and pictured a simple
+apparatus by which this experiment may easily be made.
+
+But, of course, such experiments are not essential to the argument by
+which the paradox is overthrown. This argument simply is, that the moon
+as she travels on her orbit round the sun--the real centre of her
+motion--turns every part of her equator in succession towards him once
+in a lunar month. At the time of new moon the sun illuminates the face
+of the moon turned from us; at the time of full moon he illuminates the
+face which has been gradually brought round to him as the moon has
+passed through her first two quarters. As she passes onwards to new
+moon again, the face we see is gradually turned from him until he
+shines full upon the other face. And so on during successive lunations.
+This could not happen unless the moon rotated. Again, if we lived on the
+moon we should find the heaven of the fixed stars turning round from
+east to west once in rather more than twenty-seven days; and unless we
+supposed, as we should probably do for a long time, that our small world
+was the centre of the universe, and that the stars turned round it, we
+should be compelled to admit that it was turning on its own axis from
+west to east once in the time just named. There would be no escape. The
+mere fact that all the time the stars thus seemed to be turning round
+the moon, the earth would not so seem to move, but would lie always in
+the same direction, would in no sort help to remove the difficulty.
+Lunarian paradoxists would probably argue that she was in some way
+rigidly connected with the moon; but even they would never think of
+arguing that their world did not turn on its axis, _unless_ they
+maintained that it was the centre of the universe. This, I think, they
+would very probably do; but as yet terrestrial paradoxists have not, I
+believe, maintained this hypothesis. I once asked Mr. Perigal whether
+that was the true theory of the universe--the moon central, the earth,
+sun, and heavens carried round her. He admitted that his objections to
+accepted views were by no means limited to the moon's rotation; and, if
+I remember rightly, he said that the idea I had thrown out in jest was
+nearer the truth than I thought, or used words to that effect. But as
+yet the theory has not been definitely enunciated that the moon is the
+boss of the universe.
+
+Comets, as already mentioned, have been the subjects of paradoxes
+innumerable; but as yet comets have been so little understood, even by
+astronomers, that paradoxes respecting them cannot be so readily dealt
+with as those relating to well-established facts. Among thoroughly
+paradoxical ideas respecting comets, however, may be mentioned one whose
+author is a mathematician of well-deserved repute--Professor Tait's
+'Sea-Bird Theory' of Comets' Tails. According to this theory, the rapid
+formation of long tails and the rapid changes of their position may be
+explained on the same principle that we explain the rapid change of
+appearance of a flight of sea-birds, when, from having been in a
+position where the eye looks athwart it, the flight assumes a position
+where the eye looks at it edgewise. In the former position it is
+scarcely visible (when at a distance), in the latter it is seen as a
+well-defined streak; and as a very slight change of position of each
+bird may often suffice to render an extensive flight thus visible
+throughout its entire length, which but a few moments before had been
+invisible, so the entire length of a comet's tail may be brought into
+view, and apparently be formed in a few hours, through some
+comparatively slight displacement of the individual meteorites composing
+it.
+
+This paradox--for paradox it unquestionably is--affords a curious
+illustration of the influence which mathematical power has on the minds
+of men. Every one knows that Professor Tait has potential mathematical
+energy competent to dispose, in a very short time, of all the
+difficulties involved in his theory; therefore few seem to inquire
+whether this potential energy has ever been called into action. It is
+singular, too, that other mathematicians of great eminence have been
+content to take the theory on trust. Thus Sir W. Thomson, at the meeting
+of the British Association at Edinburgh, described the theory as
+disposing easily of the difficulties presented by Newton's comet in
+1680. Glashier, in his translation of Guillemin's 'Les Comètes,' speaks
+of the theory as one not improbably correct, though only to be
+established by rigid investigation of the mathematical problems
+involved.
+
+In reality, not five minutes' inquiry is needed to show any one
+acquainted with the history of long-tailed comets that Tait's theory is
+quite untenable. Take Newton's comet. It had a tail ninety millions of
+miles long, extending directly from the sun as the comet approached him,
+and seen, four days later, extending to the same distance, and still
+directly from the sun, as the comet receded from him in an entirely
+different direction. According to Tait's sea-bird theory, the earth was
+at both these epochs in the plane of a sheet of meteorites forming the
+tail; but on each occasion the sun also was in the same plane, for the
+edge of the sheet of meteorites was seen to be directly in a line with
+the sun. The comet's head, of course, was in the same plane; but three
+points, not in a straight line, determine a plane. Hence we have, as the
+definite result of the sea-bird theory, that the layer or stratum of
+meteorites, forming the tail of Newton's comet, lay in the same plane
+which contained the sun, the earth, and the comet. But the comet crossed
+the ecliptic (the plane in which the earth travels round the sun)
+between the epochs named, crossing it at a great angle. When crossing
+it, then, the great layer of meteorites was in the plane of the
+ecliptic; before crossing it the layer was greatly inclined to that
+plane one way, and after crossing it the layer was greatly inclined to
+that plane another way. So that we have in no way escaped the difficulty
+which the sea-bird theory was intended to remove. If it was a startling
+and, indeed, incredible thing that the particles along a comet's tail
+should have got round in four days from the first to the second position
+of the tail considered above, it is as startling and incredible that a
+mighty layer of meteorites should have shifted bodily in the way
+required by the sea-bird theory. Nay, there is an element in our result
+which is still more startling than any of the difficulties yet
+mentioned; and that is, the singular care which the great layer of
+meteorites would seem to have shown to keep its plane always passing
+through the earth, with which it was in no way connected. Why should
+this preference have been shown by the meteor flock for our earth above
+all the other members of the solar system?--seeing that the sea-bird
+theory _requires_ that this comet, and not Newton's comet alone but all
+others having tails, should not only be thus complaisant with respect to
+our little earth, but should behave in a totally different way with
+respect to every other member of the sun's family.
+
+We can understand that, while several have been found who have applauded
+the sea-bird paradox for what it _might_ do in explaining comets' tails,
+its advocates have as yet not done much to reconcile it with cometic
+observation.
+
+The latest astronomical paradox published is perhaps still more
+startling. It relates to the planet Venus, and is intended to explain
+the appearance presented by this planet when crossing the sun's face,
+or, technically, when in transit. At this time she is surrounded by a
+ring of light, which appears somewhat brighter than the disc of the sun
+itself. Before fully entering on the sun's face, also, the part of
+Venus's globe as yet outside the sun's disc is seen to be girt round by
+a ring of exceedingly bright light--so bright, indeed, that it has left
+its record in photographs where the exposure was only for the small
+fraction of a second allowable in the case of so intensely brilliant a
+body as the sun. Astronomers have not found it difficult to explain
+either peculiarity. It has been proved clearly in other ways that Venus
+has an atmosphere like our own, but probably denser. As the sun is
+raised into view above the horizon (after he has really passed below
+the horizon plane) by the bending power of our air upon his rays, so the
+bending power of Venus's air brings the sun into our view round the dark
+body of the planet. But the new paradox advances a much bolder theory.
+Instead of an atmosphere such as ours, Venus has a glass envelope; and
+instead of a surface of earth and water, in some cases covered with
+clouds, Venus has a surface shining with metallic lustre.[53]
+
+The author of this theory, Mr. Jos. Brett, startled astronomers by
+announcing, a few years ago, that with an ordinary telescope he could
+see the light of the sun's corona without the aid of an eclipse, though
+astronomers had observed that the delicate light of the corona fades out
+of view with the first returning rays of the sun after total eclipse.
+
+The latest paradoxist, misled by the incorrect term 'centrifugal force,'
+proposes to 'modify, if not banish,' the old-fashioned astronomy. What
+is called centrifugal force is in truth only inertia. In the familiar
+instance of a body whirled round by a string, the breaking of the string
+no more implies that an active force has pulled away the body, than the
+breaking of a rope by which a weight is pulled implies that the weight
+has exerted an active resistance. Of course, here again the text-books
+are chiefly in fault.
+
+Such are a few among the paradoxes of various orders by which
+astronomers, like the students of other sciences, have been from time to
+time amused. It is not altogether, as it may seem at first sight, 'a sin
+against the twenty-four hours' to consider such matters; for much may be
+learned not only from the study of the right road in science, but from
+observing where and how men may go astray. I know, indeed, few more
+useful exercises for the learner than to examine a few paradoxes, when
+leisure serves, and to consider how, if left to his own guidance, he
+would confute them.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+_ON SOME ASTRONOMICAL MYTHS._
+
+
+The expression 'astronomical myth' has recently been used, on the
+title-page of a translation from the French, as synonymous with false
+systems of astronomy. It is not, however, in that sense that I here use
+it. The history of astronomy presents the records of some rather
+perplexing observations, not confirmed by later researches, but yet not
+easily to be explained away or accounted for. Such observations Humboldt
+described as belonging to the myths of an uncritical period; and it is
+in that sense that I employ the term 'astronomical myth' in this essay.
+I propose briefly to describe and comment on some of the more
+interesting of these observations, which, in whatever sense they are to
+be interpreted, will be found to afford a useful lesson.
+
+It is hardly necessary, perhaps, to point out that the cases which I
+include here I regard as really cases in which astronomers have been
+deceived by illusory observations. Other students of astronomy may
+differ from me as respects some of these instances. I do not wish to
+dogmatise, but simply to describe the facts as I see them, and the
+impressions which I draw from them. Those who view the facts differently
+will not, I think, have to complain that I have incorrectly described
+them.
+
+At the outset, let me point out that some observations which were for a
+long time regarded as mythical have proved to be exact. For instance,
+when as yet very few telescopes existed, and those very feeble,
+Galileo's discovery of moons travelling round Jupiter was rejected as an
+illusion for which Satan received the chief share of credit. There is an
+amusing and yet in one aspect almost pathetic reference to this in his
+account of his earlier observations of Saturn. He had seen the planet
+apparently attended on either side by two smaller planets, as if helping
+old Saturn along. But on December 4, 1612,[54] turning his telescope on
+the planet, he found to his infinite amazement not a trace of the
+companion planets could be seen; there in the field of view of his
+telescope was the golden-tinted disc of the planet as smoothly rounded
+as the disc of Mars or Jupiter. 'What,' he wrote, 'is to be said
+concerning so strange a metamorphosis? Are the two lesser stars consumed
+after the manner of the solar spots? Have they vanished or suddenly
+fled? Has Saturn, perhaps, devoured his children? Or were the
+appearances, indeed, illusion or fraud with which the glasses have so
+long deceived me as well as many others to whom I have shown them? Now,
+perhaps, is the time come to revive the well-nigh withered hopes of
+those who, guided by more profound contemplations, have discovered the
+fallacy of the new observations, and demonstrated the utter
+impossibility of the existence of those things which the telescope
+appears to show. I do not know what to say in a case so surprising, so
+unlooked for, and so novel. The shortness of the time, the unexpected
+nature of the event, the weakness of my understanding, and the fear of
+being mistaken, have greatly confounded me.' We now know that these
+observations, as well as those made soon after by Hevelius, though
+wrongly interpreted, were correct enough. Nay, we know that if either
+Galileo or Hevelius had been at the pains to reason out the meaning of
+the alternate visibility and disappearance of objects looking like
+attendant planets, they must have anticipated the discovery made in 1656
+by Huyghens, that Saturn's globe is girdled about by a thin flat ring so
+vast that, if a score of globes like our earth were set side by side,
+the range of that row of worlds would be less than the span of the
+Saturnian ring system.
+
+There is a reference in Galileo's letter to the solar spots; 'Are the
+two lesser stars,' he says, 'consumed after the manner of the solar
+spots?' When he thus wrote the spots were among the myths or fables of
+astronomy, and an explanation was offered, by those who did not reject
+them utterly, which has taken its place among forsaken doctrines, those
+broken toys of astronomers. It is said that when Scheiner, himself a
+Jesuit, communicated to the Provincial of the Jesuits his discovery of
+the spots on the sun, the latter, a staunch Aristotelian, cautioned him
+not to see these things. 'I have read Aristotle's writings from
+beginning to end many times,' he said, 'and I can assure you I have
+nowhere found in them anything similar to what you mention' [amazing
+circumstances!] 'Go, therefore, my son, tranquillise yourself; be
+assured that what you take for spots on the sun are the faults of your
+glasses or your eyes.' As the idea was obviously inadmissible that a
+celestial body could be marked by spots, the theory was started that the
+dark objects apparently seen on the sun's body were in reality small
+planets revolving round the sun, and a contest arose for the possession
+of these mythical planets. Tardé maintained that they should be called
+_Astra Borbonia_, in honour of the royal family of France; but C.
+Malapert insisted that they should be called _Sidera Austriaca_.
+Meantime the outside world laughed at the spots, and their names, and
+the astronomers who were thought to have invented both. 'Fabritius puts
+only three spots,' wrote Burton in his 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' 'and
+those in the sun; Apelles 15, and those without the sun, floating like
+the Cyanean Isles in the Euxine Sea. Tardé the Frenchman hath observed
+33, and those neither spots nor clouds as Galileus supposed, but planets
+concentric with the sun, and not far from him, with regular motions.
+Christopher Schemer' [a significant way of spelling Scheiner's name], 'a
+German Suisser Jesuit, divides them _in maculas et faculas_, and will
+have them to be fixed _in solis superficie_ and to absolve their
+periodical and regular motions in 27 or 28 dayes; holding withall the
+rotation of the sun upon his centre, and are all so confident that they
+have made schemes and tables of their motions. The Hollander censures
+all; and thus they disagree among themselves, old and new,
+irreconcilable in their opinions; thus Aristarchus, thus Hipparchus,
+thus Ptolomæus, thus Albategnius, etc., with their followers, vary and
+determine of these celestial orbs and bodies; and so whilst these men
+contend about the sun and moon, like the philosophers in Lucian, it is
+to be feared the sun and moon will hide themselves, and be as much
+offended as she was with those, and send another message to Jupiter, by
+some new-fangled Icaromenippus, to make an end of all these curious
+controversies, and scatter them abroad.'
+
+It is well to notice how in this, as in many other instances, the very
+circumstance which makes scientific research trustworthy caused the
+unscientific to entertain doubt. If men of science were to arrange
+beforehand with each other what observations they should publish, how
+their accounts should be ended, what theories they would endeavour to
+establish, their results would seem far more trustworthy, their theories
+far more probable, than according to the method actually adopted.
+Science, which should be exact, seems altogether inexact, because one
+observer seems to obtain one result, another a different result.
+Scientific theories seem unworthy of reliance because scientific men
+entertain for a long time rival doctrines. But in another and a worthier
+sense than as the words are used in the 'Critic,' when men of science do
+agree their agreement is wonderful. It _is_ wonderful, worthy of all
+admiration, because before it has been attained errors long entertained
+have had to be honestly admitted; because the taunt of inconsistency is
+not more pleasant to the student of science than to others, and the man
+who having a long time held one doctrine adopts and enforces another
+(one perhaps which he had long resisted), is sure to be accused by the
+many of inconsistency, the truly scientific nature of his procedure
+being only recognised by the few. The agreement of men of science ought
+to be regarded also as most significant in another sense. So long as
+there is room for refusing to admit an important theory advanced by a
+student of science, it is natural that other students of science should
+refuse to do so; for in admitting the new theory they are awarding the
+palm to a rival. In strict principle, of course, this consideration
+ought to have no influence whatever; as a matter of fact, however, men
+of science, being always men and not necessarily strengthened by
+scientific labours against the faults of humanity, the consideration has
+and must always have influence. Therefore, when the fellow-writers and
+rivals of Newton or of his followers gave in their adhesion to the
+Newtonian theory; when in our own time--but let us leave our own time
+alone, in this respect--when, speaking generally, a novel doctrine, or
+some new generalisation, or some great and startling discovery, is
+admitted by rival students of the branch of astronomy to which it
+belongs, the probability is great that the weight of evidence has been
+found altogether overwhelming.
+
+Let us now, however, turn to cases in which, while many observations
+seem to point to some result, it has appeared that, after all, those
+observations must have been illusory.
+
+A striking instance in point is found in the perplexing history of the
+supposed satellite of Venus.
+
+On January 25, 1672, the celebrated astronomer, J.D. Cassini saw a
+crescent shaped and posited like Venus, but smaller, on the western side
+of the planet. More than fourteen years later, he saw a crescent east of
+the planet. The object continued visible in the latter case for half an
+hour, when the approach of daylight obliterated the planet and this
+phantom moon from view. The apparent distance of the moon from Venus was
+in both cases small, viz., only one diameter of the planet in the former
+case, and only three-fifths of that diameter in the latter.
+
+Next, on October 23, 1740, old style, the optician Short, who had had
+considerable experience in observation, saw a small star perfectly
+defined but less luminous than Venus, at a distance from the planet
+equal to about one-third of the apparent diameter of our moon. This is a
+long distance, and would correspond to a distance from Venus certainly
+not less than the moon's distance from the earth. Short was aware of the
+risk of optical illusion in such matters, and therefore observed Venus
+with a second telescope; he also used four eye-pieces of different
+magnifying power. He says that Venus was very distinct, the air very
+pure, insomuch that he was able to use a power of 240. The seeming moon
+had a diameter less than a third of Venus's, and showed the same phase
+as the planet. Its disc was exceedingly well defined. He observed it
+several times during a period of about one hour.
+
+Still more convincing, to all appearance, is the account of the
+observations made by M. Montaigne, as presented to the Academy of
+Sciences at Paris by M. Baudouin in 1761. The transit of Venus which was
+to take place on June 6 in that year led to some inquiry as to the
+satellite supposed to have been seen by Cassini and Short, for of course
+a transit would be a favourable occasion for observing the satellite. M.
+Montaigne, who had no faith in the existence of such an attendant, was
+persuaded to look for it early in 1761. On May 3 he saw a little
+crescent moon about twenty minutes of arc (nearly two-thirds the
+apparent diameter of our moon) from the planet. He repeated his
+observation several times that night, always seeing the small body, but
+not quite certain, despite its crescent shape, whether it might not be a
+small star. On the next evening, and again on May 7 and 10, he saw the
+small companion apparently somewhat farther from Venus and in a
+different position. He found that it could be seen when Venus was not in
+the field of view. The following remarks were made respecting these
+observations in a French work, 'Dictionnaire de Physique,' published in
+1789:--'The year 1761 will be celebrated in astronomy in consequence of
+the discovery that was made on May 3 of a satellite circulating round
+Venus. We owe it to M. Montaigne, member of the Society of Limoges. M.
+Baudouin read before the Academy of Sciences at Paris a very interesting
+memoir, in which he gave a determination of the revolution and distance
+of the satellite. From the calculations of this expert astronomer we
+learn that the new star has a diameter about one-fourth that of Venus,
+is distant from Venus almost as far as the moon from our earth, has a
+period of nine days seven hours' [much too short, by the way, to be
+true, expert though M. Baudouin is said to have been], 'and its
+ascending node'--but we need not trouble ourselves about its ascending
+node.
+
+Three years later Rödkier, at Copenhagen, March 3 and 4, 1764, saw the
+satellite of Venus with a refracting telescope 38 feet long, which
+should have been effective if longitude has any virtue. He could not see
+the satellite with another telescope which he tried. But several of his
+friends saw it with the long telescope. Amongst others, Horrebow,
+Professor of Astronomy, saw the satellite on March 10 and 11, after
+taking several precautions to prevent optical illusion. A few days later
+Montbaron, at Auxerre, who had heard nothing of these observations, saw
+a satellite, and again on March 28 and 29 it appeared, always in a
+different position.
+
+It should be added that Scheuten asserted that during the transit of
+1761 Venus was accompanied by a small satellite in her motion across the
+sun's face.
+
+So confidently did many believe in this satellite of Venus that
+Frederick the Great, who for some reason imagined that he was entitled
+to dispose as he pleased of the newly discovered body, proposed to
+assign it away to the mathematician D'Alembert, who excused himself from
+accepting the questionable honour in the following terms:--
+
+'Your Majesty does me too much honour in wishing to baptize this new
+planet with my name. I am neither great enough to become the satellite
+of Venus in the heavens, nor well enough (_assez bien portant_) to be so
+on the earth, and I am too well content with the small place I occupy in
+this lower world to be ambitious of a place in the firmament.'
+
+It is not at all easy to explain how this phantom satellite came to be
+seen. Father Hell, of Vienna--the same astronomer whom Sir G. Airy
+suspects of falling asleep during the progress of the transit of Venus
+in 1769--made some experiments showing how a false image of the planet
+might be seen beside the true one, the false image being smaller and
+fainter, like the moons seen by Schort (as Hell called Short), Cassini,
+and the rest. And more recently Sir David Brewster stated that Wargentin
+'had in his possession a good achromatic telescope, which always showed
+Venus with such a satellite.' But Hell admitted that the falsehood of
+the unreal Venus was easily detected, and Brewster adds to his account
+of Wargentin's phantom moon, that 'the deception was discovered by
+turning the telescope about its axis.' As Admiral Smyth well remarks, to
+endeavour to explain away in this manner the observations made by
+Cassini and Short 'must be a mere pleasantry, for it is impossible such
+accurate observers could have been deceived by so gross a neglect.'
+Smyth, by the way, was a believer in the moon of Venus. 'The contested
+satellite is perhaps extremely minute,' he says, 'while some parts of
+its body may be less capable of reflecting light than others; and when
+the splendour of its primary and our inconvenient station for watching
+it are considered, it must be conceded that, however slight the hope may
+be, search ought not to be relinquished.'
+
+Setting aside Scheuten's asserted recognition of a dark body near Venus
+during the transit of 1761, Venus has always appeared without any
+attendant when in transit. As no one else claimed to have seen what
+Scheuten saw in 1761, though the transit was observed by hundreds, of
+whom many used far finer telescopes than he, we must consider that he
+allowed his imagination to deceive him. During the transit of 1769, and
+again on December 8-9, 1874, Venus certainly had no companion during her
+transit.
+
+What, then, was it that Cassini, Short, Montaigne, and the rest supposed
+they saw? The idea has been thrown out by Mr. Webb that mirage caused
+the illusion. But he appears to have overlooked the fact that though an
+image of Venus formed by mirage would be fainter than the planet, it
+would not be smaller. It might, according to the circumstances, be above
+Venus or below, or even somewhat towards either side, and it might be
+either a direct or an inverted image, but it could not possibly be a
+diminished image.
+
+Single observations like Cassini's or Short's might be explained as
+subjective phenomena, but this explanation will not avail in the case of
+the Copenhagen observations.
+
+I reject, as every student of astronomy will reject, the idea of wilful
+deception. Occasionally an observer may pretend to see what he has not
+seen, though I believe this very seldom happens. But even if Cassini and
+the rest had been notoriously untrustworthy persons instead of being
+some of them distinguished for the care and accuracy with which their
+observations were made and recorded, these occasional views of a phantom
+satellite are by no means such observations as they would have invented.
+No distinction was to be gained by observations which could not be
+confirmed by astronomers possessing more powerful telescopes. Cassini,
+for example, knew well that nothing but his well-earned reputation could
+have saved him from suspicion or ridicule when he announced that he had
+seen Venus attended by a satellite.
+
+It seems to me probable that the false satellite was an optical illusion
+brought about in a different way from those referred to by Hell and
+Brewster, though among the various circumstances which in an imperfect
+instrument might cause such a result I do not undertake to make a
+selection. It is certain that Venus's satellite has vanished with the
+improvement of telescopes, while it is equally certain that even with
+the best modern instruments illusions occasionally appear which deceive
+even the scientific elect. Three years have passed since I heard the
+eminent observer Otto Struve, of Pulkowa, give an elaborate account of a
+companion to the star Procyon, describing the apparent brightness,
+distance, and motions of this companion body, for the edification of the
+Astronomer-Royal and many other observers. I had visited but a few
+months before the Observatory at Washington, where, with a much more
+powerful telescope, that companion to Procyon had been systematically
+but fruitlessly sought for, and I entertained a very strong opinion,
+notwithstanding the circumstantial nature of Struve's account and his
+confidence (shared in unquestioningly by the observers present), that he
+had been in some way deceived. But I could not then see, nor has any one
+yet explained, how this could be. The fact, however, that he had been
+deceived is now undoubted. Subsequent research has shown that the
+Pulkowa telescope, though a very fine instrument, possesses the
+undesirable quality of making a companion orb for all first-class stars
+in the position where O. Struve and his assistant Lindenau saw the
+supposed companion of Procyon.
+
+I may as well point out, however, that theories so wild have recently
+been broached respecting Venus, that far more interesting explanations
+of the enigma than this optical one may be looked for presently. It has
+been gravely suggested by Mr. Jos. Brett, the artist, that Venus has a
+surface of metallic brilliancy, with a vitreous atmosphere,--which can
+only be understood to signify a glass case. This stupendous theory has
+had its origin in an observation of considerable interest which
+astronomers (it is perhaps hardly necessary to say) explain somewhat
+differently. When Venus has made her entry in part upon the sun's face
+at the beginning of transit, there is seen all round the portion of her
+disc which still remains outside the sun an arc of light so brilliant
+that it records its photographic trace during the instantaneous exposure
+required in solar photography. It is mathematically demonstrable that
+this arc of light is precisely what _should_ be seen if Venus has an
+atmosphere like our earth's. But mathematical demonstration is not
+sufficient (or perhaps we may say it is too much) for some minds.
+Therefore, to simplify matters, Venus has been provided with a mirror
+surface and a glass case. (See preceding essay, on Astronomical
+Paradoxes, for further details.)
+
+The enigma next to be considered is of a more doubtful character than
+the myth relating to the satellite of Venus. Astronomers are pretty well
+agreed that Venus has no moon, but many, including some deservedly
+eminent, retain full belief in the story of the planet Vulcan.
+
+More than seventeen years ago the astronomical world was startled by the
+announcement that a new planet had been discovered, under circumstances
+unlike any which had heretofore attended the discovery of fresh members
+of the solar system. At that time astronomers had already become
+accustomed to the discovery, year after year, of several asteroids,
+which are in reality planets, though small ones. In fact, no less than
+fifty-six of these bodies were then known, whereof fifty-one had been
+discovered during the years 1847-1858 inclusive, not one of these years
+having passed without the detection of an asteroid. But all these
+planets belonged to one family, and as there was every reason to believe
+that thousands more travel in the same region of the solar system, the
+detection of a few more among the number had no longer any special
+interest for astronomers. The discovery of the first known member of the
+family had indeed been full of interest, and had worthily inaugurated
+the present century, on the first day of which it was made. For it had
+been effected in pursuance of a set scheme, and astronomers had almost
+given up all hopes of success in that scheme when Piazzi announced his
+detection of little Ceres. Again the discovery of the next few members
+of the family had been interesting as revealing the existence of a new
+order of bodies in the solar system. No one had suspected the
+possibility that besides the large bodies which travel round the sun,
+either singly or attended by subordinate families of moons, there might
+be a ring of many planets. This was what the discovery of Ceres, Pallas,
+Juno, and Vesta seemed to suggest, unless--still stranger thought--these
+were but fragments of a mighty planet which had been shattered in
+long-past ages by some tremendous explosion. Since then, however, this
+startling theory has been (itself) exploded. Year after year new members
+of the ring of multitudinous planets are discovered, and that, not as
+was recently predicted, in numbers gradually decreasing, but so rapidly
+that more have been discovered during the last ten years than during the
+preceding twenty.
+
+The discovery of the giant planet Uranus, an orb exceeding our earth
+twelve and a half times in mass and seventy-four times in volume, was a
+matter of much greater importance, so far as the dignity of the
+planetary system was concerned, for it is known that the whole ring of
+asteroids together does not equal one-tenth part of the earth in mass,
+while Uranus exceeds many times in volume the entire family of
+terrestrial planets--Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars. The detection
+of Uranus, unlike that of Ceres, was effected by accident. Sir W.
+Herschel was looking for double stars of a particular kind in the
+constellation Gemini when by good fortune the stranger was observed.
+
+The interest with which astronomers received the announcement of the
+discovery of Uranus, though great, was not to be compared with that with
+which they deservedly welcomed the discovery of Neptune, a larger and
+more massive planet, revolving at a distance one-half greater even than
+the mighty space which separates Uranus from the sun, a space so great
+that by comparison with it the range of 184,000,000 of miles, which
+forms the diameter of our earth's orbit, seems quite insignificant. It
+was not, however, the vastness of Neptune's mass or volume, or the awful
+remoteness of the path along which he pursues his gloomy course, which
+attracted the interest of astronomers, but the strangeness of the
+circumstances under which the planet had been detected. His influence
+had been felt for many years before astronomers thought of looking for
+him, and even when the idea had occurred to one or two, it was
+considered, and that, too, by an astronomer as deservedly eminent as Sir
+G. Airy, too chimerical to be reasonably entertained. All the world now
+knows how Leverrier, the greatest living master of physical astronomy,
+and Adams, then scarce known outside Cambridge, both conceived the idea
+of finding the planet, not by the simple method of looking for it with a
+telescope, but by the mathematical analysis of the planet's disturbing
+influence upon known members of the solar system. All know, too, that
+these mathematicians succeeded in their calculations, and that the
+planet was found in the very region and close to the very point
+indicated first by Adams, and later, but independently, and (fortunately
+for him more publicly) by Leverrier.
+
+None of these instances of the discovery of members of the solar system
+resembled in method or details the discovery announced early in the year
+1859. It was not amid the star-depths and in the darkness of night that
+the new planet was looked for, but in broad day, and on the face of the
+sun himself. It was not on the outskirts of the solar system that the
+planet was supposed to be travelling, but within the orbit of Mercury,
+hitherto regarded as of all planets the nearest to the sun. It was not
+hoped that any calculation of the perturbations of other planets would
+show the place of the stranger, though certain changes in the orbit of
+Mercury seemed clearly enough to indicate the stranger's existence.
+
+Early in 1860 Leverrier had announced that the position of Mercury's
+path was not precisely in agreement with calculations based on the
+adopted estimates of the masses of those planets which chiefly disturb
+the motions of Mercury. The part of the path where Mercury is nearest to
+the sun, and where, therefore, he travels fastest, had slightly shifted
+from its calculated place. This part of the path was expected to move,
+but it had moved more than was expected; and of course Mercury having
+his region of swiftest motion somewhat differently placed than was
+anticipated, himself moved somewhat differently.
+
+Leverrier found that to explain this feature of Mercury's motion either
+the mass of Venus must be regarded as one-tenth greater than had been
+supposed, or some unknown cause must be regarded as affecting the motion
+of Mercury. A planet as large as Mercury, about midway between Mercury
+and the sun, would account for the observed disturbance; but Leverrier
+rejected the belief that such a planet exists, simply because he could
+not 'believe that it would be invisible during total eclipses of the
+sun.' 'All difficulties disappear,' he added, 'if we admit, in place of
+a single planet, small bodies circulating between Mercury and the sun.'
+Considering their existence as not at all improbable, he advised
+astronomers to watch for them.
+
+It was on January 2, 1860, that Leverrier thus wrote. On December 22,
+1859, a letter had been addressed by a M. Lescarbault of Orgères to
+Leverrier, through M. Vallée, hon. inspector-general of roads and
+bridges, announcing that on March 26, 1859, about four in the afternoon,
+Lescarbault had seen a round black spot on the face of the sun, and had
+watched it as it passed across like a planet in transit--not with the
+slow motion of an ordinary sun-spot. The actual time during which the
+round spot was visible was one hour, seventeen minutes, nine seconds,
+the rate of motion being such that, had the spot crossed the middle of
+the sun's disc, at the same rate, the transit would have lasted more
+than four hours. The spot thus merely skirted the sun's disc, being at
+no time more than about one forty-sixth part of the sun's apparent
+diameter from the edge of the sun. Lescarbault expressed his conviction
+that on a future day, a black spot, perfectly round and very small, will
+be seen passing over the sun, and 'this point will very probably be the
+planet whose path I observed on March 26, 1859.' 'I am persuaded,' he
+added, 'that this body is the planet, or one of the planets, whose
+existence in the vicinity of the sun M. Leverrier had made known a few
+months ago' (referring to the preliminary announcement of results which
+Leverrier published afterwards more definitely).
+
+Leverrier, when the news of Lescarbault's observation first reached him,
+was surprised that the observation should not have been announced
+earlier. He did not consider the delay sufficiently justified by
+Lescarbault's statement that he wished to see the spot again. He
+therefore set out for Orgères, accompanied by M. Vallée. 'The
+predominant feeling in Leverrier's mind,' says Abbé Moigno, 'was the
+wish to unmask an attempt to impose upon him, as the person more likely
+than any other astronomer to listen to the allegation that his prophecy
+had been fulfilled.'
+
+'One should have seen M. Lescarbault,' says Moigno, 'so small, so
+simple, so modest, and so timid, in order to understand the emotion with
+which he was seized, when Leverrier, from his great height, and with
+that blunt intonation which he can command, thus addressed him: "It is
+then you, sir, who pretend to have observed the intra-mercurial planet,
+and who have committed the grave offence of keeping your observation
+secret for nine months. I warn you that I have come here with the
+intention of doing justice to your pretensions, and of demonstrating
+either that you have been dishonest or deceived. Tell me, then,
+unequivocally, what you have seen."' This singular address did not bring
+the interview, as one might have expected, to an abrupt end. The lamb,
+as the Abbé calls the doctor, trembling, stammered out an account of
+what he had seen. He explained how he had timed the passage of the black
+spot. 'Where is your chronometer?' asked Leverrier. 'It is this watch,
+the faithful companion of my professional journeys.' 'What! with that
+old watch, showing only minutes, dare you talk of estimating seconds. My
+suspicions are already too well confirmed.' 'Pardon me, I have a
+pendulum which beats seconds.' 'Show it me.' The doctor brings down a
+silk thread to which an ivory ball is attached. Fixing the upper end to
+a nail, he draws the ball a little from the vertical, counts the number
+of oscillations, and shows that his pendulum beats seconds; he explains
+also how his profession, requiring him to feel pulses and count
+pulsations, he has no difficulty in mentally keeping record of
+successive seconds.
+
+Having been shown the telescope with which the observation was made, the
+record of the observation (on a piece of paper covered with grease and
+laudanum, and doing service as a marker in the 'Connaissance des Temps,'
+or French Nautical Almanac), Leverrier presently inquired if Lescarbault
+had attempted to deduce the planet's distance from the sun from the
+period of its transit. The doctor admitted that he had attempted this,
+but, being no mathematician, had failed to achieve success with the
+problem. He showed the rough draughts of his futile attempts at
+calculation on a board in his workshop, 'for,' said he naïvely, 'I am a
+joiner as well as an astronomer.'
+
+The interview satisfied Leverrier that a new planet, travelling within
+the orbit of Mercury, had really been discovered. 'With a grace and
+dignity full of kindness,' says a contemporary narrative of these
+events,[55] 'he congratulated Lescarbault on the important discovery
+which he had made.' Anxious to obtain some mark of respect for the
+discoverer of Vulcan, Leverrier made inquiry concerning his private
+character, and learned from the village curé, the juge de paix, and
+other functionaries, that he was a skilful physician and a worthy man.
+With such high recommendations, M. Leverrier requested from M. Rouland,
+the Minister of Public Instruction, the decoration of the Legion of
+Honour for M. Lescarbault. The Minister, in a brief but interesting
+statement of his claim, communicated this request to the Emperor, who,
+by a decree dated January 25, conferred upon the village astronomer the
+honours so justly due to him. His professional brethren in Paris were
+equally solicitous to testify their regard; and MM. Felix Roubaud,
+Legrande, and Caffe, as delegates of the scientific press, proposed to
+the medical body, and to the scientific world in Paris, to invite
+Lescarbault to a banquet in the Hôtel du Louvre on January 18.
+
+The announcement of the supposed discovery caused astronomers to
+re-examine records of former observations of black spots moving across
+the sun. Several such records existed, but they had gradually come to be
+regarded as of no real importance. Wolff of Zurich published a list of
+no fewer than twenty such observations made since 1762. Carrington added
+many other cases. Comparing together three of these observations, Wolff
+found that they would be satisfied by a planet having a period of
+revolution of 19 days, agreeing fairly with the period of rather more
+than 19-1/3 days inferred by Leverrier for Lescarbault's planet. But
+the entire set of observations of black spots require that there should
+be at least three new planets travelling between Mercury and the sun.
+Many observers also set themselves the task of searching for Vulcan, as
+the supposed new planet was called. They have continued fruitlessly to
+observe the sun for this purpose until the present time.
+
+While the excitement over Lescarbault's discovery was at its height,
+another observer impugned not only the discovery but the honesty of the
+discoverer.
+
+M. Liais, a French astronomer of considerable skill, formerly of the
+Paris Observatory, but at the time of Lescarbault's achievement in the
+service of the Brazilian Government, published a paper, 'Sur la Nouvelle
+Planète annoncée par M. Lescarbault,' in which he endeavoured to
+establish the four following points:--
+
+First, the observation of Lescarbault was never made.
+
+Secondly, Leverrier was mistaken in considering that a planet such as
+Vulcan might have escaped detection when off the sun's face.
+
+Thirdly, that Vulcan would certainly have been seen during total solar
+eclipses, if the planet had a real objective existence.
+
+Fourthly, M. Leverrier's reasons for believing that the planet exists
+are based on the supposition that astronomical observations are more
+precise than they really are.
+
+Probably, Liais's objections would have had more weight with Leverrier
+had the fourth point been omitted. It was rash in a former subordinate
+to impugn the verdict of the chief of the Paris Observatory on a matter
+belonging to that special department of astronomy which an observatory
+chief might be expected to understand thoroughly. It is thought daring
+in the extreme for one outside the circles of official astronomy (as
+Newton in Flamstead's time, Sir W. Herschel in Maskelyne's, and Sir J.
+Herschel in the present century), to advance or maintain an opinion
+adverse to that of some official chief, but for a subordinate (even
+though no longer so), to be guilty of such rash procedure 'is most
+tolerable and not to be endured,' as a typical official has said.
+Accordingly, very little attention was paid by Leverrier to Liais's
+objections.
+
+Yet, in some respects, what M. Liais had to say was very much to the
+point.
+
+At the very time when Lescarbault was watching the black spot on the
+sun's face, Liais was examining the sun with a telescope of much greater
+magnifying power, and saw no such spot. His attention was specially
+directed to the edge of the sun (where Lescarbault saw the spot) because
+he was engaged in determining the decrease of the sun's brightness near
+the edge. Moreover, he was examining the very part of the sun's edge
+where Lescarbault saw the planet enter, at a time when it must have been
+twelve minutes in time upon the face of the sun, and well within the
+margin of the solar disc. The negative evidence here is strong; though
+it must always be remembered that negative evidence requires to be
+overwhelmingly strong before it can be admitted as effective against
+positive evidence. It seems at a first view utterly impossible that
+Liais, examining with a more powerful telescope the region where
+Lescarbault saw the spot, could have failed to see it had it been there;
+but experience shows that it is not impossible for an observer engaged
+in examining phenomena of one class to overlook a phenomenon of another
+class, even when glaringly obvious. All we can say is that Liais was not
+likely to have overlooked Lescarbault's planet had it been there; and we
+must combine this probability against Vulcan's existence with arguments
+derived from other considerations. There is also the possibility of an
+error in time. As the writer in the 'North British Review' remarks,
+'twelve minutes is so short a time that it is just possible that the
+planet may not have entered upon the sun during the time that Liais
+observed it.'
+
+The second and third arguments are stronger. In fact, I do not see how
+they can be resisted.
+
+It is, in the first place, clear from Lescarbault's account that Vulcan
+must have a considerable diameter--certainly if Vulcan's diameter in
+miles were only half the diameter of Mercury, it would have been all but
+impossible for Lescarbault with his small telescope to see Vulcan at
+all, whereas he saw the black spot very distinctly. Say Vulcan has half
+the diameter of Mercury, and let us compare the brightness of these two
+planets when at their greatest apparent distances from the sun, that is,
+when each looks like a half-moon. The distance of Mercury exceeds the
+estimated distance of Vulcan from the sun as 27 exceeds 10, so that
+Vulcan is more strongly illuminated in the proportion of 27 times 27 to
+10 times 10, or 729 to 100--say at least 7 to 1. But having a diameter
+but half as large the disc of Vulcan could be but about a fourth of
+Mercury's at the same distance from us (and they would be at about the
+same distance from us when seen as half-moons). Hence Vulcan would be
+brighter than Mercury in the proportion of 7 to 4. Of course being so
+near the sun he would not be so easily seen; and we could never expect
+to see him at all, perhaps, with the naked eye--though even this is not
+certain. But Mercury, when at the same apparent distance from the sun,
+and giving less light than at his greatest seeming distance, is quite
+easily seen in the telescope. Much more easily, then, should Vulcan be
+seen, if a telescope were rightly directed at such a time, or when
+Vulcan was anywhere near his greatest seeming distance from the sun. Now
+it is true astronomers do not know precisely when or where to look for
+him. But he passes from his greatest distance on one side of the sun to
+his greatest distance on the other in less than ten days, according to
+the computed period, and certainly (that is, if the planet exists) in a
+very short time. The astronomer has then only to examine day after day a
+region of small extent on either side of the sun, for ten or twelve days
+in succession (an hour's observation each day would suffice), to be sure
+of seeing Vulcan. Yet many astronomers have made such search many times
+over, without seeing any trace of the planet. During total solar
+eclipses, again, the planet has been repeatedly looked for
+unsuccessfully--though it should at such a time be a very conspicuous
+object, when favourably placed, and could scarcely fail of being very
+distinctly seen wherever placed.
+
+The fourth argument of Lescarbault's is not so effective, and in fact he
+gets beyond his depth in dealing with it. But it is to be noticed that a
+considerable portion of the discrepancy between Mercury's observed and
+calculated motions has long since been accounted for by the changed
+estimate of the earth's mass as compared with the sun's, resulting from
+the new determination of the sun's distance. However, the arguments
+depending on this consideration would not be suited to these pages.
+
+There was one feature in Liais's paper which was a little unfortunate.
+He questioned Lescarbault's honesty. He said 'Lescarbault contradicts
+himself in having first asserted that he saw the planet enter upon the
+sun's disc, and having afterwards admitted to Leverrier that it had been
+on the disc some seconds before he saw it, and that he had merely
+inferred the time of its entry from the rate of its motion afterwards.
+If this one assertion be fabricated, the whole may be so.' 'He considers
+these arguments to be strengthened,' says the 'North British Review,'
+'by the assertion which, as we have seen, perplexed Leverrier himself,
+that if M. Lescarbault had actually seen a planet on the sun, he could
+not have kept it secret for nine months.'
+
+This charge of dishonesty, unfortunate in itself, had the unfortunate
+effect of preventing Lescarbault or the Abbé Moigno from replying. The
+latter simply remarked that the accusation was of such a nature as to
+dispense him from any obligation to refute it. This was an error of
+judgment, I cannot but think, if an effective reply was really
+available.
+
+The Remarks with which the North British Reviewer closes his account may
+be repeated now, so far as they relate to the force of the negative
+evidence, with tenfold effect. 'Since the first notice of the discovery
+in the beginning of January 1860 the sun has been anxiously observed by
+astronomers; and the limited area around him in which the planet _must
+be_, if he is not upon the sun, has doubtless been explored with equal
+care by telescopes of high power, and processes by which the sun's
+direct light has been excluded from the tube of the telescope as well as
+the eye of the observer, and yet no planet has been found. This fact
+would entitle us to conclude that no such planet exists if its existence
+had been merely conjectured, or if it had been deduced from any of the
+laws of planetary distance, or even if Leverrier or Adams had announced
+it as the probable result of planetary perturbations. If the finest
+telescopes cannot rediscover a planet which with the small power used by
+Lescarbault has a visible disc, within so limited an area of which the
+sun is the centre, or rather within a narrow belt of that circle, we
+should unhesitatingly declare that no such planet exists. But the
+question assumes a very different aspect when it involves moral
+considerations. If,' proceeds the Reviewer, writing in August 1860,
+'after the severe scrutiny which the sun and its vicinity will undergo
+before and after and during his total eclipse in July, no planet shall
+be seen; and if no round black spot distinctly separable from the usual
+solar spots shall be seen on the solar spots' (_sic_, presumably solar
+disc was intended), 'we will not dare to say that it does not exist. We
+cannot doubt the honesty of M. Lescarbault, and we can hardly believe
+that he was mistaken. No solar spot, no floating scoria, could maintain
+in its passage over the sun a circular and uniform shape, and we are
+confident that no other hypothesis but that of an intra-mercurial planet
+can explain the phenomena seen and measured by M. Lescarbault, a man of
+high character, possessing excellent instruments, and in every way
+competent to use them well, and to describe clearly and correctly the
+results of his observations. Time, however, tries facts as well as
+speculations. The phenomena observed by the French astronomer may never
+be again seen, and the disturbance of Mercury which rendered it probable
+may be otherwise explained. Should this be the case, we must refer the
+round spot on the sun to some of those illusions of the eye or of the
+brain which have sometimes disturbed the tranquillity of science.'
+
+The evidence which has accumulated against Vulcan in the interval since
+this was written is not negative only, but partly positive, as the
+following instance, which I take from my own narrative at the time in a
+weekly journal, serves to show:--After more than sixteen years of
+fruitless watching, astronomers learned last August (1876) that in the
+month of April Vulcan had been seen on the sun's disc in China. On April
+4, it appeared, Herr Weber, an observer of considerable skill, stationed
+at Pecheli, had seen a small round spot on the sun, looking very much as
+a small planet might be expected to look. A few hours later he turned
+his telescope upon the sun, and lo! the spot had vanished, precisely as
+though the planet had passed away after the manner of planets in
+transit. He forwarded the news of his observation to Europe. The
+astronomer Wolff, well known for his sun-spot studies, carefully
+calculated the interval which had passed since Lescarbault saw Vulcan on
+March 26, 1859, and to his intense satisfaction was enabled to announce
+that this interval contained the calculated period of the planet an
+exact number of times. Leverrier at Paris received the announcement
+still more joyfully; while the Abbé Moigno, who gave Vulcan its name,
+and has always staunchly believed in the planet's existence,
+congratulated Lescarbault warmly upon this new view of the shamefaced
+Vulcan. Not one of those who already believed in the planet had the
+least doubt as to the reality of Weber's observations, and of these only
+Lescarbault himself received the news without pleasure. He, it seems,
+has never forgiven the Germans for destroying his observatory and
+library during the invasion of France in 1870, and apparently would
+prefer that his planet should never be seen again rather than that a
+German astronomer should have seen it. But the joy of the rest and
+Lescarbault's sorrow were alike premature. It was found that the spot
+seen by Weber had not only been observed at the Madrid observatory,
+where careful watch is kept upon the sun, but had been photographed at
+Greenwich; and when the description of its appearance, as seen in a
+powerful telescope at one station, and its picture as photographed by a
+fine telescope at the other, came to be examined, it was proved
+unmistakably that the spot was an ordinary sun-spot (not even quite
+round), which had after a few hours disappeared, as even larger
+sun-spots have been known to do in even a shorter time.
+
+It is clear that had not Weber's spot been fortunately seen at Madrid
+and photographed at Greenwich, his observation would have been added to
+the list of recorded apparitions of Vulcan in transit, for it fitted in
+perfectly with the theory of Vulcan's real existence. I think, indeed,
+for my own part, that the good fortune was Weber's. Had it so chanced
+that thick weather in Madrid and at Greenwich had destroyed the evidence
+actually obtained to show that what Weber described he really saw,
+although it was not what he thought, some of the more suspicious would
+have questioned whether, in the euphonious language of the North British
+Reviewer, 'the round spot on the sun' was not due 'to one of those
+illusions of the eye or of the brain which have sometimes disturbed the
+tranquillity of science.' Of course no one acquainted with M. Weber's
+antecedents would imagine for a moment that he had invented the
+observation, even though the objective reality of his spot had not been
+established. But if a person who is entirely unknown, states that he has
+seen Vulcan, there is antecedently some degree of probability in favour
+of the belief that the observation is as much a myth as the planet
+itself. Some observations of Vulcan have certainly been invented. I have
+received several letters purporting to describe observations of bodies
+in transit over the sun's face, either the rate of transit, the size of
+the body, or the path along which it was said to move, being utterly
+inconsistent with the theory that it was an intra-mercurial planet,
+while yet (herein is the suspicious circumstance of such narratives) the
+epoch of transit accorded in the most remarkable manner with the period
+assigned to Vulcan. A paradoxist in America (of Louisville, Kentucky)
+who had invented a theory of the weather, in which the planets, by their
+influence on the sun, were supposed to produce all weather-changes, the
+nearer planets being the most effective, found his theory wanted Vulcan
+very much. Accordingly, he saw Vulcan crossing the sun's face in
+September, which, being half a year from March, is a month wherein,
+according to Lescarbault's observation, Vulcan may be seen in transit,
+and by a strange coincidence the interval between our paradoxist's
+observation and Lescarbault's exactly contained a certain number of
+times the period calculated by Leverrier for Vulcan. This was a noble
+achievement on the part of our paradoxist. At one stroke it established
+his theory of the weather, and promised to ensure him text-book
+immortality as one of the observers of Vulcan. But, unfortunately, a
+student of science residing in St. Louis, after leaving the Louisville
+paradoxist full time to parade his discovery, heartlessly pointed out
+that an exact number of revolutions of Vulcan after Lescarbault's March
+observation, must of necessity have brought the planet on that side of
+the sun on which the earth lies in March, so that to see Vulcan so
+placed on the sun's face in September was to see Vulcan through the sun,
+a very remarkable achievement indeed. The paradoxist was abashed, the
+reader perhaps imagines. Not in the least. The planet's period must have
+been wrongly calculated by Leverrier--that was all: the real period was
+less than half as long as Leverrier had supposed; and instead of having
+gone a certain number of times round since Lescarbault had seen it,
+Vulcan had gone twice as many times round and half once round again. The
+circumstance that if Vulcan's period had been thus short, the time of
+crossing the sun's face would have been much less than, according to
+Lescarbault's account, it actually was, had not occurred to the
+Louisville weather-prophet.[56]
+
+Leverrier's faith in Vulcan, however, has remained unshaken. He has used
+all the observations of spots which, like Weber's, have been seen only
+for a short time. At least he has used all which have not, like
+Weber's, been proved to be only transient sun-spots. Selecting those
+which fit in well with Lescarbault's observation, he has pointed out how
+remarkable it is that they show this accord. The possibility that some
+of them might be explicable as Weber's proved to be, and that some even
+may have been explicable as completely, but less satisfactorily, in
+another way, seems to have been thought scarcely worth considering.
+Using the imperfect materials available, but with exquisite skill--as a
+Phidias might model an exquisite figure of materials that would
+presently crumble into dust--Leverrier came to the conclusion that
+Vulcan would cross the sun's disc on or about March 22, 1876. 'He,
+therefore,' said Sir G. Airy, addressing the Astronomical Society,
+'circulated a despatch among his friends, asking them carefully to
+observe the sun on March 22.' Sir G. Airy, humouring his honoured
+friend, sent telegrams to India, Australia, and New Zealand, requesting
+that observations might be made every two hours or oftener. Leverrier
+himself wrote to Santiago de Chili and other places, so that, including
+American and European observations, the sun could be watched all through
+the twenty-four hours on March 21, 22, and 23. 'Without saying
+positively that he believed or disbelieved in the existence of the
+planet,' proceeds the report, 'Sir G. Airy thought, since M. Leverrier
+was so confident, that the opportunity ought not to be neglected by
+anybody who professed to take an interest in the progress of planetary
+astronomy.'
+
+It is perhaps unnecessary to add that observations were made as
+requested. Many photographs of the sun also were taken during the hours
+when Vulcan, if he exists at all, might be expected to cross the sun's
+face. But the 'planet of romance,' as Abbé Moigno has called Vulcan,
+failed to appear, and the opinion I had expressed last October
+('English Mechanic and World of Science,' for October 27, 1876, p. 160),
+that Vulcan might perhaps better be called the 'planet of fiction' was
+_pro tanto_ confirmed. Nevertheless, I would not be understood to mean
+by the word 'fiction' aught savouring of fraud so far as Lescarbault is
+concerned--I prefer the North Briton's view of Lescarbault's spot, that
+so to speak, it was
+
+  ... the blot upon his brain,
+  That _would_ show itself without.
+
+I have left small space to treat of other fancied discoveries among the
+orbs of heaven. Yet there are some which are not only interesting but
+instructive, as showing how even the most careful observers may be led
+astray. In this respect the mistakes into which observers of great and
+well deserved eminence have fallen are specially worthy of attention.
+With the description of three such mistakes, made by no less an
+astronomer than Sir W. Herschel, I shall bring this paper to a close.
+
+When Sir W. Herschel examined the planet Uranus with his most powerful
+telescope he saw the planet to all appearance girt about by two rings at
+right angles to one another. The illusion was so complete that Herschel
+for several years remained in the belief that the rings were real. They
+were, however, mere optical illusions, due to the imperfect defining
+qualities of the telescope with which he observed the planet. Later he
+wrote that 'the observations which tend to ascertain' (indicate?) 'the
+existence of rings not being satisfactorily supported, it will be proper
+that surmises of them should either be given up, as ill-founded, or at
+least reserved till superior instruments can be provided.'
+
+Sir W. Herschel was more completely misled by the false Uranian
+satellites. He had seen, as he supposed, no less than six of these
+bodies. As only two of these had been seen again, while two more were
+discovered by Lassell, the inference was that Uranus has eight
+satellites in all. These for a long time flourished in our text-books of
+astronomy; and many writers, confident in the care and skill of Sir W.
+Herschel, were unable for a long time to believe that he had been
+deceived. Thus Admiral Smyth, in his 'Celestial Cycle,' wrote of those
+who doubted the extra satellites:--'They must have but a meagre notion
+of Sir W. Herschel's powerful means, his skill in their application, and
+his method of deliberate procedure. So far from doubting there being six
+satellites' (this was before Lassell had discovered the other two) 'it
+is highly probable that there are still more.' Whewell, also, in his
+'Bridgewater Treatise,' says, 'that though it no longer appears probable
+that Uranus has a ring like Saturn, he has at least five satellites
+which are visible to us, and we believe that the astronomer will hardly
+deny that he' (Uranus, not the astronomer), 'may possibly have thousands
+of smaller ones circulating about him.' But in this case Sir W.
+Herschel, anxiously though he endeavoured to guard against the
+possibility of error, was certainly mistaken. Uranus may, for anything
+that is known to the contrary, have many small satellites circulating
+about him, but he certainly has not four satellites (besides those
+known) which could have been seen by Sir W. Herschel with the telescope
+he employed. For the neighbourhood of the planet has been carefully
+examined with telescopes of much greater power by observers who with
+those telescopes have seen objects far fainter than the satellites
+supposed to have been seen by the elder Herschel.
+
+The third of the Herschelian myths was the lunar volcano in eruption,
+which he supposed he had seen in progress in that part of the moon which
+was not at the time illuminated by the sun's rays. He saw a bright
+star-like point of light, which corresponded in position with the crater
+of the lunar mountain Aristarchus. He inferred that a volcano was in
+active eruption because the brightness of the point of light varied from
+time to time, and also because he did not remember to have seen it
+before under the same conditions. There is no doubt something very
+remarkable in the way in which this part of the moon's surface shines
+when not illumined by the sun. If it were always bright we should
+conclude at once that the earth-light shining upon it rendered it
+visible. For it must be remembered that the part of the moon which looks
+dark (or seems wanting to the full disc) is illuminated by our earth,
+shining in the sky of the moon as a disc thirteen times as large as that
+of the moon we see, and with the same proportion of its disc sunlit as
+is dark in the moon's disc. Thus when the moon is nearly new our earth
+is shining in the lunar skies as a nearly full moon thirteen times as
+large as ours. The light of this noble moon must illumine the moon's
+surface much more brightly than a terrestrial landscape is illumined by
+the full moon, and if any parts of her surface are very white they will
+shine out from the surface around, just as the snow-covered peak of a
+mountain shines out upon a moonlit night from among the darker hills and
+dales and rocks and forests of the landscape. But Herschel considered
+that the occasional brightness of the crater Aristarchus could not be
+thus explained. The spot had been seen before the time of Herschel's
+observations by Cassini and others. It has been seen since by Captain
+Kater, Francis Baily, and many others. Dr. Maskelyne tells us that in
+March 1794 it was seen by the naked eye by two persons.
+
+Baily thus describes the appearance presented by this lunar crater on
+December 22, 1835: 'Directed telescope to the moon, and pointing it to
+the dark part in the vicinity of Aristarchus, soon saw the outline of
+that mountain very distinctly, formed like an irregular nebula. Nearly
+in the centre was a light resembling that of a star of the ninth or
+tenth magnitude. It appeared by glimpses, but at times was brilliant,
+and visible for several seconds together.'
+
+There can be little doubt, however, that the apparent brightness of this
+lunar crater, or rather of its summit, is due to some peculiar quality
+in the surface, which may perhaps be covered by some crystalline or
+vitreous matter poured out in the far distant time when the crater was
+an active one. Prof. Shaler, who examined the crater when it was
+illuminated only by earthshine, with the fine 15-inch telescope of the
+Harvard Observatory (Cambridge U.S.), says that he has been able to
+recognise nearly all the craters over 15 miles in diameter in the dark
+part. 'There are several degrees of brightness,' he says, 'observable in
+the different objects which shine out by the earth-light. This fact
+probably explains the greater part of the perplexing statements
+concerning the illumination of certain craters. It certainly accounts
+for the volcanic activity which has so often been supposed to be
+manifested by Aristarchus. Under the illumination by the earth-light
+this is by far the brightest object on the dark part of the moon's face,
+and is visible much longer and with poorer glasses than any other object
+there.'
+
+Here my record of astronomical myths must be brought to a close. It will
+be noticed that in every instance either the illusion has affected the
+actual observations of eminent and skilful astronomers, or has caused
+such astronomers to put faith for a while in illusory observations. Had
+I cared to include the mistakes which have been made by or have misled
+observers of less experience, I could have filled many sheets for each
+page of the present article. But it has seemed to me more instructive
+to show how error may affect the observations even of the most careful
+and deservedly eminent astronomers, how even the most cautious may be
+for a time misled by the mistakes of inferior observers, especially when
+the fact supposed to have been observed accords with preconceived
+opinions.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+_THE ORIGIN OF THE CONSTELLATION-FIGURES._
+
+
+Although the strange figures which astronomers still allow to straggle
+over their star maps no longer have any real scientific interest, they
+still possess a certain charm, not only for the student of astronomy,
+but for many who care little or nothing about astronomy as a science.
+When I was giving a course of twelve lectures in Boston, America, a
+person of considerable culture said to me, 'I wish you would lecture
+about the constellations; I care little about the sun and moon and the
+planets, and not much more about comets; but I have always felt great
+interest in the Bears and Lions, the Chained and Chaired Ladies, King
+Cepheus and the Rescuer Perseus, Orion, Ophiuchus, Hercules, and the
+rest of the mythical and fanciful beings with which the old astronomers
+peopled the heavens. I say with Carlyle, "Why does not some one teach me
+the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are
+always overhead, and which I don't half know to this day."' We may
+notice, too, that the poets by almost unanimous consent have recognised
+the poetical aspect of the constellations, while they have found little
+to say about subjects which belong especially to astronomy as a science.
+Milton has indeed made an Archangel reason (not unskilfully for Milton's
+day) about the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, while Tennyson makes
+frequent reference to astronomical theories. 'There sinks the nebulous
+star we call the Sun, if that hypothesis of theirs be sound,' said Ida;
+but she said no more, save 'let us down and rest,' as though the subject
+were wearisome to her. Again, in the Palace of Art the soul of the poet
+having built herself that 'great house so royal, rich, and wide,'
+thither--
+
+  ... when all the deep unsounded skies
+    Shuddered with silent stars, she clomb,
+  And as with optic glasses her keen eyes
+    Pierced through the mystic dome,
+  Regions of lucid matter taking forms,
+    Brushes of fire, hazy gleams,
+  Clusters and beds of worlds and beelike swarms
+    Of suns, and starry streams:
+  She saw the snowy poles of moonless Mars,
+    That marvellous round of milky light
+  Below Orion, and those double stars
+    Whereof the one more bright
+    Is circled by the other.
+
+But the poet's soul so wearied of these astronomical researches that the
+beautiful lines I have quoted disappeared (more's the pity) from the
+second and all later editions. Such exceptions, indeed, prove the rule.
+Poets have been chary in referring to astronomical researches and
+results, full though these have been of unspeakable poetry; while from
+the days of Homer to those of Tennyson, the constellations which
+'garland the heavens' have always been favourite subjects of poetic
+imagery.
+
+It is not my present purpose, however, to discuss the poetic aspect of
+the constellations. I propose to inquire how these singular figures
+first found their way to the heavens, and, so far as facts are available
+for the purpose, to determine the history and antiquity of some of the
+more celebrated constellations.
+
+Long before astronomy had any existence as a science men watched the
+stars with wonder and reverence. Those orbs, seemingly countless--which
+bespangle the dark robe of night--have a charm and beauty of their own
+apart from the significance with which the science of astronomy has
+invested them. The least fanciful mind is led to recognise on the
+celestial concave the emblems of terrestrial objects, pictured with more
+or less distinctness among the mysterious star-groupings. We can imagine
+that long before the importance of the study of the stars was
+recognised, men had begun to associate with certain star-groups the
+names of familiar objects animate or inanimate. The flocks and herds
+which the earliest observers of the heavens tended would suggest names
+for certain sets of stars, and thus the Bull, the Ram, the Kids, would
+appear in the heavens. Other groups would remind those early observers
+of the animals from whom they had to guard their flocks, or of the
+animals to whose vigilance they trusted for protection, and thus the
+Bear, the Lion, and the Dogs would find their place among the stars. The
+figures of men and horses, and of birds and fishes, would naturally
+enough be recognised, nor would either the implements of husbandry, or
+the weapons by which the huntsman secured his prey, remain unrepresented
+among the star-groupings. And lastly, the altar on which the
+first-fruits of harvest and vintage were presented, or the flesh of
+lambs and goats consumed, would be figured among the innumerable
+combinations which a fanciful eye can recognise among the orbs of
+heaven.
+
+In thus suggesting that the first observers of the heavens were
+shepherds, huntsmen, and husbandmen, I am not advancing a theory on the
+difficult questions connected with the origin of exact astronomy. The
+first observations of the heavens were of necessity made by men who
+depended for their subsistence on a familiarity with the progress and
+vicissitudes of the seasons, and doubtless preceded by many ages the
+study of astronomy as a science. And yet the observations made by those
+early shepherds and hunters, unscientific though they must have been in
+themselves, are full of interest to the student of modern exact
+astronomy. The assertion may seem strange at first sight, but is
+nevertheless strictly true, that if we could but learn with certainty
+the names assigned to certain star-groups, before astronomy had any real
+existence, we could deduce lessons of extreme importance from the rough
+observations which suggested those old names. In these days, when
+observations of such marvellous exactness are daily and nightly made,
+when instruments capable of revealing the actual constitution of the
+stars are employed, and observers are so numerous, it may seem strange
+to attach any interest to the question whether half-savage races
+recognised in such and such a star-group the likeness of a bear, or in
+another group the semblance of a ship. But though we could learn more,
+of course, from exacter observations, yet even such rough and imperfect
+records would have their value. If we could be certain that in long-past
+ages a star-group really resembled some known object, we should have in
+the present resemblance of that group to the same object evidence of the
+general constancy of stellar lustre, or if no resemblance could be
+recognised we should have reason to doubt whether other suns (and
+therefore our own sun) may not be liable to great changes.
+
+The subject of the constellation-figures as first known is interesting
+in other ways. For instance, it is full of interest to the antiquarian
+(and most of us are to some degree antiquarians) as relating to the
+most ancient of all human sciences. The same mental quality which causes
+us to look with interest on the buildings raised in long-past ages, or
+on the implements and weapons of antiquity, renders the thought
+impressive that the stars which we see were gazed on perhaps not less
+wonderingly in the very infancy of the human race. It is, again, a
+subject full of interest to the chronologist to inquire in what era of
+the world's history exact astronomy began, the moon was assigned her
+twenty-eight zodiacal mansions, the sun his twelve zodiacal signs. It is
+well known, indeed, that Newton himself did not disdain to study the
+questions thus suggested; and the speculations of the ingenious Dupuis
+found favour with the great mathematician Laplace.
+
+Unfortunately, the evidence is not sufficiently exact to be very
+trustworthy. In considering, for instance, the chronological inquiries
+of Newton, one cannot but feel that the reliance placed by him on the
+statements made by different writers is not justified by the nature of
+those statements, which were for the most part vague in the extreme. We
+owe many of them to poets who, knowing little of astronomy, mixed up the
+phenomena of their own time with those which they found recorded in the
+writings of astronomers. Some of the statements left by ancient writers
+are indeed ludicrously incongruous; insomuch that Grotius not unjustly
+said of the account of the constellations given by the poet Aratus, that
+it could be assigned to no fixed epoch and to no fixed place. However,
+this would not be the place to discuss details such as are involved in
+exact inquiries. I have indicated some of these in an appendix to my
+treatise on 'Saturn,' and others in the preface to my 'Gnomonic Star
+Atlas'; but for the most part they do not admit very readily of familiar
+description. Let us turn to less technical considerations, which
+fortunately are in this case fully as much to the point as exact
+inquiries, seeing that there is no real foundation for such inquiries in
+any of the available evidence.
+
+The first obvious feature of the old constellations is one which somehow
+has not received the attention it deserves. It is as instructive as any
+of those which have been made the subject of profound research.
+
+There is a great space in the heavens over which none of the old
+constellations extend, except the River Eridanus as now pictured, but we
+do not know where this winding stream of stars was supposed by the old
+observers to come to an end. This great space surrounds the southern
+pole of the heavens, and thus shows that the first observers of the
+stars were not acquainted with the constellations which can be seen only
+from places far south of Chaldæa, Persia, Egypt, India, China, and
+indeed of all the regions to which the invention of astronomy has been
+assigned. Whatever the first astronomers were, however profound their
+knowledge of astronomy may have been (as some imagine), they had
+certainly not travelled far enough towards the south to know the
+constellations around the southern pole. If they had been as well
+acquainted with geography as some assert, if even any astronomer had
+travelled as far south as the equator, we should certainly have had
+pictured in the old star charts some constellations in that region of
+the heavens wherein modern astronomers have placed the Octant, the Bird
+of Paradise, the Sword-fish, the Flying-fish, Toucan, the Net, and other
+uncelestial objects.
+
+In passing I may note that this fact disposes most completely of a
+theory lately advanced that the constellations were invented in the
+southern hemisphere, and that thus is to be explained the ancient
+tradition that the sun and stars have changed their courses. For though
+all the northern constellations would have been more or less visible
+from parts of the southern hemisphere near the equator, it is absurd to
+suppose that a southern observer would leave untenanted a full fourth of
+the heavens round the southern or visible pole, while carefully filling
+up the space around the northern or unseen pole with incomplete
+constellations whose northern unknown portions would include that pole.
+Supposing it for a moment to be true, as a modern advocate of the
+southern theory remarks, that 'one of the race migrating from one side
+to the other of the equator would take his position from the sun, and
+fancy he was facing the same way when he looked at it at noon, and so
+would think the motion of the stars to have altered instead of his
+having turned round,' the theory that astronomy was brought to us from
+south of the equator cannot possibly be admitted in presence of that
+enormous vacant region around the southern pole. I think, however, that,
+apart from this, a race so profoundly ignorant as to suppose any such
+thing, to imagine they were looking north when in reality they were
+looking south, can hardly be regarded as the first founders of the
+science of astronomy.
+
+The great gap I have spoken of has long been recognised. But one
+remarkable feature in its position has not, to the best of my
+remembrance, been considered--the vacant space is eccentric with regard
+to the southern pole of the heavens. The old constellations, the Altar,
+the Centaur, and the ship Argo, extend within twenty degrees of the
+pole, while the Southern Fish and the great sea-monster Cetus, which are
+the southernmost constellations on the other side, do not reach within
+some sixty degrees of the pole.
+
+Of course, in saying that this peculiarity has not been considered, I am
+not suggesting that it has not been noticed, or that its cause is in any
+way doubtful or unknown. We know that the earth, besides whirling once a
+day on its axis, and rushing on its mighty orbit around the sun
+(spanning some 184,000,000 of miles) reels like a gigantic top, with a
+motion so slow that 25,868 years are required for a single circuit of
+the swaying axis around an imaginary line upright to the plane in which
+the earth travels. And we know that in consequence of this reeling
+motion the points of the heavens opposite the earth's poles necessarily
+change. So that the southern pole, now eccentrically placed amid the
+region where there were no constellations in old times, was once
+differently situated. But the circumstance which seems to have been
+overlooked is this, that by calculating backwards to the time when the
+southern pole was in the centre of that vacant region, we have a much
+better chance of finding the date (let us rather say the century) when
+the older constellations were formed, than by any other process. We may
+be sure not to be led very far astray; for we are not guided by one
+constellation but by several, whereas all the other indications which
+have been followed depend on the supposed ancient position of single
+constellations. And then most of the other indications are such as might
+very well have belonged to periods following long after the invention of
+the constellations themselves. An astronomer might have ascertained, for
+instance, that the sun in spring was in some particular part of the Ram
+or of the Fishes, and later a poet like Aratus might describe that
+relation (erroneously for his own epoch) as characteristic of one or
+other constellation; but who is to assure us that the astronomer who
+noted the relation correctly may not have made his observation many
+hundreds of years after those constellations were invented? Whereas,
+there was one period, and only one period, when the most southernmost of
+the old constellations could have marked the limits of the region of sky
+visible from some northern region. Thus, too, may we form some idea of
+the latitude in which the first observers lived. For in high latitudes
+the southernmost of the old constellations would not have been visible
+at all, and in latitudes much lower than a certain latitude, presently
+to be noted, these constellations would have ridden high above the
+southern horizon, other star-groups showing below them which were not
+included among the old constellations.
+
+I have before me as I write a picture of the southern heavens, drawn by
+myself, in which this vacant space--eccentric in position but circular
+in shape--is shown. The centre lies close by the Lesser Magellanic
+cloud--between the stars Kappa Toucani and Eta Hydri of our modern maps,
+but much nearer to the last named. Near this spot, then, we may be sure,
+lay the southern pole of the star-sphere when the old constellations, or
+at least the southern ones, were invented. (If there had been
+astronomers in the southern hemisphere Eta Hydri would certainly have
+been their pole-star.)
+
+Now it is a matter of no difficulty whatever to determine the epoch when
+the southern pole of the heavens was thus placed.[57] Between 2100 and
+2200 years before the Christian era the southern constellations had the
+position described, the invisible southern pole lying at the centre of
+the vacant space of the star-sphere--or rather of the space free from
+constellations. It is noteworthy that for other reasons this period, or
+rather a definite epoch within it, is indicated as that to which must be
+referred the beginning of exact astronomy. Amongst others must be
+mentioned this--that in the year 2170 B.C. _quam proximè_, the Pleiades
+rose to their highest above the horizon at noon (or technically made
+their noon culmination), at the spring equinox. We can readily
+understand that to minds possessed with full faith in the influence of
+the stars on the earth, this fact would have great significance. The
+changes which are brought about at that season of the year, in reality,
+of course, because of the gradual increase in the effect of the sun's
+rays as he rises higher and higher above the celestial equator, would be
+attributed, in part at least, to the remarkable star-cluster coming then
+close by the sun on the heavens, though unseen. Thus we can readily
+understand the reference in Job to the 'sweet influences of the
+Pleiades.' Again at that same time, 2170 B.C. when the sun and the
+Pleiades opened the year (with commencing spring) together, the star
+Alpha of the Dragon, which was the pole-star of the period, had that
+precise position with respect to the true pole of the heavens which is
+indicated by the slope of the long passage extending downwards aslant
+from the northern face of the Great Pyramid; that is to say, when due
+north below the pole (or at what is technically called its sub-polar
+meridional passage) the pole-star of the period shone directly down that
+long passage, and I doubt not could be seen not only when it came to
+that position during the night, but also when it came there during the
+day-time.
+
+But some other singular relations are to be noted in connection with the
+particular epoch I have indicated.
+
+It is tolerably clear that in imagining figures of certain objects in
+the heavens, the early observers would not be apt to picture these
+objects in unusual positions. A group of stars may form a figure so
+closely resembling that of a familiar object that even a wrong position
+would not prevent the resemblance from being noticed, as for instance
+the 'Chair,' the 'Plough,' and so forth. But such cases are not
+numerous; indeed, to say the truth, one must 'make believe a good deal'
+to see resemblance between the star-groups and _most_ of the
+constellation-figures, even under the most favourable conditions. When
+there is no very close resemblance, as is the case with all the large
+constellations, position must have counted for something in determining
+the association between a star-group and a known object.
+
+Now the constellations north of the equator assume so many and such
+various positions that this special consideration does not apply very
+forcibly to them. But those south of the equator are only seen above the
+southern horizon, and change little in position during their progress
+from east to west of the south point. The lower down they are the less
+they change in position. And the very lowest--such as those were, for
+instance, which I have been considering in determining the position of
+the southern pole--are only fully visible when due south. They must,
+then, in all probability, have stood upright or in their natural
+position when so placed, for if they were not rightly placed then they
+only were so when below the horizon and consequently invisible.
+
+Let us, then, inquire what was the position of the southernmost
+constellations when fully seen above the southern horizon at midnight.
+
+The Centaur stood then as he does now, upright; only--whereas now in
+Egypt, Chaldæa, India, Persia, and China, only the upper portions of his
+figure rise above the horizon, he then stood, the noblest save Orion of
+all the constellations, with his feet (marked by the bright Alpha and
+Beta still belonging to the constellation, and by the stars of the
+Southern Cross which have been taken from it) upon the horizon itself.
+In latitude twenty degrees or so north he may still be seen thus placed
+when due south.
+
+The Centaur was represented in old times as placing an offering upon the
+altar, which was pictured, says Manilius, as bearing a fire of incense
+represented by stars. This to a student of our modern charts seems
+altogether perplexing. The Centaur carries the wolf on the end of his
+spear; but instead of placing the wolf (not a very acceptable meat
+offering, one would suppose) upon the altar, he is directing this animal
+towards the base of the altar, whose top is downwards, the flames
+represented there tending (naturally) downwards also. It is quite
+certain the ancient observers did not imagine anything of this sort. As
+I have said, Aratus tells us the celestial Centaur was placing an
+offering _upon_ the altar, which was therefore upright, and Manilius
+describes the altar as
+
+  Ferens thuris, stellis imitantibus, ignem,
+
+so that the fire was where it should be, on the top of an upright altar,
+where also on the sky itself were stars looking like the smoke from
+incense fires. Now that was precisely the appearance presented by the
+stars forming the constellation at the time I have indicated, some 2170
+years B.C. Setting the altar upright above the southern horizon (that
+is, inverting the absurd picture at present given of it) we see it just
+where it should be placed to receive the Centaur's offering. A most
+remarkable portion of the Milky Way is then seen to be directly above
+the altar in such a way as to form a very good imitation of smoke
+ascending from it. This part of the Milky Way is described by Sir J.
+Herschel, who studied it carefully during his stay at the Cape of Good
+Hope, as forming a complicated system of interlaced streaks and masses
+which covers the tail of Scorpio (extending from the altar which lies
+immediately south of the Scorpion's Tail). The Milky Way divides, in
+fact, just above the altar as the constellation was seen 4000 years ago
+above the southern horizon, one branch being that just described, the
+other (like another stream of smoke) 'passing,' says Herschel, 'over
+the stars Iota of the Altar, Theta and Iota of the Scorpion, etc., to
+Gamma of the Archer, where it suddenly collects into a vivid oval mass,
+so very rich in stars that a very moderate calculation makes their
+number exceed 100,000.' Nothing could accord better with the
+descriptions of Aratus and Manilius.
+
+But there is another constellation which shows in a more marked way than
+either the Centaur or the Altar that the date when the constellations
+were invented must have been near that which I have named. Both Ara and
+Centaurus look now in suitable latitudes (about twenty degrees north) as
+they looked in higher latitudes (about forty degrees north) 4000 years
+ago. For, the reeling motion of our earth has changed the place of the
+celestial pole in such a way as only to depress these constellations
+southwards without much changing their _position_; they are nearly
+upright when due south now as they were 4000 years ago, only lower down.
+But the great ship Argo has suffered a much more serious displacement.
+One cannot now see this ship _like_ a ship at any time or from any place
+on the earth's surface. If we travel south till the whole constellation
+comes into visibility above the southern horizon at the proper season
+(January and February for the midnight hours) the keel of the ship is
+aslant, the stern being high above the waist (the fore part is wanting).
+If we travel still further south, we can indeed reach places where the
+course of the ship is so widened, and the changes of position so
+increased, that she appears along part of her journey on an even keel,
+but then she is high above the horizon. Now 4000 years ago she stood on
+the horizon itself at her southern culmination, with level keel and
+upright mast.
+
+In passing I may note that for my own part I imagine that this great
+ship represented the Ark, its fore part being originally the portion of
+the Centaur now forming the horse, so that the Centaur was represented
+as a man (not as a man-horse) offering a gift on the Altar. Thus in this
+group of constellations I recognise the Ark, and Noah going up from the
+Ark towards the altar 'which he builded unto the Lord; and took of every
+clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the
+altar.' I consider further that the constellation-figures of the Ship,
+the Man with an offering, and the Altar, painted or sculptured in some
+ancient astrological temple, came at a later time to be understood as
+picturing a certain series of events, interpreted and expanded by a
+poetical writer into a complete narrative. Without venturing to insist
+on so heterodox a notion, I may remark as an odd coincidence that
+probably such a picture or sculpture would have shown the smoke
+ascending from the Altar which I have already described, and in this
+smoke there would be shown the bow of Sagittarius; which, interpreted
+and expanded in the way I have mentioned, might have accounted for the
+'bow set in the clouds, for a token of a covenant.' It is noteworthy
+that all the remaining constellations forming the southern limit of the
+old star-domes or charts, were watery ones--the Southern Fish, over
+which Aquarius is pouring a quite unnecessary stream of water, the Great
+Sea Monster towards which in turn flow the streams of the River
+Eridanus. The equator, too, was then occupied along a great part of its
+length by the great sea serpent Hydra, which reared its head above the
+equator, very probably indicated then by a water horizon, for nearly all
+the signs below it were then watery. At any rate, as the length of Hydra
+then lay horizontally above the Ship, whose masts reached it, we may
+well believe that this part of the picture of the heavens showed a
+sea-horizon and a ship, the great sea serpent lying along the horizon.
+On the back of Hydra is the Raven, which again may be supposed by those
+who accept the theory mentioned above to have suggested the raven which
+went forth to and fro from the ark. He is close enough to the rigging of
+Argo to make an easy journey of it. The dove, however, must not be
+confounded with the modern constellation Columba, though this is placed
+(suitably enough) near the Ark. We must suppose the idea of the dove was
+suggested by a bird pictured in the rigging of the celestial ship. The
+sequence in which the constellations came above the horizon as the year
+went round corresponded very satisfactorily with the theory, fanciful
+though this seem to some. First Aquarius pouring streams of water, the
+three fishes (Pisces and Piscis australis), and the great sea monster
+Cetus, showing how the waters prevailed over the highest hills, then the
+Ark sailing on the waters, a little later the Raven (Corvus), the man
+descending from the ark and offering a gift on the Altar, and last the
+Bow set amid the clouds.
+
+The theory just described may not meet with much favour. But wilder
+theories of the story of the deluge have been adopted and advocated with
+considerable confidence. One of the wildest, I fear, is the
+Astronomer-Royal's, that the deluge was simply a great rising of the
+Nile; and Sir G. Airy is so confident respecting this that he says, 'I
+cannot entertain the smallest doubt that the flood of Noah was a flood
+of the Nile;' precisely as he might say, 'I cannot entertain the
+smallest doubt that the earth moves round the sun.' On one point we can
+entertain very little doubt indeed. If it ever rained before the flood,
+which seems probable, and if the sun ever shone on falling rain, which
+again seems likely, nothing short of a miracle could have prevented the
+rainbow from making its appearance before the flood. The wildest theory
+that can be invented to explain the story of the deluge cannot be
+wilder than the supposition that the rays of sunlight shining on falling
+raindrops could have ever failed to show the prismatic colours. The
+theory I have suggested above, without going so far as strongly to
+advocate it, far less insist upon it, is free at any rate from objection
+on this particular score, which cannot be said of the ordinary theory. I
+am not yet able, however, to say that 'I cannot entertain the smallest
+doubt' about my theory.
+
+We may feel tolerably sure that the period when the old southern
+constellations were formed must have been between 2400 and 2000 years
+before the present era, a period, by the way, including the date usually
+assigned to the deluge,--which, however, must really occupy our
+attention no further. In fact, let us leave the watery constellations
+lying below the equator of those remote times and seek at once the
+highest heavens above them.
+
+Here, at the northern pole of these days, we find the great Dragon,
+which in any astrological temple of the time must have formed the
+highest or crowning constellation, surrounding the very key-stone of the
+dome. He has fallen away from that proud position since. In fact, even
+4000 years ago he only held to the pole, so to speak, by his tail, and
+we have to travel back 2000 years or so to find the pole situate in a
+portion of the length of the Dragon which can be regarded as central.
+One might almost, if fancifully disposed, recognise the gradual
+displacement of the Dragon from his old place of honour, in certain
+traditions of the downfall of the great Dragon whose 'tail drew the
+third part of the stars of heaven.'
+
+The central position of the Dragon, for even when the pole-star had
+drawn near to the Dragon's tail the constellation was still central,
+will remind the classical reader of Homer's description of the Shield of
+Hercules--
+
+  The scaly horror of a dragon, coil'd
+  Full in the central field, unspeakable,
+  With eyes oblique retorted, that ascant
+  Shot gleaming fire. (_Elton's translation._)
+
+I say Homer's description, for I cannot understand how any one who
+compares together the description of the Shield of Achilles in the Iliad
+and that of the Shield of Hercules in the fragmentary form in which we
+have it, can doubt for a moment that both descriptions came from the
+same hand. (The theory that Hesiod composed the latter poem can scarcely
+be entertained by any scholar.) As I long since pointed out in my essay
+'A New Theory of Achilles' Shield' ('Light Science,' first series), no
+poet so inferior as actually to borrow Homer's words in part of the
+description of the Shield of Hercules could have written the other parts
+not found in the Shield of Achilles. 'I cannot for my own part entertain
+the slightest doubt'--that is to say, I think it altogether
+probable--that Homer composed the lines supposed to describe the Shield
+of Hercules long before he introduced the description, pruned and
+strengthened, into that particular part of the Iliad where it served his
+purpose best. And I have as little doubt that the original description,
+of which we only get fragments in either poem, related to something far
+more important than a shield. The constellations are not suitable
+adornments for the shield of fighting man, even though he was under the
+special care of a celestial mother and had armour made for him by a
+celestial smith. Yet we learn that Achilles' shield displayed--
+
+  The starry lights that heav'n's high convex crown'd
+  The Pleiads, Hyads, and the northern beam,
+  And great Orion's more refulgent beam,--
+  To which, around the cycle of the sky,
+  The bear revolving, points his golden eye,--
+  Still shines exalted.
+
+And so forth. The Shield of Hercules displayed at its centre the polar
+constellation the Dragon. We read also that--
+
+  There was the knight of fair-hair'd Danae born,
+  Perseus.
+
+Orion is not specially mentioned, but Orion, Lepus, and the Dogs seem
+referred to:--
+
+                                  Men of chase
+  Were taking the fleet hares; two keen-toothed dogs
+  Bounded beside.
+
+Homer would find no difficulty in pluralising the mighty Hunter and the
+hare into huntsmen and hares when utilising a description originally
+referring to the constellation.
+
+I conceive that the original description related to one of those zodiac
+temples whose remains are still found in Egypt, though the Egyptian
+temples of this kind were probably only copies of more ancient Chaldæan
+temples. We know from Assyrian sculptures that representations of the
+constellations (and especially the zodiacal constellations) were common
+among the Babylonians; and, as I point out in the essay above referred
+to, 'it seems probable that in a country where Sabæanism or star-worship
+was the prevailing form of religion, yet more imposing proportions would
+be given to zodiac temples than in Egypt.' My theory, then, respecting
+the two famous 'Shields' is that Homer in his eastern travels visited
+imposing temples devoted to astronomical observation and star-worship,
+and that nearly every line in both descriptions is borrowed from a poem
+in which he described a temple of this sort, its domed zodiac, and those
+illustrations of the labours of different seasons and of military or
+judicial procedures which the astrological proclivities of
+star-worshippers led them to associate with the different
+constellations. For the arguments on which this theory is based I have
+not here space. They are dealt with in the essay from which I have
+quoted.
+
+One point only I need touch upon here, besides those I have mentioned
+already. It may be objected that the description of a zodiac temple has
+nothing to connect it with the subject of the Iliad. This is certainly
+true; but no one who is familiar with Homer's manner can doubt that he
+would work in, if he saw the opportunity, a poem on some subject outside
+that of the Iliad, so modifying the language that the description would
+correspond with the subject in hand. There are many passages, though
+none of such length, in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, which seem thus
+to have been brought into the poem; and other passages not exactly of
+this kind yet show that Homer was not insensible to the advantage of
+occasionally using memory instead of invention.
+
+Any one who considers attentively the aspect of the constellation Draco
+in the heavens, will perceive that the drawing of the head in the maps
+is not correct; the head is no longer pictured as it must have been
+conceived by those who first formed the constellation. The two bright
+stars Beta and Gamma are now placed on a head in profile. Formerly they
+marked the two eyes. I would not lay stress on the description of the
+Dragon in the Shield of Hercules, 'with eyes oblique retorted, that
+askant shot gleaming fire;' for all readers may not be prepared to
+accept my opinion that that description related to the constellation
+Draco. But the description of the constellation itself by Aratus
+suffices to show that the two bright stars I have named marked the eyes
+of the imagined monster--in fact, Aratus's account singularly resembles
+that given in the Shield of Hercules. 'Swol'n is his neck,' says Aratus
+of the Dragon--
+
+          ... Eyes charg'd with sparkling fire
+  His crested head illume. As if in ire,
+  To Helice he turns his foaming jaw,
+  And darts his tongue, barb'd with a blazing star.
+
+And the dragon's head with sparkling eyes can be recognised to this day,
+so soon as this change is made in its configuration, whereas no one can
+recognise the remotest resemblance to a dragon's head in profile. The
+star barbing the Dragon's tongue would be Xi of the Dragon according to
+Aratus's account, for so only would the eyes be turned towards Helice
+the Bear. But when Aratus wrote, the practice of separating the
+constellations from each other had been adopted; in fact, he derived his
+knowledge of them chiefly from Eudoxus, the astronomer and
+mathematician, who certainly would not have allowed the constellations
+to be intermixed. In the beginning, there are reasons for believing it
+was different, and if a group of stars resembled any known object it
+would be called after that object, even though some of the stars
+necessary to make up the figure belonged already to some other figure.
+This being remembered, we can have no difficulty in retorting the
+Dragon's head more naturally--not to the star Xi of the Dragon, but to
+the star Iota of Hercules. The four stars are situated thus,
+[Illustration] the larger ones representing the eyes; and so far as the
+head is concerned it is a matter of indifference whether the lower or
+the upper small star be taken to represent the tongue. But, as any one
+will see who looks at these stars when the Dragon is best placed for
+ordinary (non-telescopic) observation, the attitude of the animal is far
+more natural when the star Iota of Hercules marks the tongue, for then
+the creature is situated like a winged serpent hovering above the
+horizon and looking downwards, whereas when the star Xi marks the
+tongue, the hovering Dragon is looking upwards and is in an unnaturally
+constrained position. (I would not, indeed, claim to understand
+perfectly all the ways of dragons; still it may be assumed that a dragon
+hovering above the horizon would rather look downwards in a natural
+position than upwards in an awkward one.)
+
+The star Iota of Hercules marks the heel of this giant, called the
+Kneeler (Engonasin) from time immemorial. He must have been an important
+figure on the old zodiac temples, and not improbably his presence there
+as one of the largest and highest of the human figures may have caused a
+zodiac-dome to be named after Hercules. The Dome of Hercules would come
+near enough to the title, 'The Shield of Hercules,' borne by the
+fragmentary poem dealt with above. The foot of the kneeling man was
+represented on the head of the dragon, the dragon having hold of the
+heel. And here, again, some imagine that a sculptured representation of
+these imagined figures in the heavens may have been interpreted and
+expanded into the narrative of a contest between the man and the old
+serpent the dragon, Ophiuchus the serpent-bearer being supposed to
+typify the eventual defeat of the dragon. This fancy might be followed
+out like that relating to the deluge; but the present place would be
+unsuitable for further inquiries in that particular direction.
+
+Some interest attaches to the constellation Ophiuchus, to my mind, in
+the evidence it affords respecting the way in which the constellations
+were at first intermixed. I have mentioned one instance in which, as I
+think, the later astronomers separated two constellations which had once
+been conjoined. Many others can be recognised when we compare the actual
+star-groups with the constellation-figures as at present depicted. No
+one can recognise the poop of a ship in the group of stars now assigned
+to the stern of Argo, but if we include the stars of the Greater Dog,
+and others close by, a well-shaped poop can be clearly seen. The head
+of the Lion of our maps is as the head of a dog, so far as stars are
+concerned; but if stars from the Crab on one side and from Virgo on the
+other be included in the figure, and especially Berenice's hair to form
+the tuft of the lion's tail, a very fine lion with waving mane can be
+discerned, with a slight effort of the imagination. So with Bootes the
+herdsman. He was of old 'a fine figure of a man,' waving aloft his arms,
+and, as his name implies, shouting lustily at the retreating bear. Now,
+and from some time certainly preceding that of Eudoxus, one arm has been
+lopped off to fashion the northern crown, and the herdsman holds his
+club as close to his side as a soldier holds his shouldered musket. The
+constellation of the Great Bear, once I conceive the only bear (though
+the lesser bear is a very old constellation), has suffered wofully.
+Originally it must have been a much larger bear, the stars now forming
+the tail marking part of the outline of the back; but first some folks
+who were unacquainted with the nature of bears turned the three stars
+(the horses of the plough) into a long tail, abstracting from the animal
+all the corresponding portion of his body, and then modern astronomers
+finding a great vacant space where formerly the bear's large frame
+extended, incontinently formed the stars of this space into a new
+constellation, the Hunting Dogs. No one can recognise a bear in the
+constellation as at present shaped, but any one who looks attentively at
+the part of the skies occupied by the constellation will recognise
+(always 'making believe a good deal') a monstrous bear, with the proper
+small head of creatures of the bear family, and with exceedingly
+well-developed plantigrade feet. Of course this figure cannot at all
+times be recognised with equal facility; but before midnight during the
+last four or five months in the year, the bear occupies positions
+favouring his recognition, being either upright on his feet, or as if
+descending a slope, or squatting on his great haunches. As a long-tailed
+animal the creature is more like one of those wooden toy-monkeys which
+used to be made for children, and may be now, in which the sliding
+motion of a ringed rod carried the monkey over the top of a stick. The
+little bear has I think been borrowed from the dragon, which was
+certainly a winged monster originally.
+
+Now the astronomers who separated from each other, and in so doing
+spoiled the old constellation-figures, seem to have despaired of freeing
+Ophiuchus from his entanglements. The Serpent is twined around his body,
+the Scorpion is clawing at one leg. The constellation makers have _per
+fas et nefas_ separated Scorpio from the Serpent Holder, spoiling both
+figures. But the Serpent has been too much for them, insomuch that they
+have been reduced to the abject necessity of leaving one part of the
+Serpent on one side of the region they allow to Ophiuchus, and the other
+part of the Serpent to the other.
+
+A group of constellations whose origin and meaning are little understood
+remains to be mentioned. Close by the Dragon is King Cepheus, beside him
+his wife Cassiopeia (the Seated Lady), near whom is Andromeda the
+Chained Lady. The Sea Monster Cetus is not far away, though not near
+enough to threaten her safety, the Ram and Triangle being between the
+monster's head and her feet, the Fishes intervening between the body of
+the monster and her fair form. Close at hand is Perseus, the Rescuer,
+with a sword (looking very much like a reaping-hook in all the old
+pictures) in his right hand, and bearing in his left the head of Medusa.
+The general way of accounting for the figures thus associated has been
+by supposing that, having a certain tradition about Cepheus and his
+family, men imagined in the heavens the pictorial representation of the
+events of the tradition. I have long believed that the actual order in
+this and other cases was the reverse of this, that men imagined certain
+figures in the heavens, pictured these figures in their astronomical
+temples or observatories, and made stories to fit the pictures
+afterwards, probably many generations afterwards. Be this as it may, we
+can at present give no satisfactory explanation of the group of
+constellations.
+
+Wilford gives an account, in his 'Asiatic Researches,' of a conversation
+with a pundit or astronomer respecting the names of the Indian
+constellations. 'Asking him,' he says, 'to show me in the heavens the
+constellation Antarmada, he immediately pointed to Andromeda, though I
+had not given him any information about it beforehand. He afterwards
+brought me a very rare and curious work in Sanscrit, which contained a
+chapter devoted to _Upanachatras_, or extra-zodiacal constellations,
+with drawings of _Capuja_ (Cepheus) and of _Casyapi_ (Cassiopeia) seated
+and holding a lotus-flower in her hand, of Antarmada charmed with the
+Fish beside her, and last of _Paraseia_ (Perseus), who, according to the
+explanation of the book, held the head of a monster which he had slain
+in combat; blood was dropping from it, and for hair it had snakes.' Some
+have inferred from the circumstance that the Indian charts thus showed
+the Cassiopeian set of constellations, that the origin of these figures
+is to be sought in India. But probably both the Indian and the Greek
+constellation-figures were derived from a much older source.
+
+The zodiacal twelve are in some respects the most important and
+interesting of all the ancient constellations. If we could determine the
+origin of these figures, their exact configuration as at first devised,
+and the precise influences assigned to them in the old astrological
+systems, we should have obtained important evidence as to the origin of
+astronomy itself. Not indeed that the twelve signs of the zodiac were
+formed at the beginning or even in the early infancy of astronomy. It
+seems abundantly clear that the division of the zodiac (which includes
+the moon's track as well as the sun's) had reference originally to the
+moon's motions. She circuits the star-sphere in about twenty-seven days
+and a third, while the lunation or interval from new moon to new moon
+is, as we all know, about twenty-nine days and a half in length. It
+would appear that the earliest astronomers, who were of course
+astrologers also, of all nations--the Indian, Egyptian, Chinese,
+Persian, and Chaldæan astronomers--adopted twenty-eight days (probably
+as a rough mean between the two periods just named) for their chief
+lunar period, and divided the moon's track round the ecliptic into
+twenty-eight portions or mansions. How they managed about the fractions
+of days outstanding--whether the common lunation was considered or the
+moon's motion round the star-sphere--is not known. The very
+circumstance, however, that they were for a long time content with their
+twenty-eight lunar mansions shows that they did not seek great precision
+at first. Doubtless they employed some rough system of 'leap-months' by
+which, as occasion required, the progress of the month was reconciled
+with the progress of the moon, just as by our leap-years the progress of
+the year is reconciled with the progress of the sun or seasons.
+
+The use of the twenty-eight-day period naturally suggested the division
+of time into weeks of seven days each. The ordinary lunar month is
+divided in a very obvious manner into four equal parts by the lunar
+aspects. Every one can recognise roughly the time of full moon and the
+times of half moon before and after full, while the time of new moon is
+recognised from these two last epochs. Thus the four quarters of the
+month, or roughly the four weeks of the month, would be the first
+time-measure thought of;--after the day, which is the necessary
+foundation of all time measures. The nearest approach which can be made
+to a quarter-month in days is the week of seven days; and although some
+little awkwardness arose from the fact that four weeks differ
+appreciably from a lunar month, this would not long prevent the adoption
+of the week as a measure of time. In fact, just as our years begin on
+different days of the week without causing any inconvenience, so the
+ancient months might be made to begin with different week-days. All that
+would be necessary to make the week measure fairly well the quarters of
+the month, would be to start each month on the proper or nearest
+week-day. To inform people about this, some ceremony could be appointed
+for the day of the new moon, and some signal employed to indicate the
+time when this ceremony was to take place. This--the natural and obvious
+course--we find was the means actually adopted, the festival of the new
+moon and the blowing of trumpets in the new moon being an essential part
+of the arrangements adopted by nations who used the week as a chief
+measure of time. The seven days were not affected by the new moons so
+far as the nomenclature of these days, or special duties connected with
+any one of them, might be concerned.
+
+Originally the idea may have been to have festivals and sacrifices at
+the time of new moon, first quarter, full moon, and third quarter; but
+this arrangement would naturally (and did, as we know, actually) give
+way before long to a new moon festival regulating the month and
+seventh-day festivals, each class of festival having its appropriate
+sacrifices and duties. This, I say, was the natural course. Its adoption
+_may_ have been aided by the recognition of the fact that the seven
+planets of the old system of astronomy might conveniently be taken to
+rule the days and the hours in the way described in the essay on
+astrology. That that nomenclature and that system of association between
+the planets and the hours, days, and weeks of time-measurement was
+eventually adopted, is certain; but whether the convenience and apparent
+mystical fitness of this arrangement led to the use of weekly festivals
+in conjunction with monthly ones, or whether those weekly festivals were
+first adopted in the way described above, or whether (which seems
+altogether more likely) both sets of considerations led to the
+arrangement, we cannot certainly tell. The arrangement was in every way
+a natural one; and one may say, considering all the circumstances, that
+it was almost an inevitable one.
+
+There was, however, another possible arrangement, viz., the division of
+time into ten-day periods, three to each month, with corresponding new
+moon festivals. But as the arrival of the moon at the _thirds_ of her
+progress are not at all so well marked as her arrival at the quarters,
+and as there is no connection between the number ten and the planets,
+this arrangement was far less likely to be adopted than the other.
+Accordingly we find that only one or two nations adopted it. Six sets of
+five days would be practically the same arrangement; five sets of six
+for each month would scarcely be thought of, as with that division the
+use of simple direct observations of the moon for time measurement,
+which was the real aim of all such divisions, would not be convenient or
+indeed even possible for the generality of persons. Few could tell
+easily when the moon is two-fifths or four-fifths full, whereas every
+one can tell when she is half-full or quite full (the requisite for
+weekly measurement); and it would be possible to guess pretty nearly
+when she is one-third or two-thirds full, the requisite for the
+tridecennial division.
+
+My object in the above discussion of the origin of the week (as
+distinguished from the origin of the Sabbath, which I considered in the
+essay on astrology), has been to show that the use of the twelve
+zodiacal signs was in every case preceded by the use of the twenty-eight
+lunar mansions. It has been supposed that those nations in whose
+astronomy the twenty-eight mansions still appear, adopted one system,
+while the use of the twelve signs implies that another system had been
+adopted. Thus the following passage occurs in Mr. Blake's version of
+Flammarion's 'History of the Heavens:'--'the Chinese have twenty-eight
+constellations, though the word _sion_ does not mean a group of stars,
+but simply a mansion or hotel. In the Coptic and ancient Egyptian the
+word for constellations has the same meaning. They also have
+twenty-eight, and the same number is found among the Arabians, Persians,
+and Indians. Among the Chaldæans or Accadians we find no sign of the
+number twenty-eight. The ecliptic, or "yoke of the sky," with them, as
+we see in the newly-discovered tablet, was divided into twelve
+divisions, as now, and the only connection that can be imagined between
+this and the twenty-eight is the opinion of M. Biot, who thinks that the
+Chinese had originally only twenty-four mansions, four more being added
+by Chenkung, 1100 B.C., and that they corresponded with the twenty-four
+stars, twelve to the north and twelve to the south, that marked the
+twelve signs of the zodiac amongst the Chaldæans. But under this
+supposition the twenty-eight has no reference to the moon, whereas we
+have every reason to believe it has.' The last observation is
+undoubtedly correct--the twenty-eight mansions have been mansions of the
+moon from the beginning. But in this very circumstance, as also in the
+very tablets referred to in the preceding passage, we find all the
+evidence needed to show that originally the Chaldæans divided the
+zodiac into twenty-eight parts. For we find from the tablets that, like
+the other nations who had twenty-eight zodiacal mansions, the Chaldæans
+used a seven-day period, derived from the moon's motions, every seventh
+day being called _sabbatu_, and held as a day of rest. We may safely
+infer that the Chaldæan astronomers, advancing beyond those of other
+nations, recognised the necessity of dividing the zodiac with reference
+to the sun's motions instead of the moon's. They therefore discarded the
+twenty-eight lunar mansions, and adopted instead twelve solar signs;
+this number twelve, like the number twenty-eight itself, being selected
+merely as the most convenient approximation to the number of parts into
+which the zodiac was naturally divided by another period. Thus the
+twenty-eighth part of the zodiac corresponds roughly with the moon's
+daily motion, and the twelfth part of the zodiac corresponds roughly
+with the moon's monthly motion; and both the numbers twenty-eight and
+twelve admit of being subdivided, while twenty-nine (a nearer approach
+than twenty-eight to the number of days in a lunation) and thirteen
+(almost as near an approach as twelve to the number of months in a year)
+do not.
+
+It seems to me highly probable that the date to which all inquiries into
+the origin of the constellations and the zodiacal signs seems to
+point--viz. 2170 B.C.--was the date at which the Chaldæan astronomers
+definitely adopted the new system, the lunisolar instead of lunar
+division of the zodiac and of time. One of the objects which the
+architects of the Great Pyramid (not the king who built it) may have had
+was not improbably this--the erection of a building indicating the epoch
+when the new system was entered upon, and defining in its proportions,
+its interior passages, and other features, fundamental elements of the
+new system. The great difficulty, an overwhelming difficulty it has
+always seemed to me, in accepting the belief that the year 2170 B.C.
+defined the beginning of exact astronomy, has been this, that several of
+the circumstances insisted upon as determining that date imply a
+considerable knowledge of astronomy. Thus astronomers must have made
+great progress in their science before they could select as a day for
+counting from, the epoch when the slow reeling motion of the earth (the
+so-called precessional motion) brought the Pleiades centrally south, at
+noon, at the time of the vernal equinox. The construction of the Great
+Pyramid, again, in all its astronomical features, implies considerable
+proficiency in astronomical observation. Thus the year 2170 B.C. may
+very well be regarded as defining the introduction of a new system of
+astronomy, but certainly not the beginning of astronomy itself. Of
+course we may cut the knot of this difficulty, as Prof. Smyth and Abbé
+Moigno do, by saying that astronomy began 2170 B.C., the first
+astronomers being instructed supernaturally, so that the astronomical
+Minerva came into full-grown being. But I apprehend that argument
+against such a belief is as unnecessary as it would certainly be
+useless.
+
+And now let us consider how this theory accords with the result to which
+we were led by the position of the great vacant space around the
+southern pole. So far as the date is concerned, we have already seen
+that the epoch 2170 B.C. accords excellently with the evidence of the
+vacant space. But this evidence, as I mentioned at the outset,
+establishes more than the date; it indicates the latitude of the place
+where the most ancient of Ptolemy's forty-eight constellations were
+first definitely adopted by astronomers. If we assume that at this place
+the southernmost constellations were just fully seen when due south, we
+find for the latitude about thirty-eight degrees north. (The student of
+astronomy who may care to test my results may be reminded here that it
+is not enough to show that every star of a constellation would when due
+south be above the horizon of the place--what is wanted is, that the
+whole constellation when towards the south should be visible at a single
+view. However, the whole constellation may not have included all the
+stars now belonging to it.) The station of the astronomers who founded
+the new system can scarcely have been more than a degree or two north of
+this latitude. On the other side, we may go a little further, for by so
+doing we only raise the constellations somewhat higher above the
+southern horizon, to which there is less objection than to a change
+thrusting part of the constellations below the horizon. Still it may be
+doubted whether the place where the constellations were first formed was
+less than 32 or 33 degrees north of the equator. The Great Pyramid, as
+we know, is about 30 degrees north of the equator; but we also know that
+its architects travelled southwards to find a suitable place for it. One
+of their objects may well have been to obtain a fuller view of the
+star-sphere south of their constellations. I think from 35 to 39 degrees
+north would be about the most probable limits, and from 32 to 41 degrees
+north the certain limits of the station of the first founders of solar
+zodiacal astronomy.
+
+What their actual station may have been is not so easily established.
+Some think the region lay between the sources of the Oxus (Amoor) and
+Indus, others that the station of these astronomers was not very far
+from Mount Ararat--a view to which I was led long ago by other
+considerations discussed in the first appendix to my treatise on 'Saturn
+and its System.'
+
+At the epoch indicated, the first constellation of the zodiac was not,
+as now, the Fishes, nor, as when a fresh departure was made by
+Hipparchus, the Ram, but the Bull, a trace of which is found in Virgil's
+words--
+
+  Candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum Taurus.
+
+The Bull then was the spring sign, the Pleiades and ruddy Aldebaran
+joining their rays with the sun's at the time of the vernal equinox. The
+midsummer sign was the Lion (the bright Cor Leonis nearly marking the
+sun's highest place). The autumn sign was the Scorpion, the ruddy
+Antares and the stars clustering in the head of the Scorpion joining
+their rays with the sun's at the time of the autumnal equinox. And
+lastly the winter sign was the Water Bearer, the bright Fomalhaut
+conjoining his rays with the sun's at midwinter. It is noteworthy that
+all these four constellations really present some resemblance to the
+objects after which they are named. The Scorpion is in the best drawing,
+but the Bull's head is well marked, and, as already mentioned, a leaping
+lion can be recognised. The streams of stars from the Urn of Aquarius
+and the Urn itself are much better defined than the Urn Bearer.
+
+I have not left myself much space to speak of the finest of all the
+constellations, the glorious Orion--the Giant in his might, as he was
+called of old. In this noble asterism the figure of a giant ascending a
+slope can be readily discerned when the constellation is due south. At
+the time to which I have referred the constellation Orion was
+considerably below the equator, and instead of standing nearly upright
+when due south high above the horizon, as now in our northern latitudes,
+he rose upright above the south-eastern horizon. The resemblance to a
+giant figure must then have been even more striking than it is at
+present (except in high northern latitudes, where Orion, when due south,
+is just fully above the horizon). The giant Orion has long been
+identified with Nimrod; and those who recognise the antitypes of the Ark
+in Argo, of the old dragon in Draco, and of the first and second Adams
+in the kneeling Hercules defeated by the serpent and the upright
+Ophiuchus triumphant over the serpent, may, if they so please, find in
+the giant Orion, the Two Dogs, the Hare, and the Bull (whom Orion is
+more directly dealing with), the representations of Nimrod, that mighty
+hunter before the Lord, his hunting dogs, and the animals he hunted.
+Pegasus, formerly called the Horse, was regarded in very ancient times
+as the Steed of Nimrod.
+
+In modern astronomy the constellations no longer have the importance
+which once attached to them. They afford convenient means for naming the
+stars, though I think many observers would prefer the less attractive
+but more business-like methods adopted by Piazzi and others, according
+to which a star rejoices in no more striking title than 'Piazzi XIIIh.
+273,' or 'Struve, 2819.' They still serve, however, to teach beginners
+the stars, and probably many years will pass before even exact astronomy
+dismisses them altogether to the limbo of discarded symbolisms. It is,
+indeed, somewhat singular that astronomers find it easier to introduce
+new absurdities among the constellations than to get rid of these old
+ones. The new and utterly absurd figures introduced by Bode still remain
+in many charts despite such inconvenient names as _Honores Frederici_,
+_Globum Ærostaticum_ and _Machina Pneumatica_; and I have very little
+doubt that a new constellation, if it only had a specially inconvenient
+title, would be accepted. But when Francis Baily tried to simplify the
+heavens by removing many of Bode's absurd constellations, he was abused
+by many as violently as though he had proposed the rejection of the
+Newtonian system. I myself tried a small measure of reform in the three
+first editions of my 'Library Atlas,' but have found it desirable to
+return to the old nomenclature in the fourth.
+
+  THE END.
+
+_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
+
+_Edinburgh and London_
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] These reflections were suggested to Tacitus by the conduct of
+Thrasyllus (chief astrologer of the Emperor Tiberius), when his skill
+was tested by his imperial employer after a manner characteristic of
+that agreeable monarch. The story runs thus (I follow Whewell's
+version): 'Those who were brought to Tiberius on any important matter,
+were admitted to an interview in an apartment situated on a lofty cliff
+in the island of Capreæ. They reached this place by a narrow path,
+accompanied by a single freedman of great bodily strength; and on their
+return, if the emperor had conceived any doubts of their
+trustworthiness, a single blow buried the secret and its victim in the
+ocean below. After Thrasyllus had, in this retreat, stated the results
+of his art as they concerned the emperor, Tiberius asked him whether he
+had calculated how long he himself had to live. The astrologer examined
+the aspect of the stars, and while he did this showed hesitation, alarm,
+increasing terror, and at last declared that "The present hour was for
+him critical, perhaps fatal." Tiberius embraced him, and told him "he
+was right in supposing he had been in danger, but that he should escape
+it," and made him henceforward his confidential counsellor.' It is
+evident, assuming the story to be true (as seems sufficiently probable),
+that the emperor was no match for the charlatan in craft. It was a
+natural thought on the former's part to test the skill of his astrologer
+by laying for him a trap such as the story indicates--a thought so
+natural, indeed, that it probably occurred to Thrasyllus himself long
+before Tiberius put the plan into practice. Even if Thrasyllus had not
+been already on the watch for such a trick, he would have been but a
+poor trickster himself if he had not detected it the moment it was
+attempted, or failed to see the sole safe course which was left open to
+him. Probably, with a man of the temper of Tiberius, such a
+counter-trick as Galeotti's in _Quentin Durward_ would have been unsafe.
+
+[2] The belief in the influence of the stars and the planets on the
+fortunes of the new-born child was still rife when Shakespeare made
+Glendower boast:
+
+
+              At my nativity
+  The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes
+  Of burning cressets; know, that at my birth
+  The frame and huge foundation of the earth
+  Shook like a coward.
+
+And Shakespeare showed himself dangerously tainted with freethought in
+assigning (even to the fiery Hotspur) the reply:
+
+              So it would have done
+  At the same season, if your mother's cat
+  Had kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born.
+
+In a similar vein Butler, in _Hudibras_ ridiculed the folly of those who
+believe in horoscopes and nativities:
+
+  As if the planet's first aspect
+  The tender infant did infect
+  In soul and body, and instil
+  All future good and future ill;
+  Which in their dark fatalities lurking,
+  At destined periods fall a-working,
+  And break out, like the hidden seeds
+  Of long diseases, into deeds,
+  In friendships, enmities, and strife.
+  And all th' emergencies of life.
+
+
+
+[3] Preface to the _Rudolphine Tables_.
+
+[4] It is commonly stated that Bacon opposed the Copernican theory
+because he disliked Gilbert, who had advocated it. 'Bacon,' says one of
+his editors, 'was too jealous of Gilbert to entertain one moment any
+doctrine that he advanced.' But, apart from the incredible littleness of
+mind which this explanation imputes to Bacon, it would also have been an
+incredible piece of folly on Bacon's part to advocate an inferior theory
+while a rival was left to support a better theory. Bacon saw clearly
+enough that men were on their way to the discovery of the true theory,
+and, so far as in him lay, he indicated how they should proceed in order
+most readily to reach the truth. It must, then, have been from
+conviction, not out of mere contradiction, that Bacon declared himself
+in favour of the Ptolemaic system. In fact, he speaks of the diurnal
+motion of the earth as 'an opinion which we can demonstrate to be most
+false;' doubtless having in his thoughts some such arguments as misled
+Tycho Brahe.
+
+[5] To Bacon's theological contemporaries this must have seemed a
+dreadful heresy, and possibly in our own days the assertion would be
+judged scarcely less harshly, seeing that the observance of the
+(so-called) Sabbath depends directly upon the belief in quite another
+origin of the week. Yet there can be little question that the week
+really had its origin in astrological formulæ.
+
+[6] In Bohn's edition the word 'defective' is here used, entirely
+changing the meaning of the sentence. Bacon registers an _Astrologia
+Sana_ amongst the things needed for the advancement of learning, whereas
+he is made to say that such an astrology must be registered as
+defective.
+
+[7] The astrologers were exceedingly ingenious in showing that their art
+had given warning of the great plague and fire of London. Thus, the star
+which marks the Bull's northern horn--and which is described by Ptolemy
+as like Mars--was, they say, exactly in that part of the sign Gemini
+which is the ascendant of London, in 1666. Lilly, however, for whom they
+claim the credit of predicting the year of this calamity, laid no claim
+himself to that achievement; nay, specially denied that he knew when the
+fire was to happen. The story is rather curious. In 1651 Lilly had
+published his _Monarchy or no Monarchy_, which contained a number of
+curious hieroglyphics. Amongst these were two (see frontispiece) which
+appeared to portend plague and fire respectively. The hieroglyphic of
+the plague represents three dead bodies wrapped in death-clothes, and
+for these bodies two coffins lie ready and two graves are being dug;
+whence it was to be inferred that the number of deaths would exceed the
+supply of coffins and graves. The hieroglyphic of the fire represents
+several persons, gentlefolk on one side and commonfolk on the other,
+emptying water vessels on a furious fire into which two children are
+falling headlong. The occurrence of the plague in 1665 attracted no
+special notice to Lilly's supposed prediction of that event, though
+probably many talked of the coincidence as remarkable. But when in 1666
+the great fire occurred, the House of Commons summoned Lilly to attend
+the committee appointed to enquire into the cause of the fire. 'At two
+of the clock on Friday, the 25th of October 1666,' he attended in the
+Speaker's chamber, 'to answer such questions as should then and there be
+asked him.' Sir Robert Brooke spoke to this effect: 'Mr. Lilly, this
+committee thought fit to summon you to appear before them this day, to
+know if you can say anything as to the cause of the late fire, or
+whether there might be any design therein. You are called the rather
+hither, because in a book of yours long since printed, you hinted some
+such thing by one of your hieroglyphics.' Unto which he replied: 'May it
+please your honours, after the beheading of the late king, considering
+that in the three subsequent years the Parliament acted nothing which
+concerned the settlement of the nation's peace, and seeing the
+generality of the people dissatisfied, the citizens of London
+discontented, and the soldiery prone to mutiny, I was desirous,
+according to the best knowledge God had given me, to make enquiry by the
+art I studied, what might, from that time, happen unto the Parliament
+and nation in general. At last, having satisfied myself as well as I
+could, and perfected my judgment therein, I thought it most convenient
+to signify my intentions and conceptions thereof in forms, shapes,
+types, hieroglyphics, etc., without any commentary, that so my judgment
+might be concealed from the vulgar, and made manifest only unto the
+wise; I herein imitating the examples of many wise philosophers who had
+done the like. Having found, sir, that the great city of London should
+be sadly afflicted with a great plague, and not long after with an
+exorbitant fire, I framed these two hieroglyphics, as represented in the
+book, which in effect have proved very true.' 'Did you foresee the
+year?' said one. 'I did not,' said Lilly; 'nor was desirous; of that I
+made no scrutiny. Now, sir, whether there was any design of burning the
+city, or any employed to that purpose, I must deal ingenuously with you,
+that since the fire I have taken much pains in the search thereof, but
+cannot or could not give myself the least satisfaction therein. I
+conclude that it was the finger of God only; but what instruments He
+used thereunto I am ignorant.'
+
+[8] Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek were evidently not well
+taught in astrology. 'Shall we set about some revels?' says the latter.
+'What shall we do else?' says Toby; 'were we not born under Taurus?'
+'Taurus, that's sides and heart,' says sapient Andrew. 'No, sir,'
+responds Toby, 'it's legs and thighs. Let me see thee caper.'
+
+[9] 'This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick
+in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behaviour), we make guilty of
+our disasters the sun, moon, and stars: as if we were villains on
+necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
+treacherous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers,
+by inforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are, evil,
+by a divine thrusting on.'--SHAKESPEARE (_King Lear_).
+
+[10] There are few things more remarkable, or to reasoning minds more
+inexplicable, than the readiness with which men undertook in old times,
+and even now undertake, to interpret omens and assign prophetic
+significance to casual events. One can understand that foolish persons
+should believe in omens, and act upon the ideas suggested by their
+superstitions. The difficulty is to comprehend how these superstitions
+came into existence. For instance, who first conceived the idea that a
+particular line in the palm of the hand is the line of life; and what
+can possibly have suggested so absurd a notion? To whom did the thought
+first present itself that the pips on playing-cards are significant of
+future events; and why did he think so? How did the 'grounds' of a
+teacup come to acquire that deep significance which they now possess for
+Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Prig? If the believers in these absurdities be asked
+_why_ they believe, they answer readily enough either that they
+themselves or their friends have known remarkable fulfilments of the
+ominous indications of cards or tea-dregs, which must of necessity be
+the case where millions of forecasts are daily made by these instructive
+methods. But the persons who first invented those means of divination
+can have had no such reasons. They must have possessed imaginations of
+singular liveliness and not wanting in ingenuity. It is a pity that we
+know so little of them.
+
+[11] Wellington lived too long for the astrologers, his death within the
+year having unfortunately been predicted by them many times during the
+last fifteen years of his life. Some astrologers were more cautious,
+however. I have before me his horoscope, carefully calculated, _secundum
+artem_, by Raphaël in 1828, with results 'sufficiently evincing the
+surprising verity and singular accuracy of astrological calculations,
+when founded on the correct time of birth, and mathematically
+calculated. I have chosen,' he proceeds, 'the nativity of this
+illustrious native, in preference to others, as the subject is now
+living, and, consequently, all possibility of making up any fictitious
+horoscope is at once set aside; thus affording me a most powerful shield
+against the insidious representations of the envious and ignorant
+traducer of my sublime science.' By some strange oversight, however,
+Raphaël omits to mention anything respecting the future fortunes of
+Wellington, showing only how wonderfully Wellington's past career had
+corresponded with his horoscope.
+
+[12] 'I have still observed,' says an old author, 'that your right
+Martialist doth seldom exceed in height, or be at the most above a yard
+or a yard and a half in height' (which is surely stint measure). 'It
+hath been always thus,' said that right Martialist Sir Geoffrey Hudson
+to Julian Peveril; 'and in the history of all ages, the clean tight
+dapper little fellow hath proved an overmatch for his burly antagonist.
+I need only instance, out of Holy Writ, the celebrated downfall of
+Goliath and of another lubbard, who had more fingers in his hand, and
+more inches to his stature, than ought to belong to an honest man, and
+who was slain by a nephew of good King David; and of many others whom I
+do not remember; nevertheless, they were all Philistines of gigantic
+stature. In the classics, also, you have Tydeus, and other tight compact
+heroes, whose diminutive bodies were the abode of large minds.'
+
+[13] It is likely that Swedenborg in his youth studied astrology, for in
+his visions the Mercurial folk have this desire of knowledge as their
+distinguishing characteristic.
+
+[14] It is singular that, when there is this perfectly simple
+explanation of the origin of the nomenclature of the days of the week,
+an explanation given by ancient historians and generally received,
+Whewell should have stated that 'various accounts are given, all the
+methods proceeding upon certain arbitrary arithmetical processes
+connected in some way with astrological views.' Speaking of the
+arrangement of the planets in the order of their supposed distances, and
+of the order in which the planets appear in the days of the week, he
+says, 'It would be difficult to determine with certainty why the former
+order was adopted, and how and why the latter was derived from it.' But,
+in reality, there is no difficulty about either point. The former
+arrangement corresponded precisely with the periodic times of the seven
+planets of the old Egyptian system (unquestionably far more ancient than
+the system adopted by the Greeks), while the latter springs directly
+from the former. Assign to the hours of the day, successively, the seven
+planets in the former order, continuing the sequence without
+interruption day after day, and in the course of seven days each one of
+the planets will have ruled the first hour of a day, in the
+order,--Saturn, the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus.
+What arbitrary arithmetical process there is in this it would be
+difficult to conceive. Arithmetic does not rule the method at all. Nor
+has any other method ever been suggested; though this method has been
+presented in several ways, some arithmetical and some geometrical. We
+need then have no difficulty in understanding what seems so perplexing
+to Whewell, the universality, namely, of the notions 'which have
+produced this result,' for the notions were not fantastic, but such as
+naturally sprang from the ideas on which astrology itself depends.
+
+[15] The following remarks by the Astronomer-Royal on this subject seem
+to me just, in the main. They accord with what I had said earlier in my
+essay on Saturn and the Sabbath of the Jews ('Our Place among
+Infinities,' 11th essay). 'The importance which Moses attached to it
+[the hebdomadal rest] is evident; and, with all reverence, I recognise
+to the utmost degree the justice of his views. No direction was given
+for religious ceremonial' (he seems to have overlooked Numbers xxviii.
+9, and cognate passages), 'but it was probably seen that the health
+given to the mind by a rest from ordinary cares, and by the opportunity
+of meditation, could not fail to have a most beneficial religious
+effect. But, to give sanction to this precept, the authority of at least
+a myth was requisite. I believe it was simply for this reason that the
+myth of the six days of creation was preserved. It is expressly cited in
+the first delivery of the commandments, as the solemn authority (Exodus
+xxxi. 17) for the command. It is remarkable that at the second mention
+of the commandment (Deuteronomy v.) no reference is made to the
+creation; perhaps, after the complete establishment of Jehovistic ideas
+in the minds of the Israelites, they had nearly lost the recollection of
+the Elohistic account, and it was not thought desirable to refer to it'
+(Airy, 'On the Early Hebrew Scriptures,' p. 17). It must be regarded as
+a singular instance of the persistency of myths, if this view be
+correct, that a myth which had become obsolete for the Jews between the
+time of Moses and that of the writer (whoever he may have been) who
+produced the so-called Mosaic book of Deuteronomy, should thereafter
+have been revived, and have come to be regarded by the Jews themselves
+and by Christians as the Word of God.
+
+[16] Of course it may be argued that nothing in the world is the result
+of _mere_ accident, and some may assert that even matters which are
+commonly regarded as entirely casual have been specially designed. It
+would not be easy to draw the precise line dividing events which all men
+would regard as to all intents and purposes accidental from those which
+some men would regard as results of special providence. But common sense
+draws a sufficient distinction, at least for our present purpose.
+
+[17] This star, called _Thuban_ from the Arabian _al-Thúban_, the
+Dragon, is now not very bright, being rated at barely above the fourth
+magnitude, but it was formerly the brightest star of the constellation,
+as its name indicates. Bayer also assigned to it the first letter of the
+Greek alphabet; though this is not absolutely decisive evidence that so
+late as his day it retained its superiority over the second magnitude
+stars to which Bayer assigned the second and third Greek letters. In the
+year 2790 B.C., or thereabouts, the star was at its nearest to the true
+north pole of the heavens, the diameter of the little circle in which it
+then moved being considerably less than one-fourth the apparent diameter
+of the moon. At that time the star must have seemed to all ordinary
+observation an absolutely fixed centre, round which all the other stars
+revolved. At the time when the pyramid was built this star was about
+sixty times farther removed from the true pole, revolving in a circle
+whose apparent diameter was about seven times as great as the moon's.
+Yet it would still be regarded as a very useful pole-star, especially as
+there are very few conspicuous stars in the neighbourhood.
+
+[18] Even that skilful astronomer Hipparchus, who may be justly called
+the father of observational astronomy, overlooked this peculiarity,
+which Ptolemy would seem to have been the first to recognise.
+
+[19] It would only be by a lucky accident, of course, that the direction
+of the slant tunnel's axis and that of the vertical from the selected
+central point would lie in the same vertical plane. The object of the
+tunnelling would, in fact, be to determine how far apart the vertical
+planes through these points lay, and the odds would be great against the
+result proving to be zero.
+
+[20] It may, perhaps, occur to the reader to inquire what diameter of
+the earth, supposed to be a perfect sphere, would be derived from a
+degree of latitude measured with absolute accuracy near latitude 30°. A
+degree of latitude measured in polar regions would indicate a diameter
+greater even than the equatorial; one measured in equatorial regions
+would indicate a diameter less even than the polar. Near latitude 30°
+the measurement of a degree of latitude would indicate a diameter very
+nearly equal to the true polar diameter of the earth. In fact, if it
+could be proved that the builders of the pyramid used for their unit of
+length an exact subdivision of the polar diameter, the inference would
+be that, while the coincidence itself was merely accidental, their
+measurement of a degree of latitude in their own country had been
+singularly accurate. By an approximate calculation I find that, taking
+the earth's compression at 1-300, the diameter of the earth, estimated
+from the accurate measurement of a degree of latitude in the
+neighbourhood of the great pyramid, would have made the sacred
+cubit--taken at one 20,000,000th of the diameter--equal to 24·98 British
+inches; a closer approximation than Professor Smyth's to the estimated
+mean probable value of the sacred cubit.
+
+[21] It is, however, almost impossible to mark any limits to what may be
+regarded as evidence of design by a coincidence-hunter. I quote the
+following from the late Professor De Morgan's _Budget of Paradoxes_.
+Having mentioned that 7 occurs less frequently than any other digit in
+the number expressing the ratio of circumference to diameter of a
+circle, he proceeds: 'A correspondent of my friend Piazzi Smyth notices
+that 3 is the number of most frequency, and that 3-1/7 is the nearest
+approximation to it in simple digits. Professor Smyth, whose work on
+Egypt is paradox of a very high order, backed by a great quantity of
+useful labour, the results of which will be made available by those who
+do not receive the paradoxes, is inclined to see confirmation for some
+of his theory in these phenomena.' In passing, I may mention as the most
+singular of these accidental digit relations which I have yet noticed,
+that in the first 110 digits of the square root of 2, the number 7
+occurs more than twice as often as either 5 or 9, which each occur eight
+times, 1 and 2 occurring each nine times, and 7 occurring no less than
+eighteen times.
+
+[22] I have substituted this value in the article 'Astronomy,' of the
+_British Encyclopædia_, for the estimate formerly used, viz. 95,233,055
+miles. But there is good reason for believing that the actual distance
+is nearly 92,000,000 miles.
+
+[23] It may be matched by other coincidences as remarkable and as little
+the result of the operation of any natural law. For instance, the
+following strange relation, introducing the dimensions of the sun
+himself, nowhere, so far as I have yet seen, introduced among pyramid
+relations, even by pyramidalists: 'If the plane of the ecliptic were a
+true surface, and the sun were to commence rolling along that surface
+towards the part of the earth's orbit where she is at her mean distance,
+while the earth commenced rolling upon the sun (round one of his great
+circles), each globe turning round in the same time,--then, by the time
+the earth had rolled its way once round the sun, the sun would have
+almost exactly reached the earth's orbit. This is only another way of
+saying that the sun's diameter exceeds the earth's in almost exactly the
+same degree that the sun's distance exceeds the sun's diameter.'
+
+[24] It has been remarked that, though Hipparchus had the enormous
+advantage of being able to compare his own observations with those
+recorded by the Chaldæans, he estimated the length of the year less
+correctly than the Chaldæans. It has been thought by some that the
+Chaldæans were acquainted with the true system of the universe, but I do
+not know that there are sufficient grounds for this supposition.
+Diodorus Siculus and Apollonius Myndius mention, however, that they were
+able to predict the return of comets, and this implies that their
+observations had been continued for many centuries with great care and
+exactness.
+
+[25] The language of the modern Zadkiels and Raphaëls, though
+meaningless and absurd in itself, yet, as assuredly derived from the
+astrology of the oldest times, may here be quoted. (It certainly was not
+invented to give support to the theory I am at present advocating.) Thus
+runs the jargon of the tribe: 'In order to illustrate plainly to the
+reader what astrologers mean by the "houses of heaven," it is proper for
+him to bear in mind the four cardinal points. The eastern, facing the
+rising sun, has at its centre the first grand angle or first house,
+termed the Horoscope or ascendant. The northern, opposite the region
+where the sun is at midnight, or the _cusp_ of the lower heaven or
+nadir, is the Imum Coeli, and has at its centre the fourth house. The
+western, facing the setting sun, has at its centre the third grand angle
+or seventh house or descendant. And lastly, the southern, facing the
+noonday sun, has at its centre the astrologer's tenth house, or
+Mid-heaven, the most powerful angle or house of honour.' 'And although,'
+proceeds the modern astrologer, 'we cannot in the ethereal blue discern
+these lines or terminating divisions, both reason and experience assure
+us that they certainly exist; therefore the astrologer has certain
+grounds for the choice of his four angular houses' (out of twelve in
+all) 'which, resembling the palpable demonstration they afford, are in
+the astral science esteemed the most powerful of the whole. '--Raphaël's
+_Manual of Astrology_.
+
+[26] Arabian writers give the following account of Egyptian progress in
+astrology and the mystical arts: Nacrawasch, the progenitor of Misraim,
+was the first Egyptian prince, and the first of the magicians who
+excelled in astrology and enchantment. Retiring into Egypt with his
+family of eighty persons, he built Essous, the most ancient city of
+Egypt, and commenced the first dynasty of Misraimitish princes, who
+excelled as cabalists, diviners, and in the mystic arts generally. The
+most celebrated of the race were Naerasch, who first represented by
+images the twelve signs of the zodiac; Gharnak, who openly described the
+arts before kept secret; Hersall, who first worshipped idols; Sehlouk,
+who worshipped the sun; Saurid (King Saurid of Ibn Abd Alkohm's
+account), who erected the first pyramids and invented the magic mirror;
+and Pharaoh, the last king of the dynasty, whose name was afterwards
+taken as a kingly title, as Cæsar later became a general imperial title.
+
+[27] It is noteworthy how Swedenborg here anticipates a saying of
+Laplace, the greatest mathematician the world has known, save Newton
+alone. Newton's remark that he seemed but as a child who had gathered a
+few shells on the shores of ocean, is well known. Laplace's words, '_Ce
+que nous connaissons est peu de chose; ce que nous ignorons est
+immense_,' were not, as is commonly stated, his last. De Morgan gives
+the following account of Laplace's last moments, on the authority of
+Laplace's friend and pupil, the well-known mathematician Poisson: 'After
+the publication (in 1825) of the fifth volume of the Mécanique Céleste,
+Laplace became gradually weaker, and with it musing and abstracted. He
+thought much on the great problems of existence, and often muttered to
+himself, "_Qu'est-ce que c'est que tout cela!_" After many alternations
+he appeared at last so permanently prostrated that his family applied to
+his favourite pupil, M. Poisson, to try to get a word from him. Poisson
+paid a visit, and after a few words of salutation, said, "J'ai une bonne
+nouvelle à vous annoncer: on a reçu au Bureau des Longitudes une lettre
+d'Allemagne annonçant que M. Bessel a vérifié par l'observation vos
+découvertes théoriques sur les satellites de Jupiter." Laplace opened
+his eyes and answered with deep gravity. "_L'homme ne poursuit que des
+chimères._" He never spoke again. His death took place March 5, 1827.'
+
+[28] The reason assigned by Swedenborg is fanciful enough. 'In the
+spiritual sense,' he says, 'a horse signifies the intellectual principle
+formed from scientifics, and as they are afraid of cultivating the
+intellectual faculties by worldly sciences, from this comes an influx of
+fear. They care nothing for scientifics which are of human erudition.'
+
+[29] Similar reasoning applies to the moons of Jupiter, and it so
+chances that the result in their case comes out exactly the same as in
+the case of Saturn; all the Jovian moons, if full together, would
+reflect only the sixteenth part of the light which we receive from the
+full moon. It is strange that scientific men of considerable
+mathematical power have used the argument from design apparently
+supplied by the satellites, without being at the pains to test its
+validity by the simple mathematical calculations necessary to determine
+the quantity of light which these bodies can reflect to the planets
+round which they travel. Brewster and Whewell, though they took opposite
+sides in the controversy about other inhabited worlds, agreed in this.
+Brewster, of course, holding the theory that all the planets are
+inhabited, very naturally accepted the argument from design in this
+case. Whewell, in opposing that theory, did not dwell at all upon the
+subjects of the satellites. But in his 'Bridgewater Treatise on
+Astronomy and General Physics,' he says, 'Taking only the ascertained
+cases of Venus, the Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, we conceive that a
+person of common understanding will be strongly impressed with the
+persuasion that the satellites are placed in the system with a view to
+compensate for the diminished light of the sun at greater distances.
+Mars is an exception; some persons might conjecture from this case that
+the arrangement itself, like other useful arrangements, has been brought
+about by some wider law which we have not yet detected. But whether or
+not we entertain such a guess (it can be nothing more), we see in other
+parts of creation so many examples of apparent exceptions to rules,
+which are afterwards found to be capable of explanation, or to be
+provided for by particular contrivances, that no one familiar with such
+contemplations will, by one anomaly, be driven from the persuasion that
+the end which the arrangements of the satellites seem suited to answer
+is really one of the ends of their creation.'
+
+[30] The reader who cares enough about such subjects to take the
+necessary trouble, can easily make a little model of Saturn and his ring
+system, which will very prettily illustrate the effect of the rings both
+in reflecting light to the planet's darkened hemisphere and in cutting
+off light from the planet's illuminated hemisphere. Take a ball, say an
+ordinary hand-ball, and pierce it through the centre with a fine
+knitting-needle. Cut out a flat ring of card, proportioned to the ball
+as the ring system of Saturn to his ball. (If the ball is two inches in
+diameter, strike out on a sheet of cardboard two concentric circles, one
+of them with a radius of a little more than an inch and a half, the
+other with a radius of about two inches and three-eights, and cut out
+the ring between these two circles.) Thrust the knitting-needle through
+this ring in such a way that the ball shall lie in the middle of the
+ring, as the globe of Saturn hangs (without knitting-needle connections)
+in the middle of his ring system. Thrust another knitting-needle
+centrally through the ball square to the plane of the ring, and use this
+second needle, which we may call the polar one, as a handle. Now take
+the ball and ring into sunlight, or the light of a lamp or candle,
+holding them so that the shadow of the ring is as thin as possible. This
+represents the position of the shadow at the time of Saturnian spring or
+autumn. Cause the shadow slowly to shift until it surrounds the part of
+the ball through which the polar needle passes on one side. This will
+represent the position of the shadow at the time of midwinter for the
+hemisphere corresponding to that side of the ball. Notice that while the
+shadow is traversing this half of the ball, the side of the ring which
+lies towards that half is in shadow, so that a fly or other small insect
+on that half of the ball would see the darkened side of the ring. A
+Saturnian correspondingly placed would get no reflected sunlight from
+the ring system. Move the ball and ring so that the shadow slowly
+returns to its first position. You will then have illustrated the
+changes taking place during one half of a Saturnian year. Continue the
+motion so that the shadow passes to the other half of the ball, and
+finally surrounds the other point through which the polar needle passes.
+The polar point which the shadow before surrounded will now be seen to
+be in the light, and this half of the ball will illustrate the
+hemisphere of Saturn where it is midsummer. It will also be seen that
+the side of the ring towards this half of the ball is now in the light,
+so that a small insect on this half of the ball would see the bright
+side of the ring. A Saturnian correspondingly placed would get reflected
+sunlight from the ring system _both by day and by night_. Moving the
+ball and ring so that the shadow returns to its first position, an
+entire Saturnian year will have been illustrated. These changes can be
+still better shown with a Saturnian orrery (see plate viii. of my
+Saturn), which can be very easily constructed.
+
+[31] Not 'of course' because Tycho used it, for, like other able
+students of science, he made mistakes from time to time. Thus he argued
+that the earth cannot rotate on her axis, because if she did bodies
+raised above her surface would be left behind--an argument which even
+the mechanical knowledge of his own time should have sufficed to
+invalidate, though it is still used from time to time by paradoxers of
+our own day.
+
+[32] Chinese chronicles contain other references to new stars. The
+annals of Ma-touan-lin, which contain the official records of remarkable
+appearances in the heavens, include some phenomena which manifestly
+belong to this class. Thus they record that in the year 173 a star
+appeared between the stars which mark the hind feet of the Centaur. This
+star remained visible from December in that year until July in the next
+(about the same time as Tycho Brahe's and Kepler's new stars, presently
+to be described). Another star, assigned by these annals to the year
+1011, seems to be the same as a star referred to by Hepidannus as
+appearing A.D. 1012. It was of extraordinary brilliancy, and remained
+visible in the southern part of the heavens during three months. The
+annals of Ma-touan-lin assign to it a position low down in Sagittarius.
+
+[33] Still a circumstance must be mentioned which tends to show that the
+star may have been visible a few hours earlier than Dr. Schmidt
+supposed. Mr. M. Walter, surgeon of the 4th regiment, then stationed in
+North India, wrote (oddly enough, on May 12, 1867, the first anniversary
+of Mr. Birmingham's discovery) as follows to Mr. Stone:--'I am certain
+that this same conflagration was distinctly perceptible here at least
+six hours earlier. My knowledge of the fact came about in this wise. The
+night of the 12th of May last year was exceedingly sultry, and about
+eight o'clock on that evening I got up from the tea-table and rushed
+into my garden to seek a cooler atmosphere. As my door opens towards the
+east, the first object that met my view was the Northern Crown. My
+attention was at once arrested by the sight of a strange star outside
+the crown' (that is, outside the circlet of stars forming the diadem,
+not outside the constellation itself). The new star 'was then certainly
+quite as bright--I rather thought more so--as its neighbour Alphecca,'
+the chief gem of the crown. 'I was so much struck with its appearance,
+that I exclaimed to those indoors, "Why, here is a new comet!'" He made
+a diagram of the constellation, showing the place of the new star
+correctly. Unfortunately, Mr. Walter does not state why he is so
+confident, a year after the event, that it was on the 12th of May, and
+not on the 13th, that he noticed the new star. If he fixed the date only
+by the star's appearance as a second-magnitude star, his letter proves
+nothing; for we know that on the 13th it was still shining as brightly
+as Alphecca, though on the 14th it was perceptibly fainter.
+
+[34] The velocity of three or four miles per second inferred by the
+elder Struve must now be regarded (as I long since pointed out would
+prove to be the case) as very far short of the real velocity of our
+system's motion through stellar space.
+
+[35] M. Cornu's observations are full of interest, and he deserves
+considerable credit for his energy in availing himself of the few
+favourable opportunities he had for making them. But he goes beyond his
+province in adding to his account of them some remarks, intended
+apparently as a reflection on Mr. Huggins's speculations respecting the
+star in the Northern Crown. '_I_,' says M. Cornu, 'will not try to form
+any hypothesis about the cause of the outburst. To do so would be
+unscientific, and such speculations, though interesting, cumber science
+wofully.' This is sheer nonsense, and comes very ill from an observer
+whose successes in science have been due entirely to the employment of
+methods of observation which would have had no existence had others been
+as unready to think out the meaning of observed facts as he appears to
+be himself.
+
+[36] The same peculiarity has been noticed since the discovery of the
+dark ring, the space within that ring being observed by Coolidge and G.
+Bond at Harvard in 1856 to be apparently darker than the surrounding
+sky.
+
+[37] I cannot understand why Mr. Webb, in his interesting little work,
+_Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes_, says that the satellite
+theory of the rings certainly seems insufficient to account for the
+phenomena of the dark ring. It seems, on the contrary, manifest that the
+dark ring can scarcely be explained in any other way. The observations
+recently made are altogether inexplicable on any other theory.
+
+[38] A gentleman, whose acquaintance I made in returning from America
+last spring, assured me that he had found demonstrative evidence showing
+that a total eclipse of the moon then occurred; for he could prove that
+Abraham's vision occurred at the time of full moon, so that it could not
+otherwise have been dark when the sun went down (v. 17). But the horror
+of great darkness occurred when the sun was going down, and total
+eclipses of the moon do not behave that way--at least, in our time.
+
+[39] It is not easy to understand what else it could have been. The
+notion that a conjunction of three planets, which took place shortly
+before the time of Christ's birth, gave rise to the tradition of the
+star in the east, though propounded by a former president of the
+Astronomical Society, could hardly be entertained by an astronomer,
+unless he entirely rejected Matthew's account, which the author of this
+theory, being a clergyman, can scarcely have done.
+
+[40] As, for instance, when he makes Homer say of the moon that
+
+  Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
+  And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole.
+
+It is difficult, indeed, to understand how so thorough an astronomer as
+the late Admiral Smyth could have called the passage in which these
+lines occur one of the finest bursts of poetry in our language, except
+on the principle cleverly cited by Waller when Charles II. upbraided him
+for the warmth of his panegyric on Cromwell, that 'poets succeed better
+with fiction than with truth.' Macaulay, though not an astronomer,
+speaks more justly of the passage in saying that this single passage
+contains more inaccuracies than can be found in all Wordsworth's
+'Excursion.'
+
+[41] It may be necessary to throw in here a few words of explanation,
+lest the non-astronomical reader should run away with the idea that the
+so-called exact science is a very inexact science indeed, so far as
+comets are concerned. The comet of 1680 was one of those which travel on
+a very eccentric orbit. Coming, indeed, from out depths many times more
+remote than the path even of the remotest planet, Neptune, this comet
+approached nearer to the sun than any which astronomers have ever seen,
+except only the comet of 1843. When at its nearest its nucleus was only
+a sixth part of the sun's diameter from his surface. Thus the part of
+the comet's orbit along which astronomers traced its motion was only a
+small part at one end of an enormously long oval, and very slight errors
+of observation were sufficient to produce very large errors in the
+determination of the nature of the comet's orbit. Encke admitted that
+the period might, so far as the comparatively imperfect observations
+made in 1680 were concerned, be any whatever, from 805 years to many
+millions of years, or even to infinity--that is, the comet might have a
+path not re-entering into itself, but carrying the comet for ever away
+from the sun after its one visit to our system.
+
+[42] For a portion of the passages which I have quoted in this essay I
+am indebted to Guillemin's 'Treatise on Comets,' a useful contribution
+to the literature of the subject, though somewhat inadequate so far as
+exposition is concerned.
+
+[43] Something very similar happened only a few years ago, so that we
+cannot afford to laugh too freely at the terrors of France in 1773. It
+was reported during the winter of 1871-1872, that Plantamour, the Swiss
+astronomer, had predicted the earth's destruction by a comet on August
+12, 1872. Yet there was no other foundation for this rumour than the
+fact that Plantamour, in a lecture upon comets and meteors, had stated
+that the meteors seen on August 10, 11, and 12 are bodies following in
+the track of a comet whose orbit passes very near to the earth's. It was
+very certainly known to astronomers that there could be no present
+danger of a collision with this comet, for the comet has a period of at
+least 150 years, and had last passed close to the earth's orbit (not to
+the earth herself, be it understood) in 1862. But it was useless to
+point this out. Many people insisted on believing that on August 12,
+1872, the earth would come into collision, possibly disastrous, with a
+mighty comet, which Plantamour was said to have detected and to have
+shown by a profound calculation to be rushing directly upon our
+unfortunate earth.
+
+[44] A rather amusing mistake was made by the stenographers of a New
+York paper in reporting the above sentence, which I happened to quote in
+a lecture upon Comets and Meteors. Instead of Paradise they wrote Paris.
+Those acquainted with Pitman's system of short-hand, the one most
+commonly employed by reporters, will easily understand how the mistake
+was made, the marks made to represent the consonants p, r, d, and s
+differing little from those made to represent the consonants p, r, and s
+(the 'd' or 't' sound is represented, or may be represented, by simply
+shortening the length of the sign for the preceding consonant). The
+mistake led naturally to my remarking in my next lecture that I had not
+before known how thoroughly synonymous the words are in America, though
+I had heard it said that 'Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris.'
+
+[45] On the occasion of my first visit to America, in 1873, I for the
+first time succeeded in obtaining a copy of this curious pamphlet. It
+had been mentioned to me (by Emerson, I think) as an amusing piece of
+trickery played off by a scientific man on his brethren; and Dr. Wendell
+Holmes, who was present, remarked that he had a copy in his possession.
+This he was good enough to lend me. Soon after, a valued friend in New
+York presented me with a copy.
+
+[46] This Locke must not be confounded with Richard Lock, the
+circle-squarer and general paradoxist, who flourished a century earlier.
+
+[47] The nurses' tale is, that the man was sent to the moon by Moses for
+gathering sticks on the Sabbath, and they refer to the cheerful story in
+Numbers xv. 32-36. According to German nurses the day was not the
+Sabbath, but Sunday. Their tale runs as follows: 'Ages ago there went
+one Sunday an old man into the woods to hew sticks. He cut a faggot and
+slung it on a stout staff, cast it over his shoulder, and began to
+trudge home with his burthen. On his way he met a handsome man in Sunday
+suit, walking towards the church. The man stopped, and asked the
+faggot-bearer; "Do you know that this is Sunday on earth, when all must
+rest from their labours?" "Sunday on earth or Monday in heaven, it's all
+one to me?" laughed the wood-cutter. "Then bear your bundle for ever!"
+answered the stranger. "And as you value not Sunday on earth, yours
+shall be a perpetual Moon-day in heaven; you shall stand for eternity in
+the moon, a warning to all Sabbath-breakers." Thereupon the stranger
+vanished; and the man was caught up with his staff and faggot into the
+moon, where he stands yet.' According to some narrators the stranger was
+Christ; but whether from German laxity in such matters or for some other
+reason, no text is quoted in evidence, as by the more orthodox British
+nurses. Luke vi. 1-5 might serve.
+
+[48] Milton's opinion may be quoted against me here; and as received
+ideas respecting angels, good and bad, the fall of man, and many other
+such matters, are due quite as much to Milton as to any other authority,
+his opinion must not be lightly disregarded. But though, when Milton's
+Satan 'meets a vast vacuity' where his wings are of no further service
+to him,
+
+              'All unawares
+  Flutt'ring his pennons vain, plumb down he drops
+  Ten thousand fathoms deep, and to this hour
+  Down had been falling, had not by ill chance
+  The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud,
+  Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him
+  As many miles aloft,'
+
+yet this was written nearly a quarter of a century before Newton had
+established the law of gravity. Moreover, there is no evidence to show
+in what direction Satan fell; 'above is below and below above,' says
+Richter, 'to one stripped of gravitating body;' and whether Satan was
+under the influence of gravity or not, he would be practically exempt
+from its action when in the midst of that 'dark, illimitable ocean' of
+space,
+
+              'Without bound,
+  Without dimensions, where length, breadth, and height,
+  And time and place are lost.'
+
+His lighting 'on Niphates' top,' and overleaping the gate of Paradise,
+may be used as arguments either way. On the whole, I must (according to
+my present lights) claim for Satan a freedom from all scientific
+restraints. This freedom is exemplified by his showing all the kingdoms
+of the world from an exceeding high mountain, thus affording the first
+practical demonstration of the flat-earth theory, the maintenance of
+which led to poor Mr. Hampden's incarceration.
+
+[49] The _Sun_ itself claimed to have established the veracity of the
+account in a manner strongly recalling a well-known argument used by
+orthodox believers in the Bible account of the cosmogony. Either, say
+these, Moses discovered how the world was made, or the facts were
+revealed to him by some one who had made the discovery: but Moses could
+not have made the discovery, knowing nothing of the higher departments
+of science; therefore, the account came from the only Being who could
+rationally be supposed to know anything about the beginning of the
+world. 'Either,' said the _New York Sun_, speaking of a mathematical
+problem discussed in the article, 'that problem was predicated by us or
+some other person, who has thereby made the greatest of all modern
+discoveries in mathematical astronomy. We did not make it, for we know
+nothing of mathematics whatever; therefore, it was made by the only
+person to whom it can rationally be ascribed, namely Herschel the
+astronomer, its only avowed and undeniable author.' In reality,
+notwithstanding this convincing argument, the problem was stolen by
+Locke from a paper by Olbers, shortly before published, and gave the
+method followed by Beer and Mädler throughout their selenographical
+researches in 1833-37.
+
+[50] I had at the same time the good fortune to satisfy in equal degree,
+though quite unexpectedly, an English student of the sun, who at that
+time bore me no great good-will. Something in the article chanced to
+suggest that it came from another, presumably a rival, hand; while an
+essay which appeared about the same time (the spring of 1872) was
+commonly but erroneously attributed to me. Accordingly, a leading
+article in _Nature_ was devoted to the annihilation of the writer
+supposed to be myself, and to the lavish and quite undeserved laudation
+of the article I had written, which was selected as typifying all the
+good qualities which an article of the kind should possess. Those
+acquainted with the facts were not a little amused by the mistake.
+
+[51] The Astronomer-Royal once told me that he had found that few
+persons have a clear conception of the fact that the stars rise and set.
+Still fewer know how the stars move, which stars rise and set, which are
+always above the horizon, which move on large circles, which on small
+ones; though a few hours' observation on half-a-dozen nights in the year
+(such observations being continuous, but made only at hourly intervals)
+would show dearly how the stars move. It is odd to find even some who
+write about astronomy making mistakes on matters so elementary. For
+instance, in a primer of astronomy recently published, it is stated that
+the stars which pass overhead in London rise and set on a slant--the
+real fact being that _those_ stars never rise or set at all, never
+coming within some two dozen moon-breadths of the horizon.
+
+[52] In passing let me note that, of course, I am not discussing the
+arguments of paradoxists with the remotest idea of disproving them. They
+are not, in reality, worth the trouble. But they show where the general
+reader of astronomical text-books, and other such works, is likely to go
+astray, and thus conveniently indicate matters whose explanation may be
+useful or interesting.
+
+[53] Sterne anticipated this paradoxist in (jestingly) attributing
+glassiness to an inferior planet. He made the inhabitants, however, not
+the air, glassy. 'The intense heat of the country,' he says, speaking of
+the planet Mercury, 'must, I think, long ago have vitrified the bodies
+of the inhabitants to suit them for the climate; so that all the
+tenements of their souls may be nothing else, for aught the soundest
+philosophy can show to the contrary, but one fine transparent body of
+clear glass; so that till the inhabitant grows old and tolerably
+wrinkled, whereby the rays of light become monstrously refracted, or
+return reflected from the surface, etc., his soul might as well play the
+fool out o' doors as in her own house.'
+
+[54] It will be seen from Table X. of my treatise on Saturn that the
+ring disappeared on December 12, remaining invisible (because turning
+its dark side earthwards) till the spring of 1613. But on December 4,
+the ring must have been quite invisible in a telescope so feeble as
+Galileo's. The ring then would have been little more than a fine line of
+light as seen with one of our powerful modern telescopes.
+
+[55] _North British Review_ for August 1860.
+
+[56] He had, indeed, at an earlier stage, shown a marvellous ignorance
+of astronomy by the remark, which doubtless appeared to him a safe one,
+that when he saw a planet on the sun in September he supposed it was
+Mercury; a September transit of Mercury being as impossible as an
+eclipse of the sun during the moon's third quarter.
+
+[57] It is, by the way, somewhat amusing to find Baron Humboldt
+referring a question of this sort to the great mathematician Gauss, and
+describing the problem as though it involved the most profound
+calculations. Ten minutes should suffice to deal with any problem of the
+kind.
+
+
+  Transcriber's Note
+
+  The following typographical errors were corrected.
+
+  Page          Error       Correction
+
+  4             Julias      Julius
+
+  35            genuis      genius
+
+  36            artficers   artificers
+
+  37            signfies    signifies
+
+  footnote 14   preplexing  perplexing
+
+  45            Chaldean    Chaldæan
+
+  46            Chaldeans   Chaldæans
+
+  225           peruquier   perruquier
+
+  237           peruque     perruque
+
+  281           Northfolk   Norfolk
+
+  350           ascant      askant
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Myths and Marvels of Astronomy, by 
+Richard A. Proctor
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+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Myths and Marvels of Astronomy,
+      by Richard A. Proctor.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Myths and Marvels of Astronomy, by Richard A. Proctor
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Myths and Marvels of Astronomy
+
+Author: Richard A. Proctor
+
+Release Date: September 8, 2008 [EBook #26556]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYTHS AND MARVELS OF ASTRONOMY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brenda Lewis, Scott Marusak, Greg Bergquist
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div class="tn">
+<p class="center"><big><b>Transcriber&#8217;s Note</b></big></p>
+
+<p class="center">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A <a href="#trans_note">list</a> of corrections
+is found at the end of the text.</p>
+</div>
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image1.jpg" width="600" height="403" alt="LILLY&#39;S HIEROGLYPHS (PUBLISHED IN 1651)" title="" />
+<span class="caption">LILLY&#39;S HIEROGLYPHS (PUBLISHED IN 1651)</span>
+</div>
+<hr />
+
+
+
+<h1>
+MYTHS AND MARVELS<br />
+OF ASTRONOMY</h1>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><br />BY<br />
+<big>RICHARD A. PROCTOR</big><br /></p>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><br /><small>AUTHOR OF<br />
+
+"ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH," "THE EXPANSE OF HEAVEN," "OUR PLACE<br />
+AMONG INFINITIES," "PLEASANT WAYS IN SCIENCE,"<br />
+ETC., ETC.</small></p>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><br /><i>NEW EDITION</i><br /><br /><br />
+
+<big>LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.</big><br />
+LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY<br />
+1896
+</p>
+<hr />
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><br />
+<small><i>Printed by</i> <span class="smcap">Ballantyne, Hanson &amp; Co</span><br />
+<br />
+<i>At the Ballantyne Press</i></small></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">The</span> chief charm of Astronomy, with many, does not reside in the wonders
+revealed to us by the science, but in the lore and legends connected
+with its history, the strange fancies with which in old times it has
+been associated, the half-forgotten myths to which it has given birth.
+In our own times also, Astronomy has had its myths and fancies, its wild
+inventions, and startling paradoxes. My object in the present series of
+papers has been to collect together the most interesting of these old
+and new Astronomical myths, associating with them, in due proportion,
+some of the chief marvels which recent Astronomy has revealed to us. To
+the former class belong the subjects of the first four and the last five
+essays of the present series, while the remaining essays belong to the
+latter category.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout I have endeavoured to avoid technical expressions on the one
+hand, and ambiguous phraseology (sometimes resulting from the attempt
+to avoid technicality) on the other. I have, in fact, sought to present
+my subjects as I should wish to have matters outside the range of my
+special branch of study presented for my own reading.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+RICHARD A. PROCTOR.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Astrology</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Religion of the Great Pyramid</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Mystery of the Pyramids</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Swedenborg's Visions of Other Worlds</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Other Worlds and Other Universes</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Suns in Flames</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Rings of Saturn</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Comets as Portents</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Lunar Hoax</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_242">242</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">On some Astronomical Paradoxes</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_268">268</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">On some Astronomical Myths</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Origin of the Constellation-Figures</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_332">332</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h2>MYTHS AND MARVELS<br />
+
+<small>OF</small><br />
+
+ASTRONOMY</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>I.<br />
+
+<i>ASTROLOGY.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Signs and planets, in aspects sextile, quartile, trine, conjoined,
+or opposite; houses of heaven, with their cusps, hours, and
+minutes; Almuten, Almochoden, Anahibazon, Catahibazon; a thousand
+terms of equal sound and significance.&mdash;<i>Guy Mannering.</i></p></div>
+
+<p class="poem">
+... Come and see! trust thine own eyes.<br />
+A fearful sign stands in the house of life,<br />
+An enemy: a fiend lurks close behind<br />
+The radiance of thy planet&mdash;oh! be warned!&mdash;<span class="smcap">Coleridge.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Astrology</span> possesses a real interest even in these days. It is true that
+no importance attaches now even to the discussion of the considerations
+which led to the rejection of judicial astrology. None but the most
+ignorant, and therefore superstitious, believe at present in divination
+of any sort or kind whatsoever. Divination by the stars holds no higher
+position than palmistry, fortune-telling by cards, or the indications of
+the future which foolish persons find in dreams, tea-dregs,
+salt-spilling, and other absurdities. But there are two reasons which
+render the history of astrology interesting. In the first place, faith
+in stellar influences was once so widespread that astrological
+terminology came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> to form a part of ordinary language, insomuch that it
+is impossible rightly to understand many passages of ancient and
+medi&aelig;val literature, or rightly to apprehend the force of many allusions
+and expressions, unless the significance of astrological teachings to
+the men of those times be recognised. In the second place, it is
+interesting to examine how the erroneous teachings of astrology were
+gradually abandoned, to note the way in which various orders of mind
+rejected these false doctrines or struggled to retain them, and to
+perceive how, with a large proportion of even the most civilised races,
+the superstitions of judicial astrology were long retained, or are
+retained even to this very day. The world has still to see some
+superstitions destroyed which are as widely received as astrology ever
+was, and which will probably retain their influence over many minds long
+after the reasoning portion of the community have rejected them.</p>
+
+<p>Even so far back as the time of Eudoxus the pretensions of astrologers
+were rejected, as Cicero informs us ('De Div.' ii. 42). And though the
+Romans were strangely superstitious in such matters, Cicero reasons with
+excellent judgment against the belief in astrology. Gassendi quotes the
+argument drawn by Cicero against astrology, from the predictions of the
+Chald&aelig;ans that C&aelig;sar, Crassus, and Pompey would die 'in a full old age,
+in their own houses, in peace and honour,' whose deaths, nevertheless,
+were 'violent, immature, and tragical.' Cicero also used an argument
+whose full force has only been recognised in modern times. 'What
+contagion,' he asked, 'can reach us from the planets, whose distance is
+almost infinite?' It is singular that Seneca, who was well acquainted
+with the uniform character of the planetary motions, seems to have
+entertained no doubt respecting their influence. Tacitus expresses some
+doubts, but was on the whole inclined to believe in astrology.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+'Certainly,' he says, 'the majority of mankind cannot be weaned from the
+opinion that at the birth of each man his future destiny is fixed;
+though some things may fall out differently from the predictions, by the
+ignorance of those who profess the art; and thus the art is unjustly
+blamed, confirmed as it is by noted examples in all ages.'<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>Probably, the doubt suggested by the different fortunes and characters
+of men born at the same time must have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> occurred to many before Cicero
+dwelt upon it. Pliny, who followed Cicero in this, does not employ the
+argument quite correctly, for he says that, 'in every hour, in every
+part of the world, are born lords and slaves, kings and beggars.' But of
+course, according to astrological principles, it would be necessary that
+two persons, whose fortunes were to be alike, should be born, not only
+in the same hour, but in the same place. The fortunes and character of
+Jacob and Esau, however, should manifestly have been similar, which was
+certainly not the case, if their history has been correctly handed down
+to us. An astrologer of the time of <a name="corr1" id="corr1"></a>Julius C&aelig;sar, named
+Publius Nigidius Figulus, used a singular argument against such
+reasoning. When an opponent urged the different fortunes of men born
+nearly at the same instant, Nigidius asked him to make two contiguous
+marks on a potter's wheel which was revolving rapidly. When the wheel
+was stopped, the two marks were found to be far apart. Nigidius is said
+to have received the name of Figulus (the potter), in remembrance of the
+story; but more probably he was a potter by trade, and an astrologer
+only during those leisure hours which he could devote to charlatanry.
+St. Augustine, who relates the story (which I borrow from Whewell's
+'History of the Inductive Sciences'), says, justly, that the argument of
+Nigidius was as fragile as the ware made on the potter's wheel.</p>
+
+<p>The belief must have been all but universal in those days that at the
+birth of any person who was to hold an important place in the world's
+history the stars would either be ominously conjoined, or else some
+blazing comet or new star would make its appearance. For we know that
+some such object having appeared, or some unusual conjunction of planets
+having occurred, near enough to the time of Christ's birth to be
+associated in men's minds with that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> event, it came eventually to be
+regarded as belonging to his horoscope, and as actually indicating to
+the Wise Men of the East (Chald&aelig;an astrologers, doubtless) the future
+greatness of the child then born. It is certain that that is what the
+story of the Star in the East means as it stands. Theologians differ as
+to its interpretation in points of detail. Some think the phenomenon was
+meteoric, others that a comet then made its appearance, others that a
+new star shone out, and others that the account referred to a
+conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, which occurred at about that
+time. As a matter of detail it may be mentioned, that none of these
+explanations in the slightest degree corresponds with the account, for
+neither meteor, nor comet, nor new star, nor conjoined planets, would go
+before travellers from the east, to show them their way to any place.
+Yet the ancients sometimes regarded comets as guides. Whichever view we
+accept, it is abundantly clear that an astrological significance was
+attached by the narrator to the event. And not so very long ago, when
+astrologers first began to see that their occupation was passing from
+them, the Wise Men of the East were appealed to against the enemies of
+astrology,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>&mdash;very much as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> Moses was appealed to against Copernicus
+and Galileo, and more recently to protect us against certain
+relationships which Darwin, Wallace, and Huxley unkindly indicate for
+the human race divine.</p>
+
+<p>Although astronomers now reject altogether the doctrines of judicial
+astrology, it is impossible for the true lover of that science to regard
+astrology altogether with contempt. Astronomy, indeed, owes much more to
+the notions of believers in astrology than is commonly supposed.
+Astrology bears the same relation to modern astronomy that alchemy bears
+to modern chemistry. As it is probable that nothing but the hope of
+gain, literally in this case <i>auri sacra fames</i>, would have led to those
+laborious researches of the alchemists which first taught men how to
+analyse matter into its elementary constituents, and afterwards to
+combine these constituents afresh into new forms, so the belief that, by
+carefully studying the stars, men might acquire the power of predicting
+future events, first directed attention to the movements of the
+celestial bodies. Kepler's saying, that astrology, though a fool, was
+the daughter of a wise mother,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> does not by any means present truly
+the relationship between astrology and astronomy. Rather we may say that
+astrology and alchemy, though foolish mothers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> gave birth to those wise
+daughters, astronomy and chemistry. Even this way of speaking scarcely
+does justice to the astrologers and alchemists of old times. Their views
+appear foolish in the light of modern scientific knowledge, but they
+were not foolish in relation to what was known when they were
+entertained. Modern analysis goes far to demonstrate the immutability,
+and, consequently, the non-transmutability of the metals, though it is
+by no means so certain as many suppose that the present position of the
+metals in the list of <i>elements</i> is really correct. Certainly a chemist
+of our day would be thought very unwise who should undertake a series of
+researches with the object of discovering a mineral having such
+qualities as the alchemists attributed to the philosopher's stone. But
+when as yet the facts on which the science of chemistry is based were
+unknown, there was nothing unreasonable in supposing that such a mineral
+might exist, or the means of compounding it be discovered. Nay, many
+arguments from analogy might be urged to show that the supposition was
+altogether probable. In like manner, though the known facts of astronomy
+oppose themselves irresistibly to any belief in planetary influences
+upon the fates of men and nations, yet before those facts were
+discovered it was not only not unreasonable, but was in fact, highly
+reasonable to believe in such influences, or at least that the sun, and
+moon, and stars moved in the heavens in such sort as to indicate what
+would happen. If the wise men of old times rejected the belief that 'the
+stars in their courses fought' for or against men, they yet could not
+very readily abandon the belief that the stars were for signs in the
+heavens of what was to befall mankind.</p>
+
+<p>If we consider the reasoning now commonly thought valid in favour of the
+doctrine that other orbs besides our earth are inhabited, and compare it
+with the reasoning on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> which judicial astrology was based, we shall not
+find much to choose between the two, so far as logical weight is
+concerned. Because the only member of the solar system which we can
+examine closely is inhabited, astronomers infer a certain degree of
+probability for the belief that the other planets of the system are also
+inhabited. And because the only sun we know much about is the centre of
+a system of planets, astronomers infer that probably the stars, those
+other suns which people space, are also the centres of systems; although
+no telescope which man can make would show the members of a system like
+ours, attending on even the nearest of all the stars. The astrologer had
+a similar argument for his belief. The moon, as she circles around the
+earth, exerts a manifest influence upon terrestrial matter&mdash;the tidal
+wave rising and sinking synchronously with the movements of the moon,
+and other consequences depending directly or indirectly upon her
+revolution around the earth. The sun's influence is still more manifest;
+and, though it may have required the genius of a Herschel or of a
+Stephenson to perceive that almost every form of terrestrial energy is
+derived from the sun, yet it must have been manifest from the very
+earliest times that the greater light which rules the day rules the
+seasons also, and, in ruling them, provides the annual supplies of
+vegetable food, on which the very existence of men and animals depends.
+If these two bodies, the sun and moon, are thus potent, must it not be
+supposed, reasoned the astronomers of old, that the other celestial
+bodies exert corresponding influences? <i>We</i> know, but they did not know,
+that the moon rules the tides effectually because she is near to us, and
+that the sun is second only to the moon in tidal influence because of
+his enormous mass and attractive energy. We know also that his position
+as fire, light, and life of the earth and its inhabitants, is due
+directly to the tremendous heat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> with which the whole of his mighty
+frame is instinct. Not knowing this, the astronomers of old times had no
+sufficient reason for distinguishing the sun and moon from the other
+celestial bodies, so far at least as the general question of celestial
+influences was concerned.</p>
+
+<p>So far as particulars were concerned, it was not altogether so clear to
+them as it is to us, that the influence of the sun must be paramount in
+all respects save tidal action, and that of the moon second only to the
+sun's in other respects, and superior to his in tidal sway alone. Many
+writers on the subject of life in other worlds are prepared to show (as
+Brewster attempts to do, for example) that Jupiter and Saturn are far
+nobler worlds than the earth, because superior in this or that
+circumstance. So the ancient astronomers, in their ignorance of the
+actual conditions on which celestial influences depend, found abundant
+reasons for regarding the feeble influences exerted by Saturn, Jupiter,
+and Mars, as really more potent than those exerted by the sun himself
+upon the earth. They reasoned, as Milton afterwards made Rapha&euml;l reason,
+that 'great or bright infers not excellence,' that Saturn or Jupiter,
+though 'in comparison so small, nor glist'ring' to like degree, may yet
+'of solid good contain more plenty than the sun.' Supposing the
+influence of a celestial body to depend on the magnitude of its sphere,
+in the sense of the old astronomy (according to which each planet had
+its proper sphere, around the earth as centre), then the influence of
+the sun would be judged to be inferior to that of either Saturn,
+Jupiter, or Mars; while the influences of Venus and Mercury, though
+inferior to the influence of the sun, would still be held superior to
+that of the moon. For the ancients measured the spheres of the seven
+planets of their system by the periods of the apparent revolution of
+those bodies around the celestial dome, and so set the sphere of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+moon innermost, enclosed by the sphere of Mercury, around which in turn
+was the sphere of Venus, next the sun's, then, in order, those of Mars,
+Jupiter, and Saturn. We can readily understand how they might come to
+regard the slow motions of the sphere of Saturn and Jupiter, taking
+respectively some thirty and twelve years to complete a revolution, as
+indicating power superior to the sun's, whose sphere seemed to revolve
+once in a single year. Many other considerations might have been urged,
+before the Copernican theory was established, to show that, possibly,
+some of the planets exert influences more effective than those of the
+sun and moon.</p>
+
+<p>It is, indeed, clear that the first real shock sustained by astrology
+came from the arguments of Copernicus. So long as the earth was regarded
+as the centre round which all the celestial bodies move, it was hopeless
+to attempt to shake men's faith in the influences of the stars. So far
+as I know, there is not a single instance of a believer in the old
+Ptolemaic system who rejected astrology absolutely. The views of
+Bacon&mdash;the last of any note who opposed the system of
+Copernicus<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>&mdash;indicate the extreme limits to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> which a Ptolemaist could
+go in opposition to astrology. It may be worth while to quote Bacon's
+opinion in this place, because it indicates at once very accurately the
+position held by believers in astrology in his day, and the influence
+which the belief in a central fixed earth could not fail to exert on the
+minds of even the most philosophical reasoners.</p>
+
+<p>'Astrology,' he begins, 'is so full of superstition that scarce anything
+sound can be discovered in it; though we judge it should rather be
+purged than absolutely rejected. Yet if any one shall pretend that this
+science is founded not in reason and physical contemplations, but in the
+direct experience and observation of past ages, and therefore not to be
+examined by physical reasons, as the Chald&aelig;ans boasted, he may at the
+same time bring back divination, auguries, soothsaying, and give in to
+all kinds of fables; for these also were said to descend from long
+experience. But we receive astrology as a part of physics, without
+attributing more to it than reason and the evidence of things allow, and
+strip it of its superstition and conceits. Thus we banish that empty
+notion about the horary reign of the planets, as if each resumed the
+throne thrice in twenty-four hours, so as to leave three hours
+supernumerary; and yet this fiction produced the division of the
+week,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> a thing so ancient and so universally received. Thus likewise
+we reject as an idle figment the doctrine of horoscopes, and the
+distribution of the houses, though these are the darling inventions of
+astrology, which have kept revel, as it were, in the heavens. And
+lastly, for the calculation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> nativities, fortunes, good or bad hours
+of business, and the like fatalities, they are mere levities, that have
+little in them of certainty and solidity, and may be plainly confuted by
+physical reasons. But here we judge it proper to lay down some rules for
+the examination of astrological matters, in order to retain what is
+useful therein, and reject what is insignificant. Thus, 1. Let the
+greater revolutions be retained, but the lesser, of horoscopes and
+houses, be rejected&mdash;the former being like ordnance which shoot to a
+great distance, whilst the other are but like small bows, that do no
+execution. 2. The celestial operations affect not all kinds of bodies,
+but only the more sensible, as humours, air, and spirits. 3. All the
+celestial operations rather extend to masses of things than to
+individuals, though they may obliquely reach some individuals also which
+are more sensible than the rest, as a pestilent constitution of the air
+affects those bodies which are least able to resist it. 4. All the
+celestial operations produce not their effects instantaneously, and in a
+narrow compass, but exert them in large portions of time and space. Thus
+predictions as to the temperature of a year may hold good, but not with
+regard to single days. 5. There is no fatal necessity in the stars; and
+this the more prudent astrologers have constantly allowed. 6. We will
+add one thing more, which, if amended and improved, might make for
+astrology&mdash;viz. that we are certain the celestial bodies have other
+influences besides heat and light, but these influences act not
+otherwise than by the foregoing rules, though they lie so deep in
+physics as to require a fuller explanation. So that, upon the whole, we
+must register as needed,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> an astrology written<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> in conformity with
+these principles, under the name of <i>Astrologia Sana</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>He then proceeds to show what this just astrology should comprehend&mdash;as,
+1, the doctrine of the commixture of rays; 2, the effect of nearest
+approaches and farthest removes of planets to and from the point
+overhead (the planets, like the sun, having their summer and winter); 3,
+the effects of distance, 'with a proper enquiry into what the vigour of
+the planets may perform of itself, and what through their nearness to
+us; for,' he adds, but unfortunately without assigning any reason for
+the statement, 'a planet is more brisk when most remote, but more
+communicative when nearest;' 4, the other accidents of the planet's
+motions as they pursue</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Their wand'ring course, now high, now low, then hid,<br />
+Progressive, retrograde, or standing still;<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>5, all that can be discovered of the general nature of the planets and
+fixed stars, considered in their own essence and activity; 6, lastly,
+let this just astrology, he says, 'contain, from tradition, the
+particular natures and alterations of the planets and fixed stars; for'
+(here is a reason indeed) 'as these are delivered with general consent,
+they are not lightly to be rejected, unless they directly contradict
+physical considerations. Of such observations let a just astrology be
+formed; and according to these alone should schemes of the heavens be
+made and interpreted.'</p>
+
+<p>The astrology thus regarded by Bacon as sane and just did not differ, as
+to its primary object, from the false systems which now seem to us so
+absurd. 'Let this astrology be used with greater confidence in
+prediction,' says Bacon, 'but more cautiously in election, and in both
+cases with due moderation. Thus predictions may be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> made of comets, and
+all kinds of meteors, inundations, droughts, heats, frosts, earthquakes,
+fiery eruptions, winds, great rains, the seasons of the year, plagues,
+epidemic diseases, plenty, famine, wars, seditions, sects,
+transmigrations of people, and all commotions, or great innovations of
+things, natural and civil. Predictions may possibly be made more
+particular, though with less certainty, if, when the general tendencies
+of the times are found, a good philosophical or political judgment
+applies them to such things as are most liable to accidents of this
+kind. For example, from a foreknowledge of the seasons of any year, they
+might be apprehended more destructive to olives than grapes, more
+hurtful in distempers of the lungs than the liver, more pernicious to
+the inhabitants of hills than valleys, and, for want of provisions, to
+monks than courtiers, etc. Or if any one, from a knowledge of the
+influence which the celestial bodies have upon the spirits of mankind,
+should find it would affect the people more than their rulers, learned
+and inquisitive men more than the military, etc. For there are
+innumerable things of this kind that require not only a general
+knowledge gained from the stars which are the agents, but also a
+particular one of the passive subjects. Nor are elections to be wholly
+rejected, though not so much to be trusted as predictions; for we find
+in planting, sowing, and grafting, observations of the moon are not
+absolutely trifling, and there are many particulars of this kind. But
+elections are more to be curbed by our rules than predictions; and this
+must always be remembered, that election only holds in such cases where
+the virtue of the heavenly bodies, and the action of the inferior bodies
+also, is not transient, as in the examples just mentioned; for the
+increases of the moon and planets are not sudden things. But punctuality
+of time should here be absolutely rejected. And perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> there are more
+of these instances to be found in civil matters than some would
+imagine.'</p>
+
+<p>The method of inquiry suggested by Bacon as proper for determining the
+just rules of the astrology he advocated, was, as might be expected,
+chiefly inductive. There are, said he, 'but four ways of arriving at
+this science, viz.&mdash;1, by future experiments; 2, past experiments; 3,
+traditions; 4, physical reasons.' But he was not very hopeful as to the
+progress of the suggested researches. It is vain, he said, to think at
+present of future experiments, because many ages are required to procure
+a competent stock of them. As for the past, it is true that past
+experiments are within our reach, 'but it is a work of labour and much
+time to procure them. Thus astrologers may, if they please, draw from
+real history all greater accidents, as inundations, plagues, wars,
+seditions, deaths of kings, etc., as also the positions of the celestial
+bodies, not according to fictitious horoscopes, but the above-mentioned
+rules of their revolutions, or such as they really were at the time,
+and, when the event conspires, erect a probable rule of prediction.'
+Traditions would require to be carefully sifted, and those thrown out
+which manifestly clashed with physical considerations, leaving those in
+full force which complied with such considerations. Lastly, the physical
+reasons worthiest of being enquired into are those, said Bacon, 'which
+search into the universal appetites and passions of matter, and the
+simple genuine motions of the heavenly bodies.'</p>
+
+<p>It is evident there was much which, in our time at least, would be
+regarded as wild and fanciful in the 'sound and just astrology'
+advocated by Bacon. Yet, in passing, it may be noticed that even in our
+own time we have seen similar ideas promulgated, not by common
+astrologers and fortune-tellers (who, indeed, know nothing about such
+matters), but by persons supposed to be well-informed in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> matters
+scientific. In a roundabout way, a new astrology has been suggested,
+which is not at all unlike Bacon's 'astrologia sana,' though not based,
+as he proposed that astrology should be, on experiment, or tradition, or
+physical reasons. It has been suggested, first, that the seasons of our
+earth are affected by the condition of the sun in the matter of spots,
+and very striking evidence has been collected to show that this must be
+the case. For instance, it has been found that years when the sun has
+been free from spots have been warmer than the average; and it has also
+been found that such years have been cooler than the average: a
+double-shotted argument wholly irresistible, especially when it is also
+found that when the sun has many spots the weather has sometimes been
+exceptionally warm and sometimes exceptionally cold. If this be not
+considered sufficient, then note that in one country or continent or
+hemisphere the weather, when the sun is most spotted (or least, as the
+case may be), may be singularly hot, while in another country,
+continent, or hemisphere, the weather may be as singularly cold. So with
+wind and calm, rain and drought, and so forth. Always, whether the sun
+is very much spotted or quite free from spots, something unusual in the
+way of weather must be going on somewhere, demonstrating in the most
+significant way the influence of sun-spots or the want of sun-spots on
+the weather. It is true that captious minds might say that this method
+of reasoning proved too much in many ways, as, for example,
+thus&mdash;always, whether the sun is very much spotted or quite free from
+spots, some remarkable event, as a battle, massacre, domestic tragedy on
+a large scale, or the like, may be going on, demonstrating in the most
+significant way the influence of sun-spots or the want of sun-spots on
+the passions of men&mdash;which sounds absurd. But the answer is twofold.
+First, such reasoning is captious, and secondly, it is not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> certain that
+sun-spots, or the want of them, may not influence human passions; it may
+be worth while to enquire into this possible solar influence as well as
+the other, which can be done by crossing the hands of the new
+fortune-tellers with a sufficient amount of that precious metal which
+astrologers have in all ages dedicated to the sun.</p>
+
+<p>That the new system of divination is not solely solar, but partly
+planetary also, is seen when we remember that the sun-spots wax and wane
+in periods of time which are manifestly referable to the planetary
+motions. Thus, the great solar spot-period lasts about eleven years, the
+successive spotless epochs being separated on the average by about that
+time; and so nearly does this period agree with the period of the planet
+Jupiter's revolution around the sun, that during eight consecutive
+spot-periods the spots were most numerous when Jupiter was farthest from
+the sun, and it is only by going back to the periods preceding these
+eight that we find a time when the reverse happened, the spots being
+most numerous when Jupiter was nearest to the sun. So with various other
+periods which the ingenuity of Messrs. De la Rue and Balfour Stewart has
+detected, and which, under the closest scrutiny, exhibit almost exact
+agreement for many successive periods, preceded and followed by almost
+exact disagreement. Here, again, the captious may argue that such
+alternate agreements and disagreements may be noted in every case where
+two periods are not very unequal, whether there be any connection
+between them or not; but much more frequently when there is no
+connection: and that the only evidence really proving a connection
+between planetary motions and the solar spots would be constant
+agreement between solar spot periods and particular planetary periods.
+But the progress of science, and especially the possible erection of a
+new observatory for finding out ('for a consideration') how sun-spots
+affect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> the weather, etc., ought not to be interfered with by captious
+reasoners in this objectionable manner. Nor need any other answer be
+given them. Seeing, then, that sun-spots manifestly affect the weather
+and the seasons, while the planets rule the sun-spots, it is clear that
+the planets really rule the seasons. And again, seeing that the planets
+rule the seasons, while the seasons largely affect the well-being of men
+and nations (to say nothing of animals), it follows that the planets
+influence the fates of men and nations (and animals). <i>Quod erat
+demonstrandum.</i></p>
+
+<p>Let us return, however, to the more reasonable astrology of the
+ancients, and enquire into some of the traditions which Bacon considered
+worthy of attention in framing the precepts of a sound and just
+astrology.</p>
+
+<p>It was natural that the astrologers of old should regard the planetary
+influences as depending in the main on the position of the celestial
+bodies on the sky above the person or place whose fortunes were in
+question. Thus two men at the same moment in Rome and in Persia would by
+no means have the same horoscope cast for their nativities, so that
+their fortunes, according to the principles of judicial astrology, would
+be quite different. In fact it might happen that two men, born at the
+same instant of time, would have all the principal circumstances of
+their lives contrasted&mdash;planets riding high in the heavens of one being
+below the horizon of the other, and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The celestial sphere placed as at the moment of the native's birth was
+divided into twelve parts by great circles supposed to pass through the
+point overhead, and its opposite, the point vertically beneath the feet.
+These twelve divisions were called 'houses.'</p>
+
+<p>Their position is illustrated in the following figure, taken from
+Rapha&euml;l's Astrology.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image2.jpg" width="600" height="591" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>The first, called the Ascendant House, was the portion rising above the
+horizon at the east. It was regarded as the House of Life, the planets
+located therein at the moment of birth having most potent influence on
+the life and destiny of the native. Such planets were said to rule the
+ascendant, being in the ascending house; and it is from this usage that
+our familiar expression that such and such an influence is 'in the
+ascendant' is derived. The next house was the House of Riches, and was
+one-third of the way from the east below the horizon towards the place
+of the sun at midnight. The third was the House of Kindred,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> short
+journeys, letters, messages, etc. It was two-thirds of the way towards
+the place of the midnight sun. The fourth was the House of Parents, and
+was the house which the sun reached at midnight. The fifth was the House
+of Children and Women, also of all sorts of amusements, theatres,
+banquets, and merry-making. The sixth was the House of Sickness. The
+seventh was the House of Love and Marriage. These three houses (the
+fifth, sixth, and seventh) followed in order from the fourth, so as to
+correspond to the part of the sun's path below the horizon, between his
+place at midnight and his place when descending in the west. The
+seventh, opposite to the first, was the Descendant. The eighth house was
+the first house above the horizon, lying to the west, and was the House
+of Death. The ninth house, next to the mid-heaven on the west, was the
+House of Religion, science, learning, books, and long voyages. The
+tenth, which was in the mid-heaven, or region occupied by the sun at
+midday, was the House of Honour, denoting credit, renown, profession or
+calling, trade, preferment, etc. The eleventh house, next to the
+mid-heaven on the east, was the House of Friends. Lastly, the twelfth
+house was the House of Enemies.</p>
+
+<p>The houses were not all of equal potency. The <i>angular</i> houses, which
+are the first, the fourth, the seventh, and the tenth&mdash;lying east,
+north, west, and south&mdash;were first in power, whether for good or evil.
+The second, fifth, eighth, and eleventh houses were called <i>succedents</i>,
+as following the angular houses, and next to them in power. The
+remaining four houses&mdash;viz. the third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth
+houses&mdash;were called <i>cadents</i>, and were regarded as weakest in
+influence. The houses were regarded as alternately masculine and
+feminine: the first, third, fifth, etc., being masculine; while the
+second, fourth, sixth, etc., were feminine.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p><p>The more particular significations of the various houses are shown in
+the accompanying figure from the same book.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image3.jpg" width="600" height="597" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>It will be easily understood how these houses were dealt with in
+erecting a scheme of nativity. The position of the planets at the moment
+of the native's birth, in the several houses, determined his fortunes
+with regard to the various matters associated with these houses. Thus
+planets of good influence in the native's ascendant, or first house,
+signified generally a prosperous life; but if at the same epoch a planet
+of malefic influence was in the seventh house, then the native, though
+on the whole prosperous, would be unfortunate in marriage. A good planet
+in the tenth house<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> signified good fortune and honour in office or
+business, and generally a prosperous career as distinguished from a
+happy life; but evil planets in the ninth house would suggest to the
+native caution in undertaking long voyages, or entering upon religious
+or scientific controversies.</p>
+
+<p>Similar considerations applied to questions relating to horary
+astronomy, in which the position of the planets in the various houses at
+some epoch guided the astrologer's opinion as to the fortune of that
+hour, either in the life of a man or the career of a State. In such
+inquiries, however, not only the position of the planets, etc., at the
+time had to be considered, but also the original horoscope of the
+person, or the special planets and signs associated with particular
+States. Thus if Jupiter, the most fortunate of all the planets, was in
+the ascendant, or in the House of Honour, at the time of the native's
+birth, and at some epoch this planet was ill-aspected or afflicted by
+other planets potent for evil in the native's horoscope, then that epoch
+would be a threatening one in the native's career.</p>
+
+<p>The sign Gemini was regarded by astrologers as especially associated
+with the fortunes of London, and accordingly they tell us that the great
+fire of London, the plague, the building of London Bridge, and other
+events interesting to London, all occurred when this sign was in the
+ascendant, or when special planets were in this sign.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p><p>The signs of the zodiac in the various houses were in the first place
+to be noted, because not only had these signs special powers in special
+houses, but the effects of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> planets in particular houses varied
+according to the signs in which the planets were situated. If we were to
+follow the description given by the astrologers themselves, not much
+insight would be thrown upon the meaning of the zodiacal signs. For
+instance, astrologers say that Aries is a vernal, dry, fiery, masculine,
+cardinal, equinoctial, diurnal, movable, commanding, eastern, choleric,
+violent, and quadrupedalian sign. We may, however, infer generally from
+their accounts the influences which they assigned to the zodiacal signs.</p>
+
+<p>Aries is the house and joy of Mars, signifies a dry constitution, long
+face and neck, thick shoulders, swarthy complexion, and a hasty,
+passionate temper. It governs the head and face, and all diseases
+relating thereto. It reigns over England, France, Switzerland, Germany,
+Denmark, Lesser Poland, Syria, Naples, Capua, Verona, etc. It is a
+masculine sign, and is regarded as fortunate.</p>
+
+<p>Taurus gives to the native born under his auspices a stout athletic
+frame, broad bull-like forehead, dark curly hair, short neck, and so
+forth, and a dull apathetic temper, exceedingly cruel and malicious if
+once aroused. It governs the neck and throat, and reigns over Ireland,
+Great Poland, part of Russia, Holland, Persia, Asia Minor, the
+Archipelago, Mantua, Leipsic, etc. It is a feminine sign, and
+unfortunate.</p>
+
+<p>Gemini is the house of Mercury. The native of Gemini<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> will have a
+sanguine complexion and tall, straight figure, dark eyes quick and
+piercing, brown hair, active ways, and will be of exceedingly ingenious
+intellect. It governs the arms and shoulders, and rules over the
+south-west parts of England, America, Flanders, Lombardy, Sardinia,
+Armenia, Lower Egypt, London, Versailles, Brabant, etc. It is a
+masculine sign, and fortunate.</p>
+
+<p>Cancer is the house of the Moon and exaltation of Jupiter, and its
+native will be of fair but pale complexion, round face, grey or mild
+blue eyes, weak voice, the upper part of the body large, slender arms,
+small feet, and an effeminate constitution. It governs the breast and
+the stomach, and reigns over Scotland, Holland, Zealand, Burgundy,
+Africa, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Constantinople, New York, etc. It is a
+feminine sign, and unfortunate.</p>
+
+<p>The native born under Leo will be of large body, broad shoulders,
+austere countenance, with dark eyes and tawny hair, strong voice, and
+leonine character, resolute and ambitious, but generous, free, and
+courteous. Leo governs the heart and back, and reigns over Italy,
+Bohemia, France, Sicily, Rome, Bristol, Bath, Taunton, Philadelphia,
+etc. It is a masculine sign, and fortunate.</p>
+
+<p>Virgo is the joy of Mercury. Its natives are of moderate stature, seldom
+handsome, slender but compact, thrifty and ingenious. It governs the
+abdomen, and reigns over Turkey both in Europe and Asia, Greece, and
+Mesopotamia, Crete, Jerusalem, Paris, Lyons, etc. It is a feminine sign,
+and generally unfortunate.</p>
+
+<p>Libra is the house of Venus. The natives of Libra are tall and well
+made, elegant in person, round-faced and ruddy, but plain-featured and
+'inclined to eruptions that disfigure the face when old; they' (the
+natives) 'are of sweet disposition, just and upright in dealing.' It
+governs the lumbar regions, and reigns over Austria, Alsace, Savoy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+Portugal, Livonia, India, Ethiopia, Lisbon, Vienna, Frankfort, Antwerp,
+Charleston, etc. It is a masculine sign, and fortunate.</p>
+
+<p>Scorpio is, like Aries, the house of Mars, 'and also his joy.' Its
+natives are strong, corpulent, and robust, with large bones, 'dark curly
+hair and eyes' (presumably the eyes dark only, not curly), middle
+stature, dusky complexion, active bodies; they are usually reserved in
+speech. It governs the region of the groin, and reigns over Jud&aelig;a,
+Mauritania, Catalonia, Norway, West Silesia, Upper Batavia, Barbary,
+Morocco, Valentia, Messina, etc. It is feminine, and unfortunate. (It
+would appear likely, by the way, that astrology was a purely masculine
+science.)</p>
+
+<p>Sagittarius is the house and joy of Jupiter. Its natives are well formed
+and tall, ruddy, handsome, and jovial, with fine clear eyes, chestnut
+hair, and oval fleshy face. They are 'generally jolly fellows at either
+bin or board,' active, intrepid, generous, and obliging. It governs the
+legs and thighs,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> and reigns over Arabia Felix, Spain, Hungary,
+Moravia, Liguria, Narbonne, Cologne, Avignon, etc. It is masculine, and
+of course fortunate.</p>
+
+<p>Capricorn is the house of Saturn and exaltation of Mars. This sign gives
+to its natives a dry constitution and slender make, with a long thin
+visage, thin beard (a generally goaty aspect, in fact), dark hair, long
+neck, narrow chin, and weak knees. It governs, nevertheless, the knees
+and hams, and reigns over India, Macedonia, Thrace and Greece, Mexico,
+Saxony, Wilna, Mecklenburgh, Brandenburg, and Oxford. It is feminine,
+and unfortunate.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p><p>Aquarius also is the house of Saturn. Its natives are robust, steady,
+strong, healthy, and of middle stature; delicate complexion, clear but
+not pale, sandy hair, hazel eyes, and generally an honest disposition.
+It governs the legs and ankles, and reigns over Arabia, Petr&aelig;a, Tartary,
+Russia, Denmark, Lower Sweden, Westphalia, Hamburg, and Bremen. It is
+masculine, and fortunate.</p>
+
+<p>Pisces is the house of Jupiter and exaltation of Venus. Its natives are
+short, pale, thick-set, and round-shouldered (like fish), its character
+phlegmatic and effeminate. It governs the feet and toes, and reigns over
+Portugal, Spain, Egypt, Normandy, Galicia, Ratisbon, Calabria, etc. It
+is feminine, and therefore, naturally, unfortunate.</p>
+
+<p>Let us next consider the influences assigned to the various planets and
+constellations.</p>
+
+<p>Though we can understand that in old times the planets and stars were
+regarded as exercising very potent influences upon the fates of men and
+nations,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> it is by no means easy to understand how astrologers came to
+assign to each planet its special influence. That is, it is not easy to
+understand how they could have been led to such a result by actual
+reasoning, still less by any process of observation.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> There was a
+certain scientific basis for the belief in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> the possibility of
+determining the special influences of the stars; and we should have
+expected to find some scientific process adopted for the purpose. Yet,
+so far as can be judged, the influences assigned to the planets depended
+on entirely fanciful considerations. In some cases we seem almost to see
+the line along which the fancies of the old astrologers led them, just
+as in some cases we can perceive how mythological superstitions (which
+are closely related to astrological ideas) had their origin; though it
+is not quite clear whether the planets were first regarded as deities
+with special qualities, and these qualities afterwards assigned to the
+planetary influences, or whether the planetary influences were first
+assigned, and came eventually to be regarded as the qualities of the
+deities associated with the several planets.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy, for instance, to understand why astrologers should have
+regarded the sun as the emblem of kingly power and dignity, and equally
+easy to understand why, to the sun regarded as a deity, corresponding
+qualities should have been ascribed; but it is not easy to determine
+whether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> the astrological or the Sabaistic superstitions were the
+earlier. And in like manner of the moon and planets. There seems to me
+no sufficient evidence in favour of Whewell's opinion, that 'in whatever
+manner the sun, moon, and planets came to be identified with gods and
+goddesses, the characters ascribed to these gods and goddesses,
+regulated the virtues and powers of the stars which bear their names.'
+As he himself very justly remarks, 'We do not possess any of the
+speculations of the earlier astrologers; and we cannot, therefore, be
+certain that the notions which operated in men's minds when the art had
+its birth, agreed with the views on which it was afterwards defended.'
+He does not say why he infers that, though at later periods supported by
+physical analogies, it was originally suggested by mythological beliefs.
+Quite as probably mythological beliefs were suggested by astrological
+notions. Some of these beliefs, indeed, seem manifestly to have been so
+suggested; as the character of the deity Mercury, from the rapid motions
+of the planet Mercury, and the difficulty of detecting it; the character
+of Mars from the blood-red hue of the planet when close to the horizon,
+and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>Let us examine, however, the characteristics ascribed by astrologers to
+various planets.</p>
+
+<p>It is unfortunate for astrology that, despite the asserted careful
+comparison of events with the planetary positions preceding and
+indicating them, nothing was ever observed which seemed to suggest the
+possibility that there may be an unknown planet ruling very strongly the
+affairs of men. Astrologers tell us now that Uranus is a very potent
+planet; yet the old astrologers seem to have got on very well without
+him. By the way, one of the moderns, the grave Rapha&euml;l, gives a very
+singular account of the discovery of Uranus, in a book published sixteen
+years before Neptune was discovered by just such a process as Rapha&euml;l<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+imagined in the case of Uranus. He says that Drs. Halley, Bradley, and
+others, having frequently observed that Saturn was disturbed in his
+motion by some force exerted from beyond his orbit, and being unable to
+account for the disturbance on the known principles of gravitation,
+pursued their enquiry into the matter, 'till at length the discovery of
+this hitherto unknown planet covered their labours with success, and has
+enabled us to enlarge our present solar system to nearly double its
+bounds.' Of course there is not a word of truth in this; Uranus having
+been discovered by accident long after Halley and Bradley were in the
+grave. But the account suggests what might have been, and curiously
+anticipates the actual manner in which Neptune was discovered.</p>
+
+<p>Astrologers agree in attributing evil effects to Uranus. But the evil he
+does is always peculiarly strange, unaccountable, and totally
+unexpected. He causes the native born under his influence to be of a
+very eccentric and original disposition, romantic, unsettled, addicted
+to change, a seeker after novelty; though, if the moon or Mercury have a
+good aspect towards Uranus, the native will be profound in the secret
+sciences, magnanimous, and lofty of mind. But let all beware of marriage
+when Uranus is in the seventh house, or afflicting the moon. And in
+general, let the fair sex remember that Uranus is peculiarly hostile to
+them, and very evil in love.</p>
+
+<p>Saturn is the Greater Infortune of the old system of astrology, and is
+by universal experience acknowledged to be the most potent, evil, and
+malignant of all the planets. Those born under him are of dark and pale
+complexion, with small, black, leering eyes, thick lips and nostrils,
+large ears, thin face, lowering looks, cloudy aspect, and seemingly
+melancholy and unhappy; and though they have broad shoulders, they have
+but short lips and a thin beard,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> They are in character austere and
+reserved, covetous, laborious, and revengeful; constant in friendship,
+and good haters. The most remarkable and certain characteristic of the
+Saturnine man is that, as an old author observes 'he will never look
+thee in the face.' 'If they have to love any one, these Saturnines,'
+says another old author, 'they love most constantly; and if they hate,
+they hate to the death.' The persons signified symbolically by Saturn
+are grandparents, and other old persons, day labourers, paupers,
+beggars, clowns, husbandmen of the meaner sort, and especially
+undertakers, sextons, and gravediggers. Chaucer thus presents the chief
+effects which Saturn produces in the fortunes of men and nations&mdash;Saturn
+himself being the speaker:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">... quod Saturne</span><br />
+My cours, that hath so wide for to turne,<br />
+Hath more power than wot any man.<br />
+Min is the drenching in the sea so wan,<br />
+Min is the prison in the derke cote,<br />
+Min is the strangel and hanging by the throte,<br />
+The murmure and the cherles rebelling,<br />
+The groyning, and the prive empoysoning,<br />
+I do vengaunce and pleine correction,<br />
+While I dwell in the signe of the leon;<br />
+Min is the ruine of the high halles,<br />
+The falling of the toures and of the walles<br />
+Upon the minour or the carpenter:<br />
+I slew Sampson in shaking the piler.<br />
+Min ben also the maladies colde,<br />
+The derke tresons, and the castes olde:<br />
+My loking is the fader of pestilence.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Jupiter, on the contrary, though Saturn's next neighbour in the solar
+system, produces effects of an entirely contrary kind. He is, in fact,
+the most propitious of all the planets, and the native born under his
+influence has every reason to be jovial in fact as he is by nature. Such
+a native will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> be tall and fair, handsome and erect, robust, ruddy, and
+altogether a good-looking person, whether male or female. The native
+will also be religious, or at least a good moral honest man, unless
+Jupiter be afflicted by the aspects of Saturn, Mars, or Uranus; in which
+case he may still be a jolly fellow, no man's enemy but his own&mdash;only he
+will probably be his own enemy to a very considerable extent,
+squandering his means and ruining his health by gluttony and
+intoxication. The persons represented by Jupiter (when he is not
+afflicted) are judges, counsellors, church dignitaries, from cardinals
+to curates, scholars, chancellors, barristers, and the highest orders of
+lawyers, woollendrapers (possibly there may be some astral significance
+in the woolsack), and clothiers. When Jupiter is afflicted, however, he
+denotes quacks and mountebanks, knaves, cheats, and drunkards. The
+influence of the planet on the fortunes is nearly always good.
+Astrologers, who to a man reverence dignities, consider Great Britain
+fortunate in that the lady whom, with customary effusion, they term 'Our
+Most Gracious Queen,' was born when Jupiter was riding high in the
+heavens near his culmination, this position promising a most fortunate
+and happy career. The time has passed when the fortunes of this country
+were likely to be affected by such things; but we may hope, for the
+lady's own sake, that this prediction has been fulfilled. Astrologers
+assert the same about the Duke of Wellington, assigning midnight, May 1,
+1769, as the hour of his birth. There is some doubt both as to the date
+and place of the great soldier's birth; but the astrologer finds in the
+facts of his life the means of removing all such doubts.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p><p>Next in order comes Mars, inferior only in malefic influence to Saturn,
+and called by the old astrologers the Lesser Infortune. The native born
+under the influence of Mars is usually of fierce countenance, his eyes
+sparkling, or sharp and darting, his complexion fiery or yellowish, and
+his countenance scarred or furrowed. His hair is reddish or sandy,
+unless Mars chances to be in a watery sign, in which case the hair will
+be flaxen; or in an earthly sign, in which case the hair will be
+chestnut. The Martialist is broad-shouldered, steady, and strong, but
+short,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> and often bony and lean. In character the Martialist is fiery
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> choleric, naturally delighting in war and contention, but generous
+and magnanimous. This when Mars is well aspected; should the planet be
+evil aspected, then will the native be treacherous, thievish,
+treasonable, cruel, and wicked. The persons signified by Mars are
+generals, soldiers, sailors (if he is in a watery sign), surgeons,
+chemists, doctors, armourers, barbers, curriers, smiths, carpenters,
+bricklayers, sculptors, cooks, and tailors. When afflicted with Mercury
+or the moon, he denotes thieves, hangmen, and 'all cut throat people.'
+In fact, except the ploughboy, who belongs to Saturn, all the members of
+the old septet, 'tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, apothecary, ploughboy,
+thief,' are favourites with Mars. The planet's influence is not quite so
+evil as Saturn's, nor are the effects produced by it so long-lasting.
+'The influence of Saturn,' says an astrologer, 'may be compared to a
+lingering but fatal consumption; that of Mars to a burning fever.' He is
+the cause of anger, quarrels, violence, war, and slaughter.</p>
+
+<p>The sun comes next; for it must be remembered that, according to the old
+system of astronomy, the sun was a planet. Persons born under the sun as
+the planet ruling their ascendant, would be more apt to be aware of the
+fact than Saturnine, Jovial, Martial, or any other folk, because the
+hour of birth, if remembered, at once determines whether the native is a
+solar subject or not. The solar native has generally a round face (like
+pictures of the sun in old books of astronomy), with a short chin; his
+complexion somewhat sanguine; curling sandy hair, and a white tender
+skin. As to character, he is bold and resolute, desirous of praise, of
+slow speech and composed judgment; outwardly decorous, but privately not
+altogether virtuous. The sun, in fact, according to astrologers, is the
+natural significator of respectability; for which I can discover no
+reason, unless it be that the sun travelling always in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> ecliptic has
+no latitude, and so solar folk are allowed none. When the sun is ill
+aspected, the native is both proud and mean, tyrannical and sycophantic,
+exceedingly unamiable, and generally disliked because of his arrogance
+and ignorant pomposity. The persons signified by the sun are emperors,
+kings, and titled folk generally, goldsmiths, jewellers, and coiners.
+When 'afflicted,' the sun signifies pretenders either to power or
+knowledge. The sun's influence is not in itself either good or evil, but
+is most powerful for good when he is favourably aspected, and for evil
+when he is afflicted by other planets.</p>
+
+<p>Venus, the next in order, bore the same relation to the Greater Fortune
+Jupiter which Mars bore to Saturn the Greater Ill-fortune. She was the
+Lesser Fortune, and her influence was in nearly all respects benevolent.
+The persons born under the influence of this planet are handsome, with
+beautiful sparkling hazel or black eyes (but another authority assigns
+the subject of Venus, 'a full eye, usually we say goggle-eyed,' by which
+we do not usually imply beauty), ruddy lips, the upper lip short, soft
+smooth hair, dimples in the cheek and chin, an amorous look and a sweet
+voice. One old astrologer puts the matter thus pleasantly:&mdash;'The native
+of Venus hath,' quoth he, 'a love-dimple in the chin, a lovely mouth,
+cherry lips, and a right merry countenance.' In character the native of
+Venus is merry 'to a fault,' but of temper engaging, sweet and cheerful,
+unless she be ill aspected, when her native is apt to be too fond of
+pleasure and amusement. That her influence is good is shown (in the
+opinion of Rapha&euml;l, writing in 1828) by the character of George IV.,
+'our present beloved monarch and most gracious majesty, who was born
+just as this benevolent star' was in the ascendant; 'for it is well
+known to all Europe what a refined and polished <a name="corr2" id="corr2"></a>genius, and what exquisite taste, the King of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> England possesses,
+which therefore may be cited as a most illustrious proof of the
+celestial science; a proof likewise which is palpably demonstrable, even
+to the most casual observer, since the time of his nativity is taken
+from the public journals of the period, and cannot be gainsaid.' 'This
+illustrious and regal horoscope is replete with wonderful verifications
+of planetary influence, and England cannot but prosper while she is
+blessed with the mild and beneficent sway of this potent monarch.'
+Strengthened in faith by this convincing proof of the celestial science,
+we proceed to notice that Venus is the protectrice of musicians,
+embroiderers, perfumers, classic modellers, and all who work in elegant
+attire or administer to the luxuries of the great; but when she is
+afflicted, she represents 'the lower orders of the votaries of
+voluptuousness.'</p>
+
+<p>Mercury is considered by astrologers 'a cold, dry, melancholy star.' The
+Mercurial is neither dark nor fair, but between both, long-faced, with
+high forehead and thin sharp nose, 'thin beard (many times none at all),
+slender of body, and with small weak eyes;' long slender hands and
+fingers are 'especial marks of Mercury,' says Rapha&euml;l. In character the
+Mercurial is busy and prattling. But when well affected, Mercury gives
+his subjects a strong, vigorous, active mind, searching and exhaustive,
+a retentive memory, a natural thirst for knowledge.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> The persons
+signified by Mercury are astrologers, philosophers, mathematicians,
+politicians, merchants, travellers, teachers, poets, <a name="corr3" id="corr3"></a>artificers, men of science, and all ingenious, clever men. When he is
+ill affected, however, he represents pettifoggers, cunning vile persons,
+thieves, messengers, footmen, and servants, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The moon comes last in planetary sequence, as nearest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> to the earth. She
+is regarded by astrologers as a cold, moist, watery, phlegmatic planet,
+variable to an extreme, and, like the sun, partaking of good or evil
+according as she is aspected favourably or the reverse. Her natives are
+of good stature, fair, and pale, moon-faced, with grey eyes, short arms,
+thick hands and feet, smooth, corpulent and phlegmatic body. When she is
+in watery signs, the native has freckles on the face, or, says Lilly,
+'he or she is blub-cheeked, not a handsome body, but a muddling
+creature.' Unless the moon is very well aspected, she ever <a name="corr4" id="corr4"></a>signifies
+an ordinary vulgar person. She signifies sailors (not as
+Mars does, the fighting-men of war-ships, but nautical folk generally)
+and all persons connected with water or any kind of fluid; also all who
+are engaged in inferior and common offices.</p>
+
+<p>We may note, in passing, that to each planet a special metal is
+assigned, as also particular colours. Chaucer, in the Chanones Yemannes'
+Tale, succinctly describes the distribution of the metals among the
+planets:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe;<br />
+Mars iren, Mercurie silver we clepe:<br />
+Saturnus led, and Jupiter is tin,<br />
+And Venus coper, by my [the Chanones Yemannes'] faderkin.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The colours are thus assigned:&mdash;to Saturn, black; to Jupiter, mixed red
+and green; to Mars, red; to the sun, yellow or yellow-purple; to Venus,
+white or purple; to Mercury, azure blue; to the moon, a colour spotted
+with white and other mixed colours.</p>
+
+<p>Again, the planets were supposed to have special influence on the seven
+ages of human life. The infant, 'mewling and puking in the nurse's
+arms,' was very appropriately dedicated to the moist moon; the whining
+schoolboy (did schoolboys whine in the days of good Queen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> Bess?) was
+less appropriately assigned to Mercury, the patron of those who eagerly
+seek after knowledge: then very naturally, the lover sighing like
+furnace was regarded as the special favourite of Venus. Thus far the
+order has been that of the seven planets of the ancient astrology, in
+supposed distance. Now, however, we have to pass over the sun, finding
+Mars the patron of mid life, appropriately (in this respect) presiding
+over the soldier full of strange oaths, and so forth; the 'justice in
+fair round belly with good capon lined' is watched over by the
+respectable sun; maturer age by Jupiter; and, lastly, old age by Saturn.</p>
+
+<p>Colours were also assigned to the twelve zodiacal signs&mdash;to Aries, white
+and red; to Taurus, white and lemon; to Gemini, white and red (the same
+as Aries); to Cancer, green or russet; to Leo, red or green; to Virgo,
+black speckled with blue; to Libra, black, or dark crimson, or tawny
+colour; to Scorpio, brown; to Sagittarius, yellow, or a green sanguine
+(this is as strange a colour as the <i>gris rouge</i> of Moli&egrave;re's
+<i>L'Avare</i>); Capricorn, black or russet, or a swarthy brown; to Aquarius,
+a sky-coloured blue; to Pisces, white glistening colour (like a fish
+just taken out of the water).</p>
+
+<p>The chief fixed stars had various influences assigned to them by
+astrologers. These influences were mostly associated with the imaginary
+figures of the constellations. Thus the bright star in the head of
+Aries, called by some the Ram's Horn, was regarded as dangerous and
+evil, denoting bodily hurts. The star Menkar in the Whale's jaw denoted
+sickness, disgrace, and ill-fortune, with danger from great beasts.
+Betelgeux, the bright star on Orion's right shoulder, denoted martial
+honours or wealth; Bellatrix, the star on Orion's left shoulder, denoted
+military or civic honours; Rigel, on Orion's left foot, denoted honours;
+Sirius and Procyon, the greater and lesser Dog Stars, both<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> implied
+wealth and renown. Star clusters seem to have portended loss of sight;
+at least we learn that the Pleiades were 'eminent stars,' but denoting
+accidents to the sight or blindness, while the cluster Pr&aelig;sepe or the
+Beehive in like manner threatened blindness. The cluster in Perseus does
+not seem to have been noticed by astrologers. The variable star Algol or
+Caput Medus&aelig;, which marks the head of Gorgon, was accounted 'the most
+unfortunate, violent, and dangerous star in the heavens.' It is
+tolerably clear that the variable character of this star had been
+detected long before Montanari (to whom the discovery is commonly
+attributed) noticed the phenomenon. The name Algol is only a variation
+of Al-gh&uacute;l, the monster or demon, and it cannot be doubted that the
+demoniac, Gorgonian character assigned to this star was suggested by its
+ominous change, as though it were the eye of some fierce monster slowly
+winking amid the gloom of space. The two stars called the Aselli, which
+lie on either side of the cluster Pr&aelig;sepe, 'are said' (by astrologers)
+'to be of a burning nature, and to give great indications of a violent
+death, or of violent and severe accidents by fire.' The star called Cor
+Hydr&aelig;, or the serpent's heart, denotes trouble through women (said I not
+rightly that Astrology was a masculine science?); the Lion's heart,
+Regulus, implied glory and riches; Deneb, the Lion's tail, misfortune
+and disgrace. The southern scale of Libra meant bad fortune, while the
+northern was eminently fortunate.</p>
+
+<p>Astrology was divided into three distinct branches&mdash;the doctrine of
+nativities, horary astrology, and state astrology. The first assigned
+the rules for determining the general fortunes of the native, by drawing
+up his scheme of nativity or casting his horoscope. It took into account
+the positions of the various planets, signs, stars, etc., at the time of
+the native's birth; and as the astrologer could calculate the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> movements
+of the planets thereafter, he could find when those planets which were
+observed by the horoscope to be most closely associated with the
+native's fortunes would be well aspected or the reverse. Thus the
+auspicious and unlucky epochs of the native's life could be
+predetermined. The astrologer also claimed some degree of power to rule
+the planets, not by modifying their movements in any way, but by
+indicating in what way the ill effects portended by their positions
+could be prevented. The Arabian and Persian astrologers, having less
+skill than the followers of Ptolemy, made use of a different method of
+determining the fortunes of men, not calculating the positions of the
+planets for many years following the birth of the native, but assigning
+to every day after his birth a whole year of his life and for every two
+hours' motion of the moon one month. Thus the positions of the stars and
+planets, twenty-one days after the birth of the native, would indicate
+the events corresponding to the time when he would have completed his
+twenty-first year. There was another system called the Placidian, in
+which the effects of the positions of the planets were judged with sole
+reference to the motion of the earth upon her axis. It is satisfactory
+to find astrologers in harmony amongst each other as to these various
+methods, which one would have supposed likely to give entirely different
+results. 'Each of them,' says a modern astrologer, 'is not only correct
+and approved by long-tried practice, but may be said to defy the least
+contradiction from those who will but take the pains to examine them
+(and no one else should deliver an opinion upon the subject). Although
+each of the above methods are different, yet they by no means contradict
+each other, but each leads to <i>true results</i>, and in many instances they
+each lead to the foreknowledge of the same event; in which respect they
+may be compared to the ascent of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> mountain by different paths, where,
+although some paths are longer and more difficult than others, they
+notwithstanding all lead to the same object.' All which, though
+plausible in tone labours under the disadvantage of being untrue.</p>
+
+<p>Ptolemy is careful to point out, in his celebrated work the
+'Tetrabiblos,' that, of all events whatsoever which take place after
+birth, the most essential is the continuance of life. 'It is useless,'
+he says, 'to consider what events might happen to the native in later
+years if his life does not extend, for instance, beyond one year. So
+that the enquiry into the duration of life takes precedence of all
+others.' In order to deal properly with this question, it is necessary
+to determine what planet shall be regarded as the Hyleg, Apheta, or Lord
+of Life, for the native. Next the Anareta, or Destroyer of Life, must be
+ascertained. The Anaretic planets are, by nature, Saturn, Mars, and
+Uranus, though the sun, moon, and Mercury may be endowed with the same
+fatal influence, if suitably afflicted. The various ways in which the
+Hyleg, or Giver of Life, may be afflicted by the Anareta, correspond to
+the various modes of death. But astrologers have always been singularly
+careful, in casting horoscopes, to avoid definite reference to the
+native's death. There are but few cases where the actual day of death is
+said to have been assigned. One is related in Clarendon's 'History of
+the Rebellion.' He tells us that William Earl of Pembroke died at the
+age of fifty, on the day upon which his tutor Sandford had predicted his
+decease. Burton, the author of the 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' having cast
+his own horoscope, and ascertained that he was to die on January 23,
+1639, is said to have committed suicide in order that the accuracy of
+his calculations might not be called in question. A similar story is
+related of Cardan by Dr. Young (Sidrophel Vapulans), on the authority of
+Gassendi, who, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> says only that either Cardan starved himself,
+or, being confident in his art, took the predicted day for a fatal one,
+and by his fears made it so. Gassendi adds that while Cardan pretended
+to describe the fates of his children in his voluminous commentaries, he
+all the while never suspected, from the rules of his great art, that his
+dearest son would be condemned in the flower of his youth to be beheaded
+on a scaffold, by an executioner of justice, for destroying his own wife
+by poison.</p>
+
+<p>Horary astrology relates to particular questions, and is a comparatively
+easy branch of the science. The art of casting nativities requires many
+years of study; but horary astrology 'may be well understood,' says
+Lilly, 'in less than a quarter of a year.' 'If a proposition of any
+nature,' he adds, 'be made to any individual, about the result of which
+he is anxious, and therefore uncertain whether to accede to it or not,
+let him but note the hour and minute when it was <i>first</i> made, and erect
+a figure of the heavens, and his doubts will be instantly resolved. He
+may thus in five minutes learn whether the affair will succeed or not:
+and consequently whether it is prudent to accept the offer made or not.
+If he examine the sign on the first house of the figure, the planet
+therein, or the planet ruling the sign, <i>will exactly describe the party
+making the offer</i>, both in person and character, and this may at once
+convince the enquirer for truth of the reality of the principles of the
+science. Moreover, the descending sign, etc., <i>will describe his own
+person and character</i>&mdash;a farther proof of the truth of the science.'</p>
+
+<p>There is one feature of horary astrology which is probably almost as
+ancient as any portion of the science, yet which remains even to the
+present day, and will probably remain for many years to come. I refer to
+the influence which the planets were supposed to exert on the
+successive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> hours of every day&mdash;a belief from which the division of time
+into weeks of seven days unquestionably had its origin&mdash;though we may
+concede that the subdivision of the lunar month into four equal parts
+was also considered in selecting this convenient measure of time. Every
+hour had its planet. Now dividing twenty-four by seven, we get three and
+three over; whence, each day containing twenty-four hours, it follows
+that in each day the complete series of seven planets was run through
+three times, and three planets of the next series were used. The order
+of the planets was that of their distances, as indicated above. Saturn
+came first, then Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon.
+Beginning with Saturn, as ruling the first hour of Saturn's day
+(Saturday), we get through the above series three times, and have for
+the last three hours of the day, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. Thus the
+next hour, the first hour of the next day, belongs to the sun&mdash;Sunday
+follows Saturday. We again run three times through the series, and the
+three remaining hours are governed by the sun, Venus, and
+Mercury,&mdash;giving the moon as the first planet for the next day. Monday
+thus follows Sunday. The last three hours of Monday are ruled by the
+moon, Saturn, and Jupiter; leaving Mars to govern the next day&mdash;Martis
+dies, Mardi, Tuesday or Tuisco's day. Proceeding in the same way, we get
+Mercury for the next day, Mercurii dies, Mercredi, Wednesday or Woden's
+day; Jupiter for the next day, Jovis dies, Jeudi, Thursday or Thor's
+day; Venus for the next day, Veneris dies, Vendredi, Friday or Freya's
+day; and so we come to Saturday again.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p><p>The period of seven days, which had its origin in, and derived its
+nomenclature from astrological ideas, shows by its wide prevalence how
+widely astrological superstitions were once spread among the nations. As
+Whewell remarks (though, for reasons which will readily be understood he
+was by no means anxious to dwell upon the true origin of the Sabbatical
+week), 'the usage is found over all the East; it existed among the
+Arabians, Assyrians, and Egyptians. The same week is found in India,
+among the Brahmins; it has there also its days marked by the names of
+the heavenly bodies; and it has been ascertained that the same day has,
+in that country, the name corresponding with its designation in other
+nations.... The period has gone on without interruption or irregularity
+from the earliest recorded times to our own days, traversing the extent
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> ages and the revolutions of empires; the names of ancient deities,
+which were associated with the stars, were replaced by those of the
+objects of the worship of our Teutonic ancestors, according to their
+views of the correspondence of the two mythologies; and the Quakers, in
+rejecting these names of days, have cast aside the most ancient existing
+relic of astrological as well as idolatrous superstition.</p>
+
+<p>Not only do the names remain, but some of the observances connected with
+the old astrological systems remain even to this day. As ceremonies
+derived from Pagan worship are still continued, though modified in form,
+and with a different interpretation, in Christian and especially Roman
+Catholic observances, so among the Jews and among Christians the rites
+and ceremonies of the old Egyptian and <a name="corr6" id="corr6"></a>Chald&aelig;an astrology
+are still continued, though no longer interpreted as of yore. The great
+Jewish Lawgiver and those who follow him seem, for example, to have
+recognised the value of regular periods of rest (whether really required
+by man or become a necessity through long habit), but to have been
+somewhat in doubt how best to continue the practice without sanctioning
+the superstitions with which it had been connected. At any rate two
+different and inconsistent interpretations were given in the earlier and
+later codes of law. But whether the Jews accepted the Sabbath because
+they believed that an All-powerful Being, having created the world in
+six days, required and took rest ('and was refreshed') on the seventh,
+as stated in Exodus (xx. 11 and xxxi. 17), or whether they did so in
+remembrance of their departure from Egypt, as stated in Deuteronomy (v.
+15), there can be no question that among the Egyptians the Sabbath or
+Saturn's day was a day of rest because of the malignant nature of the
+powerful planet-deity who presided over that day. Nor can it be
+seriously doubted that the Jews descended from the old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> <a name="corr7" id="corr7"></a>Chald&aelig;ans,
+among whom (as appears from stone inscriptions recently
+discovered) the very word Sabbath was in use for a seventh day of rest
+connected with astrological observances, were familiar with the practice
+even before their sojourn in Egypt. They had then probably regarded it
+as a superstitious practice to be eschewed like those idolatrous
+observances which had caused Terah to remove with Abraham and Lot from
+Ur of the Chaldees. At any rate, we find no mention of the seventh day
+of rest as a religious observance until after the Exodus.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> It was not
+their only religious observance having in reality an astrological
+origin. Indeed, if we examine the Jewish sacrificial system as
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>described in Numbers xxviii. and elsewhere, we shall find throughout a
+tacit reference to the motions or influences of the celestial bodies.
+There was the morning and evening sacrifice guided by the movements of
+the sun; the Sabbath offering, determined by the predominance of Saturn;
+the offering of the new moon, depending on the motions of the moon; and
+lastly, the Paschal sacrifice, depending on the combined movements of
+the sun and moon&mdash;made, in fact, during the lunation following the sun's
+ascending passage of the equator at the sign of Aries.</p>
+
+<p>Let us return, however, after this somewhat long digression, to
+astrological matters.</p>
+
+<p>Horary astrology is manifestly much better fitted than the casting of
+nativities for filling the pocket of the astrologer himself; because
+only one nativity can be cast, but any number of horary questions can be
+asked. It is on account of their skill in horary astrology that the
+Zadkiels of our own time have occasionally found their way into the
+twelfth house, or House of Enemies. Even Lilly himself, not devoting, it
+would seem, five minutes to inquire into the probable success of the
+affair, was indicted in 1655 by a half-witted young woman, because he
+had given judgment respecting stolen goods, receiving two shillings and
+sixpence, contrary to an Act made under and provided by the wise and
+virtuous King James, First of England and Sixth of Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>State astrology relates to the destinies of kingdoms, thrones, empires,
+and may be regarded as a branch of horary science relating to subjects
+(and rulers) of more than ordinary importance.</p>
+
+<p>In former ages all persons likely to occupy an important position in the
+history of the world had their horoscopes erected; but in these
+degenerate days neither the casting of nativities nor the art of ruling
+the planets<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> flourishes as it should do. Our Zadkiels and Rapha&euml;ls
+publish, indeed, the horoscopes of kings and emperors, princes and
+princesses, and so forth; but their fate is as that of Benedict
+(according to Beatrice)&mdash;men 'wonder they will still be talking, for
+nobody marks them.' Even those whose horoscopes have been erected show
+no proper respect for the predictions made in their behalf. Thus the
+Prince of Wales being born when Sagittarius was in the ascendant should
+have been, according to Zadkiel, a tall man, with oval face, ruddy
+complexion, somewhat dusky, and so forth; but I understand he has by no
+means followed these directions as to his appearance. The sun, being
+well aspected, prognosticated honours&mdash;a most remarkable and
+unlooked-for circumstance, strangely fulfilled by the event; but then
+being in Cancer, in sextile with Mars, the Prince of Wales was to be
+partial to maritime affairs and attain naval glory, whereas as a
+field-marshal he can only win military glory. (I would not be understood
+to say that he is not quite as competent to lead our fleets as our
+battalions into action.) The House of Wealth was occupied by Jupiter,
+aspected by Saturn, which betokened great wealth through inheritance&mdash;a
+prognostication, says Professor Miller, which is not unlikely to come
+true. The House of Marriage was unsettled by the conflicting influences
+of Venus, Mars, and Saturn; but the first predominating, the Prince,
+after some trouble in his matrimonial speculations, was to marry a
+Princess of high birth, and one not undeserving of his kindest and most
+affectionate attention, probably in 1862. As to the date, an almanack
+informs me that the Prince married a Danish Princess in March 1863,
+which looks like a most culpable neglect of the predictions of our
+national astrologer. Again, in May 1870, when Saturn was stationary in
+the ascending degree, the Prince ought to have been injured by a horse,
+and also to have received a blow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> on the left side of the head, near the
+ear; but reprehensibly omitted both these ceremonies. A predisposition
+to fever and epileptic attacks was indicated by the condition of the
+House of Sickness. The newspapers described, a few years since, a
+serious attack of fever; but as most persons have some experience of the
+kind, the fulfilment of the prediction can hardly be regarded as very
+wonderful. Epileptic attacks, which, as less common, might have saved
+the credit of the astrologers, have not visited 'this royal native.' The
+position of Saturn in Capricorn betokened loss or disaster in one or
+other of the places ruled over by Capricorn&mdash;which, as we have seen, are
+India, Macedonia, Thrace, Greece, Mexico, Saxony, Wilna, Mecklenburgh,
+Brandenburgh, and Oxford. Professor Miller expresses the hope that
+Oxford was the place indicated, and the disaster nothing more serious
+than some slight scrape with the authorities of Christchurch. But
+princes never get into scrapes with college dons. Probably some one or
+other of the 'hair-breadth 'scapes' chronicled by the reporters of his
+travels in India was the event indicated by the ominous position of
+Saturn in Capricorn.</p>
+
+<p>A remarkable list of characteristics were derived by Zadkiel from the
+positions of the various planets and signs in the twelve houses of the
+'royal native.' Some, of course, were indicated in more ways than one,
+which will explain the parenthetical notes in the following alphabetical
+table which Professor Miller has been at the pains to draw up from
+Zadkiel's predictions. The prince was to be 'acute, affectionate,
+amiable, amorous, austere, avaricious, beneficent, benevolent, brave,
+brilliant, calculated for government' (a quality which may be understood
+two ways), 'candid, careful of his person, careless, compassionate,
+courteous (twice over), delighting in eloquence, discreet, envious, fond
+of glory, fond of learning, fond of music, fond<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> of poetry, fond of
+sports, fond of the arts and sciences, frank, full of expedients,
+generous (three times), gracious, honourable, hostile to crime,
+impervious, ingenious, inoffensive, joyous, just (twice), laborious,
+liberal, lofty, magnanimous, modest, noble, not easy to be understood
+(!), parsimonious, pious (twice), profound in opinion, prone to regret
+his acts, prudent, rash, religious, reverent, self-confident, sincere,
+singular in mode of thinking, strong, temperate, unreserved, unsteady,
+valuable in friendship, variable, versatile, violent, volatile, wily,
+and worthy.' Zadkiel concludes thus:&mdash;'The square of Saturn to the moon
+will add to the gloomy side of the picture, and give a tinge of
+melancholy at times to the native's character, and also a disposition to
+look at the dark side of things, and lead him to despondency; nor will
+he be at all of a sanguine character, but cool and calculating, though
+occasionally rash. Yet, all things considered, though firm and sometimes
+positive in opinion, this royal native, if he live to mount the throne,
+will sway the sceptre of these realms in moderation and justice, and be
+a pious and benevolent man, and a merciful sovereign.' Fortunately, the
+time has long since passed when swaying the sceptre of these realms had
+any but a figurative meaning, or when Englishmen who obeyed their
+country's laws depended on the mercy of any man, or when even bad
+citizens were judged by princes. But we still prefer that princes should
+be well-mannered gentlemen, and therefore it is sincerely to be hoped
+that Zadkiel's prediction, so far as it relates to piety and
+benevolence, may be fulfilled, should this 'royal native' live to mount
+the throne. As for mercy, it is a goodly quality even in these days and
+in this country; for if the law no longer tolerates cruelty to men, even
+on the part of princes, who once had prescribed rights in that
+direction, there are still some cruel, nay brutal sports in which 'royal
+natives' might sometimes be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> tempted to take part. Wherefore let us hope
+that, even in regard to mercy, the predictions of astrologers respecting
+this 'royal native' may be fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>Passing however, from trivialities, let us consider the lessons which
+the history of astrology teaches us respecting the human mind, its
+powers and weaknesses. It has been well remarked by Whewell that for
+many ages 'mysticism in its various forms was a leading character both
+of the common mind and the speculations of the most intelligent and
+profound reasoners.' Thus mysticism was the opposite of that habit of
+thought which science requires, 'namely, clear ideas, distinctly
+employed to connect well-ascertained facts; inasmuch as the ideas in
+which it dealt were vague and unstable, and the temper in which they
+were contemplated was an urgent and aspiring enthusiasm, which could not
+submit to a calm conference with experience upon even terms.' We have
+seen what has been the history of one particular form of the mysticism
+of ancient and medi&aelig;val ages. If we had followed the history of alchemy,
+magic, and other forms of mysticism, we should have seen similar
+results. True science has gradually dispossessed science falsely so
+called, until now none but the weaker minds hold by the tenets formerly
+almost universally adopted. In mere numbers, believers in the ancient
+superstitions may be by no means insignificant; but they no longer have
+any influence. It has become a matter of shame to pay any attention to
+what those few say or do who not merely hold but proclaim the ancient
+faith in these matters. We can also see why this has been. In old times
+enthusiasm usurped the place of reason in these cases; but opinions so
+formed and so retained could not maintain their ground in the presence
+of reasoning and experience. So soon as intelligent and thoughtful men
+perceived that facts were against the supposed mysterious influences of
+the stars, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> asserted powers of magicians, the pretended knowledge of
+alchemists, the false teachings of magic, alchemy, and astrology, were
+rejected. The lesson thus learned respecting erroneous doctrines which
+were once widely prevalent has its application in our time, when, though
+the influence of those teachings has passed away, other doctrines
+formerly associated with them still hold their ground. Men in old times,
+influenced by erroneous teachings, wasted their time and energies in
+idle questionings of the stars, vain efforts to find Arcana of
+mysterious power, and to acquire magical authority over the elements. Is
+it altogether clear that in these our times men are not hampered,
+prevented to some degree from doing all the good they might do in the
+short life-time allotted to them, by doctrines of another kind? Is there
+in our day no undue sacrifice of present good in idle questionings? is
+there no tendency to trust in a vain fetishism to prevent or remove
+evils which energy could avert or remedy? The time will come, in my
+belief, when the waste of those energies which in these days are devoted
+(not merely with the sanction, but the high approval, of some of the
+best among us) to idle aims, will be deplored as regretfully&mdash;but, alas,
+as idly&mdash;as the wasted speculations and labours of those whom Whewell
+has justly called the most intelligent and profound reasoners of the
+'stationary age' of science. The words with which Whewell closes his
+chapter on the 'Mysticism of the Middle Ages' have their application to
+the mysticism of the nineteenth century:&mdash;'Experience collects her
+stores in vain, or ceases to collect them, when she can only pour them
+into the flimsy folds of the lap of Mysticism, who is, in truth, so much
+absorbed in looking for the treasures which are to fall from the skies,
+that she heeds little how scantily she obtains, or how loosely she
+holds, such riches as she might find beside her.'</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p>
+<h3>II.<br />
+
+<i>THE RELIGION OF THE GREAT PYRAMID.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">During</span> the last few years a new sect has appeared which, though as yet
+small in numbers, is full of zeal and fervour. The faith professed by
+this sect may be called the religion of the Great Pyramid, the chief
+article of their creed being the doctrine that that remarkable edifice
+was built for the purpose of revealing&mdash;in the fulness of time, now
+nearly accomplished&mdash;certain noteworthy truths to the human race. The
+founder of the pyramid religion is described by one of the present
+leaders of the sect as 'the late worthy John Taylor, of Gower Street,
+London;' but hitherto the chief prophets of the new faith have been in
+this country Professor Smyth, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, and in
+France the Abb&eacute; Moigno. I propose to examine here some of the facts most
+confidently urged by pyramidalists in support of their views.</p>
+
+<p>But it will be well first to indicate briefly the doctrines of the new
+faith. They may be thus presented:</p>
+
+<p>The great pyramid was erected, it would seem, under the instructions of
+a certain Semitic king, probably no other than Melchizedek. By
+supernatural means, the architects were instructed to place the pyramid
+in latitude 30&deg; north; to select for its figure that of a square
+pyramid, carefully oriented; to employ for their unit of length the
+sacred cubit corresponding to the 20,000,000th part of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> the earth's
+polar axis; and to make the side of the square base equal to just so
+many of these sacred cubits as there are days and parts of a day in a
+year. They were further, by supernatural help, enabled to square the
+circle, and symbolised their victory over this problem by making the
+pyramid's height bear to the perimeter of the base the ratio which the
+radius of a circle bears to the circumference. Moreover, the great
+precessional period, in which the earth's axis gyrates like that of some
+mighty top around the perpendicular to the ecliptic, was communicated to
+the builders with a degree of accuracy far exceeding that of the best
+modern determinations, and they were instructed to symbolise that
+relation in the dimensions of the pyramid's base. A value of the sun's
+distance more accurate by far than modern astronomers have obtained
+(even since the recent transit) was imparted to them, and they embodied
+that dimension in the height of the pyramid. Other results which modern
+science has achieved, but which by merely human means the architects of
+the pyramid could not have obtained, were also supernaturally
+communicated to them; so that the true mean density of the earth, her
+true shape, the configuration of land and water, the mean temperature of
+the earth's surface, and so forth, were either symbolised in the great
+pyramid's position, or in the shape and dimensions of its exterior and
+interior. In the pyramid also were preserved the true, because
+supernaturally communicated, standards of length, area, capacity,
+weight, density, heat, time, and money. The pyramid also indicated, by
+certain features of its interior structure, that when it was built the
+holy influences of the Pleiades were exerted from a most effective
+position&mdash;the meridian, through the points where the ecliptic and
+equator intersect. And as the pyramid thus significantly refers to the
+past, so also it indicates the future history of the earth, especially
+in showing when and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> where the millennium is to begin. Lastly, the apex
+or crowning stone of the pyramid was no other than the antitype of that
+stone of stumbling and rock of offence, rejected by builders who knew
+not its true use, until it was finally placed as the chief stone of the
+corner. Whence naturally, 'whosoever shall fall upon it'&mdash;that is, upon
+the pyramid religion&mdash;'shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall
+it will grind him to powder.'</p>
+
+<p>If we examine the relations actually presented by the great pyramid&mdash;its
+geographical position, dimensions, shape, and internal
+structure&mdash;without hampering ourselves with the tenets of the new faith
+on the one hand, or on the other with any serious anxiety to disprove
+them, we shall find much to suggest that the builders of the pyramid
+were ingenious mathematicians, who had made some progress in astronomy,
+though not so much as they had made in the mastery of mechanical and
+scientific difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>The first point to be noticed is the geographical position of the great
+pyramid, so far, at least, as this position affects the aspect of the
+heavens, viewed from the pyramid as from an observatory. Little
+importance, I conceive, can be attached to purely geographical relations
+in considering the pyramid's position. Professor Smyth notes that the
+pyramid is peculiarly placed with respect to the mouth of the Nile,
+standing 'at the southern apex of the Delta-land of Egypt.' This region
+being shaped like a fan, the pyramid, set at the part corresponding to
+the handle, was, he considers, 'that monument pure and undefiled in its
+religion through an idolatrous land, alluded to by Isaiah; the monument
+which was both "an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt,
+and a pillar at the border thereof," and destined withal to become a
+witness in the latter days, and before the consummation of all things,
+to the same Lord, and to what He hath purposed upon man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> kind.' Still
+more fanciful are some other notes upon the pyramid's geographical
+position: as (i.) that there is more land along the meridian of the
+pyramid than on any other all the world round; (ii.) that there is more
+land in the latitude of the pyramid than in any other; and (iii.) that
+the pyramid territory of Lower Egypt is at the centre of the dry land
+habitable by man all the world over.</p>
+
+<p>It does not seem to be noticed by those who call our attention to these
+points that such coincidences prove too much. It might be regarded as
+not a mere accident that the great pyramid stands at the centre of the
+arc of shore-line along which lie the outlets of the Nile; or it might
+be regarded as not a mere coincidence that the great pyramid stands at
+the central point of all the habitable land-surface of the globe; or,
+again, any one of the other relations above mentioned might be regarded
+as something more than a mere coincidence. But if, instead of taking
+only one or other of these four relations, we take all four of them, or
+even any two of them, together, we must regard peculiarities of the
+earth's configuration as the result of special design which certainly
+have not hitherto been so regarded by geographers. For instance, if it
+was by a special design that the pyramid was placed at the centre of the
+Nile delta, and also by special design that the pyramid was placed at
+the centre of the land-surface of the earth, if these two relations are
+each so exactly fulfilled as to render the idea of mere accidental
+coincidence inadmissible, then it follows, of necessity, that it is
+through no merely accidental coincidence that the centre of the Nile
+delta lies at the centre of the land-surface of the earth; in other
+words, the shore-line along which lie the mouths of the Nile has been
+designedly curved so as to have its centre so placed. And so of the
+other relations. The very fact that the four conditions <i>can</i> be
+fulfilled simultaneously is evidence that a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> coincidence of the sort may
+result from mere accident.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> Indeed, the peculiarity of geographical
+position which really seems to have been in the thoughts of the pyramid
+architects, introduces yet a fifth condition which by accident could be
+fulfilled along with the four others.</p>
+
+<p>It would seem that the builders of the pyramid were anxious to place it
+in latitude 30&deg;, as closely as their means of observation permitted. Let
+us consider what result they achieved, and the evidence thus afforded
+respecting their skill and scientific attainments. In our own time, of
+course, the astronomer has no difficulty in determining with great
+exactness the position of any given latitude-parallel. But at the time
+when the great pyramid was built it must have been a matter of very
+serious difficulty to determine the position of any required
+latitude-parallel with a great degree of exactitude. The most obvious
+way of dealing with the difficulty would have been by observing the
+length of shadows thrown by upright posts at noon in spring and autumn.
+In latitude 30&deg; north, the sun at noon in spring (or, to speak
+precisely, on the day of the vernal equinox) is just twice as far from
+the horizon as he is from the point vertically overhead; and if a
+pointed post were set exactly upright at true noon (supposed to occur at
+the moment of the vernal or autumnal equinox), the shadow of the post
+would be exactly half as long as a line drawn from the top of the pole
+to the end of the shadow. But observations based on this principle would
+have presented many difficulties to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> architects of the pyramid. The
+sun not being a point of light, but a globe, the shadow of a pointed rod
+does not end in a well-defined point. The moment of true noon, which is
+not the same as ordinary or civil noon, never does agree exactly with
+the time of the vernal or autumnal equinox, and may be removed from it
+by any interval of time not exceeding twelve hours. And there are many
+other circumstances which would lead astronomers, like those who
+doubtless presided over the scientific preparations for building the
+great pyramid, to prefer a means of determining the latitude depending
+on another principle. The stellar heavens would afford practically
+unchanging indications for their purpose. The stars being all carried
+round the pole of the heavens, as if they were fixed points in the
+interior of a hollow revolving sphere, it becomes possible to determine
+the position of the pole of the star sphere, even though no bright
+conspicuous star actually occupies that point. Any bright star close by
+the pole is seen to revolve in a very small circle, whose centre is the
+pole itself. Such a star is our present so-called pole-star; and, though
+in the days when the great pyramid was built, that star was not near the
+pole, another, and probably a brighter star lay near enough to the
+pole<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> to serve as a pole-star, and to indicate by its circling motion
+the position of the actual pole of the heavens. This was at that time,
+and for many <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>subsequent centuries, the leading star of the great
+constellation called the Dragon.</p>
+
+<p>The pole of the heavens, we know, varies in position according to the
+latitude of the observer. At the north pole it is exactly overhead; at
+the equator the poles of the heavens are both on the horizon; and, as
+the observer travels from the equator towards the north or south pole of
+the earth, the corresponding pole of the heavens rises higher and higher
+above the horizon. In latitude 30&deg; north, or one-third of the way from
+the equator to the pole, the pole of the heavens is raised one-third of
+the way from the horizon to the point vertically overhead; and when this
+is the case the observer knows that he is in latitude 30&deg;. The builders
+of the great pyramid, with the almost constantly clear skies of Egypt,
+may reasonably be supposed to have adopted this means of determining the
+true position of that thirtieth parallel on which they appear to have
+designed to place the great building they were about to erect.</p>
+
+<p>It so happens that we have the means of forming an opinion on the
+question whether they used one method or the other; whether they
+employed the sun or the stars to guide them to the geographical position
+they required. In fact, were it not for this circumstance, I should not
+have thought it worth while to discuss the qualities of either method.
+It will presently be seen that the discussion bears importantly on the
+opinion we are to form of the skill and attainments of the pyramid
+architects. Every celestial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> object is apparently raised somewhat above
+its true position by the refractive power of our atmosphere, being most
+raised when nearest the horizon and least when nearest the point
+vertically overhead. This effect is, indeed, so marked on bodies close
+to the horizon that if the astronomers of the pyramid times had observed
+the sun, moon, and stars attentively when so placed, they could not have
+failed to discover the peculiarity. Probably, however, though they noted
+the time of rising and setting of the celestial bodies, they only made
+instrumental observations upon them when these bodies were high in the
+heavens. Thus they remained ignorant of the refractive powers of the
+air.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Now, if they had determined the position of the thirtieth
+parallel of latitude by observations of the noonday sun (in spring or
+autumn), then since, owing to refraction, they would have judged the sun
+to be higher than he really was, it follows that they would have
+supposed the latitude of any station from which they observed to be
+lower than it really was. For the lower the latitude the higher is the
+noonday sun at any given season. Thus, when really in latitude 30&deg; they
+would have supposed themselves in a latitude lower than 30&deg;, and would
+have travelled a little further north to find the proper place, as they
+would have supposed, for erecting the great pyramid. On the other hand,
+if they determined the place from observations of the movements of stars
+near the pole of the heavens, they would make an error of a precisely
+opposite nature. For the higher the latitude the higher is the pole of
+the heavens; and refraction, therefore, which apparently raises the pole
+of the heavens, gives to a station the appearance of being in a higher
+latitude than it really is, so that the observer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> would consider he was
+in latitude 30 north when in reality somewhat south of that latitude. We
+have only then to inquire whether the great pyramid was set north or
+south of latitude 30&deg;, to ascertain whether the pyramid architects
+observed the noonday sun or circumpolar stars to determine their
+latitude; always assuming (as we reasonably may) that those architects
+did propose to set the pyramid in that particular latitude, and that
+they were able to make very accurate observations of the apparent
+positions of the celestial bodies, but that they were not acquainted
+with the refractive effects of the atmosphere. The answer comes in no
+doubtful terms. The centre of the great pyramid's base lies about one
+mile and a third <i>south</i> of the thirtieth parallel of latitude; and from
+this position the pole of the heavens, as raised by refraction, would
+appear to be very near indeed to the required position. In fact, if the
+pyramid had been set about half a mile still farther south the pole
+would have <i>seemed</i> just right.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, such an explanation as I have here suggested appears
+altogether heretical to the pyramidalists. According to them the pyramid
+architects knew perfectly well where the true thirtieth parallel lay,
+and knew also all that modern science has discovered about refraction;
+but set the pyramid south of the true parallel and north of the position
+where refraction would just have made the apparent elevation of the pole
+correct, simply in order that the pyramid might correspond as nearly as
+possible to each of two conditions, whereof both could not be fulfilled
+at once. The pyramid would indeed, they say, have been set even more
+closely midway between the true and the apparent parallels of 30&deg; north,
+but that the Jeezeh hill on which it is set does not afford a rock
+foundation any farther north. 'So very close,' says Professor Smyth,
+'was the great pyramid placed to the northern brink of its hill, that
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> edges of the cliff might have broken off under the terrible
+pressure had not the builders banked up there most firmly the immense
+mounds of rubbish which came from their work, and which Strabo looked so
+particularly for 1800 years ago, but could not find. Here they were,
+however, and still are, utilised in enabling the great pyramid to stand
+on the very utmost verge of its commanding hill, within the limits of
+the <i>two</i> required latitudes, as well as over the centre of the land's
+physical and radial formation, and at the same time on the sure and
+proverbially wise foundation of rock.'</p>
+
+<p>The next circumstance to be noted in the position of the great pyramid
+(as of all the pyramids) is that the sides are carefully oriented. This,
+like the approximation to a particular latitude, must be regarded as an
+astronomical rather than a geographical relation. The accuracy with
+which the orientation has been effected will serve to show how far the
+builders had mastered the methods of astronomical observation by which
+orientation was to be secured. The problem was not so simple as might be
+supposed by those who are not acquainted with the way in which the
+cardinal points are correctly determined. By solar observations, or
+rather by the observations of shadows cast by vertical shafts before and
+after noon, the direction of the meridian, or north and south line, can
+theoretically be ascertained. But probably in this case, as in
+determining the latitude, the builders took the stars for their guide.
+The pole of the heavens would mark the true north; and equally the
+pole-star, when below or above the pole, would give the true north, but,
+of course, most conveniently when below the pole. Nor is it difficult to
+see how the builders would make use of the pole-star for this purpose.
+From the middle of the northern side of the intended base they would
+bore a slant passage tending always from the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>position of the pole-star
+at its lower meridional passage, that star at each successive return to
+that position serving to direct their progress; while its small range,
+east and west of the pole, would enable them most accurately to
+determine the star's true mid-point below the pole; that is, the true
+north. When they had thus obtained a slant tunnel pointing truly to the
+meridian, and had carried it down to a point nearly below the middle of
+the proposed square base, they could, from the middle of the base, bore
+vertically downwards, until by rough calculation they were near the
+lower end of the slant tunnel; or both tunnels could be made at the same
+time. Then a subterranean chamber would be opened out from the slant
+tunnel. The vertical boring, which need not be wider than necessary to
+allow a plumb-line to be suspended down it, would enable the architects
+to determine the point vertically below the point of suspension. The
+slant tunnel would give the direction of the true north, either from
+that point or from a point at some known small distance east or west of
+that point.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> Thus, a line from some ascertained point near the mouth
+of the vertical boring to the mouth of the slant tunnel would lie due
+north and south, and serve as the required guide for the orientation of
+the pyramid's base. If this base extended beyond the opening of the
+slant tunnel, then, by continuing this tunnelling through the base tiers
+of the pyramid, the means would be obtained of correcting the
+orientation.</p>
+
+<p>This, I say, would be the course naturally suggested to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> astronomical
+architects who had determined the latitude in the manner described
+above. It may even be described as the only very accurate method
+available before the telescope had been invented. So that if the
+accuracy of the orientation appears to be greater than could be obtained
+by the shadow method, the natural inference, even in the absence of
+corroborative evidence, would be that the stellar method, and no other,
+had been employed. Now, in 1779, Nouet, by refined observations, found
+the error of orientation measured by less than 20 minutes of arc,
+corresponding roughly to a displacement of the corners by about 37-<span class="above">1</span>&#8260;<span class="below">2</span>
+inches from their true position, as supposed to be determined from the
+centre; or to a displacement of a southern corner by 53 inches on an
+east and west line from a point due south of the corresponding northern
+corner. This error, for a base length of 9140 inches, would not be
+serious, being only one inch in about five yards (when estimated in the
+second way). Yet the result is not quite worthy of the praise given to
+it by Professor Smyth. He himself, however, by much more exact
+observations, with an excellent altazimuth, reduced the alleged error
+from 20 minutes to only 4-<span class="above">1</span>&#8260;<span class="below">2</span>, or to <span class="above">9</span>&#8260;<span class="below">40</span>ths of its formerly supposed
+value. This made the total displacement of a southern corner from the
+true meridian through the corresponding northern corner, almost exactly
+one foot, or one inch in about twenty-one yards&mdash;a degree of accuracy
+rendering it practically certain that some stellar method was used in
+orienting the base.</p>
+
+<p>Now there <i>is</i> a slanting tunnel occupying precisely the position of the
+tunnel which should, according to this view, have been formed in order
+accurately to orient the pyramid's base, assuming that the time of the
+building of the pyramid corresponded with one of the epochs when the
+star Alpha Draconis was distant 3&deg; 42' from the pole of the heavens. In
+other words, there is a slant tunnel directed northwards<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> and upwards
+from a point deep down below the middle of the pyramid's base, and
+inclined 26&deg; 17' to the horizon, the elevation of Alpha Draconis at its
+lower culmination when 3&deg; 42' from the pole. The last epoch when the
+star was thus placed was <i>circiter</i> 2160 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>; the epoch next before
+that was 3440 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> Between these two we should have to choose, on the
+hypothesis that the slant tunnel was really directed to that star when
+the foundations of the pyramid were laid. For the next epoch before the
+earlier of the two named was about 28,000 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, and the pyramid's date
+cannot have been more remote than 4000 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span></p>
+
+<p>The slant tunnel, while admirably fulfilling the requirements suggested,
+seems altogether unsuited for any other. Its transverse height (that is,
+its width in a direction perpendicular to its upper and lower faces) did
+not amount to quite four feet; its breadth was not quite three feet and
+a half. It was, therefore, not well fitted for an entrance passage to
+the subterranean chamber immediately under the apex of the pyramid (with
+which chamber it communicates in the manner suggested by the above
+theory). It could not have been intended to be used for observing
+meridian transits of the stars in order to determine sidereal time; for
+close circumpolar stars, by reason of their slow motion, are the least
+suited of all for such a purpose. As Professor Smyth says, in arguing
+against this suggested use of the star, 'no observer in his senses, in
+any existing observatory, when seeking to obtain the time, would observe
+the transit of a circumpolar star for anything else than <i>to get the
+direction of the meridian to adjust his instrument by</i>.' (The italics
+are his.) It is precisely such a purpose (the adjustment, however, not
+of an instrument, but of the entire structure of the pyramid itself),
+that I have suggested for this remarkable passage&mdash;this 'cream-white,
+stone-lined, long tube,' where it traverses the masonry of the pyramid,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+and below that dug through the solid rock to a distance of more than 350
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>Let us next consider the dimensions of the square base thus carefully
+placed in latitude 30&deg; north to the best of the builders' power, with
+sides carefully oriented.</p>
+
+<p>It seems highly probable that, whatever special purpose the pyramid was
+intended to fulfil, a subordinate idea of the builders would have been
+to represent symbolically in the proportions of the building such
+mathematical and astronomical relations as they were acquainted with.
+From what we know by tradition of the men of the remote time when the
+pyramid was built, and what we can infer from the ideas of those who
+inherited, however remotely, the modes of thought of the earliest
+astronomers and mathematicians, we can well believe that they would look
+with superstitious reverence on special figures, proportions, numbers,
+and so forth. Apart from this, they may have had a quasi-scientific
+desire to make a lasting record of their discoveries, and of the
+collected knowledge of their time.</p>
+
+<p>It seems altogether probable, then, that the smaller unit of measurement
+used by the builders of the great Pyramid was intended, as Professor
+Smyth thinks, to be equal to the 500,000,000th part of the earth's
+diameter, determined from their geodetical observations. It was
+perfectly within the power of mechanicians and mathematicians so
+experienced as they undoubtedly were&mdash;the pyramid attests so much&mdash;to
+measure with considerable accuracy the length of a degree of latitude.
+They could not possibly (always setting aside the theory of divine
+inspiration) have known anything about the compression of the earth's
+globe, and therefore could not have intended, as Professor Smyth
+supposes, to have had the 500,000,000th part of the earth's polar axis,
+as distinguished from any other, for their unit of length. But if they
+made observations in or near latitude 30&deg; north<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> on the supposition that
+the earth is a globe, their probable error would exceed the difference
+even between the earth's polar and equatorial diameters. Both
+differences are largely exceeded by the range of difference among the
+estimates of the actual length of the sacred cubit, supposed to have
+contained twenty-five of these smaller units. And, again, the length of
+the pyramid base-side, on which Smyth bases his own estimate of the
+sacred cubit, has been variously estimated, the largest measure being
+9168 inches, and the lowest 9110 inches. The fundamental theory of the
+pyramidalists, that the sacred cubit was exactly one 20,000,000th part
+of the earth's polar diameter, and that the side of the base contained
+as many cubits and parts of a cubit as there are days and parts of a day
+in the tropical year (or year of seasons), requires that the length of
+the side should be 9140 inches, lying between the limits indicated, but
+still so widely removed from either that it would appear very unsafe to
+base a theory on the supposition that the exact length is or was 9140
+inches. If the measures 9168 inches and 9110 inches were inferior, and
+several excellent measures made by practised observers ranged around the
+length 9140 inches, the case would be different. But the best recent
+measures gave respectively 9110 and 9130 inches; and Smyth exclaims
+against the unfairness of Sir H. James in taking 9120 as 'therefore the
+[probable] true length of the side of the great pyramid when perfect,'
+calling this 'a dishonourable shelving of the honourable older observers
+with their larger results.' The only other measures, besides these two,
+are two by Colonel Howard Vyse and by the French <i>savants</i>, giving
+respectively 9168 and 9163&middot;44 inches. The pyramidalists consider 9140
+inches a fair mean value from these four. The natural inference,
+however, is, that the pyramid base is not now in a condition to be
+satisfactorily measured; and assuredly no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> such reliance can be placed
+on the mean value 9140 inches that, on the strength of it, we should
+believe what otherwise would be utterly incredible, viz. that the
+builders of the great pyramid knew 'both the size and shape of the earth
+exactly.' 'Humanly, or by human science, finding it out in that age was,
+of course, utterly impossible,' says Professor Smyth. But he is so
+confident of the average value derived from widely conflicting base
+measures as to assume that this value, not being humanly discoverable,
+was of necessity 'attributable to God and to His Divine inspiration.' We
+may agree, in fine, with Smyth, that the builders of the pyramid knew
+the earth to be a globe; that they took for their measure of length the
+sacred cubit, which, by their earth measures, they made very fairly
+approximate to the 20,000,000th part of the earth's mean diameter; but
+there seems no reason whatever for supposing (even if the supposition
+were not antecedently of its very nature inadmissible) that they knew
+anything about the compression of the earth, or that they had measured a
+degree of latitude in their own place with very wonderful accuracy.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p><p>But here a very singular coincidence may be noticed, or, rather, is
+forced upon our notice by the pyramidalists, who strangely enough
+recognise in it fresh evidence of design, while the unbeliever finds in
+it proof that coincidences are no sure evidence of design. The side of
+the pyramid containing 365-<span class="above">1</span>&#8260;<span class="below">4</span> times the sacred cubit of 25 pyramid
+inches, it follows that the diagonal of the base contains 12,912 such
+inches, and the two diagonals together contain 25,824 pyramid inches, or
+almost exactly as many inches as there are years in the great
+precessional period. 'No one whatever amongst men,' says Professor Smyth
+after recording various estimates of the precessional period, 'from his
+own or school knowledge, knew anything about such a phenomenon, until
+Hipparchus, some 1900 years after the great pyramid's foundation, had a
+glimpse of the fact; and yet it had been ruling the heavens for ages,
+and was recorded in Jeezeh's ancient structure.' To minds not moved to
+most energetic forgetfulness by the spirit of faith, it would appear
+that when a square base had been decided upon, and its dimensions fixed,
+with reference to the earth's diameter and the year, the diagonals of
+the square base were determined also; and, if it so chanced that they
+corresponded with some other perfectly independent relation, the fact
+was not to be credited to the architects. Moreover it is manifest that
+the closeness of such a coincidence suggests grave doubts how far other
+coincidences can be relied upon as evidence of design. It seems, for
+instance, altogether likely that the architects of the pyramid took the
+sacred cubit equal to one 20,000,000th part of the earth's diameter for
+their chief unit of length, and intentionally assigned to the side of
+the pyramid's square base a length<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> of just so many cubits as there are
+days in the year; and the closeness of the coincidence between the
+measured length and that indicated by this theory strengthens the idea
+that this was the builder's purpose. But when we find that an even
+closer coincidence immediately presents itself, which manifestly is a
+coincidence <i>only</i>, the force of the evidence before derived from mere
+coincidence is <i>pro tanto</i> shaken. For consider what this new
+coincidence really means. Its nature may be thus indicated: Take the
+number of days in the year, multiply that number by 50, and increase the
+result in the same degree that the diagonal of a square exceeds the
+side&mdash;then the resulting number represents very approximately the number
+of years in the great precessional period. The error, according to the
+best modern estimates, is about one 575th part of the true period. This
+is, of course, a merely accidental coincidence, for there is no
+connection whatever in nature between the earth's period of rotation,
+the shape of a square, and the earth's period of gyration. Yet this
+merely accidental coincidence is very much closer than the other
+supposed to be designed could be proved to be. It is clear, then, that
+mere coincidence is a very unsafe evidence of design.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the pyramidalists find a ready reply to such reasoning. They
+argue that, in the first place, it may have been by express design that
+the period of the earth's rotation was made to bear this particular
+relation to the period of gyration in the mighty precessional movement:
+which is much as though one should say that by express design the height
+of Monte Rosa contains as many feet as there are miles in the 6000th
+part of the sun's distance.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> Then,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> they urge, the architects were
+not bound to have a square base for the pyramid; they might have had an
+oblong or a triangular base, and so forth&mdash;all which accords very ill
+with the enthusiastic language in which the selection of a square base
+had on other accounts been applauded.</p>
+
+<p>Next let us consider the height of the pyramid. According to the best
+modern measurements, it would seem that the height when (if ever) the
+pyramid terminated above in a pointed apex, must have been about 486
+feet. And from the comparison of the best estimates of the base side
+with the best estimates of the height, it seems very likely indeed that
+the intention of the builders was to make the height bear to the
+perimeter of the base the same ratio which the radius of a circle bears
+to the circumference. Remembering the range of difference in the base
+measures it might be supposed that the exactness of the approximation to
+this ratio could not be determined very satisfactorily. But as certain
+casing stones have been discovered which indicate with considerable
+exactness the slope of the original plane-surfaces of the pyramid, the
+ratio of the height to the side of the base may be regarded as much more
+satisfactorily determined than the actual value of either dimension. Of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+course the pyramidalists claim a degree of precision indicating a most
+accurate knowledge of the ratio between the diameter and the
+circumference of a circle; and the angle of the only casing stone
+measured being diversely estimated at 51&deg; 50' and 51&deg; 52-<span class="above">1</span>&#8260;<span class="below">4</span>', they
+consider 50&deg; 51' 14&middot;3" the true value, and infer that the builders
+regarded the ratio as 3&middot;14159 to 1. The real fact is, that the modern
+estimates of the dimensions of the casing stones (which, by the way,
+ought to agree better if these stones are as well made as stated)
+indicate the values 3&middot;1439228 and 3&middot;1396740 for the ratio; and all we
+can say is, that the ratio really used lay <i>probably</i> between these
+limits, though it may have been outside either. Now the approximation of
+either is not remarkably close. It requires no mathematical knowledge at
+all to determine the circumference of a circle much more exactly. 'I
+thought it very strange,' wrote a circle-squarer once to De Morgan
+(<i>Budget of Paradoxes</i>, p. 389), 'that so many great scholars in all
+ages should have failed in finding the true ratio, and have been
+determined to try myself.' 'I have been informed,' proceeds De Morgan,
+'that this trial makes the diameter to the circumference as 64 to 201,
+giving the ratio equal to 3&middot;1410625 exactly. The result was obtained by
+the discoverer in three weeks after he first heard of the existence of
+the difficulty. This quadrator has since published a little slip and
+entered it at Stationers' Hall. He says he has done it by actual
+measurement; and I hear from a private source that he uses a disc of
+twelve inches diameter which he rolls upon a straight rail.' The
+'rolling is a very creditable one; it is as much below the mark as
+Archimedes was above it. Its performer is a joiner who evidently knows
+well what he is about when he measures; he is not wrong by 1 in 3000.'
+Such skilful mechanicians as the builders of the pyramid could have
+obtained a closer approximation still by mere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> measurement. Besides, as
+they were manifestly mathematicians, such an approximation as was
+obtained by Archimedes must have been well within their power; and that
+approximation lies well within the limits above indicated. Professor
+Smyth remarks that the ratio was 'a quantity which men in general, and
+all human science too, did not begin to trouble themselves about until
+long, long ages, languages, and nations had passed away after the
+building of the great pyramid; and after the sealing up, too, of that
+grand primeval and prehistoric monument of the patriarchal age of the
+earth according to Scripture.' I do not know where the Scripture records
+the sealing up of the great pyramid; but it is all but certain that
+during the very time when the pyramid was being built astronomical
+observations were in progress which, for their interpretation, involved
+of necessity a continual reference to the ratio in question. No one who
+considers the wonderful accuracy with which, nearly two thousand years
+before the Christian era, the Chald&aelig;ans had determined the famous cycle
+of the Saros, can doubt that they must have observed the heavenly bodies
+for several centuries before they could have achieved such a success;
+and the study of the motions of the celestial bodies compels 'men to
+trouble themselves' about the famous ratio of the circumference to the
+diameter.</p>
+
+<p>We now come upon a new relation (contained in the dimensions of the
+pyramid as thus determined) which, by a strange coincidence, causes the
+height of the pyramid to appear to symbolise the distance of the sun.
+There were 5813 pyramid inches, or 5819 British inches, in the height of
+the pyramid according to the relations already indicated. Now, in the
+sun's distance, according to an estimate recently adopted and freely
+used,<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> there are 91,400,000 miles or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> 5791 thousand millions of
+inches&mdash;that is, there are approximately as many thousand millions of
+inches in the sun's distance as there are inches in the height of the
+pyramid. If we take the relation as exact we should infer for the sun's
+distance 5819 thousand millions of inches, or 91,840,000 miles&mdash;an
+immense improvement on the estimate which for so many years occupied a
+place of honour in our books of astronomy. Besides, there is strong
+reason for believing that, when the results of recent observations are
+worked out, the estimated sun distance will be much nearer this pyramid
+value than even to the value 91,400,000 recently adopted. This result,
+which one would have thought so damaging to faith in the evidence from
+coincidence&mdash;nay, quite fatal after the other case in which a close
+coincidence had appeared by merest accident&mdash;is regarded by the
+pyramidalist as a perfect triumph for their faith.</p>
+
+<p>They connect it with another coincidence, viz. that, assuming the height
+determined in the way already indicated, then it so happens that the
+height bears to half a diagonal of the base the ratio 9 to 10. Seeing
+that the perimeter of the base symbolises the annual motion of the earth
+round the sun, while the height represents the radius of a circle with
+that perimeter, it follows that the height should symbolise the sun's
+distance. 'That line, further,' says Professor Smyth (speaking on behalf
+of Mr. W. Petrie, the discoverer of this relation), 'must represent'
+this radius 'in the proportion of 1 to 1,000,000,000' (or <i>ten</i> raised
+to power <i>nine</i>), 'because amongst other reasons 10 to 9 is practically
+the shape of the great pyramid.' For this building 'has such an angle at
+the corners, that for every ten units its structure advances inwards on
+the diagonal of the base, it practically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> rises upwards, or points to
+sunshine' (<i>sic</i>) 'by <i>nine</i>. Nine, too, out of the ten characteristic
+parts (viz. five angles and five sides) being the number of those parts
+which the sun shines on in such a shaped pyramid, in such a latitude
+near the equator, out of a high sky, or, as the Peruvians say, when the
+sun sets on the pyramid with all its rays.' The coincidence itself on
+which this perverse reasoning rests is a singular one&mdash;singular, that
+is, as showing how close an accidental coincidence may run. It amounts
+to this, that if the number of days in the year be multiplied by 100,
+and a circle be drawn with a circumference containing 100 times as many
+inches as there are days in the year, the radius of the circle will be
+very nearly one 1,000,000,000th part of the sun's distance. Remembering
+that the pyramid inch is assumed to be one 500,000,000th part of the
+earth's diameter, we shall not be far from the truth in saying that, as
+a matter of fact, the earth by her orbital motion traverses each day a
+distance equal to two hundred times her own diameter. But, of course,
+this relation is altogether accidental. It has no real cause in
+nature.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p>
+
+<p>Such relations show that mere numerical coincidences, however close,
+have little weight as evidence, except where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> they occur in series. Even
+then they require to be very cautiously regarded, seeing that the
+history of science records many instances where the apparent law of a
+series has been found to be falsified when the theory has been extended.
+Of course this reason is not quoted in order to throw doubt on the
+supposition that the height of the pyramid was intended to symbolise the
+sun's distance. That supposition is simply inadmissible if the
+hypothesis, according to which the height was already independently
+determined in another way, is admitted. Either hypothesis might be
+admitted were we not certain that the sun's distance could not possibly
+have been known to the builders of the pyramid; or both hypotheses may
+be rejected: but to admit both is out of the question.</p>
+
+<p>Considering the multitude of dimensions of length, surface, capacity,
+and position, the great number of shapes, and the variety of material
+existing within the pyramid, and considering, further, the enormous
+number of relations (presented by modern science) from among which to
+choose, can it be wondered at if fresh coincidences are being
+continually recognised? If a dimension will not serve in one way, use
+can be found for it in another; for instance, if some measure of length
+does not correspond closely with any known dimension of the earth or of
+the solar system (an unlikely supposition), then it can be understood to
+typify an interval of time. If, even after trying all possible changes
+of that kind, no coincidence shows itself (which is all but impossible),
+then all that is needed to secure a coincidence is that the dimensions
+should be manipulated a little.</p>
+
+<p>Let a single instance suffice to show how the pyramidalists (with
+perfect honesty of purpose) hunt down a coincidence. The slant tunnel
+already described has a transverse height, once no doubt uniform, now
+giving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> various measures from 47&middot;14 pyramid inches to 47&middot;32 inches, so
+that the vertical height from the known inclination of the tunnel would
+be estimated at somewhere between 52&middot;64 inches and 52&middot;85. Neither
+dimension corresponds very obviously with any measured distance in the
+earth or solar system. Nor when we try periods, areas, etc., does any
+very satisfactory coincidence present itself. But the difficulty is
+easily turned into a new proof of design. Putting all the observations
+together (says Professor Smyth), 'I deduced 47&middot;24 pyramid inches to be
+the transverse height of the entrance passage; and computing from thence
+with the observed angle of inclination the vertical height, that came
+out 52&middot;76 of the same inches. But the sum of those two heights, or the
+height taken up and down, equals 100 inches, which length, as elsewhere
+shown, is the general pyramid linear representation of a day of
+twenty-four hours. And the mean of the two heights, or the height taken
+one way only, and impartially to the middle point between them, equals
+fifty inches; which quantity is, therefore, the general pyramid linear
+representation of only half a day. In which case, let us ask what the
+entrance passage has to do with half rather than a whole day?'</p>
+
+<p>On relations such as these, which, if really intended by the architect,
+would imply an utterly fatuous habit of concealing elaborately what he
+desired to symbolise, the pyramidalists base their belief that 'a Mighty
+Intelligence did both think out the plans for it, and compel unwilling
+and ignorant idolators, in a primal age of the world, to work mightily
+both for the future glory of the one true God of Revelation, and to
+establish lasting prophetic testimony touching a further development,
+still to take place, of the absolutely Divine Christian dispensation.'</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p>
+<h3>III.<br />
+
+<i>THE MYSTERY OF THE PYRAMIDS.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Few</span> subjects of inquiry have proved more perplexing than the question of
+the purpose for which the pyramids of Egypt were built. Even in the
+remotest ages of which we have historical record, nothing seems to have
+been known certainly on this point. For some reason or other, the
+builders of the pyramids concealed the object of these structures, and
+this so successfully that not even a tradition has reached us which
+purports to have been handed down from the epoch of the pyramids'
+construction. We find, indeed, some explanations given by the earliest
+historians; but they were professedly only hypothetical, like those
+advanced in more recent times. Including ancient and modern theories, we
+find a wide range of choice. Some have thought that these buildings were
+associated with the religion of the early Egyptians; others have
+suggested that they were tombs; others, that they combined the purposes
+of tombs and temples, that they were astronomical observatories,
+defences against the sands of the Great Desert, granaries like those
+made under Joseph's direction, places of resort during excessive
+overflows of the Nile; and many other uses have been suggested for them.
+But none of these ideas are found on close examination to be tenable as
+representing the sole purpose of the pyramids, and few of them have
+strong claims to be regarded as presenting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> even a chief object of these
+remarkable structures. The significant and perplexing history of the
+three oldest pyramids&mdash;the Great Pyramid of Cheops, Shofo, or Suphis,
+the pyramid of Chephren, and the pyramid of Mycerinus; and the most
+remarkable of all the facts known respecting the pyramids generally,
+viz., the circumstance that one pyramid after another was built as
+though each had become useless soon after it was finished, are left
+entirely unexplained by all the theories above mentioned, save one only,
+the tomb theory, and that does not afford by any means a satisfactory
+explanation of the circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>I propose to give here a brief account of some of the most suggestive
+facts known respecting the pyramids, and, after considering the
+difficulties which beset the theories heretofore advanced, to indicate a
+theory (new so far as I know) which seems to me to correspond better
+with the facts than any heretofore advanced; I suggest it, however,
+rather for consideration than because I regard it as very convincingly
+supported by the evidence. In fact, to advance any theory at present
+with confident assurance of its correctness, would be simply to indicate
+a very limited acquaintance with the difficulties surrounding the
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>Let us first consider a few of the more striking facts recorded by
+history or tradition, noting, as we proceed, whatever ideas they may
+suggest as to the intended character of these structures.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary to say, perhaps, that the history of the Great
+Pyramid is of paramount importance in this inquiry. Whatever purpose
+pyramids were originally intended to subserve, must have been conceived
+by the builders of <i>that</i> pyramid. New ideas may have been superadded by
+the builders of later pyramids, but it is unlikely that the original
+purpose can have been entirely abandoned. Some great purpose there was,
+which the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> rulers of ancient Egypt proposed to fulfil by building very
+massive pyramidal structures on a particular plan. It is by inquiring
+into the history of the first and most massive of these structures, and
+by examining its construction, that we shall have the best chance of
+finding out what that great purpose was.</p>
+
+<p>According to Herodotus, the kings who built the pyramids reigned not
+more than twenty-eight centuries ago; but there can be little doubt that
+Herodotus misunderstood the Egyptian priests from whom he derived his
+information, and that the real antiquity of the pyramid-kings was far
+greater. He tells us that, according to the Egyptian priests, Cheops 'on
+ascending the throne plunged into all manner of wickedness. He closed
+the temples, and forbade the Egyptians to offer sacrifice, compelling
+them instead to labour one and all in his service, viz., in building the
+Great Pyramid.' Still following his interpretation of the Egyptian
+account, we learn that one hundred thousand men were employed for twenty
+years in building the Great Pyramid, and that ten years were occupied in
+constructing a causeway by which to convey the stones to the place and
+in conveying them there. 'Cheops reigned fifty years; and was succeeded
+by his brother Chephren, who imitated the conduct of his predecessor,
+built a pyramid&mdash;but smaller than his brother's&mdash;and reigned fifty-six
+years. Thus during one hundred and six years, the temples were shut and
+never opened.' Moreover, Herodotus tells us that 'the Egyptians so
+detested the memory of these kings, that they do not much like even to
+mention their names. Hence they commonly call the pyramids after
+Philition, a shepherd who at that time fed his flocks about the place.'
+'After Chephren, Mycerinus, son of Cheops, ascended the throne, he
+reopened the temples, and allowed the people to resume the practice of
+sacrifice. He, too, left a pyramid,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> but much inferior in size to his
+father's. It is built, for half of its height, of the stone of
+Ethiopia,' or, as Professor Smyth (whose extracts from Rawlinson's
+translation I have here followed) adds 'expensive red granite.' 'After
+Mycerinus, Asychis ascended the throne. He built the eastern gateway of
+the Temple of Vulcan (Phtha); and, being desirous of eclipsing all his
+predecessors on the throne, left as a monument of his reign a pyramid of
+brick.'</p>
+
+<p>This account is so suggestive, as will presently be shown, that it may
+be well to inquire whether it can be relied on. Now, although there can
+be no doubt that Herodotus misunderstood the Egyptians in some matters,
+and in particular as to the chronological order of the dynasties,
+placing the pyramid kings far too late, yet in other respects he seems
+not only to have understood them correctly, but also to have received a
+correct account from them. The order of the kings above named
+corresponds with the sequence given by Manetho, and also found in
+monumental and hieroglyphic records. Manetho gives the names Suphis I.,
+Suphis II., and Mencheres, instead of Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus;
+while, according to the modern Egyptologists, Herodotus's Cheops was
+Shofo, Shufu, or Koufou; Chephren was Shafre, while he was also called
+Nou-Shofo or Noum-Shufu as the brother of Shofo; and Mycerinus was
+Menhere or Menkerre. But the identity of these kings is not questioned.
+As to the true dates there is much doubt, and it is probable that the
+question will long continue open; but the determination of the exact
+epochs when the several pyramids were built is not very important in
+connection with our present inquiry. We may, on the whole, fairly take
+the points quoted above from Herodotus, and proceed to consider the
+significance of the narrative, with sufficient confidence that in all
+essential respects it is trustworthy.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p><p>There are several very strange features in the account.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, it is manifest that Cheops (to call the first king
+by the name most familiar to the general reader) attached great
+importance to the building of his pyramid. It has been said, and perhaps
+justly, that it would be more interesting to know the plan of the
+architect who devised the pyramid than the purpose of the king who built
+it. But the two things are closely connected. The architect must have
+satisfied the king that some highly important purpose in which the king
+himself was interested, would be subserved by the structure. Whether the
+king was persuaded to undertake the work as a matter of duty, or only to
+advance his own interests, may not be so clear. But that the king was
+most thoroughly in earnest about the work is certain. A monarch in those
+times would assuredly not have devoted an enormous amount of labour and
+material to such a scheme unless he was thoroughly convinced of its
+great importance. That the welfare of his people was not considered by
+Cheops in building the Great Pyramid is almost equally certain. He
+might, indeed, have had a scheme for their good which either he did not
+care to explain to them or which they could not understand. But the most
+natural inference from the narrative is that his purpose had no
+reference whatever to their welfare. For though one could understand his
+own subjects hating him while he was all the time working for their
+good, it is obvious that his memory would not have been hated if some
+important good had eventually been gained from his scheme. Many a
+far-seeing ruler has been hated while living on account of the very work
+for which his memory has been revered. But the memory of Cheops and his
+successors was held in detestation.</p>
+
+<p>May we, however, suppose that, though Cheops had not the welfare of his
+own people in his thoughts, his purpose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> was nevertheless not selfish,
+but intended in some way to promote the welfare of the human race? I say
+his purpose, because, whoever originated the scheme, Cheops carried it
+out; it was by means of his wealth and through his power that the
+pyramid was built. This is the view adopted by Professor Piazzi Smyth
+and others, in our own time, and first suggested by John Taylor.
+'Whereas other writers,' says Smyth, 'have generally esteemed that the
+mysterious persons who directed the building of the Great Pyramid (and
+to whom the Egyptians, in their traditions, and for ages afterwards,
+gave an immoral and even abominable character) must therefore have been
+very bad indeed, so that the world at large has always been fond of
+standing on, kicking, and insulting that dead lion, whom they really
+knew not; he, Mr. John Taylor, seeing how religiously bad the Egyptians
+themselves were, was led to conclude, on the contrary, that those <i>they</i>
+hated (and could never sufficiently abuse) might, perhaps, have been
+pre-eminently good; or were, at all events, of <i>different religious
+faith</i> from themselves.' 'Combining this with certain unmistakable
+historical facts,' Mr. Taylor deduced reasons for believing that the
+directors of the building designed to record in its proportions, and in
+its interior features, certain important religious and scientific
+truths, not for the people then living, but for men who were to come
+4000 years or so after.</p>
+
+<p>I have already considered at length (see the preceding Essay) the
+evidence on which this strange theory rests. But there are certain
+matters connecting it with the above narrative which must here be
+noticed. The mention of the shepherd Philition, who fed his flocks about
+the place where the Great Pyramid was built, is a singular feature of
+Herodotus's narrative. It reads like some strange misinterpretation of
+the story related to him by the Egyptian priests. It is obvious that if
+the word Philition did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> represent a people, but a person, this
+person must have been very eminent and distinguished&mdash;a shepherd-king,
+not a mere shepherd. Rawlinson, in a note on this portion of the
+narrative of Herodotus, suggests that Philitis was probably a
+shepherd-prince from Palestine, perhaps of Philistine descent, 'but so
+powerful and domineering, that it may be traditions of his oppressions
+in that earlier age which, mixed up afterwards in the minds of later
+Egyptians with the evils inflicted on their country by the subsequent
+shepherds of better known dynasties, lent so much fear to their
+religious hate of Shepherd times and that name.' Smyth, somewhat
+modifying this view, and considering certain remarks of Manetho
+respecting an alleged invasion of Egypt by shepherd-kings, 'men of an
+ignoble race (from the Egyptian point of view) who had the confidence to
+invade our country, and easily subdued it to their power without a
+battle,' comes to the conclusion that some Shemite prince, 'a
+contemporary of, but rather older than, the Patriarch Abraham,' visited
+Egypt at this time, and obtained such influence over the mind of Cheops
+as to persuade him to erect the pyramid. According to Smyth, the prince
+was no other than Melchizedek, king of Salem, and the influence he
+exerted was supernatural. With such developments of the theory we need
+not trouble ourselves. It seems tolerably clear that certain
+shepherd-chiefs who came to Egypt during Cheops' reign were connected in
+some way with the designing of the Great Pyramid. It is clear also that
+they were men of a different religion from the Egyptians, and persuaded
+Cheops to abandon the religion of his people. Taylor, Smyth, and the
+Pyramidalists generally, consider this sufficient to prove that the
+pyramid was erected for some purpose connected with religion. 'The
+pyramid,' in fine, says Smyth, 'was charged by God's inspired
+shepherd-prince, in the beginning of human time, to keep a certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+message secret and inviolable for 4000 years, and it has done so; and in
+the next thousand years it was to enunciate that message to all men,
+with more than traditional force, more than all the authenticity of
+copied manuscripts or reputed history; and that part of the pyramid's
+usefulness is now beginning.'</p>
+
+<p>There are many very obvious difficulties surrounding this theory; as,
+for example (i.) the absurd waste of power in setting supernatural
+machinery at work 4000 years ago with cumbrous devices to record its
+object, when the same machinery, much more simply employed now, would
+effect the alleged purpose far more thoroughly; (ii.) the enormous
+amount of human misery and its attendant hatreds brought about by this
+alleged divine scheme; and (iii.) the futility of an arrangement by
+which the pyramid was only to subserve its purpose when it had lost that
+perfection of shape on which its entire significance depended, according
+to the theory itself. But, apart from these, there is a difficulty,
+nowhere noticed by Smyth or his followers, which is fatal, I conceive,
+to this theory of the pyramid's purpose. The second pyramid, though
+slightly inferior to the first in size, and probably far inferior in
+quality of masonry, is still a structure of enormous dimensions, which
+must have required many years of labour from tens of thousands of
+workmen. Now, it seems impossible to explain why Chephren built this
+second pyramid, if we adopt Smyth's theory respecting the first pyramid.
+For either Chephren knew the purpose for which the Great Pyramid was
+built, or he did not know it. If he knew that purpose, and it was that
+indicated by Smyth, then he also knew that no second pyramid was wanted.
+On that hypothesis, all the labour bestowed on the second pyramid was
+wittingly and wilfully wasted. This, of course is incredible. But, on
+the other hand, if Chephren did not know what was the purpose for which
+the Great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> Pyramid was built, what reason could Chephren have had for
+building a pyramid at all? The only answer to this question seems to be
+that Chephren built the second pyramid in hopes of finding out why his
+brother had built the first, and this answer is simply absurd. It is
+clear enough that whatever purpose Cheops had in building the first
+pyramid, Chephren must have had a similar purpose in building the
+second; and we require a theory which shall at least explain why the
+first pyramid did not subserve for Chephren the purpose which it
+subserved or was meant to subserve for Cheops. The same reasoning may be
+extended to the third pyramid, to the fourth, and in fine to all the
+pyramids, forty or so in number, included under the general designation
+of the Pyramids of Ghizeh or Jeezeh. The extension of the principle to
+pyramids later than the second is especially important as showing that
+the difference of religion insisted on by Smyth has no direct bearing on
+the question of the purpose for which the Great Pyramid itself was
+constructed. For Mycerinus either never left or else returned to the
+religion of the Egyptians. Yet he also built a pyramid, which, though
+far inferior in size to the pyramids built by his father and uncle, was
+still a massive structure, and relatively more costly even than theirs,
+because built of expensive granite. The pyramid built by Asychis, though
+smaller still, was remarkable as built of brick; in fact, we are
+expressly told that Asychis desired to eclipse all his predecessors in
+such labours, and accordingly left this brick pyramid as a monument of
+his reign.</p>
+
+<p>We are forced, in fact, to believe that there was some special relation
+between the pyramid and its builder, seeing that each one of these kings
+wanted a pyramid of his own. This applies to the Great Pyramid quite as
+much as to the others, despite the superior excellence of that
+structure. Or rather, the argument derives its chief force from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+superiority of the Great Pyramid. If Chephren, no longer perhaps having
+the assistance of the shepherd-architects in planning and superintending
+the work, was unable to construct a pyramid so perfect and so stately as
+his brother's, the very fact that he nevertheless built a pyramid shows
+that the Great Pyramid did not fulfil for Chephren the purpose which it
+fulfilled for Cheops. But, if Smyth's theory were true, the Great
+Pyramid would have fulfilled finally and for all men the purpose for
+which it was built. Since this was manifestly not the case, that theory
+is, I submit, demonstrably erroneous.</p>
+
+<p>It was probably the consideration of this point, viz. that each king had
+a pyramid constructed for himself, which led to the theory that the
+pyramids were intended to serve as tombs. This theory was once very
+generally entertained. Thus we find Humboldt, in his remarks on American
+pyramids, referring to the tomb theory of the Egyptian pyramids as
+though it were open to no question. 'When we consider,' he says, 'the
+pyramidical monuments of Egypt, of Asia, and of the New Continent, from
+the same point of view, we see that, though their form is alike, their
+destination was altogether different. The group of pyramids of Ghizeh
+and at Sakhara in Egypt; the triangular pyramid of the Queen of the
+Scythians, Zarina, which was a stadium high and three in circumference,
+and which was decorated with a colossal figure; the fourteen Etruscan
+pyramids, which are said to have been enclosed in the labyrinth of the
+king Porsenna, at Clusium&mdash;were reared to serve as the sepulchres of the
+illustrious dead. Nothing is more natural to men than to commemorate the
+spot where rest the ashes of those whose memory they cherish whether it
+be, as in the infancy of the race, by simple mounds of earth, or, in
+later periods, by the towering height of the tumulus. Those of the
+Chinese and of Thibet have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> only a few metres of elevation. Farther to
+the west the dimensions increase; the tumulus of the king Alyattes,
+father of Cr&#339;sus, in Lydia, was six stadia, and that of Ninus was
+more than ten stadia in diameter. In the north of Europe the sepulchre
+of the Scandinavian king Gormus and the queen Daneboda, covered with
+mounds of earth, are three hundred metres broad, and more than thirty
+high.'</p>
+
+<p>But while we have abundant reason for believing that in Egypt, even in
+the days of Cheops and Chephren, extreme importance was attached to the
+character of the place of burial for distinguished persons, there is
+nothing in what is known respecting earlier Egyptian ideas to suggest
+the probability that any monarch would have devoted many years of his
+subjects' labour, and vast stores of material, to erect a mass of
+masonry like the Great Pyramid, solely to receive his own body after
+death. Far less have we any reason for supposing that many monarchs in
+succession would do this, each having a separate tomb built for him. It
+might have been conceivable, had only the Great Pyramid been erected,
+that the structure had been raised as a mausoleum for all the kings and
+princes of the dynasty. But it seems utterly incredible that such a
+building as the Great Pyramid should have been erected for one king's
+body only&mdash;and that, not in the way described by Humboldt, when he
+speaks of men commemorating the spot where rest the remains of those
+whose memory they cherish, but at the expense of the king himself whose
+body was to be there deposited. Besides, the first pyramid, the one
+whose history must be regarded as most significant of the true purpose
+of these buildings, was not built by an Egyptian holding in great favour
+the special religious ideas of his people, but by one who had adopted
+other views and those not belonging, so far as can be seen, to a people
+among whom sepulchral rites were held in exceptional regard.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p><p>A still stronger objection against the exclusively tombic theory
+resides in the fact that this theory gives no account whatever of the
+characteristic features of the pyramids themselves. These buildings are
+all, without exception, built on special astronomical principles. Their
+square bases are so placed as to have two sides lying east and west, and
+two lying north and south, or, in other words, so that their four faces
+front the four cardinal points. One can imagine no reason why a tomb
+should have such a position. It is not, indeed, easy to understand why
+any building at all, except an astronomical observatory, should have
+such a position. A temple perhaps devoted to sun-worship, and generally
+to the worship of the heavenly bodies, might be built in that way. For
+it is to be noticed that the peculiar figure and position of the
+pyramids would bring about the following relations:&mdash;When the sun rose
+and set south of the east and west points, or (speaking generally)
+between the autumn and the spring equinoxes, the rays of the rising and
+setting sun illuminated the southern face of the pyramid; whereas during
+the rest of the year, that is, during the six months between the spring
+and autumn equinoxes, the rays of the rising and setting sun illuminated
+the northern face. Again, all the year round the sun's rays passed from
+the eastern to the western face at solar noon. And lastly, during seven
+months and a half of each year, namely, for three months and three
+quarters before and after midsummer, the noon rays of the sun fell on
+all four faces of the pyramid, or, according to a Peruvian expression
+(so Smyth avers), the sun shone on the pyramid 'with all his rays.' Such
+conditions as these might have been regarded as very suitable for a
+temple devoted to sun-worship. Yet the temple theory is as untenable as
+the tomb theory. For, in the first place, the pyramid form&mdash;as the
+pyramids were originally built, with perfectly smooth slant-faces, not
+terraced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> into steps as now through the loss of the casing-stones&mdash;was
+entirely unsuited for all the ordinary requirements of a temple of
+worship. And further, this theory gives no explanation of the fact that
+each king built a pyramid, and each king only one. Similar difficulties
+oppose the theory that the pyramids were intended to serve as
+astronomical observatories. For while their original figure, however
+manifestly astronomical in its relations, was quite unsuited for
+observatory work, it is manifest that if such had been the purpose of
+pyramid-building, so soon as the Great Pyramid had once been built, no
+other would be needed. Certainly none of the pyramids built afterwards
+could have subserved any astronomical purpose which the first did not
+subserve, or have subserved nearly so well as the Great Pyramid those
+purposes (and they are but few) which that building may be supposed to
+have fulfilled as an astronomical observatory.</p>
+
+<p>Of the other theories mentioned at the beginning of this paper none seem
+to merit special notice, except perhaps the theory that the pyramids
+were made to receive the royal treasures, and this theory rather because
+of the attention it received from Arabian literati, during the ninth and
+tenth centuries, than because of any strong reasons which can be
+suggested in its favour. 'Emulating,' says Professor Smyth, 'the
+enchanted tales of Bagdad,' the court poets of Al Mamoun (son of the
+far-famed Haroun al Raschid) 'drew gorgeous pictures of the contents of
+the pyramid's interior.... All the treasures of Sheddad Ben Ad the great
+Antediluvian king of the earth, with all his medicines and all his
+sciences, they declared were there, told over and over again. Others,
+though, were positive that the founder-king was no other than Saurid Ibn
+Salhouk, a far greater one than the other; and these last gave many more
+minute particulars, some of which are at least interesting to us in the
+present day, as proving that, amongst the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>Egypto-Arabians of more than
+a thousand years ago, the Jeezeh pyramids, headed by the grand one,
+enjoyed a pre-eminence of fame vastly before all the other pyramids of
+Egypt put together; and that if any other is alluded to after the Great
+Pyramid (which has always been the notable and favourite one, and
+chiefly was known then as the East pyramid), it is either the second one
+at Jeezeh, under the name of the West pyramid; or the third one,
+distinguished as the Coloured pyramid, in allusion to its red granite,
+compared with the white limestone casings of the other two (which,
+moreover, from their more near, but by no means exact, equality of size,
+went frequently under the affectionate designation of "the pair").'</p>
+
+<p>The report of Ibn Abd Alkohm, as to what was to be found in each of
+these three pyramids, or rather of what, according to him, was put into
+them originally by King Saurid, runs as follows: 'In the Western
+pyramid, thirty treasuries filled with store of riches and utensils, and
+with signatures made of precious stones, and with instruments of iron
+and vessels of earth, and with arms which rust not, and with glass which
+might be bended and yet not broken, and with strange spells, and with
+several kinds of <i>alakakirs</i> (magical precious stones) single and
+double, and with deadly poisons, and with other things besides. He made
+also in the East' (the Great Pyramid) 'divers celestial spheres and
+stars, and what they severally operate in their aspects, and the
+perfumes which are to be used to them, and the books which treat of
+these matters. He put also into the coloured pyramid the commentaries of
+the priests in chests of black marble, and with every priest a book, in
+which the wonders of his profession and of his actions and of his nature
+were written, and what was done in his time, and what is and what shall
+be from the beginning of time to the end of it.' The rest of this
+worthy's report relates<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> to certain treasurers placed within these three
+pyramids to guard their contents, and (like all or most of what I have
+already quoted) was a work of imagination. Ibn Abd Alkohm, in fact, was
+a romancist of the first water.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the strongest argument against the theory that the pyramids were
+intended as strongholds for the concealment of treasure, resides in the
+fact that, search being made, no treasure has been discovered. When the
+workmen employed by Caliph Al Mamoun, after encountering manifold
+difficulties, at length broke their way into the great ascending passage
+leading to the so-called King's Chamber, they found 'a right noble
+apartment, thirty-four feet long, seventeen broad, and nineteen high, of
+polished red granite throughout, walls, floor, and ceiling, in blocks
+squared and true, and put together with such exquisite skill that the
+joints are barely discernible to the closest inspection. But where is
+the treasure&mdash;the silver and the gold, the jewels, medicines, and
+arms?&mdash;These fanatics look wildly around them, but can see nothing, not
+a single <i>dirhem</i> anywhere. They trim their torches, and carry them
+again and again to every part of that red-walled, flinty hall, but
+without any better success. Nought but pure polished red granite, in
+mighty slabs, looks upon them from every side. The room is clean,
+garnished too, as it were, and, according to the ideas of its founders,
+complete and perfectly ready for its visitors so long expected, so long
+delayed. But the gross minds who occupy it now, find it all barren, and
+declare that there is nothing whatever for them in the whole extent of
+the apartment from one end to another; nothing except an empty stone
+chest without a lid.'</p>
+
+<p>It is, however, to be noted that we have no means of learning what had
+happened between the time when the pyramid was built and when Caliph Al
+Mamoun's workmen broke their way into the King's Chamber. The place
+may,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> after all, have contained treasures of some kind; nor, indeed, is
+it incompatible with other theories of the pyramid to suppose that it
+was used as a safe receptacle for treasures. It is certain, however,
+that this cannot have been the special purpose for which the pyramids
+were designed. We should find in such a purpose no explanation whatever
+of any of the most stringent difficulties encountered in dealing with
+other theories. There could be no reason why strangers from the East
+should be at special pains to instruct an Egyptian monarch how to hide
+and guard his treasures. Nor, if the Great Pyramid had been intended to
+receive the treasures of Cheops, would Chephren have built another for
+his own treasures, which must have included those gathered by Cheops.
+But, apart from this, how inconceivably vast must a treasure-hoard be
+supposed to be, the safe guarding of which would have repaid the
+enormous cost of the great Pyramid in labour and material! And then, why
+should a mere treasure-house have the characteristics of an astronomical
+observatory? Manifestly, if the pyramids were used at all to receive
+treasures, it can only have been as an entirely subordinate though
+perhaps convenient means of utilising these gigantic structures.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus gone through all the suggested purposes of the pyramids save
+two or three which clearly do not possess any claim to serious
+consideration, and having found none which appear to give any sufficient
+account of the history and principal features of these buildings, we
+must either abandon the inquiry or seek for some explanation quite
+different from any yet suggested. Let us consider what are the principal
+points of which the true theory of the pyramids should give an account.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the history of the pyramids shows that the erection
+of the first great pyramid was in all probability either suggested to
+Cheops by wise men who visited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> Egypt from the East, or else some
+important information conveyed to him by such visitors caused him to
+conceive the idea of building the pyramid. In either case we may
+suppose, as the history indeed suggests, that these learned men, whoever
+they may have been, remained in Egypt to superintend the erection of the
+structure. It may be that the architectural work was not under their
+supervision; in fact, it seems altogether unlikely that shepherd-rulers
+would have much to teach the Egyptians in the matter of architecture.
+But the astronomical peculiarities which form so significant a feature
+of the Great Pyramid were probably provided for entirely under the
+instructions of the shepherd chiefs who had exerted so strange an
+influence upon the mind of King Cheops.</p>
+
+<p>Next, it seems clear that self-interest must have been the predominant
+reason in the mind of the Egyptian king for undertaking this stupendous
+work. It is true that his change of religion implies that some higher
+cause influenced him. But a ruler who could inflict such grievous
+burdens on his people in carrying out his purpose that for ages
+afterwards his name was held in utter detestation, cannot have been
+solely or even chiefly influenced by religious motives. It affords an
+ample explanation of the behaviour of Cheops, in closing the temples and
+forsaking the religion of his country, to suppose that the advantages
+which he hoped to secure by building the pyramid depended in some way on
+his adopting this course. The visitors from the East may have refused to
+give their assistance on any other terms, or may have assured him that
+the expected benefit could not be obtained if the pyramid were erected
+by idolaters. It is certain, in any case, that they were opposed to
+idolatry; and we have thus some means of inferring who they were and
+whence they came. We know that one particular branch of one particular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+race in the East was characterised by a most marked hatred of idolatry
+in all its forms. Terah and his family, or, probably, a sect or division
+of the Chald&aelig;an people, went forth from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into
+the land of Canaan&mdash;and the reason why they went forth we learn from a
+book of considerable historical interest (the book of Judith) to have
+been because 'they would not worship the gods of their fathers who were
+in the land of the Chald&aelig;ans.' The Bible record shows that members of
+this branch of the Chald&aelig;an people visited Egypt from time to time. They
+were shepherds, too, which accords well with the account of Herodotus
+above quoted. We can well understand that persons of this family would
+have resisted all endeavours to secure their acquiescence in any scheme
+associated with idolatrous rites. Neither promises nor threats would
+have had much influence on them. It was a distinguished member of the
+family, the patriarch Abraham, who said: 'I have lift up mine hand unto
+the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I
+will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet, and that I will not
+take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram
+rich.' Vain would all the promises and all the threats of Cheops have
+been to men of this spirit. Such men might help him in his plans,
+suggested, as the history shows, by teachings of their own, but it must
+be on their own conditions, and those conditions would most certainly
+include the utter rejection of idolatrous worship by the king in whose
+behalf they worked, as well as by all who shared in their labours. It
+seems probable that they convinced both Cheops and Chephren, that unless
+these kings gave up idolatry, the purpose, whatever it was, which the
+pyramid was erected to promote, would not be fulfilled. The mere fact
+that the Great Pyramid was built either directly at the suggestion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> of
+these visitors, or because they had persuaded Cheops of the truth of
+some important doctrine, shows that they must have gained great
+influence over his mind. Rather we may say that he must have been so
+convinced of their knowledge and power as to have accepted with
+unquestioning confidence all that they told him respecting the
+particular subject over which they seemed to possess so perfect a
+mastery.</p>
+
+<p>But having formed the opinion, on grounds sufficiently assured, that the
+strangers who visited Egypt and superintended the building of the Great
+Pyramid were kinsmen of the patriarch Abraham, it is not very difficult
+to decide what was the subject respecting which they had such exact
+information. They or their parents had come from the land of the
+Chald&aelig;ans, and they were doubtless learned in all the wisdom of their
+Chald&aelig;an kinsmen. They were masters, in fact, of the astronomy of their
+day, a science for which the Chald&aelig;ans had shown from the earliest ages
+the most remarkable aptitude. What the actual extent of their
+astronomical knowledge may have been it would be difficult to say. But
+it is certain, from the exact knowledge which later Chald&aelig;ans possessed
+respecting long astronomical cycles, that astronomical observations must
+have been carried on continuously by that people for many hundreds of
+years. It is highly probable that the astronomical knowledge of the
+Chald&aelig;ans in the days of Terah and Abraham was much more accurate than
+that possessed by the Greeks even after the time of Hipparchus.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> We
+see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> indeed, in the accurate astronomical adjustment of the Great
+Pyramid, that the architects must have been skilful astronomers and
+mathematicians; and I may note here, in passing, how strongly this
+circumstance confirms the opinion that the visitors were kinsmen of
+Terah and Abraham. All we know from Herodotus and Manetho, all the
+evidence from the circumstances connected with the religion of the
+pyramid-kings, and the astronomical evidence given by the pyramids
+themselves, tends to assure us that members of that particular branch of
+the Chald&aelig;an family which went out from Ur of the Chaldees because they
+would not worship the gods of the Chald&aelig;ans, extended their wanderings
+to Egypt, and eventually superintended the erection of the Great Pyramid
+so far as astronomical and mathematical relations were concerned.</p>
+
+<p>But not only have we already decided that the pyramids were not intended
+solely or chiefly to sub serve the purpose of astronomical
+observatories, but it is certain that Cheops would not have been
+personally much interested in any astronomical information which these
+visitors might be able to communicate. Unless he saw clearly that
+something was to be gained from the lore of his visitors, he would not
+have undertaken to erect any astronomical buildings at their suggestion,
+even if he had cared enough for their knowledge to pay any attention to
+them whatever. Most probably the reply Cheops would have made to any
+communications respecting mere astronomy, would have run much in the
+style of the reply made by the Turkish Cadi, Imaum Ali Zad&egrave; to a friend
+of Layard's who had apparently bored him about double stars and comets:
+'Oh my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> soul! oh my lamb!' said Ali Zad&egrave;, 'seek not after the things
+which concern thee not. Thou camest unto us, and we welcomed thee: go in
+peace. Of a truth thou hast spoken many words; and there is no harm
+done, for the speaker is one and the listener is another. After the
+fashion of thy people thou hast wandered from one place to another until
+thou art happy and content in none. Listen, oh my son! There is no
+wisdom equal unto the belief in God! He created the world, and shall we
+liken ourselves unto Him in seeking to penetrate into the mysteries of
+His creation? Shall we say, Behold this star spinneth round that star,
+and this other star with a tail goeth and cometh in so many years! Let
+it go! He from whose hand it came will guide and direct it. But thou
+wilt say unto me, Stand aside, oh man, for I am more learned than thou
+art, and have seen more things. If thou thinkest that thou art in this
+respect better than I am, thou art welcome. I praise God that I seek not
+that which I require not. Thou art learned in the things I care not for;
+and as for that which thou hast seen, I defile it. Will much knowledge
+create thee a double belly, or wilt thou seek paradise with thine eyes?'
+Such, omitting the references to the Creator, would probably have been
+the reply of Cheops to his visitors, had they only had astronomical
+facts to present him with. Or, in the plenitude of his kingly power, he
+might have more decisively rejected their teaching by removing their
+heads.</p>
+
+<p>But the shepherd-astronomers had knowledge more attractive to offer than
+a mere series of astronomical discoveries. Their ancestors had</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Watched from the centres of their sleeping flocks<br />
+Those radiant Mercuries, that seemed to move<br />
+Carrying through &aelig;ther in perpetual round<br />
+Decrees and resolutions of the gods;<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p><p>and though the visitors of King Cheops had themselves rejected the
+Sabaistic polytheism of their kinsmen, they had not rejected the
+doctrine that the stars in their courses affect the fortunes of men. We
+know that among the Jews, probably the direct descendants of the
+shepherd-chiefs who visited Cheops, and certainly close kinsmen of
+theirs, and akin to them also in their monotheism, the belief in
+astrology was never regarded as a superstition. In fact, we can trace
+very clearly in the books relating to this people that they believed
+confidently in the influences of the heavenly bodies. Doubtless the
+visitors of King Cheops shared the belief of their Chald&aelig;an kinsmen that
+astrology is a true science, 'founded' indeed (as Bacon expresses their
+views) 'not in reason and physical contemplations, but in the direct
+experience and observation of past ages.' Josephus records the Jewish
+tradition (though not as a tradition but as a fact) that 'our first
+father, Adam, was instructed in astrology by divine inspiration,' and
+that Seth so excelled in the science, that, 'foreseeing the Flood and
+the destruction of the world thereby, he engraved the fundamental
+principles of his art (astrology) in hieroglyphical emblems, for the
+benefit of after ages, on two pillars of brick and stone.' He says
+farther on that the Patriarch Abraham, 'having learned the art in
+Chald&aelig;a, when he journeyed into Egypt taught the Egyptians the sciences
+of arithmetic and astrology.' Indeed, the stranger called Philitis by
+Herodotus may, for aught that appears, have been Abraham himself; for it
+is generally agreed that the word Philitis indicated the race and
+country of the visitors, regarded by the Egyptians as of Philistine
+descent and arriving from Palestine. However, I am in no way concerned
+to show that the shepherd-astronomers who induced Cheops to build the
+Great Pyramid were even contemporaries of Abraham and Melchizedek. What
+seems sufficiently obvious is all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> that I care to maintain, namely, that
+these shepherd-astronomers were of Chald&aelig;an birth and training, and
+therefore astrologers, though, unlike their Chald&aelig;an kinsmen, they
+rejected Sabaism or star-worship, and taught the belief in one only
+Deity.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if these visitors were astrologers, who persuaded Cheops, and were
+honestly convinced themselves, that they could predict the events of any
+man's life by the Chald&aelig;an method of casting nativities, we can readily
+understand many circumstances connected with the pyramids which have
+hitherto seemed inexplicable. The pyramid built by a king would no
+longer be regarded as having reference to his death and burial, but to
+his birth and life, though after his death it might receive his body.
+Each king would require to have his own nativity-pyramid, built with due
+symbolical reference to the special celestial influences affecting his
+fortunes. Every portion of the work would have to be carried out under
+special conditions, determined according to the mysterious influences
+ascribed to the different planets and their varying positions&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">now high, now low, then hid.</span><br />
+Progressive, retrograde, or standing still.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>If the work had been intended only to afford the means of predicting the
+king's future, the labour would have been regarded by the monarch as
+well bestowed. But astrology involved much more than the mere prediction
+of future events. Astrologers claimed the power of ruling the
+planets&mdash;that is, of course, not of ruling the motions of those bodies,
+but of providing against evil influences or strengthening good
+influences which they supposed the celestial orbs to exert in particular
+aspects. Thus we can understand that while the mere basement layers of
+the pyramid would have served for the process of casting the royal
+nativity,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> with due mystic observances, the further progress of building
+the pyramid would supply the necessary means and indications for ruling
+the planets most potent in their influence upon the royal career.</p>
+
+<p>Remembering the mysterious influence which astrologers ascribed to
+special numbers, figures, positions, and so forth, the care with which
+the Great Pyramid was so proportioned as to indicate particular
+astronomical and mathematical relations is at once explained. The four
+sides of the square base were carefully placed with reference to the
+cardinal points, precisely like the four sides of the ordinary square
+scheme of nativity.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> The eastern side faced the Ascendant, the
+southern faced the Mid-heaven, the western faced the Descendant, and the
+northern faced the Imum C&#339;li. Again, we can understand that the
+architects would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> have made a circuit of the base correspond in length
+with the number of days in the year&mdash;a relation which, according to
+Prof. P. Smyth, is fulfilled in this manner, that the four sides contain
+one hundred times as many pyramid inches as there are days in the year.
+The pyramid inch, again, is itself mystically connected with
+astronomical relations, for its length is equal to the five hundred
+millionth part of the earth's diameter, to a degree of exactness
+corresponding well with what we might expect Chald&aelig;an astronomers to
+attain. Prof. Smyth, indeed, believes that it was exactly equal to that
+proportion of the earth's polar diameter&mdash;a view which would correspond
+with his theory that the architects of the Great Pyramid were assisted
+by divine inspiration; but what is certainly known about the sacred
+cubit, which contained twenty-five of these inches, corresponds better
+with the diameter which the Chald&aelig;an astronomers, if they worked very
+carefully, would have deduced from observations made in their own
+country, on the supposition which they would naturally have made that
+the earth is a perfect globe, not compressed at the poles. It is not
+indeed at all certain that the sacred cubit bore any reference to the
+earth's dimensions; but this seems tolerably well made out&mdash;that the
+sacred cubit was about 25 inches in length, and that the circuit of the
+pyramid's base contained a hundred inches for every day of the year.
+Relations such as these are precisely what we might expect to find in
+buildings having an astrological significance. Similarly, it would
+correspond well with the mysticism of astrology that the pyramid should
+be so proportioned as to make the height be the radius of a circle whose
+circumference would equal the circuit of the pyramid's base. Again, that
+long slant tunnel, leading downwards from the pyramid's northern face,
+would at once find a meaning in this astrological theory. The slant
+tunnel pointed to the pole-star<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> of Cheops' time, when due north below
+the true pole of the heavens. This circumstance had no observational
+utility. It could afford no indication of time, because a pole-star
+moves very slowly, and the pole-star of Cheops' day must have been in
+view through that tunnel for more than an hour at a time. But, apart
+from the mystical significance which an astrologer would attribute to
+such a relation, it may be shown that this slant tunnel is precisely
+what the astrologer would require in order to get the horoscope
+correctly.</p>
+
+<p>Another consideration remains to be mentioned which, while strengthening
+the astrological theory of the pyramids, may bring us even nearer to the
+true aim of those who planned and built these structures.</p>
+
+<p>It is known also that the Chald&aelig;ans from the earliest times pursued the
+study of alchemy in connection with astrology, not hoping to discover
+the philosopher's stone by chemical investigations alone, but by
+carrying out such investigations under special celestial influence. The
+hope of achieving this discovery, by which he would at once have had the
+means of acquiring illimitable wealth, would of itself account for the
+fact that Cheops expended so much labour and material in the erection of
+the Great Pyramid, seeing that, of necessity, success in the search for
+the philosopher's stone would be a main feature of his fortunes, and
+would therefore be astrologically indicated in his nativity-pyramid, or
+perhaps even be secured by following mystical observances proper for
+ruling his planets.</p>
+
+<p>The elixir of life may also have been among the objects which the
+builders of the pyramids hoped to discover.</p>
+
+<p>It may be noticed, as a somewhat significant circumstance, that, in the
+account given by Ibn Abd Alkohm of the contents of the various pyramids,
+those assigned to the Great Pyramid relate entirely to astrology and
+associated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> mysteries. It is, of course, clear that Abd Alkohm drew
+largely on his imagination. Yet it seems probable that there was also
+some basis of tradition for his ideas. And certainly one would suppose
+that, as he assigned a treasurer to the East pyramid ('a statue of black
+agate, his eyes open and shining, sitting on a throne with a lance'), he
+would have credited the building with treasure also, had not some
+tradition taught otherwise. But he says that King Saurid placed in the
+East pyramid, not treasures, but 'divers celestial spheres and stars,
+and what they severally operate in their aspects, and the perfumes which
+are to be used to them, and the books which treat of these matters.'<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
+
+<p>But, after all, it must be admitted that the strongest evidence in
+favour of the astrological (and alchemical) theory of the pyramids is to
+be found in the circumstance that all other theories seem untenable. The
+pyramids were undoubtedly erected for some purpose which was regarded by
+their builders as most important. This purpose certainly related to the
+personal fortunes of the kingly builders. It was worth an enormous
+outlay of money, labour, and material. This purpose was such,
+furthermore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> that each king required to have his own pyramid. It was in
+some way associated with astronomy, for the pyramids are built with most
+accurate reference to celestial aspects. It also had its mathematical
+and mystical bearings, seeing that the pyramids exhibit mathematical and
+symbolical peculiarities not belonging to their essentially structural
+requirements. And lastly, the erection of the pyramids was in some way
+connected with the arrival of certain learned persons from Palestine,
+and presumably of Chald&aelig;an origin. All these circumstances accord well
+with the theory I have advanced; while only some of them, and these not
+the most characteristic, accord with any of the other theories.
+Moreover, no fact known respecting the pyramids or their builders is
+inconsistent with the astrological (and alchemical) theory. On the
+whole, then, if it cannot be regarded as demonstrated (in its general
+bearing, of course, for we cannot expect any theory about the pyramids
+to be established in minute details), the astrological theory may fairly
+be described as having a greater degree of probability in its favour
+than any hitherto advanced.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
+<h3>IV.<br />
+
+<i>SWEDENBORG'S VISIONS OF OTHER WORLDS.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">If</span> it were permitted to men to select a sign whereby they should know
+that a message came from the Supreme Being, probably the man of science
+would select for the sign the communication of some scientific fact
+beyond the knowledge of the day, but admitting of being readily put to
+the test. The evidence thus obtained in favour of a revelation would
+correspond in some sense to that depending on prophecies; but it would
+be more satisfactory to men having that particular mental bent which is
+called the scientific. Whether this turn of mind is inherent or the
+result of training, it certainly leads men of science to be more
+exacting in considering the value of evidence than any men, except
+perhaps lawyers. In the case of the student of science, St. Paul's
+statement that 'prophecies' 'shall fail' has been fulfilled, whereas it
+may be doubted whether evidence from 'knowledge' would in like manner
+'vanish away.' On the contrary, it would grow stronger and stronger, as
+knowledge from observation, from experiment, and from calculation
+continually increased. It can scarcely be said that this has happened
+with such quasi-scientific statements as have actually been associated
+with revelation. If we regard St. Paul's reference to knowledge as
+relating to such statements as these, then nothing could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> be more
+complete than the fulfilment of his own prediction, 'Whether there be
+prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease;
+whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.' The evidence from
+prophecies fails for the exact inquirer, who perceives the doubts which
+exist (among the most earnest believers) as to the exact meaning of the
+prophetic words, and even in some cases as to whether prophecies have
+been long since fulfilled or relate to events still to come. The
+evidence from 'tongues' has ceased, and those are dust who are said to
+have spoken in strange tongues. The knowledge which was once thought
+supernatural has utterly vanished away. But if, in the ages of faith,
+some of the results of modern scientific research had been revealed, as
+the laws of the solar system, the great principle of the conservation of
+energy, or the wave theory of light, or if some of the questions which
+still remain for men of science to solve had been answered in those
+times, the evidence for the student of science would have been
+irresistible. Of course he will be told that even then he would have
+hardened his heart; that the inquiry after truth tending naturally to
+depravity of mind, he would reject even evidence based on his beloved
+laws of probability; that his 'wicked and adulterous generation seeketh
+"in vain" after a sign,' and that if he will not accept Moses and the
+prophets, neither would he believe though one rose from the dead. Still
+the desire of the student of science to base his faith on convincing
+evidence (in a matter as important to him as to those who abuse him)
+does seem to have something reasonable in it after all. The mental
+qualities which cause him to be less easily satisfied than others, came
+to him in the same way as his bodily qualities; and even if the result
+to which his mental training leads him is as unfortunate as some
+suppose, that training is not strictly speaking so heinously sinful that
+nothing short<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> of the eternal reprobation meted out to him by earthly
+judges can satisfy divine justice. So that it may be thought not a
+wholly unpardonable sin to speak of a sign which, had it been accorded,
+would have satisfied even the most exacting student of science. Apart,
+too, from all question of faith, the mere scientific interest of
+divinely inspired communications respecting natural laws and processes
+would justify a student of science in regarding them as most desirable
+messages from a being of superior wisdom and benevolence. If prophecies
+and tongues, why not knowledge, as evidence of a divine mission?</p>
+
+<p>Such thoughts are suggested by the claim of some religious teachers to
+the possession of knowledge other than that which they could have gained
+by natural means. The claim has usually been quite honest. The teacher
+of religion tests the reality of his mission in simple <i>&agrave; priori</i>
+confidence that he has such a mission, and that therefore some one or
+other of the tests he applies will afford the required evidence. To one,
+says St. Paul, is given the word of wisdom; to another, the word of
+knowledge; to another, faith; to another, the gift of healing; to
+another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, the
+discerning of spirits; to another, divers kinds of tongues: and so
+forth. If a man like Mahomet, who believes in his mission to teach,
+finds that he cannot satisfactorily work miracles&mdash;that mountains will
+not be removed at his bidding&mdash;then some other evidence satisfies him of
+the reality of his mission. Swedenborg, than whom, perhaps, no more
+honest man ever lived, said and believed that to him had been granted
+the discerning of spirits. 'It is to be observed,' he said, 'that a man
+may be instructed by spirits and angels if his interiors be so open as
+to enable him to speak and be in company with them, for man in his
+essence is a spirit, and is with spirits as to his interiors; so that
+he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> whose interiors are opened by the Lord may converse with them, as
+man with man. <i>This privilege I have enjoyed daily now for twelve
+years.</i>'</p>
+
+<p>It indicates the fulness of Swedenborg's belief in this privilege that
+he did not hesitate to describe what the spirits taught him respecting
+matters which belong rather to science than to faith; though it must be
+admitted that probably he supposed there was small reason for believing
+that his statements could ever be tested by the results of scientific
+research. The objects to which his spiritual communications related were
+conveniently remote. I do not say this as desiring for one moment to
+suggest that he purposely selected those objects, and not others which
+might be more readily examined. He certainly believed in the reality of
+the communications he described. But possibly there is some law in
+things visionary, corresponding to the law of mental operation with
+regard to scientific theories; and as the mind theorises freely about a
+subject little understood, but cautiously where many facts have been
+ascertained, so probably exact knowledge of a subject prevents the
+operation of those illusions which are regarded as supernatural
+communications. It is in a dim light only that the active imagination
+pictures objects which do not really exist; in the clear light of day
+they can no longer be imagined. So it is with mental processes.</p>
+
+<p>Probably there is no subject more suitable in this sense for the
+visionary than that of life in other worlds. It has always had an
+attraction for imaginative minds, simply because it is enwrapped in so
+profound a mystery; and there has been little to restrain the fancy,
+because so little is certainly known of the physical condition of other
+worlds. Recently, indeed, a somewhat sudden and severe check has been
+placed on the liveliness of imagination which had enabled men formerly
+to picture to themselves the inhabitants<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> of other orbs in space.
+Spectroscopic analysis and exact telescopic scrutiny will not permit
+some speculations to be entertained which formerly met with favour. Yet
+even now there has been but a slight change of scene and time. If men
+can no longer imagine inhabitants of one planet because it is too hot,
+or of another because it is too cold, of one body because it is too
+deeply immersed in vaporous masses, or of another because it has neither
+atmosphere nor water, we have only to speculate about the unseen worlds
+which circle round those other suns, the stars; or, instead of changing
+the region of space where we imagine worlds, we can look backward to the
+time when planets now cold and dead were warm with life, or forward to
+the distant future when planets now glowing with fiery heat shall have
+cooled down to a habitable condition.</p>
+
+<p>Swedenborg's imaginative mind seems to have fully felt the charm of this
+interesting subject. It was, indeed, because of the charm which he found
+in it, that he was readily persuaded into the belief that knowledge had
+been supernaturally communicated to him respecting it. 'Because I had a
+desire,' he says, 'to know if there are other earths, and to learn their
+nature and the character of their inhabitants, it was granted me by the
+Lord to converse and have intercourse with spirits and angels who had
+come from other earths, with some for a day, with some for a week, and
+with some for months. From them I have received information respecting
+the earths from and near which they are, the modes of life, customs and
+worship of their inhabitants, besides various other particulars of
+interest, all which, having come to my knowledge in this way, I can
+describe as things which I have seen and heard.'</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting (psychologically) to notice how the reasoning which
+had convinced Swedenborg of the existence of other inhabited worlds is
+attributed by him to the spirits.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> 'It is well known in the other life,'
+he says, 'that there are many earths with men upon them; for there (that
+is, in the spiritual life) every one who, from a love of truth and
+consequent use, desires it, is allowed to converse with the spirits of
+other earths, so as to be assured that there is a plurality of worlds,
+and be informed that the human race is not confined to one earth only,
+but extends to numberless earths.... I have occasionally conversed on
+this subject with the spirits of our earth, and the result of our
+conversation was that a man of enlarged understanding may conclude from
+various considerations that there are many earths with human inhabitants
+upon them. For it is an inference of reason that masses so great as the
+planets are, some of which exceed this earth in magnitude, are not empty
+bodies, created only to be carried in their motion round the sun, and to
+shine with their scanty light for the benefit of one earth only; but
+that they must have a nobler use. He who believes, as every one ought to
+believe, that the Deity created the universe for no other end than the
+existence of the human race, and of heaven from it (for the human race
+is the seminary of heaven), must also believe that wherever there is an
+earth there are human inhabitants. That the planets which are visible to
+us, being within the boundary of our solar system, are earths, may
+appear from various considerations. They are bodies of earthy matter,
+because they reflect the sun's light, and when seen through the
+telescope appear, not as stars shining with a flaming lustre, but as
+earths, variegated with obscure spots. Like our earth, they are carried
+round the sun by a progressive motion, through the path of the Zodiac,
+whence they have years and seasons of the year, which are spring,
+summer, autumn, and winter; and they rotate upon their axes, which makes
+days, and times of the day, as morning, midday, evening, and night. Some
+of them also have satellites,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> which perform their revolutions about
+their globes, as the moon does about ours. The planet Saturn, as being
+farthest from the sun, has besides an immense luminous ring, which
+supplies that earth with much, though reflected, light. How is it
+possible for anyone acquainted with these facts, and who thinks from
+reason, to assert that such bodies are uninhabited?'</p>
+
+<p>Remembering that this reasoning was urged by the spirits, and that
+during twelve years Swedenborg's interiors had been opened in such sort
+that he could converse with spirits from other worlds, it is surprising
+that he should have heard nothing about Uranus or Neptune, to say
+nothing of the zone of asteroids, or again, of planets as yet unknown
+which may exist outside the path of Neptune. He definitely commits
+himself, it will be observed, to the statement that Saturn is the planet
+farthest from the sun. And elsewhere, in stating where in these
+spiritual communications the 'idea' of each planet was conceived to be
+situated, he leaves no room whatever for Uranus and Neptune, and makes
+no mention of other bodies in the solar system than those known in his
+day. This cannot have been because the spirits from then unknown planets
+did not feel themselves called upon to communicate with the spirit of
+one who knew nothing of their home, for he received visitors from worlds
+in the starry heavens far beyond human ken. It would almost seem, though
+to the faithful Swedenborgian the thought will doubtless appear very
+wicked, that the system of Swedenborg gave no place to Uranus and
+Neptune, simply because he knew nothing about those planets. Otherwise,
+what a noble opportunity there would have been for establishing the
+truth of Swedenborgian doctrines by revealing to the world the existence
+of planets hitherto unknown. Before the reader pronounces this a task
+beneath the dignity of the spirits and angels who taught Swedenborg<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> it
+will be well for him to examine the news which they actually imparted.</p>
+
+<p>I may as well premise, however, that it does not seem to me worth while
+to enter here at any length into Swedenborg's descriptions of the
+inhabitants of other worlds, because what he has to say on this subject
+is entirely imaginative. There is a real interest for us in his ideas
+respecting the condition of the planets, because those ideas were based
+(though unconsciously) upon the science of his day, in which he was no
+mean proficient. And even where his mysticism went beyond what his
+scientific attainments suggested, a psychological interest attaches to
+the workings of his imagination. It is as curious a problem to trace his
+ideas to their origin as it sometimes is to account for the various
+phases of a fantastic dream, such a dream, for instance, as that which
+Armadale, the doctor, and Midwinter, in 'Armadale,' endeavour to connect
+with preceding events. But Swedenborg's visions of the behaviour and
+appearance of the inhabitants of other earths have little interest,
+because it is hopeless to attempt to account for even their leading
+features. For instance, what can we make of such a passage as the
+following, relating to the spirits who came from Mercury?&mdash;'Some of them
+are desirous to appear, not like the spirits of other earths as men, but
+as crystalline globes. Their desire to appear so, although they do not,
+arises from the circumstance that the knowledges of things immaterial
+are in the other life represented by crystals.'</p>
+
+<p>Yet some even of these more fanciful visions significantly indicate the
+nature of Swedenborg's philosophy. One can recognise his disciples and
+his opponents among the inhabitants of various favoured and unhappy
+worlds, and one perceives how the wiser and more dignified of his
+spiritual visitors are made to advocate his own views, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> to deride
+those of his adversaries. Some of the teachings thus circuitously
+advanced are excellent.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, Swedenborg's description of the inhabitants of Mercury and
+their love of abstract knowledge contains an instructive lesson. 'The
+spirits of Mercury imagine,' he says, 'that they know so much, that it
+is almost impossible to know more. But it has been told them by the
+spirits of our earth, that they do not know many things, but few, and
+that the things which they know not are comparatively infinite, and in
+relation to those they do know are as the waters of the largest ocean to
+those of the smallest fountain; and further, that the first advance to
+wisdom is to know, acknowledge, and perceive that what we do know,
+compared with what we do not know, is so little as hardly to amount to
+anything.'<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> So far we may suppose that Swedenborg presents his own
+ideas, seeing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> that he is describing what has been told the Mercurial
+spirits by the spirits of our earth, of whom (during these spiritual
+conversations) he was one. But he proceeds to describe how angels were
+allowed to converse with the Mercurial spirits in order to convince them
+of their error. 'I saw another angel,' says he, after describing one
+such conversation, 'conversing with them; he appeared at some altitude
+to the right; he was from our earth, and he enumerated very many things
+of which they were ignorant.... As they had been proud on account of
+their knowledges, on hearing this they began to humble themselves. Their
+humiliation was represented by the sinking of the company which they
+formed, for that company then appeared as a volume or roll, ... as if
+hollowed in the middle and raised at the sides.... They were told what
+that signified, that is, what they thought in their humiliation, and
+that those who appeared elevated at the sides were not as yet in any
+humiliation. Then I saw that the volume was separated, and that those
+who were not in humiliation were remanded back towards their earth, the
+rest remaining.'</p>
+
+<p>Little being known to Swedenborg, as indeed little is known to the
+astronomers of our own time, about Mercury, we find little in the
+visions relating to that planet which possesses any scientific interest.
+He asked the inhabitants who were brought to him in visions about the
+sun of the system, and they replied that it looks larger from Mercury
+than as seen from other worlds. This of course was no news to
+Swedenborg. They explained further, that the inhabitants enjoy a
+moderate temperature, without extremes of heat or cold. 'It was given to
+me,' proceeds Swedenborg, 'to tell them that it was so provided by the
+Lord, that they might not be exposed to excessive heat from their
+greater proximity to the sun, since heat does not arise from the sun's
+nearness, but from the height and density of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> atmosphere, as appears
+from the cold on high mountains even in hot climates; also that heat is
+varied according to the direct or oblique incidence of the sun's rays,
+as is plain from the seasons of winter and summer in every region.' It
+is curious to find thus advanced, in a sort of lecture addressed to
+visionary Mercurials, a theory which crops up repeatedly in the present
+day, because the difficulty which suggests it is dealt with so
+unsatisfactorily for the most part in our text-books of science.
+Continually we hear of some new paradoxist who propounds as a novel
+doctrine the teaching that the atmosphere, and not the sun, is the cause
+of heat. The mistake was excusable in Swedenborg's time. In fact it so
+chanced that, apart from the obvious fact on which the mistake is
+usually based&mdash;the continued presence, namely, of snow on the summits of
+high mountains even in the torrid zone&mdash;it had been shown shortly before
+by Newton, that the light fleecy clouds seen sometimes even in the
+hottest weather above the wool-pack or cumulus clouds are composed of
+minute crystals of ice. Seeing that these tiny crystals can exist under
+the direct rays of the sun in hot summer weather, many find it difficult
+to understand how those rays can of themselves have any heating power.
+Yet in reality the reasoning addressed by Swedenborg to his Mercurial
+friends was entirely erroneous. If he could have adventured as far forth
+into time as he did into space, and could have attended in the spirit
+the lectures of one John Tyndall, a spirit of our earth, he would have
+had this matter rightly explained to him. In reality the sun's heat is
+as effective directly at the summit of the highest mountain as at the
+sea-level. A thermometer exposed to the sun in the former position
+indicates indeed a slightly higher temperature than one similarly
+exposed to the sun (when at the same altitude) at the sea-level. But the
+air does not get warmed to the same degree, simply<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> because, owing to
+its rarity and relative dryness, it fails to retain any portion of the
+heat which passes through it.</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting to notice how Swedenborg's scientific conceptions of
+the result of the (relatively) airless condition of our moon suggested
+peculiar fancies respecting the lunar inhabitants. Interesting, I mean,
+psychologically: for it is curious to see scientific and fanciful
+conceptions thus unconsciously intermingled. Of the conscious
+intermingling of such conceptions instances are common enough. The
+effects of the moon's airless condition have been often made the subject
+of fanciful speculations. The reader will remember how Scheherazade, in
+'The Poet at the Breakfast Table,' runs on about the moon. 'Her delight
+was unbounded, and her curiosity insatiable. If there were any living
+creatures there, what odd things they must be. They couldn't have any
+lungs nor any hearts. What a pity! Did they ever die? How could they
+expire if they didn't breathe? Burn up? No air to burn in. Tumble into
+some of those horrid pits, perhaps, and break all to bits. She wondered
+how the young people there liked it, or whether there were any young
+people there. Perhaps nobody was young and nobody was old, but they were
+like mummies all of them&mdash;what an idea!&mdash;two mummies making love to each
+other! So she went on in a rattling, giddy kind of way, for she was
+excited by the strange scene in which she found herself, and quite
+astonished the young astronomer with her vivacity.' But Swedenborg's
+firm belief that the fancies engendered in his mind were scientific
+realities is very different from the conscious play of fancy in the
+passage just quoted. It must be remembered that Swedenborg regarded his
+visions with as much confidence as though they were revelations made by
+means of scientific instruments; nay, with even more confidence, for he
+knew that scientific observations may be misunderstood,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> whereas he was
+fully persuaded that his visions were miraculously provided for his
+enlightenment, and that therefore he would not be allowed to
+misunderstand aught that was thus revealed to him.</p>
+
+<p>'It is well known to spirits and angels,' he says, 'that there are
+inhabitants in the moon, and in the moons or satellites which revolve
+about Jupiter and Saturn. Even those who have not seen and conversed
+with spirits who are from them entertain no doubt of their being
+inhabited, for they, too, are earths, and where there is an earth there
+is man; man being the end for which every earth exists, and without an
+end nothing was made by the Great Creator. Every one who thinks from
+reason in any degree enlightened, must see that the human race is the
+final cause of creation.'</p>
+
+<p>The moon being inhabited then by human beings, but being very
+insufficiently supplied with air, it necessarily follows that these
+human beings must be provided in some way with the means of existing in
+that rare and tenuous atmosphere. Tremendous powers of inspiration and
+expiration would be required to make that air support the life of the
+human body. Although Swedenborg could have had no knowledge of the exact
+way in which breathing supports life (for Priestley was his junior by
+nearly half a century), yet he must clearly have perceived that the
+quantity of air inspired has much to do with the vitalising power of the
+indraught. No ordinary human lungs could draw in an adequate supply of
+air from such an atmosphere as the moon's; but by some great increase of
+breathing power it might be possible to live there: at least, in
+Swedenborg's time there was no reason for supposing otherwise. Reason,
+then, having convinced him that the lunar inhabitants must possess
+extraordinary breathing apparatus, and presumably most powerful voices,
+imagination presented them to him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> accordingly. 'Some spirits appeared
+overhead,' he says, 'and thence were heard voices like thunder; for
+their voices sounded precisely like thunder from the clouds after
+lightning. I supposed it was a great multitude of spirits who had the
+art of giving voices with such a sound. The more simple spirits who were
+with me derided them, which greatly surprised me. But the cause of their
+derision was soon discovered, which was, that the spirits who thundered
+were not many, but few, and were as little as children, and that on
+former occasions they (the thunderers) had terrified them by such
+sounds, and yet were unable to do them the least harm. That I might know
+their character, some of them descended from on high, where they
+thundered; and, what surprised me, one carried another on his back, and
+the two thus approached me. Their faces appeared not unhandsome, but
+longer than those of other spirits. In stature they were like children
+of seven years old, but the frame was more robust, so that they were
+like men. It was told me by the angels that they were from the moon. He
+who was carried by the other came to me, applying himself to my left
+side under the elbow, and thence spoke. He said, that when they utter
+their voices they thunder in this way,'&mdash;and it seems likely enough that
+if there are any living speaking beings in the moon, their voice, could
+they visit the earth, would be found to differ very markedly from the
+ordinary human voice. 'In the spiritual world their thunderous voices
+have their use. For by their thundering the spirits from the moon
+terrify spirits who are inclined to injure them, so that the lunar
+spirits go in safety where they will. To convince me the sound they make
+was of this kind, he (the spirit who was carried by the other) retired,
+but not out of sight, and thundered in like manner. They showed,
+moreover, that the voice was thundered by being uttered from the abdomen
+like an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> eructation. It was perceived that this arose from the
+circumstance that the inhabitants of the moon do not, like the
+inhabitants of other earths, speak from the lungs, but from the abdomen,
+and thus from air collected there, the reason of which is that the
+atmosphere with which the moon is surrounded is not like that of other
+earths.'</p>
+
+<p>In his intercourse with spirits from Jupiter, Swedenborg heard of
+animals larger than those that live on the earth. It has been a
+favourite idea of many believers in other worlds than ours, that though
+in each world the same races of animals exist, they would be differently
+proportioned; and there has been much speculation as to the probable
+size of men and other animals in worlds much larger or much smaller than
+the earth. When as yet ideas about other worlds were crude, the idea
+prevailed that giants exist in the larger orbs, and pygmies in the
+smaller. Whether this idea had its origin in conceptions as to the
+eternal fitness of things or not, does not clearly appear. It seems
+certainly at first view natural enough to suppose that the larger beings
+would want more room and so inhabit the larger dwelling-places. It was a
+pleasing thought that, if we could visit Jupiter or Saturn, we should
+find the human inhabitants there</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons;<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>but that if we could visit our moon or Mercury, or whatever smaller
+worlds there are, we should find men</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room<br />
+Throng numberless, like that pygm&aelig;an race<br />
+Beyond the Indian mount; or fairy elves,<br />
+Whose midnight revels, by a forest side<br />
+Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,<br />
+Or dreams he sees.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Later the theory was started that the size of beings in various worlds
+depends on the amount of light received<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> from the central sun. Thus
+Wolfius asserted that the inhabitants of Jupiter are nearly fourteen
+feet high, which he proved by comparing the quantity of sunlight which
+reaches the Jovians with that which we Terrenes receive. Recently,
+however, it has been noted that the larger the planet, the smaller in
+all probability must be the inhabitants, if any. For if there are two
+planets of the same density but unequal size, gravity must be greater at
+the surface of the larger planet, and where gravity is great large
+animals are cumbered by their weight. It is easy to see this by
+comparing the muscular strength of two men similarly proportioned, but
+unequal in height. Suppose one man five feet in height, the other six;
+then the cross section of any given muscle will be less for the former
+than for the latter in the proportion of twenty-five (five times five)
+to thirty-six (six times six). Roughly, the muscular strength of the
+bigger man will be half as great again as that of the smaller. But the
+weights of the men will be proportioned as 125 (five times five times
+five) to 216 (six times six times six), so that the weight of the bigger
+man exceeds that of the smaller nearly as seven exceeds four, or by
+three-fourths. The taller man exceeds the smaller, then, much more in
+weight than he does in strength; he is accordingly less active in
+proportion to his size. Within certain limits, of course, size increases
+a man's effective as well as his real strength. For instance, our tall
+man in the preceding illustration cannot lift his own weight as readily
+as the small man can lift his; but he can lift a weight of three hundred
+pounds as easily as the small man can lift a weight of two hundred
+pounds. When we get beyond certain limits of height, however, we get
+absolute weakness as the result of the increase of weight. Swift's
+Brobdingnags, for instance, would have been unable to stand upright; for
+they were six times as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> tall as men, and therefore each Brobdingnag
+would have weighed 216 times as much as a man, but would have possessed
+only thirty-six times the muscular power. Their weight would have been
+greater, then, in a sixfold greater degree than their strength, and, so
+far as their mere weight was concerned, their condition would have
+resembled that of an ordinary man under a load five times exceeding his
+own weight. As no man could walk or stand upright under such a load, so
+the Brobdingnags would have been powerless to move, despite, or rather
+because of, their enormous stature. Applying the general considerations
+here enunciated to the question of the probable size of creatures like
+ourselves in other planets, we see that men in Jupiter should be much
+smaller, men in Mercury much larger, than men on the earth. So also with
+other animals.</p>
+
+<p>But Swedenborg's spirit visitors from these planets taught differently.
+'The horses of our earth,' he says, 'when seen by the spirits of
+Jupiter, appeared to me smaller than usual, though rather robust; which
+arose from the idea those spirits had respecting them. They informed me
+that among them there are animals similar, though much larger; but that
+they are wild, and in the woods, and that when they come in sight they
+cause terror though they are harmless; they added that their terror of
+them is natural or innate.'<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> On the other hand the inhabitants of
+Mercury, who might be thirteen feet high yet as active as our men,
+appeared slenderer than Terrene men. 'I was desirous to know,' says
+Swedenborg, 'what kind of face and person the people in Mercury have,
+compared with those of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> people on our earth. There therefore stood
+before me a female exactly resembling the women on that earth. Her face
+was beautiful, but it was smaller than that of a woman of our earth; she
+was more slender, but of equal height; she wore a linen head-dress, not
+artfully yet gracefully disposed. A man also was presented. He, too, was
+more slender than the men of our earth; he wore a garment of deep blue,
+closely fitted to his body without folds or flowing skirts. Such, I
+learn, were the personal form and costume of the humans of that earth.
+Afterwards there was shown me a species of the oxen and cows, which did
+not indeed differ much from those on our earth, except that they were
+smaller, and made some approach to the stag and hind species.' We have
+seen, too, that the lunar spirits were no larger than children seven
+years old.</p>
+
+<p>One passage of Swedenborg's description of Jupiter is curious. 'Although
+on that earth,' he says, 'spirits speak with men' (<i>i.e.</i> with Jovian
+men) 'man in his turn does not speak with spirits, except to say, when
+instructed, <i>that he will do so no more</i>,'&mdash;which we should regard as a
+bull if it were not news from the Jovian spirit world. 'Nor is man
+allowed to tell anyone that a spirit has spoken to him; if he does so,
+he is punished. Those spirits of Jupiter when they were with me, at
+first supposed they were with a man of their own earth; but when in my
+turn I spoke with them, and thought of publishing what passed between us
+and so relating it to others, then, because they were not allowed to
+chastise me, they discovered they were with a stranger.'</p>
+
+<p>It has been a favourite idea with those who delight in the argument from
+design, that the moons of the remoter planets have been provided for the
+express purpose of making up for the small amount of sunlight which
+reaches those planets. Jupiter receives only about one twenty-seventh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+part of the light which we receive from the sun; but then, has he not
+four moons to make his nights glorious? Saturn is yet farther away from
+the sun, and receives only the ninetieth part of the light we get from
+the sun; but then he has eight moons and his rings, and the nocturnal
+glory of his skies must go far to compensate the Saturnians for the
+small quantity of sunlight they receive. The Saturnian spirits who
+visited Swedenborg were manifestly indoctrinated with these ideas. For
+they informed him that the nocturnal light of Saturn is so great that
+some Saturnians worship it, calling it the Lord. These wicked spirits
+are separated from the rest, and are not tolerated by them. 'The
+nocturnal light,' say the spirits, 'comes from the immense ring which at
+a distance encircles that earth, and from the moons which are called the
+satellites of Saturn.' And again, being questioned further 'concerning
+the great ring which appears from our earth to rise above the horizon of
+that planet, and to vary its situations, they said that it does not
+appear to them as a ring, but only as a snow-white substance in heaven
+in various directions.' Unfortunately for our faith in the veracity of
+these spirits, it is certain that the moons of Saturn cannot give nearly
+so much light as ours, while the rings are much more effective as
+darkeners than as illuminators. One can readily calculate the apparent
+size of each of the moons as seen from Saturn, and thence show that the
+eight discs of the moons together are larger than our moon's disc in
+about the proportion of forty-five to eight. So that if they were all
+shining as brightly as our full moon and all full at the same time,
+their combined light would exceed hers in that degree. But they are not
+illuminated as our moon is. They are illuminated by the same remote sun
+which illuminates Saturn, while our moon is illuminated by a sun giving
+her as much light as we ourselves receive. Our moon then is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> illuminated
+ninety times more brightly than the moons of Saturn, and as her disc is
+less than all theirs together, not as one to ninety, but as sixteen to
+ninety, it follows that all the Saturnian moons, if full at the same
+time, would reflect to Saturn one-sixteenth part of the light which we
+receive from the full moon.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> As regards the rings of Saturn, nothing
+can be more certain than that they tend much more to deprive Saturn of
+light then to make up by reflection for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> the small amount of light which
+Saturn receives directly from the sun. The part of the ring which lies
+between the planet and the sun casts a black shadow upon Saturn, this
+shadow sometimes covering an extent of surface many times exceeding the
+entire surface of our earth. The shadow thus thrown upon the planet
+creeps slowly, first one way, then another, northwards and southwards
+over the illuminated hemisphere of the planet (as pictured in the 13th
+plate of my treatise on Saturn), requiring for its passage from the
+arctic to the antarctic regions and back again to the arctic regions of
+the planet, a period nearly equal to that of a generation of terrestrial
+men. Nearly thirty of our years the process lasts, during half of which
+time the northern hemisphere suffers, and during the other half the
+southern. The shadow band, which be it remembered stretches right
+athwart the planet from the extreme eastern to the extreme western side
+of the illuminated hemisphere, is so broad during the greater part of
+the time that in some regions (those corresponding to our temperate
+zones) the shadow takes two years in passing, during which time the sun
+cannot be seen at all, unless for a few moments through some chinks in
+the rings, which are known to be not solid bodies, but made up of
+closely crowded small moons. And the slow passage of this fearful
+shadow, which advances at the average rate of some twenty miles a day,
+but yet hangs for years over the regions athwart which it sweeps, occurs
+in the very season when the sun's small direct supply of heat would
+require to be most freely compensated by nocturnal light&mdash;in the winter
+season, namely, of the planet. Moreover, not only during the time of the
+shadow's passage, but during the entire winter half of the Saturnian
+year, the ring reflects no light during the night time, the sun being on
+the other or summer side of the ring's plane.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> The only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>nocturnal
+effect which would be observable would be the obliteration of the stars
+covered by the ring system. It is strange that, this being so, the
+spirits from Saturn should have made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> no mention of the circumstance;
+and even more strange that these spirits and others should have asserted
+that the moons and rings of Saturn compensate for the small amount of
+light directly received from the sun. Most certainly a Swedenborg of our
+own time would find the spirits from Saturn more veracious and more
+communicative about these matters, though even what <i>he</i> would hear from
+the spirits would doubtless appear to sceptics of the twenty-first
+century to be no more than he could have inferred from the known facts
+of the science of his day.</p>
+
+<p>But Swedenborg was not content merely to receive visits from the
+inhabitants of other planets in the solar system. He was visited also by
+the spirits of earths in the starry heaven; nay, he was enabled to visit
+those earths himself. For man, even while living in the world, 'is a
+spirit as to his interiors, the body which he carries about in the world
+only serving him for performing functions in this natural or terrestrial
+sphere, which is the lowest.' And to certain men it is granted not only
+to converse as a spirit with angels and spirits, but to traverse in a
+spiritual way the vast distances which separate world from world and
+system from system, all the while remaining in the body. Swedenborg was
+one of these. 'The interiors of my spirit,' he says, 'are opened by the
+Lord, so that while I am in the body I can at the same time be with
+angels in heaven, and not only converse with them, but behold the
+wonderful things which are there and describe them, that henceforth it
+may no more be said, "Who ever came from heaven to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> assure us it exists
+and tell us what is there?" He who is unacquainted with the arcana of
+heaven cannot believe that man can see earths so remote, and give any
+account of them from sensible experience. But let him know that spaces
+and distances, and consequently progressions, existing in the natural
+world, in their origin and first causes are changes of the state of the
+interiors; that with angels and spirits progressions appear according to
+changes of state; and that by changes of state they may be apparently
+translated from one place to another, and from one earth to another,
+even to earths at the boundaries of the universe; so likewise may man as
+to his spirit, his body still remaining in its place. This has been the
+case with me.'</p>
+
+<p>Before describing his visits to earths in the starry heavens, Swedenborg
+is careful to indicate the probability that such earths exist. 'It is
+well known to the learned world,' he says, 'that every star is a sun in
+its place, remaining fixed like the sun of our earth.' The proper
+motions of the stars had, alas! not been discovered in Swedenborg's day,
+nor does he seem to have been aware what a wild chase he was really
+entering upon in his spiritual progressions. Conceive the pursuit of
+Sirius or Vega as either sun rushed through space with a velocity of
+thirty or forty miles in every second of time! To resume, however, the
+account which Swedenborg gives of the ideas of the learned world of his
+day. 'It is the distance which makes a star appear in a small form;
+consequently' (the logical necessity is not manifest, however) 'each
+star, like the sun of our system, has around it planets which are
+earths; and the reason these are not visible to us is because of their
+immense distance and their having no light but from their own star,
+which light cannot be reflected so far as to reach us.' 'To what other
+end,' proceeds this most convincing reasoning, 'can be so immense a
+heaven with such a multitude of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> stars? For man is the end for which the
+universe was created. It has been ascertained by calculation that
+supposing there were in the universe a million earths, and on every
+earth three hundred millions of men and two hundred generations within
+six thousand years, and that to every man or spirit was allotted a space
+of three cubic ells, the collective number of men or spirits could not
+occupy a space equal to a thousandth part of this earth, thus not more
+than that occupied by one of the satellites of Jupiter or Saturn; a
+space on the universe almost undiscernible, for a satellite is hardly
+visible to the naked eye. What would this be for the Creator of the
+universe, to whom the whole universe filled with earths could not be
+enough' (for what?), 'seeing that he is infinite.' However, it is not on
+this reasoning alone that Swedenborg relies. He tells us, honestly
+beyond all doubt, that he knows the truth of what he relates. 'The
+information I am about to give,' he says, 'respecting the earths in the
+starry heaven is from experimental testimony; from which it will
+likewise appear how I was translated thither as to my spirit, the body
+remaining in its place.'</p>
+
+<p>His progress in his first star-hunt was to the right, and continued for
+about two hours. He found the boundary of our solar system marked first
+by a white but thick cloud, next by a fiery smoke ascending from a great
+chasm. Here some guards appeared, who stopped some of the company,
+because these had not, like Swedenborg and the rest, received permission
+to pass. They not only stopped those unfortunates, but tortured them,
+conduct for which terrestrial analogues might possibly be discovered.</p>
+
+<p>Having reached another system, he asked the spirits of one of the earths
+there how large their sun was and how it appeared. They said it was less
+than the sun of our earth, and has a flaming appearance. Our sun, in
+fact, is larger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> than other suns in space, for from that earth starry
+heavens are seen, and a star larger than the rest appears, which, say
+those spirits, 'was declared from heaven' to be the sun of Swedenborg's
+earthly home.</p>
+
+<p>What Swedenborg saw upon that earth has no special interest. The men
+there, though haughty, are loved by their respective wives because they,
+the men, are good. But their goodness does not appear very manifest from
+anything in the narrative. The only man seen by Swedenborg took from his
+wife 'the garment which she wore, and threw it over his own shoulders;
+loosening the lower part, which flowed down to his feet like a robe
+(much as a man of our earth might be expected to loosen the tie-back of
+the period, if he borrowed it in like manner) he thus walked about
+clad.'</p>
+
+<p>He next visited an earth circling round a star, which he learned was one
+of the smaller sort, not far from the equator. Its greater distance was
+plain from the circumstance that Swedenborg was two days in reaching it.
+In this earth he very nearly fell into a quarrel with the spirits. For
+hearing that they possess remarkable keenness of vision, he 'compared
+them with eagles which fly aloft, and enjoy a clear and extensive view
+of objects beneath.' At this they were indignant, supposing, poor
+spirits, 'that he compared them to eagles as to their rapacity, and
+consequently thought them wicked.' He hastened to explain, however, that
+he 'did not liken them to eagles as to their rapacity, but as to
+sharpsightedness.'</p>
+
+<p>Swedenborg's account of a third earth in the star-depths contains a very
+pretty idea for temples and churches. The temples in that earth 'are
+constructed,' he says, of trees, not cut down, but growing in the place
+where they were first planted. On that earth, it seems, there are trees
+of an extraordinary size and height; these they set in rows when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> young,
+and arrange in such an order that they may serve when they grow up to
+form porticoes and colonnades. In the meanwhile, by cutting and pruning,
+they fit and prepare the tender shoots to entwine one with another, and
+join together so as to form the groundwork and floor of the temple to be
+constructed, and to rise at the sides as walls, and above to bend into
+arches to form the roof. In this manner they construct the temple with
+admirable art, elevating it high above the ground. They prepare also an
+ascent into it, by continuous branches of the trees, extended from the
+trunk and firmly connected together. Moreover, they adorn the temple
+without and within in various ways, by disposing the foliage into
+particular forms; thus they build entire groves. But it was not
+permitted me to see the nature of these temples, only I was informed
+that the light of their sun is let in by apertures amongst the branches,
+and is everywhere transmitted through crystals; whereby the light
+falling on the walls is refracted in colours like those of the rainbow,
+particularly blue and orange, of which they are fondest. Such is their
+architecture, which they prefer to the most magnificent palaces of our
+earth.'</p>
+
+<p>Other earths in the starry heavens were visited by Swedenborg, but the
+above will serve sufficiently to illustrate the nature of his
+observations. One statement, by the way, was made to him which must have
+seemed unlikely ever to be contravened, but which has been shown in our
+time to be altogether erroneous. In the fourth star-world he visited, he
+was told that that earth, which travels round its sun in 200 days of
+fifteen hours each, is one of the least in the universe, being scarcely
+500 German miles, say 2000 English miles, in circumference. This would
+make its diameter about 640 English miles. But there is not one of the
+whole family of planetoids which has a diameter so great as this, and
+many of these earths must be less than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> fifty miles in diameter. Now
+Swedenborg remarks that he had his information from the angels, 'who
+made a comparison in all these particulars with things of a like nature
+on our earth, according to what they saw in me or in my memory. Their
+conclusions were formed by angelic ideas, whereby are instantly known
+the measure of space and time in a just proportion with respect to space
+and time elsewhere. Angelic ideas, which are spiritual, in such
+calculations infinitely excel human ideas, which are natural.' He must
+therefore have met, unfortunately, with untruthful angels.</p>
+
+<p>The real source of Swedenborg's inspirations will be tolerably
+obvious&mdash;to all, at least, who are not Swedenborgians. But our account
+of his visions would not be complete in a psychological sense without a
+brief reference to the personal allusions which the spirits and angels
+made during their visits or his wanderings. His distinguished rival,
+Christian Wolf, was encountered as a spirit by spirits from Mercury, who
+'perceived that what he said did not rise above the sensual things of
+the natural man, because in speaking he thought of honour, and was
+desirous, as in the world (for in the other world every one is like his
+former self), to connect various things into series, and from these
+again continually to deduce others, and so form several chains of such,
+which they did not see or acknowledge to be true, and which, therefore,
+they declared to be chains which neither cohered in themselves nor with
+the conclusions, calling them the obscurity of authority;' so they
+ceased to question him further, and presently left him. Similarly, a
+spirit who in this world had been a 'prelate and a preacher,' and 'very
+pathetic, so that he could deeply move his hearers,' got no hearing
+among the spirits of a certain earth in the starry heavens; for they
+said they could tell 'from the tone of the voice whether a discourse
+came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> from the heart or not;' and as his discourse came not from the
+heart, 'he was unable to teach them, whereupon he was silent.'
+Convenient thus to have spirits and angels to confirm our impressions of
+other men, living or dead.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from the psychological interest attaching to Swedenborg's strange
+vision, one cannot but be strongly impressed by the idea pervading them,
+that to beings suitably constituted all that takes place in other worlds
+might be known. Modern science recognises a truth here; for in that
+mysterious ether which occupies all space, messages are at all times
+travelling by which the history of every orb is constantly recorded. No
+world, however remote or insignificant; no period, however distant&mdash;but
+has its history thus continually proclaimed in ever widening waves. Nay,
+by these waves also (to beings who could read their teachings aright)
+the future is constantly indicated. For, as the waves which permeate the
+ether could only be situated as they actually are, at any moment,
+through past processes, each one of which is consequently indicated by
+those ethereal waves, so also there can be but one series of events in
+the future, as the sequel of the relations actually indicated by the
+ethereal undulations. These, therefore, speak as definitely and
+distinctly of the future as of the past. Could we but rid us of the
+gross habiliments of flesh, and by some new senses be enabled to feel
+each order of ethereal undulations, even of those only which reach our
+earth, all knowledge of the past and future would be within our power.
+The consciousness of this underlies the fancies of Swedenborg, just as
+it underlies the thought of him who sang&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+There's not an orb which thou behold'st<br />
+But in his motion like an angel sings,<br />
+Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.<br />
+But while this muddy vesture of decay<br />
+Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+<h3>V.<br />
+
+<i>OTHER WORLDS AND OTHER UNIVERSES.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>If any one shall gravely tell me that I have spent my time idly in
+a vain and fruitless inquiry after what I can never become sure of,
+the answer is that at this rate he would put down all natural
+philosophy, as far as it concerns itself in searching into the
+nature of such things. In such noble and sublime studies as these,
+'tis a glory to arrive at probability, and the search itself
+rewards the pains. But there are many degrees of probable, some
+nearer to the truth than others, in the determining of which lies
+the chief exercise of our judgment. And besides the nobleness and
+pleasure of the studies, may we not be so bold as to say that they
+are no small help to the advancement of wisdom and
+morality?&mdash;<span class="smcap">Huyghens</span>, <i>Conjectures concerning the Planetary Worlds</i>.</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">The</span> interest with which astronomy is studied by many who care little or
+nothing for other sciences is due chiefly to the thoughts which the
+celestial bodies suggest respecting life in other worlds than ours.
+There is no feeling more deeply seated in the human heart&mdash;not the
+belief in higher than human powers, not the hope of immortality, not
+even the fear of death&mdash;than the faith in realms of life where other
+conditions are experienced than those we are acquainted with here. It is
+not vulgar curiosity or idle fancy that suggests the possibilities of
+life in other worlds. It has been the conviction of the profoundest
+thinkers, of men of highest imagination. The mystery of the star-depths
+has had its charm for the mathematician as well as for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> poet; for
+the exact observer as for the most fruitful theoriser; nay, for the man
+of business as for him whose life is passed in communing with nature. If
+we analyse the interest with which the generality of men inquire into
+astronomical matters apparently not connected with the question of life
+in other worlds, we find in every case that it has been out of this
+question alone or chiefly that that interest has sprung. The great
+discoveries made during the last few years respecting the sun for
+example, might seem remote from the subject of life in other worlds. It
+is true that Sir William Herschel thought the sun might be the abode of
+living creatures; and Sir John Herschel even suggested the possibility
+that the vast streaks of light called the solar willow-leaves, objects
+varying from two hundred to a thousand miles in length, might be living
+creatures whose intense lustre was the measure of their intense
+vitality. But modern discoveries had rendered all such theories
+untenable. The sun is presented to us as a mighty furnace, in whose
+fires the most stubborn elements are not merely melted but vaporised.
+The material of the sun has been analysed, the motions and changes
+taking place on his surface examined, the laws of his being determined.
+How, it might be asked, is the question of life in other worlds involved
+in these researches? The faith of Sir David Brewster in the sun as the
+abode of life being dispelled, how could discoveries respecting the sun
+interest those who care about the subject of the plurality of worlds?
+The answer to these questions is easily found. The real interest which
+solar researches have possessed for those who are not astronomers has
+resided in the evidence afforded respecting the sun's position as the
+fire, light, and life of the system of worlds whereof our world is one.
+The mere facts discovered respecting the sun would be regarded as so
+much dry detail were they not brought directly into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> relation with our
+earth and its wants, and therefore with the wants of the other earths
+which circle round the sun; but when thus dealt with they immediately
+excite attention and interest. I do not speak at random in asserting
+this, but describe the result of widely ranging observation. I have
+addressed hundreds of audiences in Great Britain and America on the
+subject of recent solar discoveries, and I have conversed with many
+hundreds of persons of various capacity and education, from men almost
+uncultured to men of the highest intellectual power; and my invariable
+experience has been that solar research derives its chief interest when
+viewed in relation to the sun's position as the mighty ruler, the
+steadfast sustainer, the beneficent almoner of the system of worlds to
+which our earth belongs. It is the same with other astronomical
+subjects. Few care for the record of lunar observations, save in
+relation to the question whether the moon is or has been the abode of
+living creatures. The movements of comets and meteors, and the
+discoveries recently made respecting their condition, have no interest
+except in relation to the position of these bodies in the economy of
+solar systems, or to the possible part which they may at one time have
+performed in building up worlds and suns. None save astronomers, and few
+only of these, care for researches into the star-depths, except in
+connection with the thought that every star is a sun and therefore
+probably the light and fire of a system of worlds like those which
+circle around our own sun.</p>
+
+<p>It is singular how variously this question of life in other worlds has
+been viewed at various stages of astronomical progress. From the time of
+Pythagoras, who first, so far as is known, propounded the general theory
+of the plurality of worlds, down to our own time, when Brewster and
+Chalmers on the one hand, and Whewell on the other, have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> advocated
+rival theories probably to be both set aside for a theory at once
+intermediate to and more widely ranging in time and space than either,
+the aspect of the subject has constantly varied, as new lights have been
+thrown upon it from different directions. It may be interesting briefly
+to consider what has been thought in the past on this strangely
+attractive question, and then to indicate the view towards which modern
+discoveries seem manifestly to point&mdash;a view not likely to undergo other
+change than that resulting from clearer vision and closer approach. In
+other words, I shall endeavour to show that the theory to which we are
+now led by all the known facts is correct in general, though, as fresh
+knowledge is obtained, it may undergo modification in details. We now
+see the subject from the right point of view, though as science
+progresses we may come to see it more clearly and definedly.</p>
+
+<p>When men believed the earth to be a flat surface above which the heavens
+were arched as a tent or canopy, they were not likely to entertain the
+belief in other worlds than ours. During the earlier ages of mankind
+ideas such as these prevailed. The earth had been fashioned into its
+present form and condition, the heavens had been spread over it, the
+sun, and moon, and stars had been set in the heavens for its use and
+adornment, and there was no thought of any other world.</p>
+
+<p>But while this was the general belief, there was already a school of
+philosophy where another doctrine had been taught. Pythagoras had
+adopted the belief of Apollonius Perg&aelig;us that the sun is the centre of
+the planetary paths, the earth one among the planets&mdash;a belief
+inseparable from the doctrine of the plurality of worlds. Much argument
+has been advanced to show that this belief never was adopted before the
+time of Copernicus, and unquestionably it must be admitted that the
+theory was not presented in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> the clear and simple form to which we have
+become accustomed. But it is not necessary to weigh the conflicting
+arguments for and against the opinion that Pythagoras and others
+regarded the earth as not the fixed centre of the universe. The certain
+fact that the doctrine of the plurality of worlds was entertained (I do
+not say adopted) by them, proves sufficiently that they cannot have
+believed the earth to be fixed and central. The idea of other worlds
+like our earth is manifestly inconsistent with the belief that the earth
+is the central body around which the whole universe revolves.</p>
+
+<p>That this is so is well illustrated by the fate of the unfortunate
+Giordano Bruno. He was one of the first disciples of Copernicus, and,
+having accepted the doctrine that the earth travels round the sun as one
+among his family of planets, was led very naturally to the belief that
+the other planets are inhabited. He went farther, and maintained that as
+the earth is not the only inhabited world in the solar system, so the
+sun is not the only centre of a system of inhabited worlds, but each
+star a sun like him, about which many planets revolve. This was one of
+the many heresies for which Bruno was burned at the stake. It is easy,
+also, to recognise in the doctrine of many worlds as the natural sequel
+of the Copernican theory, rather than in the features of this theory
+itself, the cause of the hostility with which theologians regarded it,
+until, finding it proved, they discovered that it is directly taught in
+the books which they interpret for us so variously. The Copernican
+theory was not rejected&mdash;nay, it was even countenanced&mdash;until this
+particular consequence of the theory was recognised. But within a few
+years from the persecution of Bruno, Galileo was imprisoned, and the
+last years of his life made miserable, because it had become clear that
+in setting the earth adrift from its position as centre of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+universe, he and his brother Copernicans were sanctioning the belief in
+other worlds than ours. Again and again, in the attacks made by
+clericals and theologians upon the Copernican theory, this lamentable
+consequence was insisted upon. Unconscious that they were advancing the
+most damaging argument which could be conceived for the cause they had
+at heart, they maintained, honestly but unfortunately, that with the new
+theory came the manifest inference that our earth is not the only and by
+no means the most important world in the universe&mdash;a doctrine manifestly
+inconsistent (so they said) with the teachings of the Scriptures.</p>
+
+<p>It was naturally only by a slow progression that men were able to
+advance into the domain spread before them by the Copernican theory, and
+to recognise the real minuteness of the earth both in space and time.
+They more quickly recognised the earth's insignificance in space,
+because the new theory absolutely forced this fact upon them. If the
+earth, whose globe they knew to be minute compared with her distance
+from the sun, is really circling around the sun in a mighty orbit many
+millions of miles in diameter, it follows of necessity that the fixed
+stars must lie so far away that even the span of the earth's orbit is
+reduced to nothing by comparison with the vast depths beyond which lie
+even the nearest of those suns. This was Tycho Brahe's famous and
+perfectly sound argument against the Copernican theory. 'The stars
+remain fixed in apparent position all the time, yet the Copernicans tell
+us that the earth from which we view the stars is circling once a year
+in an orbit many millions of miles in diameter; how is it that from so
+widely ranging a point of view we do not see widely different celestial
+scenery? Who can believe that the stars are so remote that by comparison
+the span of the earth's path is a mere point?' Tycho's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>argument was of
+course valid.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> Of two things one. Either the earth does not travel
+round the sun, or the stars are much farther away than men had conceived
+possible in Tycho's time. His mistake lay in rejecting the correct
+conclusion because simply it made the visible universe seem many
+millions of times vaster than he had supposed. Yet the universe, even as
+thus enlarged, was but a point to the universe visible in our day, which
+in turn will dwindle to a point compared with the universe as men will
+see it a few centuries hence; while that or the utmost range of space
+over which men can ever extend their survey is doubtless as nothing to
+the real universe of occupied space.</p>
+
+<p>Such has been the progression of our ideas as to the position of the
+earth in space. Forced by the discoveries of Copernicus to regard our
+earth as a mere point compared with the distances of the nearest fixed
+stars, men gradually learned to recognise those distances which at first
+had seemed infinite as in their turn evanescent even by comparison with
+that mere point of space over which man is able by instrumental means to
+extend his survey.</p>
+
+<p>Though there has been a similar progression in men's ideas as to the
+earth's position in time, that progression has not been carried to a
+corresponding extent. Men have not been so bold in widening their
+conceptions of time as in widening their conceptions of space. It is
+here and thus that, in my judgment, the subject of life in other worlds
+has been hitherto incorrectly dealt with. Men have given up as utterly
+idle the idea that the existence of worlds is to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> limited to the
+special domain of space to which our earth belongs; but they are content
+to retain the conception that the domain of time to which our earth's
+history belongs, 'this bank and shoal of time' on which the life of the
+earth is cast, is the period to which the existence of other worlds than
+ours should be referred.</p>
+
+<p>This, which is to be noticed in nearly all our ordinary treatises on
+astronomy, appears as a characteristic peculiarity of works advocating
+the theory of the plurality of worlds. Brewster and Dick and Chalmers,
+all in fact who have taken that doctrine under their special protection,
+reason respecting other worlds as though, if they failed to prove that
+other orbs are inhabited <i>now</i>, or are at least <i>now</i> supporting life in
+some way or other, they failed of their purpose altogether. The idea
+does not seem to have occurred to them that there is room and verge
+enough in eternity of time not only for activity but for rest. They must
+have all the orbs of space busy at once in the one work which they seem
+able to conceive as the possible purpose of those bodies&mdash;the support of
+life. The argument from analogy, which they had found effective in
+establishing the general theory of the plurality of worlds, is forgotten
+when its application to details would suggest that not <i>all</i> orbs are
+<i>at all times</i> either the abode of life or in some way subserving the
+purposes of life.</p>
+
+<p>We find, in all the forms of life with which we are acquainted, three
+characteristic periods&mdash;first the time of preparation for the purposes
+of life; next, the time of fitness for those purposes; and thirdly, the
+time of decadence tending gradually to death. We see among all objects
+which exist in numbers, examples of all these stages existing at the
+same time. In every race of living creatures there are the young as yet
+unfit for work, the workers, and those past work; in every forest there
+are saplings, seed-bearing trees, and trees<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> long past the seed-bearing
+period. We know that planets, or rather, speaking more generally, the
+orbs which people space, pass through various stages of development,
+during some only of which they can reasonably be regarded as the abode
+of life or supporting life; yet the eager champion of the theory of many
+worlds will have them all in these life-bearing or life-supporting
+stages, none in any of the stages of preparation, none in any of the
+stages of decrepitude or death.</p>
+
+<p>This has probably had its origin in no small degree from the disfavour
+with which in former years the theory of the growth and development of
+planets and systems of planets was regarded. Until the evidence became
+too strong to be resisted, the doctrine that our earth was once a baby
+world, with many millions of years to pass through before it could be
+the abode of life, was one which only the professed atheist (so said too
+many divines) could for a moment entertain; while the doctrine that not
+the earth alone, but the whole of the solar system, had developed from a
+condition utterly unlike that through which it is now passing, could
+have had its origin only in the suggestions of the Evil One. Both
+doctrines were pronounced to be so manifestly opposed to the teachings
+of Moses, and not only so, but so manifestly inconsistent with the
+belief in a Supreme Being, that&mdash;that further argument was unnecessary,
+and denunciation only was required. So confident were divines on these
+points, that it would not have been very wonderful if some few students
+of science had mistaken assertion for proof, and so concluded that the
+doctrines towards which science was unmistakably leading them really
+were inconsistent with what they had been taught to regard as the Word
+of God. Whether multiplied experiences taught men of science to wait
+before thus deciding, or however matters fell out, it certainly befell
+before very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> long that the terrible doctrine of cosmical development was
+supported by such powerful evidence, astronomical and terrestrial, as to
+appear wholly irresistible. Then, not only was the doctrine accepted by
+divines, but shown to be manifestly implied in the sacred narrative of
+the formation of the earth and heavens, sun, and moon, and stars; while
+upon those unfortunate students of science who had not changed front in
+good time, and were found still arguing on the mistaken assumption that
+the development of our system was not accordant with that ancient
+narrative, freshly forged bolts were flung from the Olympus of
+orthodoxy.</p>
+
+<p>So far as the other argument&mdash;from the inconsistency of the development
+theory with belief in a Supreme Being&mdash;was concerned, the student of
+science was independent of the interpretations which divines claim the
+sole right of assigning to the ancient books. Science has done so much
+more than divinity (which in fact has done nothing) to widen our
+conceptions of space and time, that she may justly claim full right to
+deal with any difficulties arising from such enlargement of our ideas.
+With the theological difficulty science would not care to deal at all,
+were she not urged to do so by the denunciations of divines; and when,
+so urged, she touches that difficulty, she is quickly told that the
+difficulty is insuperable, and not long after that it has no existence,
+and (on both accounts) that it should have been left alone. But with the
+difficulty arising from the widening of our ideas respecting space and
+time, science may claim good, almost sole, right to deal. The path to a
+solution of the problem is not difficult to find. At a first view, it
+does seem to those whose vision had been limited to a contracted field,
+that the wide domain of time and space in which processes of development
+are found to take place is the universe itself, that to deny the
+formation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> our earth by a special creative act is to deny the
+existence of a Creator, that to regard the beginning of our earth as a
+process of development is to assert that development has been in
+operation from the beginning of all things. But when we recognise
+clearly that vastness and minuteness, prolonged and brief duration, are
+merely relative, we perceive that in considering our earth's history we
+have to deal only with small parts of space and brief periods of time,
+by comparison with all space and all time. Our earth is very large
+compared with a tree or an animal, but very small compared with the
+solar system, a mere point compared with the system of stars to which
+the sun belongs, and absolutely as nothing compared with the universe of
+space; and in like manner, while the periods of her growth and
+development occupy periods very long-lasting compared with those
+required for the growth and development of a tree or an animal, they are
+doubtless but brief compared with the eras of the development of our
+solar system, a mere instant compared with the eras of the development
+of star-systems, and absolutely evanescent compared with eternity. We
+have no more reason for rejecting the belief in a Creator because our
+earth or the solar system is found to have developed to its present
+condition from an embryonic primordial state, than we have had ever
+since men first found that animals and trees are developed from the
+germ. The region of development is larger, the period of development
+lasts longer, but neither the one nor the other is infinite; and being
+finite, both one and the other are simply nothing by comparison with
+infinity. It is a startling thought, doubtless, that periods of time
+compared with which the life of a man, the existence of a nation, nay,
+the duration of the human race itself, sink into insignificance, should
+themselves in turn be dwarfed into nothingness by comparison with
+periods of a still higher order. But the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> thought is not more startling
+than that other thought which we have been compelled to admit&mdash;the
+thought that the earth on which we live, and the solar system to which
+it belongs, though each so vast that all known material objects are as
+nothing by comparison, are in turn as nothing compared with the depths
+of space separating us from even the nearest among the fixed stars. One
+thought, as I have said, we have been compelled to admit, the other has
+not as yet been absolutely forced upon us. Though men have long since
+given up the idea that the earth and heavens have endured but a few
+thousand years, it is still possible to believe that the birth of our
+solar system, whether by creative act or by the beginning of processes
+of development, belongs to the beginning of all time. But this view
+cannot be regarded as even probable. Although it has never been proved
+that any definite relation must subsist between time (occupied by
+events) and space (occupied by matter), the mind naturally accepts the
+belief that such a relation exists. As we find the universe enlarging
+under the survey of science, our conceptions of the duration of the
+universe enlarge also. When the earth was supposed to be the most
+important object in creation, men might reasonably assign to time itself
+(regarded as the interval between the beginning of the earth and the
+consummation of all things when the earth should perish) a moderate
+duration; but it is equally reasonable that, as the insignificance of
+the earth's domain in space is recognised, men should recognise also the
+presumable insignificance of the earth's existence in time.</p>
+
+<p>In this respect, although we have nothing like the direct evidence
+afforded by the measurement of space, we yet have evidence which can
+scarcely be called in question. We find in the structure of our earth
+the signs of its former condition. We see clearly that it was once
+intensely hot! and we know from experimental researches on the cooling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+of various earths that many millions of years must have been required by
+the earth in cooling down from its former igneous condition. We may
+doubt whether Bischoff's researches can be relied upon in details, and
+so be unwilling to assign with him a period of 350 millions of years to
+a single stage of the process of cooling. But that the entire process
+lasted tens of millions and probably hundreds of millions of years
+cannot be doubted. Recognising such enormous periods as these in the
+development of one of the smallest fruits of the great solar tree of
+life, we cannot but admit at least the reasonableness of believing that
+the larger fruits (Jupiter, for instance, with 340 times as much matter,
+and Saturn with 100 times) must require periods still vaster, probably
+many times larger. Indeed, science shows not only that this view is
+reasonable, but that no other view is possible. For the mighty root of
+the tree of life, the great orb of the sun, containing 340 <i>thousand</i>
+times as much matter as the earth, yet mightier periods would be needed.
+The growth and development of these, the parts of the great system, must
+of necessity require much shorter time-intervals than the growth and
+development of the system regarded as a whole. The enormous period when
+the germs only of the sun and planets existed as yet, when the chaotic
+substance of the system had not yet blossomed into worlds, the mighty
+period which is to follow the death of the last surviving member of the
+system, when the whole scheme will remain as the dead trunk of a tree
+remains after the last leaf has fallen, after the last movement of sap
+within the trunk&mdash;these periods must be infinite compared with those
+which measure the duration of even the mightiest separate members of the
+system.</p>
+
+<p>But all this has been left unnoticed by those who have argued in support
+of the Brewsterian doctrine of a plurality of worlds. They argue as if
+it had never been shown that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> every member of the solar system, as of
+all other such systems in space, has to pass through an enormously long
+period of preparation before becoming fit to be the abode of life, and
+that after being fit for life (for a period very long to our
+conceptions, but by comparison with the other exceedingly short) it must
+for countless ages remain as an extinct world. Or else they reason as
+though it had been proved that the relatively short life-bearing periods
+in the existence of the several planets must of necessity synchronise,
+instead of all the probabilities lying overwhelmingly the other way.</p>
+
+<p>While this has been (in my judgment) a defect in what may be called the
+Brewsterian theory of other worlds, a defect not altogether dissimilar
+has characterised the opposite or Whewellite theory. Very useful service
+was rendered to astronomy by Whewell's treatise upon, or rather against,
+the plurality of worlds, calling attention as it did to the utter
+feebleness of the arguments on which men had been content to accept the
+belief that other planets and other systems are inhabited. But some
+among the most powerfully urged arguments against that belief tacitly
+relied on the assumption of a similarity of general condition among the
+members of the solar system. For instance, the small mean density of
+Jupiter and Saturn had, on the Brewsterian theory, been explained as
+probably due to vast hollow spaces in those planets' interiors&mdash;an
+explanation which (if it could be admitted) would leave us free to
+believe that Jupiter and Saturn may be made of the same materials as our
+own earth. With this was pleasantly intermixed the conception that the
+inhabitant of these planets may have his 'home in subterranean cities
+warmed by central fires, or in crystal caves cooled by ocean tides, or
+may float with the Nereids upon the deep, or mount upon wings as eagles,
+or rise upon the pinions of the dove, that he may flee away and be at
+rest,' with much more in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> same fanciful vein. We now know that there
+can be no cavities more than a few miles below the crust of a planet,
+simply because, under the enormous pressures which would exist, the most
+solid matter would be perfectly plastic. But while Whewell's general
+objection to the theory that Jupiter or Saturn is in the same condition
+as our earth thus acquires new force, the particular explanation which
+he gave of the planet's small density is open to precisely the same
+general objection. For he assumes that, because the planet's mean
+density is little greater than that of water, the planet is probably a
+world of water and ice with a cindery nucleus, or in fact just such a
+world as would be formed if a sufficient quantity of water in the same
+condition as the water of our seas were placed at Jupiter's greater
+distance from the sun, around a nucleus of earthy or cindery matter
+large enough to make the density of the entire planet thus formed equal
+to that of Jupiter, or about one-third greater than the density of
+water. In this argument there are in reality two assumptions, of
+precisely the same nature as those which Whewell set himself to combat.
+It is first assumed that some material existing on a large scale in our
+earth, and nearly of the same density as Jupiter, must constitute the
+chief bulk of that planet, and secondly that the temperature of
+Jupiter's globe must be that which a globe of such material would have
+if placed where Jupiter is. The possibility that Jupiter may be in an
+entirely different stage of planetary life&mdash;or, in other words, that the
+youth, middle life, and old age of that planet may belong to quite
+different eras from the corresponding periods of our earth's life&mdash;is
+entirely overlooked. Rather, indeed, it may be said that the extreme
+probability of this, on any hypothesis respecting the origin of the
+solar system, and its absolute certainty on the hypothesis of the
+development of that system, are entirely overlooked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p><p>A fair illustration of the erroneous nature of the arguments which have
+been used, not only in advocating rival theories respecting the
+plurality of worlds, but also in dealing with subordinate points, may be
+presented as follows:</p>
+
+<p>Imagine a wide extent of country covered with scattered trees of various
+size, and with plants and shrubs, flowers and herbs, down to the
+minutest known. Let us suppose a race of tiny creatures to subsist on
+one of the fruits of a tree of moderate size, their existence as a race
+depending entirely on the existence of the fruit on which they subsist,
+while the existence of the individuals of their race lasts but for a few
+minutes. Furthermore, let there be no regular fruit season either on
+their tree or in their region of vegetable life, but fruits forming,
+growing, and decaying all the time.</p>
+
+<p>Let us next conceive these creatures to be possessed of a power of
+reasoning respecting themselves, their fruit world, the tree on which it
+hangs, and to some degree even respecting such other trees, plants,
+flowers, and so forth, as the limited range of their vision might be
+supposed to include. It would be a natural thought with them, when first
+they began to exercise this power of reasoning, that their fruit home
+was the most important object in existence, and themselves the chief and
+noblest of living beings. It would also be very natural that they should
+suppose the formation of their world to correspond with the beginning of
+time, and the formation of their race to have followed the formation of
+their world by but a few seconds. They would conclude that a Supreme
+Being had fashioned their world and themselves by special creative acts,
+and that what they saw outside their fruit world had been also specially
+created, doubtless to subserve their wants.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now imagine that gradually, by becoming more closely observant
+than they had been, by combining <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>together to make more complete
+observations, and above all by preserving the records of observations
+made by successive generations, these creatures began to obtain clearer
+ideas respecting their world and the surrounding regions of space. They
+would find evidence that the fruit on which they lived had not been
+formed precisely as they knew it, but had undergone processes of
+development. The distressing discovery would be made that this
+development could not possibly have taken place in a few seconds, but
+must have required many hours, nay, even several of those enormous
+periods called by us days.</p>
+
+<p>This, however, would only be the beginning of their troubles. Gradually
+the more advanced thinkers and the closest observers would perceive that
+not only had their world undergone processes of development, but that
+its entire mass had been formed by such processes&mdash;that in fact it had
+not been created at all, in the sense in which they had understood the
+word, but had <i>grown</i>. This would be very dreadful to these creatures,
+because they would not readily be able to dispossess their minds of the
+notion that they were the most important beings in the universe, their
+domain of space coextensive with the universe, the duration of their
+world coextensive with time.</p>
+
+<p>But passing over the difficulties thus arising, and the persecution and
+abuse to which those would be subjected who maintained the dangerous
+doctrine that their fruit home had been developed, not created, let us
+consider how these creatures would regard the question of other worlds
+than their own. At first they would naturally be unwilling to admit the
+possibility that other worlds as important as their own could exist. But
+if after a time they found reason to believe that their world was only
+one of several belonging to a certain tree system, the idea would occur
+to them, and would gradually come to be regarded as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>something more than
+probable, that those other fruit worlds, like their own, might be the
+abode of living creatures. And probably at first, while as yet the
+development of their own world was little understood, they would
+conceive the notion that all the fruits, large or small, upon their tree
+system were in the same condition as their own, and either inhabited by
+similar races or at least in the same full vigour of life-bearing
+existence. But so soon as they recognised the law of development of
+their own world, and the relation between such development and their own
+requirements, they would form a different opinion, if they found that
+only during certain stages of their world's existence life could exist
+upon it. If, for instance, they perceived that their fruit world must
+once have been so bitter and harsh in texture that no creatures in the
+least degree like themselves could have lived upon it, and that it was
+passing slowly but surely through processes by which it would become one
+day dry and shrivelled and unable to support living creatures, they
+would be apt, if their reasoning powers were fairly developed, to
+inquire whether other fruits which they saw around them on their tree
+system were either in the former or in the latter condition. If they
+found reason to believe certain fruits were in one or other of these
+stages, they would regard such fruits as not yet the abode of life or as
+past the life-supporting era. It seems probable even that another idea
+would suggest itself to some among their bolder thinkers. Recognising in
+their own world in several instances what to their ideas resembled
+absolute waste of material or of force, it might appear to them quite
+possible that some, perhaps even a large proportion, of the fruits upon
+their tree were not only not supporting life at the particular epoch of
+observation, but never had supported life and never would&mdash;that, through
+some cause or other, life would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> never appear upon such fruits even when
+they were excellently fitted for the support of life. They might even
+conceive that some among the fruits of their tree had failed or would
+fail to come to the full perfection of fruit life.</p>
+
+<p>Looking beyond their own tree&mdash;that is, the tree to which their own
+fruit world belonged&mdash;they would perceive other trees, though their
+visual powers might not enable them to know whether such trees bore
+fruit, whether they were in other respects like their own, whether those
+which seemed larger or smaller were really so, or owed their apparent
+largeness to nearness, or their apparent smallness to great distance.
+They would be apt perhaps to generalise a little too daringly respecting
+these remote tree systems, concluding too confidently that a shrub or a
+flower was a tree system like their own, or that a great tree, every
+branch of which was far larger than their entire tree system, belonged
+to the same order and bore similar fruit. They might mistake, also, in
+forgetting the probable fact that as every fruit in their own tree
+system had its own period of life, very brief compared with the entire
+existence of the fruit, so every tree might have its own fruit-bearing
+season. Thus, contemplating a tree which they supposed to be like their
+own in its nature, they might say, 'Yonder is a tree system crowded with
+fruits, each the abode of many myriads of creatures like ourselves:'
+whereas in reality the tree might be utterly unlike their own, might not
+yet have reached or might long since have passed the fruit-bearing
+stage, might when in that stage bear fruit utterly unlike any they could
+even imagine, and each such fruit during its brief life-bearing
+condition might be inhabited by living beings utterly unlike any
+creatures they could conceive.</p>
+
+<p>Yet again, we can very well imagine that the inhabitants of our fruit
+world, though they might daringly overleap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> the narrow limits of space
+and time within which their actual life or the life of their race was
+cast, though they might learn to recognise the development of their own
+world and of others like it, even from the very blossom, would be
+utterly unable to conceive the possibility that the tree itself to which
+their world belonged had developed by slow processes of growth from a
+time when it was less even than their own relatively minute home.</p>
+
+<p>Still less would it seem credible to them, or even conceivable, that the
+whole forest region to which they belonged, containing many orders of
+trees differing altogether from their own tree system, besides plants
+and shrubs, and flowers and herbs (forms of vegetation of whose use they
+could form no just conception whatever), had itself grown; that once the
+entire forest domain had been under vast masses of water&mdash;the substance
+which occasionally visited their world in the form of small drops; that
+such changes were but minute local phenomena of a world infinitely
+higher in order than their own; that that world in turn was but one of
+the least of the worlds forming a yet higher system; and so on <i>ad
+infinitum</i>. Such ideas would seem to them not merely inconceivable, but
+many degrees beyond the widest conceptions of space and time which they
+could regard as admissible.</p>
+
+<p>Our position differs only in degree, not in kind, from that of these
+imagined creatures, and the reasoning which we perceive (though they
+could not) to be just for such creatures is just for us also. It was
+perfectly natural that before men recognised the evidences of
+development in the structure of our earth they should regard the earth
+and all things upon the earth and visible from the earth as formed by
+special creative acts precisely as we see them now. But so soon as they
+perceived that the earth is undergoing processes of development and has
+undergone such processes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> in the past, it was reasonable, though at
+first painful, to conclude that on this point they had been mistaken.
+Yet as we recognise the absurdity of the supposition that, because
+fruits and trees grow, and were not made in a single instant as we know
+them, therefore there is no Supreme Being, so may we justly reject as
+absurd the same argument, enlarged in scale, employed to induce the
+conclusion that because planets and solar systems have been developed to
+their present condition, and were not created in their present form,
+therefore there is no Creator, no God. I do not know that the argument
+ever has been used in this form; but it has been used to show that those
+who believe in the development of worlds and systems must of necessity
+be atheists, an even more mischievous conclusion than the other; for
+none who had not examined the subject would be likely to adopt the
+former conclusion, but many might be willing to believe that a number of
+their fellow-men hold obnoxious tenets, without inquiring closely or at
+all into the reasoning on which the assertion had been based.</p>
+
+<p>But it is more important to notice how our views respecting other worlds
+should be affected by those circumstances in the evidence <i>we</i> have,
+which correspond with the features of the evidence on which the imagined
+inhabitants of the fruit world would form their opinion. It was natural
+that when men first began to reason about themselves and their home they
+should reject the idea of other worlds like ours, and perhaps it was
+equally natural that when first the idea was entertained that the
+planets may be worlds like ours, men should conceive that all those
+worlds are in the same condition as ours. But it would be, or rather it
+<i>is</i>, as unreasonable for men to maintain such an opinion now, when the
+laws of planetary development are understood, when the various
+dimensions of the planets are known, and when the shortness of the
+life-supporting period<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> of a planet's existence compared with the entire
+duration of the planet has been clearly recognised, as it would be for
+the imagined inhabitants of a small fruit on a tree to suppose that all
+the other fruits on the tree, though some manifestly far less advanced
+in development and others far more advanced than their own, were the
+abode of the same forms of life, though these forms were seen to require
+those conditions, and no other, corresponding to the stage of
+development through which their own world was passing.</p>
+
+<p>Viewing the universe of suns and worlds in the manner here suggested, we
+should adopt a theory of other worlds which would hold a position
+intermediate between the Brewsterian and the Whewellite theories. (It is
+not on this account that I advocate it, let me remark in passing, but
+simply because it accords with the evidence, which is not the case with
+the others.) Rejecting on the one hand the theory of the plurality of
+worlds in the sense implying that all existing worlds are inhabited, and
+on the other hand the theory of but one world, we should accept a theory
+which might be entitled the Paucity of Worlds, only that relative not
+absolute paucity must be understood. It is absolutely certain that this
+theory is the correct one, if we admit two postulates, neither of which
+can be reasonably questioned&mdash;viz., first, that the life-bearing era of
+any world is short compared with the entire duration of that world; and
+secondly, that there can have been no cause which set all the worlds in
+existence, not simultaneously, which would be amazing enough, but (which
+would be infinitely more surprising) in such a way that after passing
+each through its time of preparation, longer for the large worlds and
+shorter for the small worlds, they all reached at the same time the
+life-bearing era. But quite apart from this antecedent probability,
+amounting as it does to absolute certainty if these two highly probably
+postulates are admitted, we have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> the actual evidence of the planets we
+can examine&mdash;that evidence proving incontestably, as I have shown
+elsewhere, that such planets as Jupiter and Saturn are still in the
+state of preparation, still so intensely hot that no form of life could
+possibly exist upon them, and that such bodies as our moon have long
+since passed the life-bearing stage, and are to all intents and purposes
+defunct.</p>
+
+<p>But may we not go farther? Recognising in our own world, in many
+instances, what to our ideas resembles waste&mdash;waste seeds, waste lives,
+waste races, waste regions, waste forces&mdash;recognising superfluity and
+superabundance in all the processes and in all the works of nature,
+should it not appear at least possible that some, perhaps even a large
+proportion, of the worlds in the multitudinous systems peopling space,
+are not only not now supporting life, but never have supported life and
+never will? Does this idea differ in kind, however largely to our feeble
+conceptions it may seem to differ in degree, from the idea of the
+imagined creatures on a fruit, that some or even many fruits excellently
+fitted for the support of life might not subserve that purpose? And as
+those creatures might conceive (as we <i>know</i>) that some fruits, even
+many, fail to come to the full perfection of fruit life, may not we
+without irreverence conceive (as higher beings than ourselves may
+<i>know</i>) that a planet or a sun may fail in the making? We cannot say
+that in such a case there would be a waste or loss of material, though
+we may be unable to conceive how the lost sun or planet could be
+utilised. Our imagined insect reasoners would be unable to imagine that
+fruits plucked from their tree system were otherwise than wasted, for
+they would conceive that their idea of the purpose of fruits was the
+only true one; yet they would be altogether mistaken, as we may be in
+supposing the main purpose of planetary existence is the support of
+life.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p><p>In like manner, when we pass in imagination beyond the limits of our
+own system, we may learn a useful lesson from the imagined creatures'
+reasoning about other tree systems than that to which their world
+belonged. Astronomers have been apt to generalise too daringly
+respecting remote stars and star systems, as though our solar system
+were a true picture of all solar systems, the system of stars to which
+our sun belongs a true picture of all star systems. They have been apt
+to forget that, as every world in our own system has its period of life,
+short by comparison with the entire duration of the world, so each solar
+system, each system of such systems, may have its own life-bearing
+season, infinitely long according to our conceptions, but very short
+indeed compared with the entire duration of which the life-bearing
+season would be only a single era.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, though men may daringly overleap the limits of time and space
+within which their lives are cast, though they may learn to recognise
+the development of their own world and of others like it even from the
+blossom of nebulosity, they seem unable to rise to the conception that
+the mighty tree which during remote &aelig;ons bore those nebulous blossoms
+sprang itself from cosmical germs. We are unable to conceive the nature
+of such germs; the processes of development affecting them belong to
+other orders than any processes we know of, and required periods
+compared with which the inconceivable, nay, the inexpressible periods
+required for the development of the parts of our universe, are as mere
+instants. Yet have we every reason which analogy can afford to believe
+that even the development of a whole universe such as ours should be
+regarded as but a minute local phenomenon of a universe infinitely
+higher in order, that universe in turn but a single member of a system
+of such universes, and so on, even <i>ad infinitum</i>. To reject the belief
+that this is possible is to share the folly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> of beings such as we have
+conceived regarding their tiny world as a fit centre whence to measure
+the universe, while yet, from such a stand-point, this little earth on
+which we live would be many degrees beyond the limits where for them the
+inconceivable would begin. To reject the belief that this is not only
+possible, but real, is to regard the few short steps by which man has
+advanced towards the unknown as a measurable approach towards limits of
+space, towards the beginning and the end of all things. Until it can be
+shown that space is bounded by limits beyond which neither matter nor
+void exists, that time had a beginning before which it was not and tends
+to an end after which it will exist no more, we may confidently accept
+the belief that the history of our earth is as evanescent in time as the
+earth itself is evanescent in space, and that nothing we can possibly
+learn about our earth, or about the system it belongs to, or about
+systems of such systems, can either prove or disprove aught respecting
+the scheme and mode of government of the universe itself. It is true now
+as it was in days of yore, and it will remain true as long as the earth
+and those who dwell on it endure, that what men know is nothing, the
+unknown infinite.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p>
+<h3>VI.<br />
+
+<i>SUNS IN FLAMES.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">In</span> November 1876 news arrived of a catastrophe the effects of which must
+in all probability have been disastrous, not to a district, or a
+country, or a continent, or even a world, but to a whole system of
+worlds. The catastrophe happened many years ago&mdash;probably at least a
+hundred&mdash;yet the messenger who brought the news has not been idle on his
+way, but has sped along at a rate which would suffice to circle this
+earth eight times in the course of a second. That messenger has had,
+however, to traverse millions of millions of miles, and only reached our
+earth November 1876. The news he brought was that a sun like our own was
+in conflagration; and on a closer study of his message something was
+learned as to the nature of the conflagration, and a few facts tending
+to throw light on the question (somewhat interesting to ourselves)
+whether our own sun is likely to undergo a similar mishap at any time.
+What would happen if he did, we know already. The sun which has just met
+with this disaster&mdash;that is, which so suffered a few generations
+ago&mdash;blazed out for a time with several hundred times its former lustre.
+If our sun were to increase as greatly in light and heat, the creatures
+on the side of our earth turned towards him at the time would be
+destroyed in an instant. Those on the dark or night hemisphere would not
+have to wait for their turn till the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> earth, by rotating, carried them
+into view of the destroying sun. In much briefer space the effect of his
+new fires would be felt all over the earth's surface. The heavens would
+be dissolved and the elements would melt with fervent heat. In fact no
+description of such a catastrophe, as affecting the night half of the
+earth, could possibly be more effective and poetical than St. Peter's
+account of the day of the Lord, coming 'as a thief in the night; in the
+which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
+shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are
+therein being burned up;' though I imagine the apostle would have been
+scarce prepared to admit that the earth was in danger from a solar
+conflagration. Indeed, according to another account, the sun was to be
+turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before that great and
+notable day of the Lord came&mdash;a description corresponding well with
+solar and lunar eclipses, the most noteworthy 'signs in the heavens,'
+but agreeing very ill with the outburst of a great solar conflagration.</p>
+
+<p>Before proceeding to inquire into the singular and significant
+circumstances of the recent outburst, it may be found interesting to
+examine briefly the records which astronomy has preserved of similar
+catastrophes in former years. These may be compared to the records of
+accidents on the various railway lines in a country or continent. Those
+other suns which we can stars are engines working the mighty mechanism
+of planetary systems, as our sun maintains the energies of our own
+system; and it is a matter of some interest to us to inquire in how many
+cases, among the many suns within the range of vision, destructive
+explosions occur. We may take the opportunity, later, to inquire into
+the number of cases in which the machinery of solar systems appears to
+have broken down.</p>
+
+<p>The first case of a solar conflagration on record is that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> of the new
+star observed by Hipparchus some 2000 years ago. In his time, and indeed
+until quite recently, an object of this kind was called a new star, or a
+temporary star. But we now know that when a star makes its appearance
+where none had before been visible, what has really happened has been
+that a star too remote to be seen has become visible through some rapid
+increase of splendour. When the new splendour dies out again, it is not
+that a star has ceased to exist; but simply that a faint star which had
+increased greatly in lustre has resumed its original condition.
+Hipparchus's star must have been a remarkable object, for it was visible
+in full daylight, whence we may infer that it was many times brighter
+than the blazing Dog-star. It is interesting in the history of science,
+as having led Hipparchus to draw up a catalogue of stars, the first on
+record. Some moderns, being sceptical, rejected this story as a fiction;
+but Biot examining Chinese Chronicles<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> relating to the times of
+Hipparchus, finds that in 134 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> (about nine years before the date of
+Hipparchus's catalogue) a new star was recorded as having appeared in
+the constellation Scorpio.</p>
+
+<p>The next new star (that is, stellar conflagration) on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> record is still
+more interesting, as there appears some reason for believing that before
+long we may see another outburst of the same star. In the years 945,
+1264, and 1572, brilliant stars appeared in the region of the heavens
+between Cepheus and Cassiopeia. Sir J. Herschel remarks, that, 'from the
+imperfect account we have of the places of the two earlier, as compared
+with that of the last, which was well determined, as well as from the
+tolerably near coincidence of the intervals of their appearance, we may
+suspect them, with Goodricke, to be one and the same star, with a period
+of 312 or perhaps of 156 years.' The latter period may very reasonably
+be rejected, as one can perceive no reason why the intermediate returns
+of the star to visibility should have been overlooked, the star having
+appeared in a region which never sets. It is to be noted that, the
+period from 945 to 1264 being 319 years, and that from 1264 to 1572 only
+308 years, the period of this star (if Goodricke is correct in supposing
+the three outbursts to have occurred in the same star) would seem to be
+diminishing. At any time, then, this star might now blaze out in the
+region between Cassiopeia and Cepheus, for more than 304 years have
+already passed since its last outburst.</p>
+
+<p>As the appearance of a new star led Hipparchus to undertake the
+formation of his famous catalogue, so did the appearance of the star in
+Cassiopeia, in 1572, lead the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe to construct
+a new and enlarged catalogue. (This, be it remembered, was before the
+invention of the telescope.) Returning one evening (November 11, 1572,
+old style) from his laboratory to his dwelling-house, he found, says Sir
+J. Herschel, 'a group of country people gazing at a star, which he was
+sure did not exist an hour before. This was the star in question.'</p>
+
+<p>The description of the star and its various changes is more interesting
+at the present time, when the true nature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> of these phenomena is
+understood, than it was even in the time when the star was blazing in
+the firmament. It will be gathered from that description and from what I
+shall have to say farther on about the results of recent observations on
+less splendid new stars, that, if this star should reappear in the next
+few years, our observers will probably be able to obtain very important
+information from it. The message from it will be much fuller and more
+distinct than any we have yet received from such stars, though we have
+learned quite enough to remain in no sort of doubt as to their general
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>The star remained visible, we learn, about sixteen months, during which
+time it kept its place in the heavens without the least variation. 'It
+had all the radiance of the fixed stars, and twinkled like them; and was
+in all respects like Sirius, except that it surpassed Sirius in
+brightness and magnitude.' It appeared larger than Jupiter, which was at
+that time at his brightest, and was scarcely inferior to Venus. <i>It did
+not acquire this lustre gradually</i>, but shone forth at once of its full
+size and brightness, 'as if,' said the chroniclers of the time, 'it had
+been of instantaneous creation.' For three weeks it shone with full
+splendour, during which time it could be seen at noonday 'by those who
+had good eyes, and knew where to look for it.' But before it had been
+seen a month, it became visibly smaller, and from the middle of December
+1572 till March 1574, when it entirely disappeared, it continually
+diminished in magnitude. 'As it decreased in size, it varied in colour:
+at first its light was white and extremely bright; it then became
+yellowish; afterwards of a ruddy colour like Mars; and finished with a
+pale livid white resembling the colour of Saturn.' All the details of
+this account should be very carefully noted. It will presently be seen
+that they are highly characteristic.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p><p>Those who care to look occasionally at the heavens to know whether this
+star has returned to view may be interested to learn whereabouts it
+should be looked for. The place may be described as close to the back of
+the star-gemmed chair in which Cassiopeia is supposed to sit&mdash;a little
+to the left of the seat of the chair, supposing the chair to be looked
+at in its normal position. But as Cassiopeia's chair is always inverted
+when the constellation is most conveniently placed for observation, and
+indeed as nine-tenths of those who know the constellation suppose the
+chair's legs to be the back, and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>, it may be useful to
+mention that the star was placed somewhat thus with respect to the
+straggling W formed by the five chief stars of Cassiopeia. There is a
+star not very far from the place here indicated, but rather nearer to
+the middle angle of the W. This, however, is not a bright star; and
+cannot possibly be mistaken for the expected visitant. (The place of
+Tycho's star is indicated in my School Star-Atlas and also in my larger
+Library Atlas. The same remark applies to both the new stars in the
+Serpent-Bearer, presently to be described.)</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 100px;">
+<img src="images/image4.jpg" width="100" height="102" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>In August 1596 the astronomer Fabricius observed a new star in the neck
+of the Whale, which also after a time disappeared. It was not noticed
+again till the year 1637, when an observer rejoicing in the name of
+Phocyllides Holwarda observed it, and, keeping a watch, after it had
+vanished, upon the place where it had appeared, saw it again come into
+view nine months after its disappearance. Since then it has been known
+as a variable star with a period of about 331 days 8 hours. When
+brightest this star is of the second magnitude. It indicates a somewhat
+singular remissness on the part of the astronomers of former days, that
+a star shining so conspicuously for a fortnight, once in each period of
+331-<span class="above">1</span>&#8260;<span class="below">3</span> days, should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> for so many years have remained undetected. It
+may, perhaps, be thought that, noting this, I should withdraw the
+objection raised above against Sir J. Herschel's idea that the star in
+Cassiopeia may return to view once in 156 years, instead of once in 312
+years. But there is a great difference between a star which at its
+brightest shines only as a second-magnitude star, so that it has twenty
+or thirty companions of equal or greater lustre above the horizon along
+with it, and a star which surpasses three-fold the splendid Sirius. We
+have seen that even in Tycho Brahe's day, when probably the stars were
+not nearly so well known by the community at large, the new star in
+Cassiopeia had not shone an hour before the country people were gazing
+at it with wonder. Besides, Cassiopeia and the Whale are constellations
+very different in position. The familiar stars of Cassiopeia are visible
+on every clear night, for they never set. The stars of the Whale, at
+least of the part to which the wonderful variable star belongs, are
+below the horizon during rather more than half the twenty-four hours;
+and a new star there would only be noticed, probably (unless of
+exceeding splendour), if it chanced to appear during that part of the
+year when the Whale is high above the horizon between eventide and
+midnight, or in the autumn and early winter.</p>
+
+<p>It is a noteworthy circumstance about the variable star in the Whale,
+deservedly called Mira, or The Wonderful, that it does not always return
+to the same degree of brightness. Sometimes it has been a very bright
+second-magnitude star when at its brightest, at others it has barely
+exceeded the third magnitude. Hevelius relates that during the four
+years between October 1672 and December 1676, Mira did not show herself
+at all! As this star fades out, it changes in colour from white to red.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of September 1604, a new star made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> its appearance in
+the constellation Ophiuchus, or the Serpent-Bearer. Its place was near
+the heel of the right foot of 'Ophiuchus huge.' Kepler tells us that it
+had no hair or tail, and was certainly not a comet. Moreover, like the
+other fixed stars, it kept its place unchanged, showing unmistakably
+that it belonged to the star-depths, not to nearer regions. 'It was
+exactly like one of the stars, except that in the vividness of its
+lustre, and the quickness of its sparkling, it exceeded anything that he
+had ever seen before. It was every moment changing into some of the
+colours of the rainbow, as yellow, orange, purple, and red; though it
+was generally white when it was at some distance from the vapours of the
+horizon.' In fact, these changes of colour must not be regarded as
+indicating aught but the star's superior brightness. Every very bright
+star, when close to the horizon, shows these colours, and so much the
+more distinctly as the star is the brighter. Sirius, which surpasses the
+brightest stars of the northern hemisphere full four times in lustre,
+shows these changes of colour so conspicuously that they were regarded
+as specially characteristic of this star, insomuch that Homer speaks of
+Sirius (not by name, but as the 'star of autumn') shining most
+beautifully 'when laved of ocean's wave'&mdash;that is, when close to the
+horizon. And our own poet, Tennyson, following the older poet, sings how</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">the fiery Sirius alters hue,</span><br />
+And bickers into red and emerald.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The new star was brighter than Sirius, and was about five degrees lower
+down, when at its highest above the horizon, than Sirius when <i>he</i>
+culminates. Five degrees being equal to nearly ten times the apparent
+diameter of the moon, it will be seen how much more favourable the
+conditions were in the case of Kepler's star for those coloured
+scintillations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> which characterised that orb. Sirius never rises very
+high above the horizon. In fact, at his highest (near midnight in
+winter, and, of course, near midday in summer) he is about as high above
+the horizon as the sun at midday in the first week in February. Kepler's
+star's greatest height above the horizon was little more than
+three-fourths of this, or equal to about the sun's elevation at midday
+on January 13 or 14 in any year.</p>
+
+<p>Like Tycho Brahe's star, Kepler's was brighter even than Jupiter, and
+only fell short of Venus in splendour. It preserved its lustre for about
+three weeks, after which time it gradually grew fainter and fainter
+until some time between October 1605 and February 1606, when it
+disappeared. The exact day is unknown, as during that interval the
+constellation of the Serpent-Bearer is above the horizon in the day-time
+only. But in February 1606, when it again became possible to look for
+the new star in the night-time, it had vanished. It probably continued
+to glow with sufficient lustre to have remained visible, but for the
+veil of light under which the sun concealed it, for about sixteen months
+altogether. In fact, it seems very closely to have resembled Tycho's
+star, not only in appearance and in the degree of its greatest
+brightness, but in the duration of its visibility.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1670 a new star appeared in the constellation Cygnus,
+attaining the third magnitude. It remained visible, but not with this
+lustre, for nearly two years. After it had faded almost out of view, it
+flickered up again for awhile, but soon after it died out, so as to be
+entirely invisible. Whether a powerful telescope would still have shown
+it is uncertain, but it seems extremely probable. It may be, indeed,
+that this new star in the Swan is the same which has made its appearance
+within the last few weeks; but on this point the evidence is uncertain.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p><p>On April 20, 1848, Mr. Hind (Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac,
+and discoverer of ten new members of the solar system) noticed a new
+star of the fifth magnitude in the Serpent-Bearer, but in quite another
+part of that large constellation than had been occupied by Kepler's
+star. A few weeks later, it rose to the fourth magnitude. But afterwards
+its light diminished until it became invisible to ordinary eyesight. It
+did not vanish utterly, however. It is still visible with telescopic
+power, shining as a star of the eleventh magnitude, that is five
+magnitudes below the faintest star discernible with the unaided eye.</p>
+
+<p>This is the first new star which has been kept in view since its
+apparent creation. But we are now approaching the time when it was found
+that as so-called new stars continue in existence long after they have
+disappeared from view, so also they are not in reality new, but were in
+existence long before they became visible to the naked eye.</p>
+
+<p>On May 12, 1866, shortly before midnight, Mr. Birmingham, of Tuam,
+noticed a star of the second magnitude in the Northern Crown, where
+hitherto no star visible to the naked eye had been known. Dr. Schmidt,
+of Athens, who had been observing that region of the heavens the same
+night, was certain that up to 11 <span class="ampm">P.M.</span>, Athens local time, there was no
+star above the fourth magnitude in the place occupied by the new star.
+So that, if this negative evidence can be implicitly relied on, the new
+star must have sprung at least from the fourth, and probably from a much
+lower magnitude, to the second, in less than three hours&mdash;eleven o'clock
+at Athens corresponding to about nine o'clock by Irish railway time. A
+Mr. Barker, of London, Canada, put forward a claim to having seen the
+new star as early as May 4&mdash;a claim not in the least worth
+investigating, so far as the credit of first seeing the new star<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> is
+concerned, but exceedingly important in its bearing on the nature of the
+outburst affecting the star in Corona. It is unpleasant to have to throw
+discredit on any definite assertion of facts; unfortunately, however,
+Mr. Barker, when his claim was challenged, laid before Mr. Stone, of the
+Greenwich Observatory, such very definite records of observations made
+on May 4, 8, 9, and 10, that we have no choice but either to admit these
+observations, or to infer that he experienced the delusive effects of a
+very singular trick of memory. He mentions in his letter to Mr. Stone
+that he had sent full particulars of his observations on those early
+dates to Professor Watson, of Ann Arbor University, on May 17; but
+(again unfortunately) instead of leaving that letter to tell its own
+story in Professor Watson's hands, he asked Professor Watson to return
+it to him: so that when Mr. Stone very naturally asked Professor Watson
+to furnish a copy of this important letter, Professor Watson had to
+reply, 'About a month ago, Mr. Barker applied to me for this letter, and
+I returned it to him, as requested, without preserving a copy. I can,
+however,' he proceeded, 'state positively that he did not mention any
+actual observation earlier than May 14. He said he thought he had
+noticed a strange star in the Crown about two weeks before the date of
+his first observation&mdash;May 14&mdash;but not particularly, and that he did not
+recognise it until the 14th. He did not give any date, and did not even
+seem positive as to identity.... When I returned the letter of May 17, I
+made an endorsement across the first page, in regard to its genuineness,
+and attached my signature. I regret that I did not preserve a copy of
+the letter in question; but if the original is produced, it will appear
+that my recollection of its contents is correct.' I think no one can
+blame Mr. Stone, if, on the receipt of this letter, he stated that he
+had not the 'slightest hesitation' in regarding Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> Barker's earlier
+observations as 'not entitled to the slightest credit.'<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p>
+
+<p>It may be fairly taken for granted that the new star leapt very quickly,
+if not quite suddenly, to its full splendour. Birmingham, as we have
+seen, was the first to notice it, on May 12. On the evening of May 13,
+Schmidt of Athens discovered it independently, and a few hours later it
+was noticed by a French engineer named Courbebaisse. Afterwards,
+Baxendell of Manchester, and others independently saw the star. Schmidt,
+examining Argelander's charts of 324,000 stars (charts which I have had
+the pleasure of mapping in a single sheet), found that the star was not
+a new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> one, but had been set down by Argelander as between the ninth and
+tenth magnitudes. Referring to Argelander's list, we find that the star
+had been twice observed&mdash;viz., on May 18, 1855, and on March 31, 1856.</p>
+
+<p>Birmingham wrote at once to Mr. Huggins, who, in conjunction with the
+late Dr. Miller, had been for some time engaged in observing stars and
+other celestial objects with the spectroscope. These two observers at
+once directed their telescope armed with spectroscopic adjuncts&mdash;the
+telespectroscope is the pleasing name of the compound instrument&mdash;to the
+new-comer. The result was rather startling. It may be well, however,
+before describing it, to indicate in a few words the meaning of various
+kinds of spectroscopic evidence.</p>
+
+<p>The light of the sun, sifted out by the spectroscope, shows all the
+colours but not all the tints of the rainbow. It is spread out into a
+large rainbow-tinted streak, but at various places (a few thousand)
+along the streak there are missing tints; so that in fact the streak is
+crossed by a multitude of dark lines. We know that these lines are due
+to the absorptive action of vapours existing in the atmosphere of the
+sun, and from the position of the lines we can tell what the vapours
+are. Thus, hydrogen by its absorptive action produces four of the bright
+lines. The vapour of iron is there, the vapour of sodium, magnesium, and
+so on. Again, we know that these same vapours, which, by their
+absorptive action, cut off rays of certain tints, emit light of just
+those tints. In fact, if the glowing mass of the sun could be suddenly
+extinguished, leaving his atmosphere in its present intensely heated
+condition, the light of the faint sun which would thus be left us would
+give (under spectroscopic scrutiny) those very rays which now seem
+wanting. There would be a spectrum of multitudinous bright lines,
+instead of a rainbow-tinted spectrum crossed by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>multitudinous dark
+lines. It is, indeed, only by contrast that the dark lines appear dark,
+just as it is only by contrast that the solar spots seem dark. Not only
+the penumbra but the umbra of a sun-spot, not only the umbra but the
+nucleus, not only the nucleus but the deeper black which seems to lie at
+the core of the nucleus, shine really with a lustre far exceeding that
+of the electric light, though by contrast with the rest of the sun's
+surface the penumbra looks dark, the umbra darker still, the nucleus
+deep black, and the core of the nucleus jet black. So the dark lines
+across the solar spectrum mark where certain rays are relatively faint,
+though in reality intensely lustrous. Conceive another change than that
+just imagined. Conceive the sun's globe to remain as at present, but the
+atmosphere to be excited to many times its present degree of light and
+splendour: then would all these dark lines become bright, and the
+rainbow-tinted background would be dull or even quite dark by contrast.
+This is not a mere fancy. At times, local disturbances take place in the
+sun which produce just such a change in certain constituents of the
+sun's atmosphere, causing the hydrogen, for example, to glow with so
+intense a heat that, instead of its lines appearing dark, they stand out
+as bright lines. Occasionally, too, the magnesium in the solar
+atmosphere (over certain limited regions only, be it remembered) has
+been known to behave in this manner. It was so during the intensely hot
+summer of 1872, insomuch that the Italian observer Tacchini, who noticed
+the phenomenon, attributed to such local overheating of the sun's
+magnesium vapour the remarkable heat from which we then for a time
+suffered.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the stars are suns, and the spectrum of a star is simply a
+miniature of the solar spectrum. Of course, there are characteristic
+differences. One star has more hydrogen, at least more hydrogen at work
+absorbing its rays, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> thus has the hydrogen lines more strongly
+marked than they are in the solar spectrum. Another star shows the lines
+of various metals more conspicuously, indicating that the glowing
+vapours of such elements, iron, copper, mercury, tin, and so forth,
+either hang more densely in the star's atmosphere than in our sun's, or,
+being cooler, absorb their special tints more effectively. But speaking
+generally, a stellar spectrum is like the solar spectrum. There is the
+rainbow-tinted streak, which implies that the source of light is glowing
+solid, liquid, or highly compressed vaporous matter, and athwart the
+streak there are the multitudinous dark lines which imply that around
+the glowing heart of the star there are envelopes of relatively cool
+vapours.</p>
+
+<p>We can understand, then, the meaning of the evidence obtained from the
+new star in the Northern Crown.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the new star showed the rainbow-tinted streak
+crossed by dark lines, which indicated its sun-like nature. <i>But,
+standing out on that rainbow-tinted streak as on a dark background, were
+four exceedingly bright lines&mdash;lines so bright, though fine, that
+clearly most of the star's light came from the glowing vapours to which
+these lines belonged.</i> Three of the lines belonged to hydrogen, the
+fourth was not identified with any known line.</p>
+
+<p>Let us distinguish between what can certainly be concluded from this
+remarkable observation, and what can only be inferred with a greater or
+less degree of probability.</p>
+
+<p>It is absolutely certain that when Messrs. Huggins and Miller made their
+observation (by which time the new star had faded from the second to the
+third magnitude), enormous masses of hydrogen around the star were
+glowing with a heat far more intense than that of the star itself within
+the hydrogen envelope. It is certain that the increase in the star's
+light, rendering the star visible which before had been far beyond the
+range of ordinary eyesight,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> was due to the abnormal heat of the
+hydrogen surrounding that remote sun.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not so clear whether the intense glow of the hydrogen was
+caused by combustion or by intense heat without combustion. The
+difference between the two causes of increased light is important;
+because on the opinion we form on this point must depend our opinion as
+to the probability that our sun may one day experience a similar
+catastrophe, and also our opinion as to the state of the sun in the
+Northern Crown after the outburst. To illustrate the distinction in
+question, let us take two familiar cases of the emission of light. A
+burning coal glows with red light, and so does a piece of iron placed in
+a coal fire. But the coal and the iron are undergoing very different
+processes. The coal is burning, and will presently be consumed; the iron
+is not burning (except in the sense that it is burning hot, which means
+only that it will make any combustible substance burn which is brought
+into contact with it), and it will not be consumed though the coal fire
+be maintained around it for days and weeks and months. So with the
+hydrogen flames which play at all times over the surface of our own sun.
+They are not burning like the hydrogen flames which are used for the
+oxy-hydrogen lantern. Were the solar hydrogen so burning, the sun would
+quickly be extinguished. They are simply aglow with intensity of heat,
+as a mass of red-hot iron is aglow; and, so long as the sun's energies
+are maintained, the hydrogen around him will glow in this way without
+being consumed. As the new fires of the star in the Crown died out
+rapidly, it is possible that in their case there was actual combustion.
+On the other hand, it is also possible, and perhaps on the whole more
+probable, that the hydrogen surrounding the star was simply set glowing
+with increased lustre owing to some cause not as yet ascertained.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p><p>Let us see how these two theories have been actually worded by the
+students of science themselves who have maintained them.</p>
+
+<p>'The sudden blazing forth of this star,' says Mr. Huggins, 'and then the
+rapid fading away of its light, suggest the rather bold speculation that
+in consequence of some great internal convulsion, a large volume of
+hydrogen and other gases was evolved from it, the hydrogen, by its
+combination with some other element,' in other words, by <i>burning</i>,
+'giving out the light represented by the bright lines, and at the same
+time heating to the point of vivid incandescence the solid matter of the
+star's surface.' 'As the liberated hydrogen gas became exhausted' (I now
+quote not Huggins's own words, but words describing his theory in a book
+which he has edited) 'the flame gradually abated, and, with the
+consequent cooling, the star's surface became less vivid, and the star
+returned to its original condition.'</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the German physicists, Meyer and Klein, consider the
+sudden development of hydrogen, in quantities sufficient to explain such
+an outburst, exceedingly unlikely. They have therefore adopted the
+opinion, that the sudden blazing out of the star was occasioned by the
+violent precipitation of some mighty mass, perhaps a planet, upon the
+globe of that remote sun, 'by which the momentum of the falling mass
+would be changed into molecular motion, or in other words into heat and
+light.' It might even be supposed, they urge, that the star in the
+Crown, by its swift motion, may have come in contact with one of the
+star clouds which exist in large numbers in the realms of space. 'Such a
+collision would necessarily set the star in a blaze and occasion the
+most vehement ignition of its hydrogen.'</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, our sun is safe for many millions of years to come from
+contact from any one of its planets. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> reader must not, however, run
+away with the idea that the danger consists only in the gradual
+contraction of planetary orbits sometimes spoken of. That contraction,
+if it is taking place at all, of which we have not a particle of
+evidence, would not draw Mercury to the sun's surface for at least ten
+million millions of years. The real danger would be in the effects which
+the perturbing action of the larger planets might produce on the orbit
+of Mercury. That orbit is even now very eccentric, and must at times
+become still more so. It might, but for the actual adjustment of the
+planetary system, become so eccentric that Mercury could not keep clear
+of the sun; and a blow from even small Mercury (only weighing, in fact,
+390 millions of millions of millions of tons), with a velocity of some
+300 miles per second, would warm our sun considerably. But there is no
+risk of this happening in Mercury's case&mdash;though the unseen and much
+more shifty Vulcan (in which planet I beg to express here my utter
+disbelief) might, perchance, work mischief if he really existed.</p>
+
+<p>As for star clouds lying in the sun's course, we may feel equally
+confident. The telescope assures us that there are none immediately on
+the track, and we know, also, that, swiftly though the sun is carrying
+us onwards through space,<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> many millions of years must pass before he
+is among the star families towards which he is rushing.</p>
+
+<p>Of the danger from combustion, or from other causes of ignition than
+those considered by Meyer and Klein, it still remains to speak. But
+first, let us consider what new evidence has been thrown upon the
+subject by the observations made on the star which flamed out last
+November.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p><p>The new star was first seen by Professor Schmidt, who has had the good
+fortune of announcing to astronomers more than one remarkable
+phenomenon. It was he who discovered in November 1866 that a lunar
+crater had disappeared, an announcement quite in accordance with the
+facts of the case. We have seen that he was one of the independent
+discoverers of the outburst in the Northern Crown. On November 24, at
+the early hour of 5.41 in the evening (showing that Schmidt takes time
+by the forelock at his observatory), he noticed a star of the third
+magnitude in the constellation of the Swan, not far from the tail of
+that southward-flying celestial bird. He is quite sure that on November
+20, the last preceding clear evening, the star was not there. At
+midnight its light was very yellow, and it was somewhat brighter than
+the neighbouring star Eta Pegasi, on the Flying Horse's southernmost
+knee (if anatomists will excuse my following the ordinary usage which
+calls the wrist of the horse's fore-arm the knee). He sent news of the
+discovery forthwith to Leverrier, the chief of the Paris observatory;
+and the observers there set to work to analyse the light of the
+stranger. Unfortunately the star's suddenly acquired brilliancy rapidly
+faded. M. Paul Henry estimated the star's brightness on December 2 as
+equal only to that of a fifth-magnitude star. Moreover, the colour,
+which had been very yellow on November 24, was by this time 'greenish,
+almost blue.' On December 2, M. Cornu, observing during a short time
+when the star was visible through a break between clouds, found that the
+star's spectrum consisted almost entirely of bright lines. On December
+5, he was able to determine the position of these lines, though still
+much interrupted by clouds. He found three bright lines of hydrogen, the
+strong (really double) line of sodium, the (really triple) line of
+magnesium, and two other lines. One of these last seemed to agree<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+exactly in position with a bright line belonging to the corona seen
+around the sun during total eclipse.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p>
+
+<p>The star has since faded gradually in lustre until, at present, it is
+quite invisible to the naked eye.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot doubt that the catastrophe which befell this star is of the
+same general nature as is that which befell the star in the Northern
+Crown. It is extremely significant that all the elements which
+manifested signs of intense heat in the case of the star in the Swan,
+are characteristic of our sun's outer appendages. We know that the
+coloured flames seen around the sun during total solar eclipse consist
+of glowing hydrogen, and of glowing matter giving a line so near the
+sodium line that in the case of a stellar spectrum it would, probably,
+not be possible to distinguish one from the other. Into the prominences
+there are thrown from time to time masses of glowing sodium, magnesium,
+and (in less degree) iron and other metallic vapours. Lastly, in that
+glorious appendage, the solar corona, which extends for hundreds of
+thousands of miles from the sun's surface, there are enormous quantities
+of some element, whose nature is as yet unknown, showing under
+spectroscopic analysis the bright line which seems to have appeared in
+the spectrum of the flaming sun in the Swan.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p><p>This evidence seems to me to suggest that the intense heat which
+suddenly affected this star had its origin from without. At the same
+time, I cannot agree with Meyer and Klein in considering that the cause
+of the heat was either the downfall of a planetary mass on the star, or
+the collision of the star with a star-cloudlet, or nebula, traversing
+space in one direction while the star swept onwards in another. A planet
+could not very well come into final conflict with its sun at one fell
+swoop. It would gradually draw nearer and nearer, not by the narrowing
+of its path, but by the change of the path's shape. The path would, in
+fact, become more and more eccentric; until, at length, at its point of
+nearest approach, the planet would graze its primary, exciting an
+intense heat where it struck, but escaping actual destruction that time.
+The planet would make another circuit, and again graze its sun, at or
+near the same part of the planet's path. For several circuits this would
+continue, the grazes not becoming more effective each time, but rather
+less. The interval between them, however, would grow continually less
+and less. At last the time would come when the planet's path would be
+reduced to the circular form, its globe touching its sun's all the way
+round, and then the planet would very quickly be reduced to vapour, and
+partly burned up, its substance being absorbed by its sun. But all the
+successive grazes would be indicated to us by accessions in the star's
+lustre, the period between each seeming outburst being only a few months
+at first, and becoming gradually less and less (during a long course of
+years, perhaps even of centuries), until the planet was finally
+destroyed. Nothing of this sort has happened in the case of any
+so-called new star.</p>
+
+<p>As for the rush of a star through a nebulous mass, that is a theory
+which would scarcely be entertained by any one acquainted with the
+enormous distances separating the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> gaseous star-clouds properly called
+nebul&aelig;. There may be small clouds of the same sort scattered much more
+densely through space; but we have not a particle of evidence that this
+actually is the case. All we certainly <i>know</i> about star-cloudlets
+suggest that the distances separating them from each other are
+comparable with those which separate star from star, in which case the
+idea of a star coming into collision with a star-cloudlet, and still
+more the idea of this occurring several times in a century, is wild in
+the extreme.</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, the theory seems more probable than any of these, that
+enormous flights of large meteoric masses travel around those stars
+which thus occasionally break forth in conflagration, such flights
+travelling on exceedingly eccentric paths, and requiring enormously long
+periods to complete each circuit of their vast orbits. In conceiving
+this, we are not imagining anything new. Such a meteoric flight would
+differ only in degree not kind from meteoric flights which are known to
+circle around our own sun. I am not sure, indeed, that it can be
+definitely asserted that our sun has no meteoric appendages of the same
+nature as those which, if this theory be true, excite to intense
+periodic activity the sun round which they circle. We know that comets
+and meteors are closely connected, every comet being probably (many
+certainly) attended by flights of meteoric masses. The meteors which
+produce the celebrated November showers of falling stars follow in the
+track of a comet invisible to the naked eye. May we not reasonably
+suppose, then, that those glorious comets which have not only been
+visible but conspicuous, shining even in the day-time, and brandishing
+round tails which, like that of the 'wonder in heaven, the great
+dragon,' seemed to 'draw the third part of the stars of heaven,' are
+followed by much denser flights of much more massive meteors? Now some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+among these giant comets have paths which carry them very close to our
+sun. Newton's comet, with its tail a hundred millions of miles in
+length, all but grazed the sun's globe. The comet of 1843, whose tail,
+says Sir J. Herschel, 'stretched half-way across the sky,' must actually
+have grazed the sun, though but lightly, for its nucleus was within
+80,000 miles of his surface, and its head was more than 160,000 miles in
+diameter. And these are only two among the few comets whose paths are
+known. At any time we might be visited by a comet mightier than either,
+travelling on an orbit intersecting the sun's surface, followed by
+flights of meteoric masses enormous in size and many in number, which,
+falling on the sun's globe with the enormous velocity corresponding to
+their vast orbital range and their near approach to the sun&mdash;a velocity
+of some 360 miles per second&mdash;would, beyond all doubt, excite his whole
+frame, and especially his surface regions, to a degree of heat far
+exceeding what he now emits.</p>
+
+<p>We have had evidence of the tremendous heat to which the sun's surface
+would be excited by the downfall of a shower of large meteoric masses.
+Carrington and Hodgson, on September 1, 1859, observed (independently)
+the passage of two intensely bright bodies across a small part of the
+sun's surface&mdash;the bodies first increasing in brightness, then
+diminishing, then fading away. It is generally believed that these were
+meteoric masses raised to fierce heat by frictional resistance. Now so
+much brighter did they appear, or rather did that part of the sun's
+surface appear through which they had rushed, that Carrington supposed
+the dark glass screen used to protect the eye had broken, and Hodgson
+described the brightness of this part of the sun as such that the part
+shone like a brilliant star on the background of the glowing solar
+surface. Mark, also, the consequences of the downfall of those two
+bodies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> only. A magnetic disturbance affected the whole frame of the
+earth at the very time when the sun had been thus disturbed. Vivid
+auroras were seen not only in both hemispheres, but in latitudes where
+auroras are very seldom witnessed. 'By degrees,' says Sir J. Herschel,
+'accounts began to pour in of great auroras seen not only in these
+latitudes, but at Rome, in the West Indies, in the tropics within
+eighteen degrees of the equator (where they hardly ever appear); nay,
+what is still more striking, in South America and in Australia&mdash;where,
+at Melbourne, on the night of September 2, the greatest aurora ever seen
+there made its appearance. These auroras were accompanied with unusually
+great electro-magnetic disturbances in every part of the world. In many
+places the telegraph wires struck work. They had too many private
+messages of their own to convey. At Washington and Philadelphia, in
+America, the electric signal-men received severe electric shocks. At a
+station in Norway the telegraphic apparatus was set fire to; and at
+Boston, in North America, a flame of fire followed the pen of Bain's
+electric telegraph, which writes down the message upon chemically
+prepared paper.' Seeing that where the two meteors fell the sun's
+surface glowed thus intensely, and that the effect of this accession of
+energy upon our earth was thus well marked, can it be doubted that a
+comet, bearing in its train a flight of many millions of meteoric
+masses, and falling directly upon the sun, would produce an accession of
+light and heat whose consequences would be disastrous? When the earth
+has passed through the richer portions (not the actual nuclei, be it
+remembered) of meteor systems, the meteors visible from even a single
+station have been counted by tens of thousands, and it has been computed
+that millions must have fallen upon the whole earth. These were meteors
+following in the train of very small comets. If a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> very large comet
+followed by no denser a flight of meteors, but each meteoric mass much
+larger, fell directly upon the sun, it would not be the outskirts but
+the nucleus of the meteoric train which would impinge upon him. They
+would number thousands of millions. The velocity of downfall of each
+mass would be more than 360 miles per second. And they would continue to
+pour in upon him for several days in succession, millions falling every
+hour. It seems not improbable that, under this tremendous and
+long-continued meteoric hail, his whole surface would be caused to glow
+as intensely as that small part whose brilliancy was so surprising in
+the observation made by Carrington and Hodgson. In that case, our sun,
+seen from some remote star whence ordinarily he is invisible, would
+shine out as a new sun, for a few days, while all things living on our
+earth, and whatever other members of the solar system are the abode of
+life, would inevitably be destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>The reader must not suppose that this idea has been suggested merely in
+the attempt to explain outbursts of stars. The following passage from a
+paper of considerable scientific interest by Professor Kirkwood, of
+Bloomington, Indiana, a well-known American astronomer, shows that the
+idea had occurred to him for a very different reason. He speaks here of
+a probable connection between the comet of 1843 and the great sun-spot
+which appeared in June 1843. I am not sure, however, but that we may
+regard the very meteors which seem to have fallen on the sun on
+September 1, 1859, as bodies travelling in the track of the comet of
+1843&mdash;just as the November meteors seen in 1867&ndash;8, 9, etc., until 1872,
+were bodies certainly following in the track of the telescopic comet of
+1866. 'The opinion has been expressed by more than one astronomer,' he
+says, speaking of Carrington's observation,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> 'that this phenomenon was
+produced by the fall of meteoric matter upon the sun's surface. Now, the
+fact may be worthy of note that the comet of 1843 actually grazed the
+sun's atmosphere about three months before the appearance of the great
+sun-spot of the same year. Had it approached but little nearer, the
+resistance of the atmosphere would probably have brought its entire mass
+to the solar surface. Even at its actual distance it must have produced
+considerable atmospheric disturbance. But the recent discovery that a
+number of comets are associated with meteoric matter, travelling in
+nearly the same orbits, suggests the inquiry whether an enormous
+meteorite following in the comet's train, and having a somewhat less
+perihelion distance, may not have been precipitated upon the sun, thus
+producing the great disturbance observed so shortly after the comet's
+perihelion passage.'</p>
+
+<p>There are those, myself among the number, who consider the periodicity
+of the solar spots, that tide of spots which flows to its maximum and
+then ebbs to its minimum in a little more than eleven years, as only
+explicable on the theory that a small comet having this period, and
+followed by a meteor train, has a path intersecting the sun's surface.
+In an article entitled 'The Sun a Bubble,' which appeared in the
+'Cornhill Magazine' for October 1874, I remarked that from the observed
+phenomena of sun-spots we might be led to suspect the existence of some
+as yet undetected comet with a train of exceptionally large meteoric
+masses, travelling in a period of about eleven years round the sun, and
+having its place of nearest approach to that orb so close to the solar
+surface that, when the main flight is passing, the stragglers fall upon
+the sun's surface. In this case, we could readily understand that, as
+this small comet unquestionably causes our sun to be variable to some
+slight degree in brilliancy, in a period of about eleven years, so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> some
+much larger comet circling around Mira, in a period of about 331 days,
+may occasion those alternations of brightness which have been described
+above. It may be noticed in passing, that it is by no means certain that
+the time when the sun is most spotted is the time when he gives out
+least light. Though at such times his surface is dark where the spots
+are, yet elsewhere it is probably brighter than usual; at any rate, all
+the evidence we have tends to show that when the sun is most spotted,
+his energies are most active. It is then that the coloured flames leap
+to their greatest height and show their greatest brilliancy, then also
+that they show the most rapid and remarkable changes of shape.</p>
+
+<p>Supposing there really is, I will not say danger, but a possibility,
+that our sun may one day, through the arrival of some very large comet
+travelling directly towards him, share the fate of the suns whose
+outbursts I have described above, we might be destroyed unawares, or we
+might be aware for several weeks of the approach of the destroying
+comet. Suppose, for example, the comet, which might arrive from any part
+of the heavens, came from out that part of the star-depths which is
+occupied by the constellation Taurus&mdash;then, if the arrival were so timed
+that the comet, which might reach the sun at any time, fell upon him in
+May or June, we should know nothing of that comet's approach: for it
+would approach in that part of the heavens which was occupied by the
+sun, and his splendour would hide as with a veil the destroying enemy.
+On the other hand, if the comet, arriving from the same region of the
+heavens, so approached as to fall upon the sun in November or December,
+we should see it for several weeks. For it would then approach from the
+part of the heavens high above the southern horizon at midnight.
+Astronomers would be able in a few days after it was discovered to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+determine its path and predict its downfall upon the sun, precisely as
+Newton calculated the path of <i>his</i> comet and predicted its near
+approach to the sun. It would be known for weeks then that the event
+which Newton contemplated as likely to cause a tremendous outburst of
+solar heat, competent to destroy all life upon the surface of our earth,
+was about to take place; and, doubtless, the minds of many students of
+science would be exercised during that interval in determining whether
+Newton was right or wrong. For my own part, I have very little doubt
+that, though the change in the sun's condition in consequence of the
+direct downfall upon his surface of a very large comet would be but
+temporary, and in that sense slight&mdash;for what are a few weeks in the
+history of an orb which has already existed during thousands of millions
+of years?&mdash;yet the effect upon the inhabitants of the earth would be by
+no means slight. I do not think, however, that any students of science
+would remain, after the catastrophe, to estimate or to record its
+effects.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, all that we have learned hitherto from the stars favours
+the belief that, while a catastrophe of this sort may be possible, it is
+exceedingly unlikely. We may estimate the probabilities precisely in the
+same way that an insurance company estimates the chance of a railway
+accident. Such a company considers the number of accidents which occur
+among a given number of railway journeys, and from the smallness of the
+number of accidents compared with the largeness of the number of
+journeys estimates the safety of railway travelling. Our sun is one
+among many millions of suns, any one of which (though all but a few
+thousands are actually invisible) would become visible to the naked eye,
+if exposed to the same conditions as have affected the suns in flames
+described in the preceding pages. Seeing, then, that during<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> the last
+two thousand years or thereabouts, only a few instances of the kind,
+certainly not so many as twenty, have been recorded, while there is
+reason to believe that some of these relate to the same star which has
+blazed out more than once, we may fairly consider the chance exceedingly
+small that during the next two thousand, or even the next twenty
+thousand years, our sun will be exposed to a catastrophe of the kind.</p>
+
+<p>We might arrive at this conclusion independently of any considerations
+tending to show that our sun belongs to a safe class of system-rulers,
+and that all, or nearly all, the great solar catastrophes have occurred
+among suns of a particular class. There are, however, several
+considerations of the kind which are worth noting.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, we may dismiss as altogether unlikely the visit of a
+comet from the star-depths to our sun, on a course carrying the comet
+directly upon the sun's surface. But if, among the comets travelling in
+regular attendance upon the sun, there be one whose orbit intersects the
+sun's globe, then that comet must several times ere this have struck the
+sun, raising him temporarily to a destructive degree of heat. Now, such
+a comet must have a period of enormous length, for the races of animals
+now existing upon the earth must all have been formed since that comet's
+last visit&mdash;on the assumption, be it remembered, that the fall of a
+large comet upon the sun, or rather the direct passage of the sun
+through the meteoric nucleus of a large comet, would excite the sun to
+destructive heat. If all living creatures on the earth are to be
+destroyed when some comet belonging to the solar system makes its next
+return to the sun, that same comet at its last visit must have raised
+the sun to an equal, or even greater intensity of heat, so that either
+no such races as at present exist had then come into being, or, if any
+such existed, they must at that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> time have been utterly destroyed. We
+may fairly believe that all comets of the destructive sort have been
+eliminated. Judging from the evidence we have on the subject, the
+process of the formation of the solar system was one which involved the
+utilisation of cometic and meteoric matter; and it fortunately so
+chanced that the comets likely otherwise to have been most
+mischievous&mdash;those, namely, which crossed the track of planets, and
+still more those whose paths intersected the globe of the sun&mdash;were
+precisely those which would be earliest and most thoroughly used up in
+this way.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, it is noteworthy that all the stars which have blazed out
+suddenly, except one, have appeared in a particular region of the
+heavens&mdash;the zone of the Milky Way (all, too, on one half of that zone).
+The single exception is the star in the Northern Crown, and that star
+appeared in a region which I have found to be connected with the Milky
+Way by a well-marked stream of stars, not a stream of a few stars
+scattered here and there, but a stream where thousands of stars are
+closely aggregated together, though not quite so closely as to form a
+visible extension of the Milky Way. In my map of 324,000 stars this
+stream can be quite clearly recognised; but, indeed, the brighter stars
+scattered along it form a stream recognisable with the naked eye, and
+have long since been regarded by astronomers as such, forming the stars
+of the Serpent and the Crown, or a serpentine streak followed by a loop
+of stars shaped like a coronet. Now the Milky Way, and the outlying
+streams of stars connected with it, seem to form a region of the stellar
+universe where fashioning processes are still at work. As Sir W.
+Herschel long since pointed out, we can recognise in various parts of
+the heavens various stages of development, and chief among the regions
+where as yet Nature's work seems incomplete, is the Galactic
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>zone&mdash;especially that half of it where the Milky Way consists of
+irregular streams and clouds of stellar light. As there is no reason for
+believing that our sun belongs to this part of the galaxy, but on the
+contrary good ground for considering that he belongs to the class of
+insulated stars, few of which have shown signs of irregular variation,
+while none have ever blazed suddenly out with many hundred times their
+former lustre, we may fairly infer a very high degree of probability in
+favour of the belief that, for many ages still to come, the sun will
+continue steadily to discharge his duties as fire, light, and life of
+the solar system.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+<h3>VII.<br />
+
+<i>THE RINGS OF SATURN.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">The</span> rings of Saturn, always among the most interesting objects of
+astronomical research, have recently been subjected to close scrutiny
+under high telescopic powers by Mr. Trouvelot, of the Harvard
+Observatory, Cambridge, U.S. The results which he has obtained afford
+very significant evidence respecting these strange appendages, and even
+throw some degree of light on the subject of cosmical evolution. The
+present time, when Saturn is the ruling planet of the night, seems
+favourable for giving a brief account of recent speculations respecting
+the Saturnian ring-system, especially as the observations of Mr.
+Trouvelot appear to remove all doubt as to the true nature of the rings,
+if indeed any doubt could reasonably be entertained after the
+investigations made by European and American astronomers when the dark
+inner ring had but recently been recognised.</p>
+
+<p>It may be well to give a brief account of the progress of observation
+from the time when the rings were first discovered.</p>
+
+<p>In passing, I may remark that the failure of Galileo to ascertain the
+real shape of these appendages has always seemed to me to afford
+striking evidence of the importance of careful reasoning upon all
+observations whose actual significance is not at once apparent. If
+Galileo had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> thus careful to analyse his observations of Saturn, he
+could not have failed to ascertain their real meaning. He had seen the
+planet apparently attended by two large satellites, one on either side,
+'as though supporting the aged Saturn upon his slow course around the
+sun.' Night after night he had seen these attendants, always similarly
+placed, one on either side of the planet, and at equal distances from
+it. Then in 1612 he had again examined the planet, and lo, the
+attendants had vanished, 'as though Saturn had been at his old tricks,
+and had devoured his children.' But after a while the attendant orbs had
+reappeared in their former positions, had seemed slowly to grow larger,
+until at length they had presented the appearance of two pairs of mighty
+arms encompassing the planet. If Galileo had reasoned upon these changes
+of appearance, he could not have failed, as it seems to me, to interpret
+their true meaning. The three forms under which the rings had been seen
+by him sufficed to indicate the true shape of the appendage. Because
+Saturn was seen with two attendants of apparently equal size and always
+equi-distant from him, it was certain that there must be some appendage
+surrounding him, and extending to that distance from his globe. Because
+this appendage disappeared, it was certain that it must be thin and
+flat. Because it appeared at another time with a dark space between the
+arms and the planet, it was certain that the appendage is separated by a
+wide gap from the body of the planet. So that Galileo might have
+concluded&mdash;not doubtfully, but with assured confidence&mdash;that the
+appendage is a thin flat ring nowhere attached to the planet, or, as
+Huyghens said some forty years later, Saturn '<i>annulo cingitur tenui,
+plano, nusquam coh&aelig;rente</i>.' Whether such reasoning would have been
+accepted by the contemporaries of Galileo may be doubtful. The
+generality of men are not content with reasoning which is logically
+sound, but require<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> evidence which they can easily understand. Very
+likely Huyghens' proof from direct observation, though in reality not a
+whit more complete and far rougher, would have been regarded as the
+first true proof of the existence of Saturn's ring, just as Sir W.
+Herschel's observation of one star actually moving round another was
+regarded as the first true proof of the physical association of certain
+stars, a fact which Michell had proved as completely and far more neatly
+half a century earlier, by a method, however, which was 'caviare to the
+general.'</p>
+
+<p>However, as matters chanced, the scientific world was not called upon to
+decide between the merits of a discovery made by direct observation and
+one effected by means of abstract reasoning. It was not until Saturn had
+been examined with much higher telescopic power than Galileo could
+employ, that the appendage which had so perplexed the Florentine
+astronomer was seen to be a thin flat ring, nowhere touching the planet,
+and considerably inclined to the plane in which Saturn travels. We
+cannot wonder that the discovery was regarded as a most interesting one.
+Astronomers had heretofore had to deal with solid masses, either known
+to be spheroidal, like the earth, the sun, the moon, Jupiter, and Venus,
+or presumed to be so, like the stars. The comets might be judged to be
+vaporous masses of various forms; but even these were supposed to
+surround or to attend upon globe-shaped nuclear masses. Here, however,
+in the case of Saturn's ring, was a quoit-shaped body travelling around
+the sun in continual attendance upon Saturn, whose motions, no matter
+how they varied in velocity or direction, were so closely followed by
+this strange attendant that the planet remained always centrally poised
+within the span of its ring-girdle. To appreciate the interest with
+which this strange phenomenon was regarded, we must remember that as yet
+the law of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> gravity had not been recognised. Huyghens discovered the
+ring (or rather perceived its nature) in 1659, but it was not till 1666
+that Newton first entertained the idea that the moon is retained in its
+orbit about the earth by the attractive energy which causes unsupported
+bodies to fall earthwards; and he was unable to demonstrate the law of
+gravity before 1684. Now, in a general sense, we can readily understand
+in these days how a ring around a planet continues to travel along with
+the planet despite all changes of velocity or direction of motion. For
+the law of gravity teaches that the same causes which tend to change the
+direction and velocity of the planet's motion tend in precisely the same
+degree to change the direction and velocity of the ring's motion. But
+when Huyghens made his discovery it must have appeared a most mysterious
+circumstance that a ring and planet should be thus constantly
+associated&mdash;that during thousands of years no collision should have
+occurred whereby the relatively delicate structure of the ring had been
+destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>Only six years later a discovery was made by two English observers,
+William and Thomas Ball, which enhanced the mystery. Observing the
+northern face of the ring, which was at that time turned earthwards,
+they perceived a black stripe of considerable breadth dividing the ring
+into two concentric portions. The discovery did not attract so much
+attention as it deserved, insomuch that when Cassini, ten years later,
+announced the discovery of a corresponding dark division on the southern
+surface, none recalled the observation made by the brothers Ball.
+Cassini expressed the opinion that the ring is really divided into two,
+not merely marked by a dark stripe on its southern face. This conclusion
+would, of course, have been an assured one, had the previous observation
+of a dark division on the northern face been remembered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> With the
+knowledge which we now possess, indeed, the darkness of the seeming
+stripe would be sufficient evidence that there must be a real division
+there between the rings; for we know that no mere darkness of the ring's
+substance could account for the apparent darkness of the stripe. It has
+been well remarked by Professor Tyndall, that if the moon's whole
+surface could be covered with black velvet, she would yet appear white
+when seen on the dark background of the sky. And it may be doubted
+whether a circular strip of black velvet 2000 miles wide, placed where
+we see the dark division between the rings, would appear nearly as dark
+as that division. Since we could only admit the possibility of some
+substance resembling our darker rocks occupying this position (for we
+know of nothing to justify the supposition that a substance as dark as
+lampblack or black velvet could be there), we are manifestly precluded
+from supposing that the dark space is other than a division between two
+distinct rings.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Sir W. Herschel, in examining the rings of Saturn with his powerful
+telescopes, for a long time favoured the theory that there is no real
+division. He called it the 'broad black mark,' and argued that it can
+neither indicate the existence of a zone of hills upon the ring, nor of
+a vast cavernous groove, for in either case it would present changes of
+appearance (according to the ring's changes of position) such as he was
+unable to detect. It was not until the year 1790, eleven years after his
+observations had commenced, that, perceiving a corresponding broad black
+mark upon the ring's southern face, Herschel expressed a 'suspicion'
+that the ring is divided into two concentric portions by a circular gap
+nearly 2000 miles in width. He expressed at the same time, very
+strongly, his belief that this division was the only one in Saturn's
+ring-system.</p>
+
+<p>A special interest attached at that time to the question<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> whether the
+ring is divided or not, for Laplace had then recently published the
+results of his mathematical inquiry into the movements of such a ring as
+Saturn's, and, having <i>proved</i> that a single solid ring of such enormous
+width could not continue to move around the planet, had expressed the
+<i>opinion</i> that Saturn's ring consists in reality of many concentric
+rings, each turning, with its own proper rotation rate, around the
+central planet. It is singular that Herschel, who, though not versed in
+the methods of the higher mathematics, had considerable native power as
+a mathematician, was unable to perceive the force of Laplace's
+reasoning. Indeed, this is one of those cases where clearness of
+perception rather than profundity of mathematical insight was required.
+Laplace's equations of motion did not express all the relations
+involved, nor was it possible to judge, from the results he deduced, how
+far the stability of the Saturnian rings depended on the real structure
+of these appendages. One who was well acquainted with mechanical
+matters, and sufficiently versed in mathematics to understand how to
+estimate generally the forces acting upon the ring-system, could have
+perceived as readily the general conditions of the problem as the most
+profound mathematician. One may compare the case to the problem of
+determining whether the action of the moon in causing the tidal wave
+modifies in any manner the earth's motion of rotation. We know that as a
+mathematical question this is a very difficult one. The Astronomer
+Royal, for example, not long ago dealt with it analytically, and deduced
+the conclusion that there is no effect on the earth's rotation,
+presently however, discovering by a lucky chance a term in the result
+which indicates an effect of that kind. But if we look at the matter in
+its mechanical aspect, we perceive at once, without any profound
+mathematical research, that the retardation so hard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> to detect
+mathematically must necessarily take place. As Sir E. Beckett says in
+his masterly work, <i>Astronomy without Mathematics</i>, 'the conclusion is
+as evident without mathematics as with them, when once it has been
+suggested.' So when we consider the case of a wide flat ring surrounding
+a mighty planet like Saturn, we perceive that nothing could possibly
+save such a ring from destruction if it were really one solid structure.</p>
+
+<p>To recognise this the more clearly, let us first notice the dimensions
+of the planet and rings.</p>
+
+<p>We have in Saturn a globe about 70,000 miles in mean diameter, an
+equatorial diameter being about 73,000 miles, the polar diameter 66,000
+miles. The attractive force of this mighty mass upon bodies placed on
+its surface is equal to about one-fifth more than terrestrial gravity if
+the body is near the pole of Saturn, and is almost exactly the same as
+terrestrial gravity if the body is at the planet's equator. Its action
+on the matter of the ring is, of course, very much less, because of the
+increased distance, but still a force is exerted on every part of the
+ring which is comparable with the familiar force of terrestrial gravity.
+The outer edge of the outer ring lies about 83,500 miles from the
+planet's centre, the inner edge of the inner ring (I speak throughout of
+the ring-system as known to Sir W. Herschel and Laplace) about 54,500
+miles from the centre, the breadth of the system of bright rings being
+about 29,000 miles. Between the planet's equator and the inner edge of
+the innermost bright ring there intervenes a space of about 20,000
+miles. Roughly speaking, it may be said that the attraction of the
+planet on the substance of the ring's inner edge is less than gravity at
+Saturn's equator (or, which is almost exactly the same thing, is less
+than terrestrial gravity) in about the proportion of 9 to 20; or, still
+more roughly, the inner edge of Saturn's inner bright ring is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> drawn
+inwards by about half the force of gravity at the earth's surface. The
+outer edge is drawn towards Saturn by a force less than terrestrial
+gravity in the proportion of about 3 to 16&mdash;say roughly that the force
+thus exerted by Saturn on the matter of the outer edge of the
+ring-system is equivalent to about one-fifth of the force of gravity at
+the earth's surface.</p>
+
+<p>It is clear, first, that if the ring-system did not rotate, the forces
+thus acting on the material of the rings would immediately break them
+into fragments, and, dragging these down to the planet's equator, would
+leave them scattered in heaps upon that portion of Saturn's surface. The
+ring would in fact be in that case like a mighty arch, each portion of
+which would be drawn towards Saturn's centre by its own weight. This
+weight would be enormous if Bessel's estimate of the mass of the
+ring-system is correct. He made the mass of the ring rather greater than
+the mass of the earth&mdash;an estimate which I believe to be greatly in
+excess of the truth. Probably the rings do not amount in mass to more
+than a fourth part of the earth's mass. But even that is enormous, and
+subjected as is the material of the rings to forces varying from
+one-half to a fifth of terrestrial gravity, the strains and pressures
+upon the various parts of the system would exceed thousands of times
+those which even the strongest material built up into their shape could
+resist. The system would no more be able to resist such strains and
+pressures than an arch of iron spanning the Atlantic would be able to
+sustain its own weight against the earth's attraction.</p>
+
+<p>It would be necessary then that the ring-system should rotate around the
+planet. But it is clear that the proper rate of rotation for the outer
+portion would be very different from the rate suited for the inner
+portion. In order that the inner portion should travel around Saturn
+entirely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> relieved of its weight, it should complete a revolution in
+about seven hours twenty-three minutes. The outer portion, however,
+should revolve in about thirteen hours fifty-eight minutes, or nearly
+fourteen hours. Thus the inner part should rotate in little more than
+half the time required by the outer part. The result would necessarily
+be that the ring-system would be affected by tremendous strains, which
+it would be quite unable to resist. The existence of the great division
+would manifestly go far to diminish the strains. It is easily shown that
+the rate of turning where the division is, would be once in about eleven
+hours and twenty-five minutes, not differing greatly from the mean
+between the rotation-periods for the outside and for the inside edges of
+the system. Even then, however, the strains would be hundreds of times
+greater than the material of the ring could resist. A mass comparable in
+weight to our earth, compelled to rotate in (say) nine hours when it
+ought to rotate in eleven or in seven, would be subjected to strains
+exceeding many times the resistances which the cohesive power of its
+substance could afford. That would be the condition of the inner ring.
+And in like manner the outer ring, if it rotated in about twelve hours
+and three-quarters, would have its outer portions rotating too fast and
+its inner portions too slowly, because their proper periods would be
+fourteen hours and eleven hours and a half respectively. Nothing but the
+division of the ring into a number of narrow hoops could possibly save
+it from destruction through the internal strains and pressures to which
+its material would be subjected.</p>
+
+<p>Even this complicated arrangement, however, would not save the
+ring-system. If we suppose a fine hoop to turn around a central
+attracting body as the rings of Saturn rotate around the planet, it may
+be shown that unless the hoop is so weighted that its centre of gravity
+is far from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> planet, there will be no stability in the resulting
+motions; the hoop will before long be made to rotate eccentrically, and
+eventually be brought into destructive collision with the central
+planet.</p>
+
+<p>It was here that Laplace left the problem. Nothing could have been more
+unsatisfactory than his result, though it was accepted for nearly half a
+century unquestioned. He had shown that a weighted fine hoop may
+possibly turn around a central attracting mass without destructive
+changes of position, but he had not proved more than the bare
+possibility of this, while nothing in the appearance of Saturn's rings
+suggests that any such arrangement exists. Again, manifestly a multitude
+of narrow hoops, so combined as to form a broad flat system of rings,
+would be constantly in collision <i>inter se</i>. Besides, each one of them
+would be subjected to destructive strains. For though a fine uniform
+hoop set rotating at a proper rate around an attracting mass at its
+centre would be freed from all strains, the case is very different with
+a hoop so weighted as to have its centre of gravity greatly displaced.
+Laplace had saved the theoretical stability of the motions of a fine
+ring at the expense of the ring's power of resisting the strains to
+which it would be exposed. It seems incredible that such a result
+(expressed, too, very doubtingly by the distinguished mathematician who
+had obtained it) should have been accepted so long almost without
+question. There is nothing in nature in the remotest degree resembling
+the arrangement imagined by Laplace, which indeed appears on <i>&agrave; priori</i>
+grounds impossible. It was not claimed for it that it removed the
+original difficulties of the problem; and it introduced others fully as
+serious. So strong, however, is authority in the scientific world that
+none ventured to express any doubts except Sir W. Herschel, who simply
+denied that the two rings were divided into many, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> Laplace's theory
+required. As time went on and the signs of many divisions were at times
+recognised, it was supposed that Laplace's reasoning had been justified;
+and despite the utter impossibility of the arrangement he had suggested,
+that arrangement was ordinarily described as probably existing.</p>
+
+<p>At length, however, a discovery was made which caused the whole question
+to be reopened.</p>
+
+<p>On November 10, 1850, W. Bond, observing the planet with the telescope
+of the Harvard Observatory, perceived within the inner bright ring a
+feeble illumination which he was at a loss to understand. On the next
+night the faint light was better seen. On the 15th, Tuttle, who was
+observing with Bond, suggested the idea that the light within the inner
+bright ring was due to a dusky ring inside the system of bright rings.
+On November 25, Mr. Dawes in England perceived this dusky ring, and
+announced the discovery before the news had reached England that Bond
+had already seen the dark ring. The credit of the discovery is usually
+shared between Bond and Dawes, though the usual rule in such matters
+would assign the discovery to Bond alone. It was found that the dark
+ring had already been seen at Rome so far back as 1828, and again by
+Galle at Berlin in May 1838. The Roman observations were not
+satisfactory. Those by Galle, however, were sufficient to have
+established the fact of the ring's existence; indeed, in 1839 Galle
+measured the dark ring. But very little attention was attracted to this
+interesting discovery, insomuch that when Bond and Dawes announced their
+observation of the dark ring in 1850, the news was received by
+astronomers with all the interest attaching to the detection of before
+unnoted phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>It may be well to notice under what conditions the dark ring was
+detected in 1850. In September 1848 the ring had been turned edgewise
+towards the sun, and as rather<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> more than seven years are occupied in
+the apparent gradual opening out of the ring from that edge view to its
+most open appearance (when the outline of the ring-system is an eclipse
+whose lesser axis is nearly equal to half the greater), it will be seen
+that in November 1850 the rings were but slightly opened. Thus the
+recognition of the dark ring within the bright system was made under
+unfavourable conditions. For four preceding years&mdash;that is, from the
+year 1846&mdash;the rings had been as little or less opened; and again for
+several years preceding 1846, though the rings had been more open, the
+planet had been unfavourably placed for observation in northern
+latitudes, crossing the meridian at low altitudes. Still, in 1838 and
+1839, when the rings were most open, although the planet was never seen
+under favourable conditions, the opening of the rings, then nearly at
+its greatest, made the recognition of the dark ring possible; and we
+have seen that Galle then made the discovery. When Bond rediscovered the
+dark ring, everything promised that before long the appendage would be
+visible with telescopes far inferior in power to the great Harvard
+refractor. Year after year the planet was becoming more favourably
+placed for observation, while all the time the rings were opening out.
+Accordingly it need not surprise us to learn that in 1853 the dark ring
+was seen with a telescope less than three inches and a half in aperture.
+Even so early as 1851, Mr. Hartnup, observing the planet with a
+telescope eight inches and a half in aperture, found that 'the dark ring
+could not be overlooked for an instant.'</p>
+
+<p>But while this increase in the distinctness of the dark ring was to be
+expected, from the mere fact that the ring was discovered under
+relatively unfavourable conditions, yet the fact that Saturn was thus
+found to have an appendage of a remarkable character, perfectly obvious
+even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> with moderate telescopic power, was manifestly most surprising.
+The planet had been studied for nearly two centuries with telescopes
+exceeding in power those with which the dark ring was now perceived.
+Some among these telescopes were not only of great power, but employed
+by observers of the utmost skill. The elder Herschel had for a quarter
+of a century studied Saturn with his great reflectors eighteen inches in
+aperture, and had at times turned on the planet his monstrous (though
+not mighty) four-feet mirror. Schr&ouml;ter had examined the dark space
+within the inner bright ring for the special purpose of determining
+whether the ring-system is really disconnected from the globe. He had
+used a mirror nineteen inches in aperture, and he had observed that the
+dark space seen on either side of Saturn inside the ring-system not only
+appeared dark, but actually darker than the surrounding sky. This was
+presumably (though not quite certainly) an effect of contrast only, the
+dark space being bounded all round by bright surfaces. If real, the
+phenomenon signified that whereas the space outside the ring, where the
+satellites of the planet travel, was occupied by some sort of cosmical
+dust, the space within the ring-system was, as it were, swept and
+garnished, as though all the scattered matter which might otherwise have
+occupied that region had been either attracted to the body of the planet
+or to the rings.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> But manifestly the observation was entirely
+inconsistent with the supposition that there existed in Schr&ouml;ter's time
+a dark or dusky ring within the bright system. Again, the elder Struve
+made the most careful measurement of the whole of the ring-system in
+1826, when the system was as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> well placed for observation as in 1856
+(or, in other words, as well placed as it can possibly be); but though
+he used a telescope nine inches and a half in aperture, and though his
+attention was specially attracted to the inner edge of the inner bright
+ring (<i>which seemed to him indistinct</i>), he did not detect the dark
+ring. Yet we have seen that in 1851, under much less favourable
+conditions, a less practised observer, using a telescope of less
+aperture, found that the dark ring could not be overlooked for an
+instant. It is manifest that all these considerations point to the
+conclusion that the dark ring is a new formation, or, at the least, that
+it has changed notably in condition during the present century.</p>
+
+<p>I have hitherto only considered the appearance of the dusky ring as seen
+on either side of the planet's globe within the bright rings. The most
+remarkable feature of the appendage remains still to be mentioned&mdash;the
+fact, namely, that the bright body of the planet can be seen through
+this dusky ring. Where the dark ring crosses the planet, it appears as a
+rather dark belt, which might readily be mistaken for a belt upon the
+planet's surface; for the outline of the planet can be seen through the
+ring as through a film of smoke or a crape veil.</p>
+
+<p>Now it is worthy of notice that whereas the dark ring was not detected
+outside the planet's body until 1838, nor generally recognised by
+astronomers until 1850, the dark belt across the planet, really caused
+by the dusky ring, was observed more than a century earlier. In 1715 the
+younger Cassini saw it, and perceived that it was not curved enough for
+a belt really belonging to the planet. Hadley again observed that the
+belt attended the ring as this opened out and closed, or, in other
+words, that the dark belt belonged to the ring, not to the body of the
+planet. And in many pictures of Saturn's system a dark band is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> shown
+along the inner edge of the inner bright ring where it crosses the body
+of the planet. It seems to me that we have here a most important piece
+of evidence respecting the rings. It is clear that the inner part of the
+inner bright ring has for more than a century and a half (how much more
+we do not know) been partially transparent, and it is probable that
+within its inner edge there has been all the time a ring of matter; but
+this ring has only within the last half-century gathered consistency
+enough to be discernible. It is manifest that the existence of the dark
+belt shown in the older pictures would have led directly to the
+detection of the dark ring, had not this appendage been exceedingly
+faint. Thus, while the observation of the dark belt across the planet's
+face proves the dusky ring to have existed in some form long before it
+was perceived, the same fact only helps to render us certain that the
+dark ring has changed notably in condition during the present century.</p>
+
+<p>The discovery of this singular appendage, an object unique in the solar
+system, naturally attracted fresh attention to the question of the
+stability of the rings. The idea was thrown out by the elder Bond that
+the new ring may be fluid, or even that the whole ring-system may be
+fluid, and the dark ring simply thinner than the rest. It was thought
+possible that the ring-system is of the nature of a vast ocean, whose
+waves are steadily advancing upon the planet's globe. The mathematical
+investigation of the subject was also resumed by Professor Benjamin
+Pierce, of Harvard, and it was satisfactorily demonstrated that the
+stability of a system of actual rings of solid matter required so nice
+an adjustment of so many narrow rings as to render the system far more
+complex than even Laplace had supposed. 'A stable formation can,' he
+said, 'be nothing other than a very great number of separate narrow
+rigid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> rings, each revolving with its proper relative velocity.' As was
+well remarked by the late Professor Nichol, 'If this arrangement or
+anything like it were real, how many new conditions of instability do we
+introduce. Observation tells us that the division between such rings
+must be extremely narrow, so that the slightest disturbance by external
+or internal causes would cause one ring to impinge upon another; and we
+should thus have the seed of perpetual catastrophes.' Nor would such a
+constitution protect the system against dissolution. 'There is no escape
+from the difficulties, therefore, but through the final rejection of the
+idea that Saturn's rings are rigid or in any sense a solid formation.'</p>
+
+<p>The idea that the ring-system may be fluid came naturally next under
+mathematical scrutiny. Strangely enough, the physical objections to the
+theory of fluidity appear to have been entirely overlooked. Before we
+could accept such a theory, we must admit the existence of elements
+differing entirely from those with which we are familiar. No fluid known
+to us could retain the form of the rings of Saturn under the conditions
+to which they are exposed. But the mathematical examination of the
+subject disposed so thoroughly of the theory that the rings can consist
+of continuous fluid masses, that we need not now discuss the physical
+objections to the theory.</p>
+
+<p>There remains only the theory that the Saturnian ring-system consists of
+discrete masses analogous to the streams of meteors known to exist in
+great numbers within the solar system. The masses may be solid or fluid,
+may be strewn in relatively vacant space, or may be surrounded by
+vaporous envelopes; but that they are discrete, each free to travel on
+its own course, seemed as completely demonstrated by Pierce's
+calculations as anything not actually admitting of direct observation
+could possibly be. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> matter was placed beyond dispute by the
+independent analysis to which Clerk Maxwell subjected the mathematical
+problem. It had been selected in 1855 as the subject for the Adams Prize
+Essay at Cambridge, and Clerk Maxwell's essay, which obtained the prize,
+showed conclusively that only a system of many small bodies, each free
+to travel upon its course under the varying attractions to which it was
+subjected by Saturn itself, and by the Saturnian satellites, could
+possibly continue to girdle a planet as the rings of Saturn girdle him.</p>
+
+<p>It is clear that all the peculiarities hitherto observed in the
+Saturnian ring-system are explicable so soon as we regard that system as
+made up of multitudes of small bodies. Varieties of brightness simply
+indicate various degrees of condensation of these small satellites. Thus
+the outer ring had long been observed to be less bright than the inner.
+Of course it did not seem impossible that the outer ring might be made
+of different materials; yet there was something bizarre in the
+supposition that two rings forming the same system were thus different
+in substance. It would not have been at all noteworthy if different
+parts of the same ring differed in luminosity&mdash;in fact, it was much more
+remarkable that each zone of the system seemed uniformly bright all
+round. But that one zone should be of one tint, another of an entirely
+different tint, was a strange circumstance so long as the only available
+interpretation seemed to be that one zone was made (throughout) of one
+substance, the other of another. If this was strange when the difference
+between the inner and outer bright rings was alone considered, how much
+stranger did it seem when the multitudinous divisions in the rings were
+taken into account! Why should the ring-system, 30,000 miles in width,
+be thus divided into zones of different material? An arrangement so
+artificial is quite unlike all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> that is elsewhere seen among the
+subjects of the astronomer's researches. But when the rings are regarded
+as made up of multitudes of small bodies, we can quite readily
+understand how the nearly circular movements of all of these, at
+different rates, should result in the formation of rings of aggregation
+and rings of segregation, appearing at the earth's distance as bright
+rings and faint rings. The dark ring clearly corresponds in appearance
+with a ring of thinly scattered satellites. Indeed, it seems impossible
+otherwise to account for the appearance of a dusky belt across the globe
+of the planet where the dark ring crosses the disc. If the material of
+the dark ring were some partly transparent solid or fluid substance, the
+light of the planet received through the dark ring added to the light
+reflected by the dark ring itself, would be so nearly equivalent to the
+light received from the rest of the planet's disc, that either no dark
+belt would be seen, or the darkening would be barely discernible. In
+some positions a bright belt would be seen, not a dark one. But a ring
+of scattered satellites would cast as its shadow a multitude of black
+spots, which would give to the belt in shadow a dark grey aspect. A
+considerable proportion of these spots would be hidden by the satellites
+forming the dark ring, and in every case where a spot was wholly or
+partially hidden by a satellite, the effect (at our distant station
+where the separate satellites of the dark ring are not discernible)
+would simply be to reduce <i>pro tanto</i> the darkness of the grey belt of
+shadow. But certainly more than half the shadows of the satellites would
+remain in sight; for the darkness of the ring at the time of its
+discovery showed that the satellites were very sparsely strewn. And
+these shadows would be sufficient to give to the belt a dusky hue, such
+as it presented when first discovered.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p><p>The observations which have recently been made by Mr. Trouvelot
+indicate changes in the ring-system, and especially in the dark ring,
+which place every other theory save that to which we have thus been led
+entirely out of the question. It should be noted that Mr. Trouvelot has
+employed telescopes of unquestionable excellence and varying in aperture
+from six inches to twenty-six inches, the latter aperture being that of
+the great telescope of the Washington Observatory (the largest refractor
+in the world).</p>
+
+<p>He has noted in the first place that the interior edge of the outer
+bright ring, which marks the outer limit of the great division, is
+irregular, but whether the irregularity is permanent or not he does not
+know. The great division itself is found not to be actually black, but,
+as was long since noted by Captain Jacob, of the Madras Observatory, a
+very dark brown, as though a few scattered satellites travelled along
+this relatively vacant zone of the system. Mr. Trouvelot has further
+noticed that the shadow of the planet upon the rings, and especially
+upon the outer ring, changes continually in shape, a circumstance which
+he attributes to irregularities in the surface of the rings. For my own
+part, I should be disposed to attribute these changes in the shape of
+the planet's shadow (noted by other observers also) to rapid changes in
+the deep cloud-laden atmosphere of the planet. Passing on, however, to
+less doubtful observations, we find that the whole system of rings has
+presented a clouded and spotted aspect during the last four years. Mr.
+Trouvelot specially describes this appearance as observed on the parts
+of the ring outside the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> disc, called by astronomers the <i>ans&aelig;</i> (because
+of their resemblance to handles), and it would seem, therefore, that the
+spotted and cloudy portions are seen only where the background on which
+the rings are projected is black. This circumstance clearly suggests
+that the darkness of these parts is due to the background, or, in other
+words, that the sky is in reality seen through those parts of the
+ring-system, just as the darkness of the slate-coloured interior ring is
+attributed, on the satellite theory, to the background of sky visible
+through the scattered flight of satellites forming the dark ring. The
+matter composing the dark ring has been observed by Mr. Trouvelot to be
+gathered in places into compact masses, which prevent the light of the
+planet from being seen through those portions of the dark ring where the
+matter is thus massed together. It is clear that such peculiarities
+could not possibly present themselves in the case of a continuous solid
+or fluid ring-system, whereas they would naturally occur in a ring
+formed of multitudes of minute bodies travelling freely around the
+planet.</p>
+
+<p>The point next to be mentioned is still more decisive. When the dark
+ring was carefully examined with powerful telescopes during the ten
+years following its discovery by Bond, at which time it was most
+favourably placed for observation, it was observed that the outline of
+the planet could be seen across the entire breadth of the dark ring. All
+the observations agreed in this respect. It was, indeed, noticed by
+Dawes that outside the planet's disc the dark ring showed varieties of
+tint, its inner half being darker than its outer portion. Lassell,
+observing the planet under most favourable conditions with his two-feet
+mirror at Malta, could not perceive these varieties of tint, which
+therefore we may judge to have been either not permanent or very
+slightly marked. But, as I have said, all observers agreed that the
+outline of the planet could be seen athwart the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> entire width of the
+dark ring. Mr. Trouvelot, however, has found that during the last four
+years the planet has not been visible through the whole width of the
+dark ring, but only through the inner half of the ring's breadth. It
+appears, then, that either the inner portion is getting continually
+thinner and thinner&mdash;that is, the satellites composing it are becoming
+continually more sparsely strewn&mdash;or that the outer portion is becoming
+more compact, doubtless by receiving stray satellites from the interior
+of the inner bright ring.</p>
+
+<p>It is clear that in Saturn's ring-system, if not in the planet itself,
+mighty changes are still taking place. It may be that the rings are
+being so fashioned under the forces to which they are subjected as to be
+on their way to becoming changed into separate satellites, inner members
+of that system which at present consists of eight secondary planets.
+But, whatever may be the end towards which these changes are tending, we
+see processes of evolution taking place which may be regarded as
+typifying the more extensive and probably more energetic processes
+whereby the solar system itself reached its present condition. I
+ventured more than ten years ago, in the preface to my treatise upon the
+planet Saturn, to suggest the possibility 'that in the variations
+perceptibly proceeding in the Saturnian ring-system a key may one day be
+found to the law of development under which the solar system has reached
+its present condition.' This suggestion seems to me strikingly confirmed
+by the recent discoveries. The planet Saturn and its appendages, always
+interesting to astronomers, are found more than ever worthy of close
+investigation and scrutiny. We may here, as it were, seize nature in the
+act, and trace out the actual progress of developments which at present
+are matters rather of theory than of observation.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+<h3>VIII.<br />
+
+<i>COMETS AS PORTENTS</i></h3>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 15em;">The blazing star,</span><br />
+Threat'ning the world with famine, plague, and war;<br />
+To princes death; to kingdoms many curses;<br />
+To all estates inevitable losses;<br />
+To herdsmen rot; to ploughmen hapless seasons;<br />
+To sailors storms; to cities civil treasons.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Although</span> comets are no longer regarded with superstitious awe as in old
+times, mystery still clings to them. Astronomers can tell what path a
+comet is travelling upon, and say whence it has come and whither it will
+go, can even in many cases predict the periodic returns of a comet, can
+analyse the substance of these strange wanderers, and have recently
+discovered a singular bond of relationship between comets and those
+other strange visitants from the celestial depths, the shooting stars.
+But astronomy has hitherto proved unable to determine the origin of
+comets, the part they perform in the economy of the universe, their real
+structure, the causes of the marvellous changes of shape which they
+undergo as they approach the sun, rush round him, and then retreat. As
+Sir John Herschel has remarked: 'No one, hitherto, has been able to
+assign any single point in which we should be a bit better or worse off,
+materially speaking, if there were no such thing as a comet. Persons,
+even thinking persons, have busied <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>themselves with conjectures; such as
+that they may serve for fuel for the sun (into which, however, they
+never fall), or that they may cause warm summers, which is a mere fancy,
+or that they may give rise to epidemics, or potato-blights, and so
+forth.' And though, as he justly says, 'this is all wild talking,' yet
+it will probably continue until astronomers have been able to master the
+problems respecting comets which hitherto have foiled their best
+efforts. The unexplained has ever been and will ever be marvellous to
+the general mind. Just as unexplored regions of the earth have been
+tenanted in imagination by</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">anthropophagi and men whose heads</span><br />
+Do grow beneath their shoulders,<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>so do wondrous possibilities exist in the unknown and the ill-understood
+phenomena of nature.</p>
+
+<p>In old times, when the appearance and movements of comets were supposed
+to be altogether uncontrolled by physical laws, it was natural that
+comets should be regarded as signs from heaven, tokens of Divine wrath
+towards some, and of the interposition of Divine providence in favour of
+others. As Seneca well remarked: 'There is no man so dull, so obtuse, so
+turned to earthly things, who does not direct all the powers of his mind
+towards things Divine when some novel phenomenon appears in the heavens.
+While all follows its usual course up yonder, familiarity robs the
+spectacle of its grandeur. For so is man made. However wonderful may be
+what he sees day after day, he looks on it with indifference; while
+matters of very little importance attract and interest him if they
+depart from the accustomed order. The host of heavenly constellations
+beneath the vault of heaven, whose beauty they adorn, attract no
+attention; but if any unusual appearance be noticed among them, at once
+all eyes are turned <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>heavenwards. The sun is only looked on with
+interest when he is undergoing eclipse. Men observe the moon only under
+like conditions.... So thoroughly is it a part of our nature to admire
+the new rather than the great. The same is true of comets. When one of
+these fiery bodies of unusual form appears, every one is eager to know
+what it means; men forget other objects to inquire about the new
+arrival; they know not whether to wonder or to tremble; for many spread
+fear on all sides, drawing from the phenomenon most grave prognostics.'</p>
+
+<p>There is no direct reference to comets in the Bible, either in the Old
+Testament or the New. It is possible that some of the signs from heaven
+recorded in the Bible pages were either comets or meteors, and that even
+where in some places an angel or messenger from God is said to have
+appeared and delivered a message, what really happened was that some
+remarkable phenomenon in the heavens was interpreted in a particular
+manner by the priests, and the interpretation afterwards described as
+the message of an angel. The image of the 'flaming sword which turned
+every way' may have been derived from a comet; but we can form no safe
+conclusion about this, any more than we can upon the question whether
+the 'horror of great darkness' which fell upon Abraham (Genesis xv. 12)
+when the sun was going down, was caused by an eclipse;<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> or whether
+the going back of the shadow upon the dial of Ahaz was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> caused by a mock
+sun. The star seen by the wise men from the east may have been a comet,
+since the word translated 'star' signifies any bright object seen in the
+heavens, and is in fact the same word which Homer, in a passage
+frequently referred to, uses to signify either a comet or a meteor. The
+way in which it appeared to go before them, when (directed by Herod, be
+it noticed) they went to Bethlehem, almost due south of Jerusalem, would
+correspond to a meridian culmination low down&mdash;for the star had
+manifestly not been visible in the earlier evening, since we are told
+that they rejoiced when they saw the star again. It was probably a comet
+travelling southwards; and, as the wise men had travelled from the east,
+it had very likely been first seen in the west as an evening star,
+wherefore its course was retrograde&mdash;that is, supposing it <i>was</i> a
+comet.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> It may possibly have been an apparition of Halley's comet,
+following a course somewhat similar to that which it followed in the
+year 1835, when the perihelion passage was made on November 15, and the
+comet running southwards disappeared from northern astronomers, though
+in January it was '<i>received</i>' by Sir J. Herschel, to use his own
+expression, 'in the southern hemisphere.' There was an apparition of
+Halley's comet in the year 66, or seventy years after the Nativity; and
+the period of the comet varies, according to the perturbing influences
+affecting the comet's motion, from sixty-nine to eighty years.</p>
+
+<p>Homer does not, to the best of my recollection, refer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> anywhere directly
+to comets. Pope, indeed, who made very free with Homer's references to
+the heavenly bodies,<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> introduces a comet&mdash;and a red one, too!&mdash;into
+the simile of the heavenly portent in Book IV.:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+As the red comet from Saturnius sent<br />
+To fright the nations with a dire portent<br />
+(A fatal sign to armies in the plain,<br />
+Or trembling sailors on the wintry main),<br />
+With sweeping glories glides along in air,<br />
+And shakes the sparkles from its blazing hair:<br />
+Between two armies thus, in open sight,<br />
+Shot the bright goddess in a trail of light.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>But Homer says nothing of this comet. If Homer had introduced a comet,
+we may be sure it would not have shaken sparkles from its blazing tail.
+Homer said simply that 'Pallas rushed from the peaks of heaven, like the
+bright star sent by the son of crafty-counselled Kronus (as a sign
+either to sailors, or the broad array of the nations), from which many
+sparks proceed.' Strangely enough, Pingr&eacute; and Lalande, the former noted
+for his researches into ancient comets, the latter a skilful astronomer,
+agree in considering that Homer really referred to a comet, and they
+even regard this comet as an apparition of the comet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> of 1680. They cite
+in support of this opinion the portent which followed the prayer of
+Anchises, '&AElig;neid,' Book II. 692, etc.: 'Scarce had the old man ceased
+from praying, when a peal of thunder was heard on the left, and a star,
+gliding from the heavens amid the darkness, rushed through space
+followed by a long train of light; we saw the star,' says &AElig;neas,
+'suspended for a moment above the roof, brighten our home with its
+fires, then, tracing out a brilliant course, disappear in the forests of
+Ida; then a long train of flame illuminated us, and the place around
+reeked with the smell of sulphur. Overcome by these startling portents,
+my father arose, invoked the gods, and worshipped the holy star.' It is
+impossible to recognise here the description of a comet. The noise, the
+trail of light, the visible motion, the smell of sulphur, all correspond
+with the fall of a meteorite close by; and doubtless Virgil simply
+introduced into the narrative the circumstances of some such phenomenon
+which had been witnessed in his own time. To base on such a point the
+theory that the comet of 1680 was visible at the time of the fall of
+Troy, the date of which is unknown, is venturesome in the extreme. True,
+the period calculated for the comet of 1680, when Pingr&eacute; and Lalande
+agreed in this unhappy guess, was 575 years; and if we multiply this
+period by five we obtain 2875 years, taking 1680 from which leaves 1195
+years <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, near enough to the supposed date of the capture of Troy.
+Unfortunately, Encke (the eminent astronomer to whom we owe that
+determination of the sun's distance which for nearly half a century held
+its place in our books, but has within the last twenty years been
+replaced by a distance three millions of miles less) went over afresh
+the calculations of the motions of that famous comet, and found that,
+instead of 575 years, the most probable period is about 8814 years. The
+difference amounts only to 8239 years; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> even this small difference
+rather impairs the theory of Lalande and Pingr&eacute;.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p>
+
+<p>Three hundred and seventy-one years before the Christian era, a comet
+appeared which Aristotle (who was a boy at the time) has described.
+Diodorus Siculus writes thus respecting it: 'In the first year of the
+102d Olympiad, Alcisthenes being Archon of Athens, several prodigies
+announced the approaching humiliation of the Laced&aelig;monians; a blazing
+torch of extraordinary size, which was compared to a flaming beam, was
+seen during several nights.' Guillemin, from whose interesting work on
+Comets I have translated the above passage, remarks that this same comet
+was regarded by the ancients as having not merely presaged but produced
+the earthquakes which caused the towns of Helice and Bura to be
+submerged. This was clearly in the thoughts of Seneca when he said of
+this comet that as soon as it appeared it brought about the submergence
+of Bura and Helice.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p><p>In those times, however, comets were not regarded solely as signs of
+disaster. As the misfortunes of one nation were commonly held to be of
+advantage to other nations, so the same comet might be regarded very
+differently by different nations or different rulers. Thus the comet of
+the year 344 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> was regarded by Timoleon of Corinth as presaging the
+success of his expedition against Corinth. 'The gods announced,' said
+Diodorus Siculus, 'by a remarkable portent, his success and future
+greatness; a blazing torch appeared in the heavens at night, and went
+before the fleet of Timoleon until he arrived in Sicily.' The comets of
+the years 134 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> and 118 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> were not regarded as portents of death,
+but as signalising, the former the birth, the latter the accession, of
+Mithridates. The comet of 43 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> was held by some to be the soul of
+Julius C&aelig;sar on its way to the abode of the gods. Bodin, a French lawyer
+of the sixteenth century, regarded this as the usual significance of
+comets. He was, indeed, sufficiently modest to attribute the opinion to
+Democritus, but the whole credit of the discovery belonged to himself.
+He maintained that comets only indicate approaching misfortunes because
+they are the spirits or souls of illustrious men, who for many years
+have acted the part of guardian angels, and, being at last ready to die,
+celebrate their last triumph by voyaging to the firmament as flaming
+stars. 'Naturally,' he says, 'the appearance of a comet is followed by
+plague, pestilence, and civil war; for the nations are deprived of the
+guidance of their worthy rulers, who, while they were alive, gave all
+their efforts to prevent intestine disorders.' Pingr&eacute; comments justly on
+this, saying that 'it must be classed among base and shameful
+flatteries, not among philosophic opinions.'</p>
+
+<p>Usually, however, it must be admitted that the ancients, like the men of
+the Middle Ages, regarded comets as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>harbingers of evil. 'A fearful star
+is the comet,' says Pliny, 'and not easily appeased, as appeared in the
+late civil troubles when Octavius was consul; a second time by the
+intestine war of Pompey and C&aelig;sar; and, in our own time, when, Claudius
+C&aelig;sar having been poisoned, the empire was left to Domitian, in whose
+reign there appeared a blazing comet.' Lucan tells us of the second
+event here referred to, that during the war 'the darkest nights were lit
+up by unknown stars' (a rather singular way of saying that there were no
+dark nights); 'the heavens appeared on fire, flaming torches traversed
+in all directions the depths of space; a comet, that fearful star which
+overthrows the powers of the earth, showed its horrid hair.' Seneca also
+expressed the opinion that some comets portend mischief: 'Some comets,'
+he said, 'are very cruel and portend the worst misfortunes; they bring
+with them and leave behind them the seeds of blood and slaughter.'</p>
+
+<p>It was held, indeed, by many in those times a subject for reproach that
+some were too hard of heart to believe when these signs were sent. It
+was a point of religious faith that 'God worketh' these 'signs and
+wonders in heaven.' When troubles were about to befall men, 'nation
+rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, with great
+earthquakes in divers places, and famines, and pestilences, and fearful
+sights,' then 'great signs shall there be from heaven.' Says Josephus,
+commenting on the obstinacy of the Jews in such matters, 'when they were
+at any time premonished from the lips of truth itself, by prodigies and
+other premonitory signs of their approaching ruin, they had neither eyes
+nor ears nor understanding to make a right use of them, but passed them
+over without heeding or so much as thinking of them; as, for example,
+what shall we say of the comet in the form of a sword that hung over
+Jerusalem for a whole year together?' This was probably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> the comet
+described by Dion Cassius (<i>Hist. Roman.</i> lxv. 8) as having been visible
+between the months of April and December in the year 69 <span class="ampm">A.D.</span> This or the
+comet of 66 <span class="ampm">A.D.</span> might have been Halley's comet. The account of Josephus
+as to the time during which it was visible would not apply to Halley's,
+or, indeed, to any known comet whatever; doubtless he exaggerated. He
+says: 'The comet was of the kind called <i>Xiphias</i>, because their tail
+resembles the blade of a sword,' and this would apply fairly well to
+Halley's comet as seen in 1682, 1759, and 1835; though it is to be
+remembered that comets vary very much even at successive apparitions,
+and it would be quite unsafe to judge from the appearance of a comet
+seen eighteen centuries ago that it either was or was not the same as
+some comet now known to be periodic.</p>
+
+<p>The comet of 79 <span class="ampm">A.D.</span> is interesting as having given rise to a happy
+retort from Vespasian, whose death the comet was held to portend. Seeing
+some of his courtiers whispering about the comet, 'That hairy star,' he
+said, 'does not portend evil to me. It menaces rather the king of the
+Parthians. He is a hairy man, but I am bald.'</p>
+
+<p>Anna Comnena goes even beyond Josephus. He only rebuked other men for
+not believing so strongly as he did himself in the significance of
+comets&mdash;a rebuke little needed, indeed, if we can judge from what
+history tells us of the terrors excited by comets. But the judicious
+daughter of Alexius was good enough to approve of the wisdom which
+provided these portents. Speaking of a remarkable comet which appeared
+before the irruption of the Gauls into the Roman empire, she says: 'This
+happened by the usual administration of Providence in such cases; for it
+is not fit that so great and strange an alteration of things as was
+brought to pass by that irruption of theirs should be without some
+previous denunciation and admonishment from heaven.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p><p>Socrates, the historian (b. 6, c. 6), says that when Gainas besieged
+Constantinople, 'so great was the danger which hung over the city, that
+it was presignified and portended by a huge blazing comet which reached
+from heaven to the earth, the like whereof no man had ever seen before.'
+And Cedrenus, in his 'Compendium of History,' states that a comet
+appeared before the death of Johannes Tzimicas, the emperor of the East,
+which foreshadowed not alone his death, but the great calamities which
+were to befall the Roman empire by reason of their civil wars. In like
+manner, the comet of 451 announced the death of Attila, that of 455 the
+death of Valentinian. The death of Merovingius was announced by the
+comet of 577, of Chilperic by that of 584, of the Emperor Maurice by
+that of 602, of Mahomet by that of 632, of Louis the Debonair by that of
+837, and of the Emperor Louis II. by that of 875. Nay, so confidently
+did men believe that comets indicated the approaching death of great
+men, that they did not believe a very great man <i>could</i> die without a
+comet. So they inferred that the death of a very great man indicated the
+arrival of a comet; and if the comet chanced not to be visible, so much
+the worse&mdash;not for the theory, but&mdash;for the comet. 'A comet of this
+kind,' says Pingr&eacute;, 'was that of the year 814, presaging the death of
+Charlemagne.' So Guillemin quotes Pingr&eacute;; but he should rather have
+said, such was the comet whose arrival was announced by Charlemagne's
+death&mdash;and in no other way, for it was not seen by mortal man.</p>
+
+<p>The reader who chances to be strong as to his dates may have observed
+that some of the dates above mentioned for comets do not accord exactly
+with the dates of the events associated with those comets. Thus Louis
+the Debonair did not die in 837, but in 840. This, however, is a matter
+of very little importance. If some men, after their comet has called for
+them, are 'an unconscionable time in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> dying,' as Charles II. said of
+himself, it surely must not be considered the fault of the comet. Louis
+himself regarded the comet of 837 as his death-warrant; the astrologers
+admitted as much: what more could be desired? The account of the matter
+given in a chronicle of the time, by a writer who called himself 'The
+Astronomer,' is curious enough: 'During the holy season of Easter, a
+phenomenon, ever fatal and of gloomy foreboding, appeared in the
+heavens. As soon as the emperor, who paid attention to such phenomena,
+received the first announcement of it, he gave himself no rest until he
+had called a certain learned man and myself before him. As soon as I
+arrived, he anxiously asked me what I thought of such a sign. I asked
+time of him, in order to consider the aspect of the stars, and to
+discover the truth by their means, promising to acquaint him on the
+morrow; but the emperor, persuaded that I wished to gain time, which was
+true, in order not to be obliged to announce anything fatal to him, said
+to me: "Go on the terrace of the palace, and return at once to tell me
+what you have seen, for I did not see this star last evening, and you
+did not point it out to me; but I know that it is a comet; tell me what
+you think it announces to me." Then, scarcely allowing me time to say a
+word, he added: "There is still another thing you keep back: it is that
+a change of reign and the death of a prince are announced by this sign."
+And as I advanced the testimony of the prophet, who said: "Fear not the
+signs of the heavens as the nations fear them," the prince, with his
+grand nature and the wisdom which never forsook him, said: "We must only
+fear Him who has created both us and this star. But, as this phenomenon
+may refer to us, let us acknowledge it as a warning from heaven."'
+Accordingly, Louis himself and all his court fasted and prayed, and he
+built churches and monasteries. But all was of no avail.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> In little more
+than three years he died; showing, as the historian Raoul Glaber
+remarked, that 'these phenomena of the universe are never presented to
+man without surely announcing some wonderful and terrible event.' With a
+range of three years in advance, and so many kings and princes as there
+were about in those days, and are still, it would be rather difficult
+for a comet to appear without announcing some such wonderful and
+terrible event as a royal death.</p>
+
+<p>The year 1000 <span class="ampm">A.D.</span> was by all but common consent regarded as the date
+assigned for the end of the world. For a thousand years Satan had been
+chained, and now he was to be loosened for a while. So that when a comet
+made its appearance, and, terrible to relate, continued visible for nine
+days, the phenomenon was regarded as something more than a nine days'
+wonder. Besides the comet, a very wonderful meteor was seen. 'The
+heavens opened, and a kind of flaming torch fell upon the earth, leaving
+behind a long track of light like the path of a flash of lightning. Its
+brightness was so great that it frightened not only those who were in
+the fields, but even those who were in their houses. As this opening in
+the sky slowly closed men saw with horror the figure of a dragon, whose
+feet were blue, and whose head' [like that of Dickens's dwarf] 'seemed
+to grow larger and larger.' A picture of this dreadful meteor
+accompanies the account given by the old chronicler. For fear the exact
+likeness of the dragon might not be recognised (and, indeed, to see it
+one must 'make believe a good deal'), there is placed beside it a
+picture of a dragon to correspond, which picture is in turn labelled
+'Serpens cum ceruleis pedibus.' It was considered very wicked in the
+year 1000 to doubt that the end of all things was at hand. But somehow
+the world escaped that time.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p><p>In the year 1066 Halley's comet appeared to announce to the Saxons the
+approaching conquest of England by William the Norman. A contemporary
+poet made a singular remark, which may have some profound poetical
+meaning, but certainly seems a little indistinct on the surface. He said
+that 'the comet had been more favourable to William than nature had been
+to C&aelig;sar; the latter had no hair, but William had received some from the
+comet.' This is the only instance, so far as I know, in which a comet
+has been regarded as a <a name="corr8" id="corr8"></a>perruquier. A monk of Malmesbury
+spoke more to the purpose, according to then received ideas, in thus
+apostrophising the comet: 'Here art thou again, cause of tears to many
+mothers! It is long since I saw thee last, but I see thee now more
+terrible than ever; thou threatenest my country with complete ruin.'</p>
+
+<p>Halley's comet, with its inconveniently short period of about
+seventy-seven years, has repeatedly troubled the nations and been
+regarded as a sign sent from Heaven:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Ten million cubic miles of head,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ten billion leagues of tail,</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>all provided for the sole purpose of warning one petty race of
+earth-folks against the evils likely to be brought against them by
+another. This comet has appeared twenty-four times since the date of its
+first recorded appearance, which some consider to have been 12 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, and
+others refer to a few years later. It may be interesting to quote here
+Babinet's description of the effects ascribed in 1455 to this comet,
+often the terror of nations, but the triumph of mathematicians, as the
+first whose motions were brought into recognisable obedience to the laws
+of gravity.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p><p>'The Mussulmans, with Mahomet II. at their head, were besieging
+Belgrade, which was defended by Huniade, surnamed the Exterminator of
+the Turks. Halley's comet appeared and the two armies were seized with
+equal fear. Pope Calixtus III., himself seized by the general terror,
+ordered public prayers and timidly anathematised the comet and the
+enemies of Christianity. He established the prayer called the noon
+<i>Angelus</i>, the use of which is continued in all Catholic churches. The
+Franciscans (<i>Fr&egrave;res Mineurs</i>) brought 40,000 defenders to Belgrade,
+besieged by the conqueror of Constantinople, the destroyer of the
+Eastern Empire. At last the battle began; it continued two days without
+ceasing. A contest of two days caused 40,000 combatants to bite the
+dust. The Franciscans, unarmed, crucifix in hand, were in the front
+rank, invoking the papal exorcism against the comet, and turning upon
+the enemy that heavenly wrath of which none in those times dared doubt.'</p>
+
+<p>The great comet of 1556 has been regarded as the occasion of the Emperor
+Charles V.'s abdication of the imperial throne; a circumstance which
+seems rendered a little doubtful by the fact that he had already
+abdicated when the comet appeared&mdash;a mere detail, perhaps, but
+suggesting the possibility that cause and effect may have been
+interchanged by mistake, and that it was Charles's abdication which
+occasioned the appearance of the comet. According to Gemma's account the
+comet was conspicuous rather from its great light than from the length
+of its tail or the strangeness of its appearance. 'Its head equalled
+Jupiter in brightness, and was equal in diameter to nearly half the
+apparent diameter of the moon.' It appeared about the end of February,
+and in March presented a terrible appearance, according to Ripamonte.
+'Terrific indeed,' says Sir J. Herschel, 'it might well have been to the
+mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> of a prince prepared by the most abject superstition to receive
+its appearance as a warning of approaching death, and as specially sent,
+whether in anger or in mercy, to detach his thoughts from earthly
+things, and fix them on his eternal interests. Such was its effect on
+the Emperor Charles V., whose abdication is distinctly ascribed by many
+historians to this cause, and whose words on the occasion of his first
+beholding it have even been recorded&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+"His ergo indiciis me mea fata vocant"&mdash;<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>the language and the metrical form of which exclamation afford no ground
+for disputing its authenticity, when the habits and education of those
+times are fairly considered.' It is quite likely that, having already
+abdicated the throne, Charles regarded the comet as signalling his
+retirement from power&mdash;an event which he doubtless considered a great
+deal too important to be left without some celestial record. But the
+words attributed to him are in all probability apocryphal.</p>
+
+<p>The comet of 1577 was remarkable for the strangeness of its aspect,
+which in some respects resembled that of the comet of 1858, called
+Donati's. It required only the terror with which such portentous objects
+were witnessed in the Middle Ages to transform the various streamers,
+curved and straight, extending from such an object, into swords and
+spears, and other signs of war and trouble. Doubtless, we owe to the
+fears of the Middle Ages the strange pictures claiming to present the
+actual aspect of some of the larger comets. Halley's comet did not
+escape. It was compared to a straight sword at one visit, to a curved
+scimitar in 1456, and even at its last return in 1835 there were some
+who recognised in the comet a resemblance to a misty head. Other comets
+have been compared to swords of fire, bloody crosses, flaming daggers,
+spears, serpents, fiery dragons,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> fish, and so forth. But in this
+respect no comet would seem to have been comparable with that of 1528,
+of which Andrew Par&eacute; writes as follows: 'This comet was so horrible and
+dreadful, and engendered such terror in the minds of men, that they
+died, some from fear alone, others from illness engendered by fear. It
+was of immense length and blood-red colour; at its head was seen the
+figure of a curved arm, holding a large sword in the hand as if
+preparing to strike. At the point of this sword were three stars; and on
+either side a number of axes, knives, and swords covered with blood,
+amongst which were many hideous human faces with bristling beards and
+hair.'</p>
+
+<p>Such peculiarities of shape, and also those affecting the position and
+movements of comets, were held to be full of meaning. As Bayle pointed
+out in his 'Thoughts about the Comet of 1680,' these fancies are of
+great antiquity. Pliny tells us that in his time astrologers claimed to
+interpret the meaning of a comet's position and appearance, and that
+also of the direction towards which its rays pointed. They could,
+moreover, explain the effects produced by the fixed stars whose rays
+were conjoined with the comet's. If a comet resembles a flute, then
+musicians are aimed at; when comets are in the less dignified parts of
+the constellations, they presage evil to immodest persons; if the head
+of a comet forms an equilateral triangle or a square with fixed stars,
+then it is time for mathematicians and men of science to tremble. When
+they are in the sign of the Ram, they portend great wars and widespread
+mortality, the abasement of the great and the elevation of the small,
+besides fearful droughts in regions over which that sign predominates;
+in the Virgin, they imply many grievous ills to the female portion of
+the population; in the Scorpion, they portend a plague of reptiles,
+especially locusts; in the Fishes, they indicate great troubles from
+religious differences,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> besides war and pestilence. When, like the one
+described by Milton, they 'fire the length of Ophiuchus huge,' they show
+that there will be much mortality caused by poisoning.</p>
+
+<p>The comet of 1680, which led Bayle to write the treatise to which
+reference has just been made, was one well calculated to inspire terror.
+Indeed, if the truth were known, that comet probably brought greater
+danger to the inhabitants of the earth than any other except the comet
+of 1843&mdash;the danger not, however, being that derived from possible
+collision between the earth and a comet, but that arising from the
+possible downfall of a large comet upon the sun, and the consequent
+enormous increase of the sun's heat. That, according to Newton, is the
+great danger men have to fear from comets; and the comet of 1680 was one
+which in that sense was a very dangerous one. There is no reason why a
+comet from outer space should not fall straight towards the sun, as at
+one time the comet of 1680 was supposed to be doing. All the comfort
+that science can give the world on that point is that such a course for
+a comet is only one out of many millions of possible courses, all fully
+as likely; and that, therefore, the chance of a comet falling upon the
+sun is only as one in many millions. Still, the comet of 1680 made a
+very fair shot at the sun, and a very slight modification of its course
+by Jupiter or Saturn might have brought about the catastrophe which
+Newton feared. Whether, if a comet actually fell upon the sun, anything
+very dreadful would happen, is not so clear. Newton's ideas respecting
+comets were formed in ignorance of many physical facts and laws which in
+our day render reasoning upon the subject comparatively easy. Yet, even
+in our time, it is not possible to assert confidently that such fears
+are idle. During the solar outburst witnessed by Carrington and Hodgson
+in September 1859, it is supposed that the sun swallowed a large
+meteoric<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> mass; and, as great cornets are probably followed by many such
+masses, it seems reasonable to infer that if such a comet fell upon the
+sun, his surface being pelted with such exceptionally large masses,
+stoned with these mighty meteoric balls, would glow all over (or nearly
+so) as brightly as a small spot of that surface glowed upon that
+occasion. Now that portion was so bright that Carrington thought 'that
+by some chance a ray of light had penetrated a hole in the screen
+attached to the object-glass by which the general image is thrown in
+shade, for the brilliancy was fully equal to that of direct sunlight.'
+Manifestly, if the whole surface of the sun, or any large portion of the
+surface, were caused to glow with that exceeding brilliancy, surpassing
+ordinary sunlight in the same degree that ordinary sunlight surpassed
+the shaded solar image in Carrington's observations, the result would be
+disastrous in the extreme for the inhabitants of that half of the earth
+which chanced to be in sunlight at the time; and if (as could scarcely
+fail to happen) the duration of that abnormal splendour were more than
+half a day, then the whole earth would probably be depopulated by the
+intense heat. The danger, as I have said, is slight&mdash;partly because
+there is small chance of a collision between the sun and a comet, partly
+because we have no certain reasons for assuming that a collision would
+be followed by the heating of the sun for a while to a very high
+temperature. Looking around at the suns which people space, and
+considering their history, so far as it has been made known to us, for
+the last two thousand years, we find small occasion for fear. Those suns
+seem to have been for the most part safe from any sudden or rapid
+accessions of heat; and if they travel thus safely in their mighty
+journeys through space, we may well believe that our sun also is safe.
+Nevertheless, there <i>have</i> been catastrophes here and there. Now one sun
+and now another has blazed out with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> hundred times its usual lustre,
+gradually losing its new fires and returning to its customary
+brightness; but after what destruction among those peopling its system
+of worlds who shall say? Spectroscopic analysis, that powerful help to
+the modern astronomical inquirer, has shown in one of these cases that
+just such changes had taken place as we might fairly expect would follow
+if a mighty comet fell into the sun. If this interpretation be correct,
+then we are not wholly safe. Any day might bring us news of a comet
+sailing full upon our sun from out the depths of space. Then astronomers
+would perhaps have the opportunity of ascertaining the harmlessness of a
+collision between the ruler of our system and one of the long-tailed
+visitors from the celestial spaces. Or possibly, astronomers and the
+earth's inhabitants generally might find out the reverse, though the
+knowledge would not avail them much, seeing that the messenger who would
+bring it would be the King of Terrors himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was well, perhaps, that Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation,
+and the application of this law to the comets of 1680 and 1682 (the
+latter our old friend Halley's comet, then properly so called as studied
+by him), came in time to aid in removing to some slight degree the old
+superstitions respecting comets. For in England many remembered the
+comets of the Great Plague and of the Great Fire of London. These comets
+came so closely upon the time of the Plague and the Fire respectively,
+that it was not wonderful if even the wiser sort were struck by the
+coincidence and could scarcely regard it as accidental. It is not easy
+for the student of science in our own times, when the movements of
+comets are as well understood as those of the most orderly planets, to
+place himself in the position of men in the times when no one knew on
+what paths comets came, or whither they retreated after they had visited
+our sun.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> Taught as men were, on the one hand, that it was wicked to
+question what seemed to be the teaching of the Scriptures, that changes
+or new appearances in the heavens were sent to warn mankind of
+approaching troubles, and perplexed as they were, on the other, by the
+absence of any real knowledge respecting comets and meteors, it was not
+so easy as we might imagine from our own way of viewing these matters,
+to shake off a superstition which had ruled over men's minds for
+thousands of years.</p>
+
+<p>No sect had been free from this superstition. Popes and priests had
+taught their followers to pray against the evil influences of comets and
+other celestial portents; Luther and Melanchthon had condemned in no
+measured terms the rashness and impiety of those who had striven to show
+that the heavenly bodies and the earth move in concordance with
+law&mdash;those 'fools who wish to reverse the entire science of astronomy.'
+A long interval had elapsed between the time when the Copernican theory
+was struggling for existence&mdash;when, but that more serious heresies
+engaged men's attention and kept religious folk by the ears, that
+astronomical heresy would probably have been quenched in blood&mdash;and the
+forging by Newton of the final link of the chain of reasoning on which
+modern astronomy is based; but in those times the minds of men moved
+more slowly than in ours. The masses still held to the old beliefs about
+the heavenly bodies. Defoe, indeed, speaking of the terror of men at the
+time of the Great Plague, says that they 'were more addicted to
+prophecies and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives' tales,
+than ever they were before or since.' But in reality, it was only
+because of the great misery then prevailing that men seemed more
+superstitious than usual; for misery brings out the superstitions&mdash;the
+fetishisms, if we may so speak&mdash;which are inherent in many minds, but
+concealed from others in prosperous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> times, out of shame, or perhaps a
+worthier feeling. Even in our own times great national calamities would
+show that many superstitions exist which had been thought extinct, and
+we should see excited among the ill-educated that particular form of
+persecution which arises, not from zeal for religion and not from
+intolerance, but from the belief that the troubles have been sent
+because of unbelief and the fear that unless some expiation be made the
+evil will not pass away from the midst of the people. It is at such
+times of general affliction that minds of the meaner sort have proved
+'zealous even to slaying.'</p>
+
+<p>The influence of strange appearances in the heavens on even thoughtful
+and reasoning minds, at such times of universal calamity, is well shown
+by Defoe's remarks on the comets of the years 1664 and 1666. 'The old
+women,' he says, 'and the phlegmatic, hypochondriacal part of the other
+sex, whom I could almost call old women too, remarked that those two
+comets passed directly over the city' [though that appearance must have
+depended on the position whence these old women, male and female,
+observed the comet], 'and that so very near the houses, that it was
+plain they imported something peculiar to the city alone; and that the
+comet before the Pestilence was of a faint, dull, languid colour, and
+its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow; but that the comet before the
+Fire was bright and sparkling, or, as others said, flaming, and its
+motion swift and furious: and that accordingly one foretold a heavy
+judgment, slow but severe, terrible and frightful, as was the Plague;
+but the other foretold a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery, as was the
+Conflagration. Nay, so particular some people were, that, as they looked
+upon that comet preceding the Fire, they fancied that they not only saw
+it pass swiftly and fiercely, and could perceive the motion with their
+eye, but even that they heard it; that it made a mighty rushing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> noise,
+fierce and terrible, though at a distance and but just perceivable. I
+saw both these stars, and must confess had I had so much the common
+notion of such things in my head, that I was apt to look upon them as
+the forerunners and warnings of God's judgments, and especially when,
+the Plague having followed the first, I yet saw another of the same
+kind, I could not but say, God had not yet sufficiently scourged the
+city' [London].</p>
+
+<p>The comets of 1680 and 1682, though they did not bring plagues or
+conflagrations immediately, yet were not supposed to have been
+altogether without influence. The convenient fiction, indeed, that some
+comets operate quickly and others slowly, made it very difficult for a
+comet to appear to which some evil effects could not be ascribed. If any
+one can find a single date, since the records of history have been
+carefully kept, which was so fortunately placed that, during no time
+following it within five years, no prince, king, emperor, or pope died,
+no war was begun, or ended disastrously for one side or the other
+engaged in it, no revolution was effected, neither plague nor pestilence
+occurred, neither droughts nor floods afflicted any nation, no great
+hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic outbursts, or other trouble was
+recorded, he will then have shown the bare possibility that a comet
+might have appeared which seemed to presage neither abrupt nor
+slow-moving calamities. But it is not possible to name such a date, nor
+even a date which was not followed within two years at the utmost by a
+calamity such as superstition might assign to a comet. And so closely
+have such calamities usually followed, that scarce a comet could appear
+which might not be regarded as the precursor of very quickly approaching
+calamity. Even if a comet had come which seemed to bring no trouble,
+nay, if many such comets had come, men would still have overlooked the
+absence of any apparent fulfilment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> of the predicted troubles. Henry IV.
+well remarked, when he was told that astrologers predicted his death
+because a certain comet had been observed: 'One of these days they will
+predict it truly, and people will remember better the single occasion
+when the prediction will be fulfilled than the many other occasions when
+it has been falsified by the event.'</p>
+
+<p>The troubles connected with the comets of 1680 and 1682 were removed
+farther from the dates of the events themselves than usual, at least so
+far as the English interpretation of the comets was concerned. 'The
+great comet in 1680,' says one, 'followed by a lesser comet in 1682, was
+evidently the forerunner of all those remarkable and disastrous events
+that ended in the revolution of 1688. It also evidently presaged the
+revocation of the edict of Nantes, and the cruel persecution of the
+Protestants, by the French king Louis XIV., afterwards followed by those
+terrible wars which, with little intermission, continued to ravage the
+finest parts of Europe for nearly twenty-four years.'</p>
+
+<p>If in some respects the fears inspired by comets have been reduced by
+modern scientific discoveries respecting these bodies, yet in other
+respects the very confidence engendered by the exactness of modern
+astronomical computations has proved a source of terror. There is
+nothing more remarkable, for instance, in the whole history of cometary
+superstition, than the panic which spread over France in the year 1773,
+in consequence of a rumour that the mathematician Lalande had predicted
+the occurrence of a collision between a comet and the earth, and that
+disastrous effects would inevitably follow. The foundation of the rumour
+was slight enough in all conscience. It had simply been announced that
+Lalande would read before the Academy of Sciences a paper entitled
+'Reflections on those Comets which can approach the Earth.' That was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+absolutely all; yet, from that one fact, not only were vague rumours of
+approaching cometic troubles spread abroad, but the statement was
+definitely made that on May 20 or 21, 1773, 'a comet would encounter the
+earth.'<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> So great was the fear thus excited, that, in order to calm
+it, Lalande inserted in the 'Gazette de France' of May 7, 1773, the
+following advertisement:&mdash;'M. Lalande had not time to read his memoir
+upon comets which may approach the earth and cause changes in her
+motions; but he would observe that it is impossible to assign the epochs
+of such events. The next comet whose return is expected is the one which
+should return in eighteen years; but it is not one of those which can
+hurt the earth.'</p>
+
+<p>This note had not the slightest effect in restoring peace to the minds
+of unscientific Frenchmen. M. Lalande's study was crowded with anxious
+persons who came to inquire about his memoir. Certain devout folk, 'as
+ignorant as they were imbecile,' says a contemporary journal, begged the
+Archbishop of Paris to appoint forty hours' prayer to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> avert the danger
+and prevent the terrible deluge. For this was the particular form most
+men agreed that the danger would take. That prelate was on the point,
+indeed, of complying with their request, and would have done so, but
+that some members of the Academy explained to him that by so doing he
+would excite ridicule.</p>
+
+<p>Far more effective, and, to say truth, far better judged, was the irony
+of Voltaire, in his deservedly celebrated 'Letter on the Pretended
+Comet.' It ran as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+'Grenoble, May 17, 1773.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>'Certain Parisians who are not philosophers, and who, if we are to
+believe them, will not have time to become such, have informed me that
+the end of the world approaches, and will occur without fail on the 20th
+of this present month of May. They expect, that day, a comet, which is
+to take our little globe from behind and reduce it to impalpable powder,
+according to a certain prediction of the Academy of Sciences which has
+not yet been made.</p>
+
+<p>'Nothing is more likely than this event; for James Bernouilli, in his
+"Treatise upon the Comet" of 1680, predicted expressly that the famous
+comet of 1680 would return with terrible uproar (<i>fracas</i>) on May 19,
+1719; he assured us that in truth its <a name="corr9" id="corr9"></a>perruque would
+signify nothing mischievous, but that its tail would be an infallible
+sign of the wrath of heaven. If James Bernouilli mistook, it is, after
+all, but a matter of fifty-four years and three days.</p>
+
+<p>'Now, so small an error as this being regarded by all geometricians as
+of little moment in the immensity of ages, it is manifest that nothing
+can be more reasonable than to hope (<i>sic, esp&eacute;rer</i>) for the end of the
+world on the 20th of this present month of May 1773, or in some other
+year. If the thing should not come to pass, "omittance is no quittance"
+(<i>ce qui est diff&eacute;r&eacute;, n'est pas perdu</i>).</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p><p>'There is certainly no reason for laughing at M. Trissotin, triple
+idiot though he is (<i>tout Trissotin qu'il est</i>), when he says to Madame
+Philaminte (Moli&egrave;re's "Femmes Savantes," acte iv. sc&egrave;ne 3),</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+'Nous l'avons en dormant, madame, &eacute;chapp&eacute; belle;<br />
+Un monde pr&egrave;s de nous a pass&eacute; tout du long,<br />
+Est chu tout au travers de notre tourbillon;<br />
+Et, s'il e&ucirc;t en chemin rencontr&eacute; notre terre,<br />
+Elle e&ucirc;t &eacute;t&eacute; bris&eacute;e en morceaux comme verre.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>'A comet coursing along its parabolic orbit may come full tilt against
+our earth. But then, what will happen? Either that comet will have a
+force equal to that of our earth, or greater, or less. If equal, we
+shall do the comet as much harm as it will do us, action and reaction
+being equal; if greater, the comet will bear us away with it; if less,
+we shall bear away the comet.</p>
+
+<p>'This great event may occur in a thousand ways, and no one can affirm
+that our earth and the other planets have not experienced more than one
+revolution, through the mischance of encountering a comet on their path.</p>
+
+<p>'The Parisians will not desert their city on the 20th inst.; they will
+sing songs, and the play of "The Comet and the World's End" will be
+performed at the Op&eacute;ra Comique.'</p>
+
+<p>The last touch is as fine in its way as Sydney Smith's remark that, if
+London were destroyed by an earthquake, the surviving citizens would
+celebrate the event by a public dinner among the ruins. Voltaire's
+prediction was not fulfilled exactly to the letter, but what actually
+happened was even funnier than what his lively imagination had
+suggested. It was stated by a Parisian Professor in 1832 (as a reason
+why the Academy of Sciences should refute an assertion then rife to the
+effect that Biela's comet would encounter the earth that year) that
+during the cometic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> panic of 1773 'there were not wanting people who
+knew too well the art of turning to their advantage the alarm inspired
+by the approaching comet, and <i>places in Paradise were sold at a very
+high rate</i>.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> The announcement of the comet of 1832 may produce
+similar effects,' he said, 'unless the authority of the Academy apply a
+prompt remedy; and this salutary intervention is at this moment implored
+by many benevolent persons.'</p>
+
+<p>In recent years the effects produced on the minds of men by comets have
+been less marked than of yore, and appear to have depended a good deal
+on circumstances. The comet of the year 1858 (called Donati's), for
+example, occasioned no special fears, at least until Napoleon III. made
+his famous New-Year's day speech, after which many began to think the
+comet had meant mischief. But the comet of 1861, though less
+conspicuous, occasioned more serious fears. It was held by many in Italy
+to presage a very great misfortune indeed, viz. the restoration of
+Francis II. to the throne of the Two Sicilies. Others thought that the
+downfall of the temporal power of the Papacy and the death of Pope Pius
+IX. were signified. I have not heard that any very serious consequences
+were expected to follow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> the appearance of Coggia's comet in 1874. The
+great heat which prevailed during parts of the summer of 1876 was held
+by many to be connected in some way with a comet which some very
+unskilful telescopist constructed in his imagination out of the glare of
+Jupiter in the object-glass of his telescope. Another benighted person,
+seeing the Pleiades low down through a fog, turned them into a comet,
+about the same time. Possibly the idea was, that since comets are
+supposed to cause great heats, great heats may be supposed to indicate a
+comet somewhere; and with minds thus prepared, it was not wonderful,
+perhaps, that telescopic glare, or an imperfect view of our old friends
+the Pleiades, should have been mistaken for a vision of the
+heat-producing comet.</p>
+
+<p>It should be a noteworthy circumstance to those who still continue to
+look on comets as signs of great catastrophes, that a war more
+remarkable in many respects than any which has ever yet been waged
+between two great nations&mdash;a war swift in its operations and decisive in
+its effects&mdash;a war in which three armies, each larger than all the
+forces commanded by Napoleon I. during the campaign of 1813, were
+captured bodily&mdash;should have been begun and carried on to its
+termination without the appearance of any great comet. The civil war in
+America, a still more terrible calamity to that great nation than the
+success of Moltke's operations to the French, may be regarded by
+believers as presignified by the great comet of 1861. But it so chances
+that the war between France and Germany occurred near the middle of one
+of the longest intervals recorded in astronomical annals as unmarked by
+a single conspicuous comet&mdash;the interval between the years 1862 and
+1874.</p>
+
+<p>If the progress of just ideas respecting comets has been slow, it must
+nevertheless be regarded as on the whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> satisfactory. When we remember
+that it was not a mere idle fancy which had to be opposed, not mere
+terrors which had to be calmed, but that the idea of the significance of
+changes in the heavens had come to be regarded by mankind as a part of
+their religion, it cannot but be thought a hopeful sign that all
+reasoning men in our time have abandoned the idea that comets are sent
+to warn the inhabitants of this small earth. Obeying in their movements
+the same law of gravitation which guides the planets in their courses,
+the comets are tracked by the skilful mathematician along those remote
+parts of their course where even the telescope fails to keep them in
+view. Not only are they no longer regarded as presaging the fortunes of
+men on this earth, but men on this earth are able to predict the
+fortunes of comets. Not only is it seen that they cannot influence the
+fates of the earth or other planets, but we perceive that the earth and
+planets by their attractive energies influence, and in no unimportant
+degree, the fates of these visitants from outer space. Encouraging,
+truly, is the lesson taught us by the success of earnest study and
+careful inquiry in determining some at least among the laws which govern
+bodies once thought the wildest and most erratic creatures in the whole
+of God's universe.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+<h3>IX.<br />
+
+<i>THE LUNAR HOAX.</i></h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Then he gave them an account of the famous moon hoax, which came
+out in 1835. It was full of the most barefaced absurdities, yet
+people swallowed it all; and even Arago is said to have treated it
+seriously as a thing that could not well be true, for Mr. Herschel
+would have certainly notified him of these marvellous discoveries.
+The writer of it had not troubled himself to invent probabilities,
+but had borrowed his scenery from the 'Arabian Nights' and his
+lunar inhabitants from 'Peter Wilkins.'&mdash;<span class="smcap">Oliver Wendell Holmes</span> (in
+<i>The Poet at the Breakfast-Table</i>).</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">In</span> one of the earliest numbers of 'Macmillan's Magazine, the late
+Professor De Morgan, in an article on Scientific Hoaxing, gave a brief
+account of the so-called 'lunar hoax'&mdash;an instance of scientific
+trickery frequently mentioned, though probably few are familiar with the
+real facts. De Morgan himself possessed a copy of the second English
+edition of the pamphlet, published in London in 1836. But the original
+pamphlet edition, published in America in September 1835, is not easily
+to be obtained. The proprietors of the New York 'Sun,' in which the
+fictitious narrative first appeared, published an edition of 60,000
+copies, and every copy was sold in less than a month. Lately a single
+copy of that edition was sold for three dollars seventy-five cents.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p><p>The pamphlet is interesting in many respects, and I propose to give
+here a brief account of it. But first it may be well to describe briefly
+the origin of the hoax.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that after the French revolution of 1830 Nicollet, a French
+astronomer of some repute, especially for certain lunar observations of
+a very delicate and difficult kind, left France in debt and also in bad
+odour with the republican party. According to this story, Arago the
+astronomer was especially obnoxious to Nicollet, and it was as much with
+the view of revenging himself on his foe as from a wish to raise a
+little money that Nicollet wrote the moon-fable. It is said further that
+Arago was entrapped, as Nicollet desired, and circulated all over Paris
+the wonders related in the pamphlet, until Nicollet wrote to his friend
+Bouvard explaining the trick. So runs the story, but the story cannot be
+altogether true. Nicollet may have prepared the narrative and partly
+written it, but there are passages in the pamphlet as published in
+America which no astronomer could have written. Possibly there is some
+truth in De Morgan's supposition that the original work was French. This
+may have been Nicollet's: and the American edition was probably enlarged
+by the translator, who, according to this account, was Richard Alton
+Locke,<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> to whom in America the whole credit, or discredit, of the
+hoax is commonly attributed. There can be no doubt that either the
+French version was much more carefully designed than the American, or
+there was no truth in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> story that Arago was deceived by the
+narrative; for in its present form the story, though clever, could not
+for an instant have deceived any one acquainted with the most elementary
+laws of optics. The whole story turns on optical rather than on
+astronomical considerations; but every astronomer of the least skill is
+acquainted with the principles on which the construction of optical
+instruments depends. Though the success of the deception recently
+practised on M. Chasles by the forger of the Pascal papers has been
+regarded as showing how easily mathematicians may be entrapped, yet even
+M. Chasles would not have been deceived by bad mathematics; and Arago, a
+master of the science of optics, could not but have detected optical
+blunders which would be glaring to the average Cambridge undergraduate.</p>
+
+<p>But let us turn to the story itself.</p>
+
+<p>The account opens with a passage unmistakably from an American hand,
+though purporting, be it remembered, to be quoted from the 'Supplement
+to the Edinburgh Journal of Science.' 'In this unusual addition to our
+journal, we have the happiness of making known to the British public,
+and thence to the whole civilised world, recent discoveries in astronomy
+which will build an imperishable monument to the age in which we live,
+and confer upon the present generation of the human race a proud
+distinction through all future time. It has been poetically said' [where
+and by whom?] 'that the stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of
+man, as the intellectual sovereign of the animal creation. He may now
+fold the zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of his mental
+supremacy.' To the American mind enwrapment in the star-jewelled zodiac
+may appear as natural as their ordinary oratorical references to the
+star-spangled banner; but the idea is essentially transatlantic, and not
+even the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> poetical European astronomer could have risen to such a
+height of imagery.</p>
+
+<p>Passing over several pages of introductory matter, we come to the
+description of the method by which a telescope of sufficient magnifying
+power to show living creatures in the moon was constructed by Sir John
+Herschel. It had occurred, it would seem, to the elder Herschel to
+construct an improved series of parabolic and spherical reflectors
+'uniting all the meritorious points in the Gregorian and Newtonian
+instruments, with the highly interesting achromatic discovery of
+Dolland'(<i>sic</i>). [This is much as though one should say that a clever
+engineer had conceived the idea of constructing an improved series of
+railway engines, combining all the meritorious points in stationary and
+locomotive engines, with <i>Isaac</i> Watts' highly ingenious discovery of
+screw propulsion. For the Gregorian and Newtonian instruments simply
+differ in sending the rays received from the great mirror in different
+directions, and Dolland's discovery relates to the ordinary forms of
+telescopes with large lens, not with large mirror.] However,
+accumulating infirmities and eventually death prevented Sir William
+Herschel from applying his plan, which 'evinced the most profound
+research in optical science, and the most dexterous ingenuity in
+mechanical contrivance. But his son, Sir John Herschel, nursed and
+cradled in the observatory, and a practical astronomer from his boyhood,
+determined upon testing it at whatever cost. Within two years of his
+father's death he completed his new apparatus, and adapted it to the old
+telescope with nearly perfect success.' A short account of the
+observations made with this instrument, now magnifying six thousand
+times, follows, in which most of the astronomical statements are very
+correctly and justly worded, being, in fact, borrowed from a paper by
+Sir W. Herschel on observation of the moon with precisely that power.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p><p>But this great improvement upon all former telescopes still left the
+observer at a distance of forty miles from the moon; and at that
+distance no object less than about twenty yards in diameter could be
+distinguished, and even objects of that size 'would appear only as
+feeble, shapeless points.' Sir John 'had the satisfaction to know that
+if he could leap astride a cannon-ball, and travel upon its wings of
+fury for the respectable period of several millions of years, he would
+not obtain a more enlarged view of the more distant stars than he could
+now possess in a few minutes of time; and that it would require an
+ultra-railroad speed of fifty miles an hour for nearly the livelong
+year, to secure him a more favourable inspection of the gentle luminary
+of the night;' but 'the exciting question whether this "observed" of all
+the sons of men, from the days of Eden to those of Edinburgh, be
+inhabited by beings, like ourselves, of consciousness and curiosity, was
+left to the benevolent index of natural analogy, or to the severe
+tradition that the moon is tenanted only by the hoary <i>solitaire</i>, whom
+the criminal code of the nursery had banished thither for collecting
+fuel on the Sabbath-day.'<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> But the time had arrived when the great
+discovery was to be made, by which at length the moon could be brought
+near enough, by telescopic power, for living creatures on her surface to
+be seen if any exist.</p>
+
+<p>The account of the sudden discovery of the new method,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> during a
+conversation between Sir John Herschel and Sir David Brewster, is one of
+the most cleverly conceived (though also one of the absurdest) passages
+in the pamphlet. 'About three years ago, in the course of a
+conversational discussion with Sir David Brewster upon the merits of
+some ingenious suggestions by the latter, in his article on Optics in
+the "Edinburgh Encyclop&aelig;dia," p. 644, for improvements in Newtonian
+reflectors, Sir John Herschel adverted to the convenient simplicity of
+the old astronomical telescopes that were without tubes, and the
+object-glass of which, placed upon a high pole, threw the focal image to
+a distance of 150 and even 200 feet. Dr. Brewster readily admitted that
+a tube was not necessary, provided the focal image were conveyed into a
+dark apartment and there properly received by reflectors.... The
+conversation then became directed to that all-invincible enemy, the
+paucity of light in powerful magnifiers. After a few moments' silent
+thought, Sir John diffidently enquired whether it would not be possible
+to effect <i>a transfusion of artificial light through the focal object of
+vision</i>! Sir David, somewhat startled at the originality of the idea,
+paused awhile, and then hesitatingly referred to the refrangibility of
+rays, and the angle of incidence. Sir John, grown more confident,
+adduced the example of the Newtonian reflector, in which the
+refrangibility was corrected by the second speculum, and the angle of
+incidence restored by the third.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p><p>All this part of the narrative is simply splendid in absurdity.
+Hesitating references to refrangibility and the angle of incidence would
+have been sheerly idiotic under the supposed circumstances; and in the
+Newtonian reflector (which has only two specula or mirrors) there is no
+refrangibility to be corrected; apart from which, 'correcting
+refrangibility' has no more meaning than 'restoring the angle of
+incidence.'</p>
+
+<p>'"And," continued Sir John, "why cannot the illuminating microscope, say
+the hydro-oxygen, be applied to render distinct, and, if necessary, even
+to magnify, the focal object?" Sir David sprung from his chair' [and
+well he might, though not] 'in an ecstasy of conviction, and, leaping
+half-way to the ceiling, exclaimed, "Thou art the man!" Each philosopher
+anticipated the other in presenting the prompt illustration that if the
+rays of the hydro-oxygen microscope, passed through a drop of water
+containing the larv&aelig; of a gnat and other objects invisible to the naked
+eye, rendered them not only keenly but firmly magnified to dimensions of
+many feet; so could the same artificial light, passed through the
+faintest focal object of a telescope, both distinctify (to coin a new
+word for an extraordinary occasion) and magnify its feeblest component
+members. The only apparent desideratum was a recipient for the focal
+image which should transfer it, without refranging it, to the surface on
+which it was to be viewed under the revivifying light of the microscopic
+reflectors.'</p>
+
+<p>Singularly enough, the idea here mentioned does not appear to many so
+absurd as it is in reality. It is known that the image formed by the
+large lens of an ordinary telescope or the large mirror of a reflecting
+telescope is a real image; not a merely virtual image like that which is
+seen in a looking-glass. It can be received on a sheet of paper or other
+white surface just as the image of surrounding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> objects can be thrown
+upon the white table of the camera obscura. It is this real image, in
+fact, which we look at in using a telescope of any sort, the portion of
+such a telescope nearest to the eye being in reality a microscope for
+viewing the image formed by the great lens or mirror, as the case may
+be. And it does not seem to some altogether absurd to speak of
+illuminating this image by transfused light, or of casting by means of
+an illuminating microscope a vastly enlarged picture of this image upon
+a screen. But of course the image being simply formed by the passage of
+rays (which originally came from the object whose image they form)
+through a certain small space, to send <i>other</i> rays (coming from some
+other luminous object) through the same small space, is not to improve,
+but, so far as any effect is produced at all, to impair, the
+distinctness of the image. In fact, if these illuminating rays reached
+the eye, they would seriously impair the distinctness of the image.
+Their effect may be compared exactly with the effect of rays of light
+cast upon the image in a camera obscura; and, to see what the effect of
+such rays would be, we need only consider why it is that the camera <i>is</i>
+made 'obscura,' or dark. The effect of the transfusion of light through
+a telescopic image may be easily tried by any one who cares to make the
+experiment. He has only to do away with the tube of his telescope
+(substituting two or three straight rods to hold the glass in its
+place), and then in the blaze of a strong sun to direct the telescope on
+some object lying nearly towards the sun. Or if he prefer artificial
+light for the experiment, then at night let him direct the telescope so
+prepared upon the moon, while a strong electric light is directed upon
+the place where the focal image is formed (close in front of the eye).
+The experiment will not suggest very sanguine hopes of good result from
+the transfusion of artificial light. Yet, to my own knowledge, not a few
+who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> were perfectly well aware that the lunar hoax was not based on
+facts, have gravely reasoned that the principle suggested might be
+sound, and, in fact, that they could see no reason why astronomers
+should not try it, even though it had been first suggested as a joke.</p>
+
+<p>To return, however, to the narrative. 'The co-operative philosophers,
+having hit upon their method, determined to test it practically. They
+decided that a medium of the purest plate-glass (which it is said they
+obtained, by consent, be it observed, from the shop-window of M.
+Desanges, the jeweller to his ex-majesty Charles X., in High Street) was
+the most eligible they could discover. It answered perfectly with a
+telescope which magnified a hundred times, and a microscope of about
+thrice that power.' Thus fortified by experiment, and 'fully sanctioned
+by the high optical authority of Sir David Brewster, Sir John laid his
+plan before the Royal Society, and particularly directed to it the
+attention of his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, the ever munificent
+patron of science and the arts. It was immediately and enthusiastically
+approved by the committee chosen to investigate it, and the chairman,
+who was the Royal President' (this continual reference to royalty is
+manifestly intended to give a British tone to the narrative),
+'subscribed his name for a contribution of &pound;10,000, with a promise that
+he would zealously submit the proposed instrument as a fit object for
+the patronage of the privy purse. He did so without delay; and his
+Majesty, on being informed that the estimated expense was &pound;70,000,
+na&iuml;vely enquired if the costly instrument would conduce to any
+improvement in <i>navigation</i>. On being informed that it undoubtly would,
+the sailor king promised a <i>carte blanche</i> for any amount which might be
+required.'</p>
+
+<p>All this is very clever. The 'sailor king' comes in as effectively to
+give <i>vraisemblance</i> to the narrative as 'Crabtree's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> little bronze
+Shakspeare that stood over the fireplace,' and the 'postman just come to
+the door with a double letter from Northamptonshire.'</p>
+
+<p>Then comes a description of the construction of the object-glass,
+twenty-four feet in diameter, 'just six times the size of the elder
+Herschel's;' who, by the way, never made a telescope with an
+object-glass. The account of Sir John Herschel's journey from England,
+and even some details of the construction of the observatory, were based
+on facts, indeed, so many persons in America as well as in England were
+acquainted with some of these circumstances, that it was essential to
+follow the facts as closely as possible. Of course, also, some
+explanation had to be given of the circumstance that nothing had before
+been heard respecting the gigantic instrument taken out by Sir John
+Herschel. 'Whether,' says the story, 'the British Government were
+sceptical concerning the promised splendour of the discoveries, or
+wished them to be scrupulously veiled until they had accumulated a
+full-orbed glory for the nation and reign in which they originated, is a
+question which we can only conjecturally solve. But certain it is that
+the astronomer's royal patrons enjoined a masonic taciturnity upon him
+and his friends until he should have officially communicated the results
+of his great experiment.'</p>
+
+<p>It was not till the night of January 10, 1835, that the mighty telescope
+was at length directed towards our satellite. The part of the moon
+selected was on the eastern part of her disc. 'The whole immense power
+of the telescope was applied, and to its focal image about one half of
+the power of the microscope. On removing the screen of the latter, the
+field of view was covered throughout its entire area with a beautifully
+distinct and even vivid representation of <i>basaltic rock</i>. Its colour
+was a greenish brown; and the width of the columns, as defined by their
+interstices on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> canvas, was invariably twenty-eight inches. No
+fracture whatever appeared in the mass first presented; but in a few
+seconds a shelving pile appeared, of five or six columns' width, which
+showed their figure to be hexagonal, and their articulations similar to
+those of the basaltic formation at Staffa. This precipitous cliff was
+profusely covered with a dark red flower, precisely similar, says Dr.
+Grant, to the Papaver Rh&#339;us, or Rose Poppy, of our sublunary
+cornfields; and this was the first organic production of nature in a
+foreign world ever revealed to the eyes of men.'</p>
+
+<p>It would be wearisome to go through the whole series of observations
+thus fabled, and only a few of the more striking features need be
+indicated. The discoveries are carefully graduated in interest. Thus we
+have seen how, after recognising basaltic formations, the observers
+discovered flowers: they next see a lunar forest, whose 'trees were of
+one unvaried kind, and unlike any on earth except the largest kind of
+yews in the English churchyards.' (There is an American ring in this
+sentence, by the way, as there is in one, a few lines farther on, where
+the narrator having stated that by mistake the observers had the Sea of
+Clouds instead of a more easterly spot in the field of view, proceeds to
+say: 'However, the moon was a free country, and we not as yet attached
+to any particular province.') Next a lunar ocean is described, 'the
+water nearly as blue as that of the deep sea, and breaking in large
+white billows upon the strand, while the action of very high tides was
+quite manifest upon the face of the cliffs for more than a hundred
+miles.' After a description of several valleys, hills, mountains and
+forests, we come to the discovery of animal life. An oval valley
+surrounded by hills, red as the purest vermilion, is selected as the
+scene. 'Small collections of trees, of every imaginable kind, were
+scattered about the whole of this luxuriant area; and here our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+magnifiers blessed our panting hopes with specimens of conscious
+existence. In the shade of the woods we beheld brown quadrupeds having
+all the external characteristics of the bison, but more diminutive than
+any species of the bos genus in our natural history.' Then herds of
+agile creatures like antelopes are described, 'abounding on the
+acclivitous glades of the woods.' In the contemplation of these
+sprightly animals the narrator becomes quite lively. 'This beautiful
+creature,' says he, 'afforded us the most exquisite amusement. The
+mimicry of its movements upon our white painted canvas was as faithful
+and luminous as that of animals within a few yards of the camera
+obscura. Frequently, when attempting to put our fingers upon its beard,
+it would suddenly bound away as if conscious of our earthly
+impertinence; but then others would appear, whom we could not prevent
+nibbling the herbage, say or do to them what we would.'</p>
+
+<p>A strange amphibious creature, of a spherical form, rolling with great
+velocity along a pebbly beach, is the next object of interest, but is
+presently lost sight of in a strong current setting off from the angle
+of an island. After this there are three or four pages descriptive of
+various lunar scenes and animals, the latter showing a tendency,
+singular considering the circumstances, though very convenient for the
+narrator, to become higher and higher in type as the discoveries
+proceed, until an animal somewhat of the nature of the missing link is
+discovered. It is found in the Endymion (a circular walled plain) in
+company with a small kind of reindeer, the elk, the moose, and the
+horned bear, and is described as the biped beaver. It 'resembles the
+beaver of the earth in every other respect than in its destitution of a
+tail, and its invariable habit of walking upon only two feet. It carries
+its young in its arms like a human being, and moves with an easy gliding
+motion. Its huts are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>constructed better and higher than those of many
+tribes of human savages, and, from the appearance of smoke in nearly all
+of them, there is no doubt of its being acquainted with the use of fire.
+Still, its head and body differ only in the points stated from that of
+the beaver; and it was never seen except on the borders of lakes and
+rivers, in which it has been observed to immerse for a period of several
+seconds.'</p>
+
+<p>The next step towards the climax brings us to domestic animals, 'good
+large sheep, which would not have disgraced the farms of Leicestershire
+or the shambles of Leadenhall Market; we fairly laughed at the
+recognition of so familiar an acquaintance in so distant a land.
+Presently they appeared in great numbers, and, on reducing the lenses,
+we found them in flocks over a great part of the valley. I need not say
+how desirous we were of finding shepherds to these flocks, and even a
+man with blue apron and rolled-up sleeves would have been a welcome
+sight to us, if not to the sheep; but they fed in peace, lords of their
+own pastures, without either protector or destroyer in human shape.'</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, discussion had arisen as to the lunar locality where
+men, or creatures resembling them, would most likely be found. Herschel
+had a theory on the subject&mdash;viz., that just where the balancing or
+libratory swing of the moon brings into view the greatest extent beyond
+the eastern or western parts of that hemisphere which is turned
+earthwards in the moon's mean or average position, lunar inhabitants
+would probably be found, and nowhere else. This, by the way (speaking
+seriously), is a rather curious anticipation of a view long subsequently
+advanced by Hansen, and for a time adopted by Sir J. Herschel, that
+possibly the remote hemisphere of the moon may be a fit abode for living
+creatures, the oceans and atmosphere which are wanting on the nearer
+hemisphere having been (on this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> hypothesis) drawn over to the remoter
+because of a displacement of the moon's centre of gravity. I ventured in
+one of my first books on astronomy to indicate objections to this
+theory, the force of which Sir J. Herschel admitted in a letter
+addressed to me on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>Taking, then, an opportunity when the moon had just swung to the extreme
+limit of her balancing, or, to use technical terms, when she had
+attained her maximum libration in longitude, the observers approached
+the level opening to Lake Langrenus, as the narrator calls this fine
+walled plain, which, by the way, is fully thirty degrees of lunar
+longitude within the average western limit of the moon's visible
+hemisphere. 'Here the valley narrows to a mile in width, and displays
+scenery on both sides picturesque and romantic beyond the powers of a
+prose description. Imagination, borne on the wings of poetry, could
+alone gather similes to portray the wild sublimity of this landscape,
+where dark behemoth crags stood over the brows of lofty precipices, as
+if a rampart in the sky; and forests seemed suspended in mid-air. On the
+eastern side there was one soaring crag, crested with trees, which hung
+over in a curve like three-fourths of a Gothic arch, and being of a rich
+crimson colour, its effect was most strange upon minds unaccustomed to
+the association of such grandeur with such beauty. But, whilst gazing
+upon them in a perspective of about half a mile, we were thrilled with
+astonishment to perceive four successive flocks of large winged
+creatures, wholly unlike any kind of birds, descend with a slow even
+motion from the cliffs on the western side and alight upon the plain.
+They were first noticed by Dr. Herschel, who exclaimed: "Now, gentlemen,
+my theories against your proofs, which you have often found a pretty
+even bet, we have here something worth looking at. I was confident that
+if ever we found beings in human shape<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> it would be in this longitude,
+and that they would be provided by their Creator with some extraordinary
+powers of locomotion." ... We counted three parties of these creatures,
+of twelve, nine, and fifteen in each, walking erect towards a small wood
+near the base of the eastern precipices. Certainly they <i>were</i> like
+human beings, for their wings had now disappeared, and their attitude in
+walking was both erect and dignified.... They averaged four feet in
+height, were covered, except on the face, with short and glossy
+copper-coloured hair, lying snugly upon their backs, from the top of the
+shoulders to the calves of the legs. The face, which was of a yellowish
+flesh colour, was a slight improvement upon that of the large orang
+outang, being more open and intelligent in its expression, and having a
+much greater expansion of forehead. The mouth, however, was very
+prominent, though somewhat relieved by a thick beard upon the lower jaw,
+and by lips far more human than those of any species of the simia genus.
+In general symmetry of body and limbs they were infinitely superior to
+the orang outang; so much so, that, but for their long wings, Lieutenant
+Drummond said they would look as well on a parade ground as some of the
+old Cockney militia.... These creatures were evidently engaged in
+conversation; their gesticulation, more particularly the varied action
+of their hands and arms, appeared impassioned and emphatic. We hence
+inferred that they were rational beings, and, although not perhaps of so
+high an order as others which we discovered the next month on the shores
+of the Bay of Rainbows, that they were capable of producing works of art
+and contrivance.... They possessed wings of great expansion, similar in
+construction to those of the bat, being a semi-transparent membrane
+united in curvilinear divisions by means of straight radii, united at
+the back by the dorsal integuments.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> But what astonished us very much
+was the circumstance of this membrane being continued from the shoulders
+to the legs, united all the way down, though gradually decreasing in
+width' (very much as Fuseli depicted the wings of his Satanic Majesty,
+though H.S.M. would seem to have the advantage of the lunar Bat-men in
+not being influenced by gravity<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a>). 'The wings seemed completely under
+the command of volition, for those of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> creatures whom we saw bathing
+in the water spread them instantly to their full width, waved them as
+ducks do theirs to shake off the water, and then as instantly closed
+them again in a compact form. Our further observation of the habits of
+these creatures, who were of both sexes, led to results so very
+remarkable, that I prefer they should be first laid before the public in
+Dr. Herschel's own work, where I have reason to know they are fully and
+faithfully stated, however incredulously they may be received.... We
+scientifically denominated them the Vespertilio-homo or Bat-man; and
+they are doubtless innocent and happy creatures, notwithstanding that
+some of their amusements would but ill comport with our terrestrial
+notions of decorum.' The omitted passages were suppressed in obedience
+to Dr. Grant's private injunction. 'These, however, and other prohibited
+passages,' were to be presently 'published by Dr. Herschel, with the
+certificates of the civil and military authorities of the colony, and of
+several Episcopal, Wesleyan, and other ministers, who in the month of
+March last were permitted, under stipulation of temporary secrecy, to
+visit the observatory, and become eye-witnesses of the wonders which
+they were requested to attest. We are confident that his forthcoming
+volumes will be at once the most sublime in science, and the most
+intense in general interest, that ever issued from the press.'</p>
+
+<p>The actual climax of the narrative, however, is not yet reached. The
+inhabitants of Langrenus, though rational, do not belong to the highest
+orders of intelligent Lunarians. Herschel, ever ready with theories, had
+pointed out that probably the most cultivated races would be found
+residing on the slopes of some active volcano, and, in particular, that
+the proximity of the flaming mountain Bullialdus (about twenty degrees
+south and ten east of the vast crater Tycho, the centre whence extend
+those great radiations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> which give to the moon something of the
+appearance of a peeled orange) 'must be so great a local convenience to
+dwellers in this valley during the long periodical absence of solar
+light, as to render it a place of popular resort for the inhabitants of
+all the adjacent regions, more especially as its bulwark of hills
+afforded an infallible security against any volcanic eruption that could
+occur.' Our observers therefore applied their full power to explore it.
+'Rich, indeed, was our reward. The very first object in this valley that
+appeared upon our canvas was a magnificent work of art. It was a
+temple&mdash;a fane of devotion or of science, which, when consecrated to the
+Creator, is devotion of the loftiest order, for it exhibits His
+attributes purely, free from the masquerade attire and blasphemous
+caricature of controversial creeds, and has the seal and signature of
+His own hand to sanction its aspirations. It was an equi-angular temple,
+built of polished sapphire, or of some resplendent blue stone, which,
+like it, displayed a myriad point of golden light twinkling and
+scintillating in the sunbeams.... The roof was composed of yellow metal,
+and divided into three compartments, which were not triangular planes
+inclining to the centre, but subdivided, curved, and separated so as to
+present a mass of violently agitated flames rising from a common source
+of conflagration, and terminating in wildly waving points. This design
+was too manifest and too skilfully executed to be mistaken for a single
+moment. Through a few openings in these metallic flames we perceived a
+large sphere of a darker kind of metal nearly of a clouded copper
+colour, which they enclosed and seemingly raged around, as if
+hieroglyphically consuming it.... What did the ingenious builders mean
+by the globe surrounded by flames? Did they, by this, record any past
+calamity of <i>their</i> world, or predict any future one of <i>ours</i>?' (Why,
+by the way, should the past theory be assigned to the moon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> and the
+future one to our earth?) 'I by no means despair of ultimately solving
+not only these but a thousand other questions which present themselves
+respecting the objects in this planet; for not the millionth part of her
+surface has yet been explored, and we have been more desirous of
+collecting the greatest possible number of new facts than of indulging
+in speculative theories, however seductive to the imagination.'</p>
+
+<p>After this we have an account of the behaviour of the Vespertilio-homo
+at meals. 'They seemed eminently happy, and even polite; for individuals
+would select large and bright specimens of fruit, and throw them
+archwise across to some friend who had extracted the nutriment from
+those scattered around him.' However, the lunar men are not on the whole
+particularly interesting beings according to this account. 'So far as we
+could judge, they spent their happy hours in collecting various fruits
+in the woods, in eating, flying, bathing, and loitering about the
+summits of precipices.' One may say of them what Huxley is reported to
+have said of the spirits as described by spiritualists, that no student
+of science would care to waste his time inquiring about such a stupid
+set of people.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the more interesting and characteristic portions of a
+narrative, running in the original to forty or fifty large octavo pages.
+In its day the story attracted a good deal of notice, and, even when
+every one had learned the trick, many were still interested in a
+<i>brochure</i> which was so cleverly conceived and had deceived so many. To
+this day the lunar hoax is talked of in America, where originally it had
+its chief&mdash;or, one may rather say, its only real&mdash;success as a hoax. It
+reached England too late to deceive any but those who were unacquainted
+with Herschel's real doings, and no editors of public journals, I
+believe, gave countenance to it at all. In America, on the contrary,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+many editors gave the narrative a distinguished place in their columns.
+Some indeed expressed doubts, and others followed the safe course of the
+'Philadelphia Inquirer,' which informed its readers that 'after an
+attentive perusal of the whole story they could decide for themselves;'
+adding that, 'whether true or false, the narrative is written with
+consummate ability and possesses intense interest.' But others were more
+credulous. According to the 'Mercantile Advertiser' the story carried
+'intrinsic evidence of being an authentic document.' The 'Albany Daily
+Advertiser' had read the article 'with unspeakable emotions of pleasure
+and astonishment.' The 'New York Times' announced that 'the writer (Dr.
+Andrew Grant) displays the most extensive and accurate knowledge of
+astronomy; and the description of Sir John's recently improved
+instruments, the principle on which the inestimable improvements were
+founded, the account of the wonderful discoveries in the moon, etc., all
+are probable and plausible, and have an air of intense verisimilitude.'
+The 'New Yorker' considered the discoveries 'of astounding interest,
+creating a new era in astronomy and science generally.'<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p><p>In our time a trick of the kind could hardly be expected to succeed so
+well, even if as cleverly devised and as well executed. The facts of
+popular astronomy and of general popular science have been more widely
+disseminated. America, too, more than any other great nation, has
+advanced in the interval. It was about two years after this pamphlet had
+appeared, that J. Quincy Adams used the following significant language
+in advocating the erection of an astronomical observatory at Washington:
+'It is with no feeling of pride as an American that the remark may be
+made, that on the comparatively small territorial surface of Europe
+there are existing more than 130 of these lighthouses of the skies;
+while throughout the whole American hemisphere there is but one.' At
+present, some of the finest observatories in the world belong to
+American cities, or are attached to American colleges; and much of the
+most interesting astronomical work of this country has been achieved by
+American observers.</p>
+
+<p>Yet we still hear from time to time of the attempted publication of
+hoaxes of greater or less ingenuity. It is singular (and I think
+significant) how often these relate to the moon. There would seem to be
+some charm about our satellite for the minds of paradoxists and hoaxers
+generally. Nor are these tricks invariably detected at once by the
+general public, or even by persons of some culture. I remember being
+gravely asked (in January 1874) whether an account given in the 'New
+York World,' purporting to describe how the moon's frame was gradually
+cracking, threatening eventually to fall into several separate
+fragments, was in reality based on fact. In the far West,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> at Lincoln,
+Nebraska, a lawyer asked me, not long since, why I had not described the
+great discoveries recently made by means of a powerful reflector erected
+near Paris. According to the 'Chicago Times,' this powerful instrument
+had shown buildings in the moon, and bands of workers could be seen with
+it who manifestly were undergoing some kind of penal servitude, for they
+were chained together. It was clear, from the presence of these and the
+absence of other inhabitants, that the side of the moon turned
+earthwards is a dreary and unpleasant place of abode, the real 'happy
+hunting grounds' of the moon lying on her remote and unseen hemisphere.</p>
+
+<p>As gauges of general knowledge, scientific hoaxes have their uses, just
+as paradoxical works have. No one, certainly no student of science, can
+thoroughly understand how little some persons know about science, until
+he has observed how much will be believed, if only published with the
+apparent authority of a few known names, and announced with a sufficient
+parade of technical verbiage; nor is it so easy as might be thought,
+even for those who are acquainted with the facts, to disprove either a
+hoax or a paradox. Nothing, indeed, can much more thoroughly perplex and
+confound a student of science than to be asked to prove, for example,
+that the earth is not flat, or the moon not inhabited by creatures like
+ourselves; for the circumstance that such a question is asked implies
+ignorance so thorough of the very facts on which the proof must be
+based, as to render argument all but hopeless from the outset. I have
+had a somewhat wide experience of paradoxists, and have noted the
+experience of De Morgan and others who, like him, have tried to convince
+them of their folly. The conclusion at which I have arrived is, that to
+make a rope of sand were an easy task compared with the attempt to
+instil the simpler facts of science into paradoxical heads.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p><p>I would make some remarks, in conclusion, upon scientific or
+quasi-scientific papers not intended to deceive, but yet presenting
+imaginary scenes, events, and so forth, described more or less in
+accordance with scientific facts. Imaginary journeys to the sun, moon,
+planets, and stars; travels over regions on the earth as yet unexplored;
+voyages under the sea, through the bowels of the earth, and other such
+narratives, may, perhaps, be sometimes usefully written and read, so
+long as certain conditions are fulfilled by the narrator. In the first
+place, while adopting, to preserve the unities, the tone of one relating
+facts which actually occurred, he should not suffer even the simplest
+among his readers to lie under the least misapprehension as to the true
+nature of the narrative. Again, since of necessity established facts
+must in such a narrative appear in company with the results of more or
+less probable surmise, the reader should have some means of
+distinguishing where fact ends and surmise begins. For example, in a
+paper I once wrote, entitled 'A Journey to Saturn,' I was not
+sufficiently careful to note that while the appearances described in the
+approach towards the planet were in reality based on the observed
+appearances as higher and higher telescopic powers are applied to the
+planet, others supposed to have been seen by the visitors to Saturn when
+actually within his system, were only such as might possibly or probably
+be seen, but for which we have no real evidence. In consequence of this
+omission, I received several inquiries about these matters. 'Is it
+true,' some wrote, 'that the small satellite Hyperion' (scarce
+discernible in powerful telescopes, while Titan and Japetus on either
+side are large) 'is only one of a ring of small satellites travelling
+between the orbits of the larger moons?'&mdash;as the same planets travel
+between the paths of Mars and Jupiter. Others asked on what grounds it
+was said that the voyagers found small moons circling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> about Titan, the
+giant moon of the Saturnian system, as the moons of Jupiter and Saturn
+circle around those giant members of the solar system. In each case, I
+was reduced to the abject necessity of explaining that there was no
+evidence for the alleged state of things, which, however, might
+nevertheless exist. Scientific fiction which has to be interpreted in
+that way is as bad as a joke that has to be explained. In my 'Journey to
+the Sun' I was more successful (it was the earlier essay, however);
+insomuch that Professor Young, of Dartmouth College (Hanover, N.H.), one
+of the most skilful solar observers living, assured me that, with
+scarcely a single exception, the various phenomena described
+corresponded exactly with the ideas he had formed respecting the
+probable condition of our luminary.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p>
+
+<p>But I must confess that my own experience has not been, on the whole,
+favourable to that kind of popular science writing. It appears to me
+that the more thoroughly the writer of such an essay has studied any
+particular scientific subject, the less able must he be to write a
+fictitious narrative respecting it. Just as those ignorant of any
+subject are often the readiest to theorise about it, because least
+hampered by exact knowledge, so I think that the careful avoidance of
+any exact study of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> details of a scientific subject must greatly
+facilitate the writing of a fictitious narrative respecting it. But
+unfortunately a narrative written under such conditions, however
+interesting to the general reader, can scarcely forward the propagation
+of scientific knowledge, one of the qualities claimed for fables of the
+kind. As an instance in point, I may cite Jules Verne's 'Voyage to the
+Moon,' where (apart, of course, from the inherent and intentional
+absurdity of the scheme itself), the circumstances which are described
+are calculated to give entirely erroneous ideas about the laws of
+motion. Nothing could be more amusing, but at the same time nothing more
+scientifically absurd, than the story of the dead dog Satellite, which,
+flung out of the travelling projectile, becomes a veritable satellite,
+moving always beside the voyagers; for, with whatever velocity the dog
+had been expelled by them, with that same velocity would he have
+retreated continually from their projectile abode, whose own attraction
+on the dog would have had no appreciable effect in checking his
+departure. Again, the scene when the projectile reaches the neutral
+point between the earth and moon, so that there is no longer any gravity
+to keep the travellers on the floor of their travelling car, is well
+conceived (though, in part, somewhat profane); but in reality the state
+of things described as occurring there would have prevailed throughout
+the journey. The travellers would no more be drawn earthwards (as
+compared with the projectile itself) than we travellers on the earth are
+drawn sunwards with reference to the earth. The earth's attracting force
+on the projectile and on the travellers would be equal all through the
+journey, not solely when the projectile reached the neutral point; and
+being equal on both, would not draw them together. It may be argued that
+the attractions were equal before the projectile set out on its journey,
+and therefore, if the reasoning just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> given were correct, the travellers
+ought not to have had any weight keeping them on the floor of the
+projectile before it started, 'which is absurd.' But the pressure upon
+the floor of the projectile at rest is caused by the floor being kept
+from moving; let it be free to obey gravity, and there will no longer be
+any pressure: and throughout the journey to the moon, the projectile,
+like the travellers it contains, is obeying the action of gravity.
+Unfortunately, those who are able to follow the correct reasoning in
+such matters are not those to whom Jules Verne's account would suggest
+wrong ideas about matters dynamical; the young learner who <i>is</i> misled
+by such narratives is neither able to reason out the matter for himself,
+nor to understand the true reasoning respecting it. He is, therefore,
+apt to be set quite at sea by stories of the kind, and especially by the
+specious reasoning introduced to explain the events described. In fine,
+it would seem that such narratives must be valued for their intrinsic
+interest, just like other novels or romances, not for the quality
+sometimes claimed for them of combining instruction with amusement.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+<h3>X.<br />
+
+<i>ON SOME ASTRONOMICAL PARADOXES.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">For</span> many years the late Professor De Morgan contributed to the columns
+of the 'Athen&aelig;um' a series of papers in which he dealt with the strange
+treatises in which the earth is flattened, the circle squared, the angle
+divided into three, the cube doubled (the famous problem which the
+Delphic oracle set astronomers), and the whole of modern astronomy shown
+to be a delusion and a snare. He treated these works in a quaint
+fashion: not unkindly, for his was a kindly nature; not even earnestly,
+though he was thoroughly in earnest; yet in such sort as to rouse the
+indignation of the unfortunate paradoxists. He was abused roundly for
+what he said, but much more roundly when he declined further
+controversy. Paradoxists of the ignorant sort (for it must be remembered
+that not all are ignorant) are, indeed, well practised in abuse, and
+have long learned to call mathematicians and astronomers cheats and
+charlatans. They freely used their vocabulary for the benefit of De
+Morgan, whom they denounced as a scurrilous scribbler, a defamatory,
+dishonest, abusive, ungentlemanly, and libellous trickster.</p>
+
+<p>He bore this shower of abuse with exceeding patience and good nature. He
+had not been wholly unprepared for it, in fact; and, as he had a purpose
+in dealing with the paradoxists, he was satisfied to continue that quiet
+analysis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> of their work which so roused their indignation. He found in
+them a curious subject of study; and he found an equally curious subject
+of study in their disciples. The simpler&mdash;not to say more
+foolish&mdash;paradoxists, whose wonderful discoveries are merely amazing
+misapprehensions, were even more interesting to De Morgan than the
+craftier sort who make a living, or try to make a living, out of their
+pretended theories. Indeed, these last he treated, as they deserved,
+with a scathing satire quite different from his humorous and not
+ungenial comments on the wonderful theories of the honest paradoxists.</p>
+
+<p>There is one special use to which the study of paradox-literature may be
+applied, which&mdash;so far as I know&mdash;has not hitherto been much attended
+to. It may be questioned whether half the strange notions into which
+paradoxists fall must not be ascribed to the vagueness of too many of
+our scientific treatises. A half-understood explanation, or a carelessly
+worded account of some natural phenomenon, leads the paradoxist, whose
+nature is compounded of conceit and simplicity, to originate a theory of
+his own on the subject. Once such a theory has been devised, it takes
+complete possession of the paradoxist's mind. All the facts of which he
+thenceforward hears, which bear in the least on his favourite craze,
+appear to give evidence in its favour, even though in reality they are
+most obviously opposed to it. He learns to look upon himself as an
+unappreciated Newton, and to see the bitterest malevolence in those who
+venture to question his preposterous notions. He is fortunate if he do
+not suffer his theories to withdraw him from his means of earning a
+livelihood, or if he do not waste his substance in propounding and
+defending them.</p>
+
+<p>One of the favourite subjects for paradox-forming is the accepted theory
+of the solar system. Our books on astronomy too often present this
+theory in such sort that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> seems only a <i>successor</i> of Ptolemy's; and
+the impression is conveyed that, like Ptolemy's, it may be one day
+superseded by some other theory. This is quite enough for the
+paradoxist. If a new theory is to replace the one now accepted, why
+should not <i>he</i> be the new Copernicus? He starts upon the road without a
+tithe of the knowledge that old Ptolemy possessed, unaware of the
+difficulties which Ptolemy met and dealt with&mdash;free, therefore, because
+of his perfect ignorance, to form theories at which Ptolemy would have
+smiled. He has probably heard of the</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">centrics and eccentrics scribbled o'er</span><br />
+Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb,<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>which disfigured the theories of the ancients; but he is quite
+unconscious that every one of those scribblings had a real meaning, each
+being intended to account for some observed peculiarity of planetary
+motion, which <i>must</i> be accounted for by any theory which is to claim
+acceptance. In this happy unconsciousness that there are any
+peculiarities requiring explanation, knowing nothing of the strange
+paths which the planets are seen to follow on the heavenly vault,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Their wand'ring course now high, now low, then hid,<br />
+Progressive, retrograde, or standing still,<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>he placidly puts forward&mdash;and presently very vehemently urges&mdash;a theory
+which accounts for none of these things.</p>
+
+<p>It has often seemed to me that a large part of the mischief&mdash;for let it
+be remembered that the published errors of the paradoxist are indicative
+of much unpublished misapprehension&mdash;arises from the undeserved contempt
+with which our books of astronomy too often treat the labours of
+Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, and others who advocated erroneous theories. If
+the simple truth were told, that the theory of Ptolemy was a masterpiece
+of ingenuity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> and that it was worked out by his followers in a way which
+merits the highest possible praise, while the theory of Tycho Brahe was
+placed in reality on a sounder basis than that of Copernicus, and
+accounted as well and as simply for observed appearances, the student
+would begin to realise the noble nature of the problem which those great
+astronomers dealt with. And again, if stress were laid upon the fact
+that Tycho Brahe devoted years upon years of his life to secure such
+observations of the planets as might settle the questions at issue, the
+student would learn something of the spirit in which the true lover of
+science proceeds.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to me, also, that far too little is said about the kind of work
+by which Kepler and Newton finally established the accepted theories.
+There is a strange charm in the history of those twenty years of
+Kepler's life during which he was analysing the observations made by
+Tycho Brahe. Surrounded with domestic trials and anxieties, which might
+well have claimed his whole attention, tried grievously by ill-health
+and bodily anguish, he laboured all those years upon erroneous theories.
+The very worst of these had infinitely more evidence in its favour than
+the best which the paradoxists have brought forth. There was not one of
+those theories which nine out of ten of his scientific contemporaries
+would not have accepted ungrudgingly. Yet he wrought these theories one
+after another to their own disproof. <i>Nineteen</i> of them he tried and
+rejected&mdash;the twentieth was the true theory of the solar system. Perhaps
+nothing in the whole history of astronomy affords a nobler lesson to the
+student of science&mdash;unless, indeed, it be the calm philosophy with which
+Newton for eighteen years suffered the theory of the universe to remain
+in abeyance, because faulty measurements of the earth prevented his
+calculations from agreeing with observed facts. But, as Professor
+Tyndall has well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> remarked&mdash;and the paradoxist should lay the lesson
+well to heart&mdash;'Newton's action in this matter was the normal action of
+the scientific mind. If it were otherwise&mdash;if scientific men were not
+accustomed to demand verification, if they were satisfied with the
+imperfect while the perfect is attainable&mdash;their science, instead of
+being, as it is, a fortress of adamant, would be a house of clay, ill
+fitted to bear the buffetings of the theologic storms to which it has
+been from time to time, and is at present, exposed.'</p>
+
+<p>The fame of Newton has proved to many paradoxists an irresistible
+attraction; it has been to these unfortunates as the candle to the
+fluttering moth. Circle-squaring, as we shall presently see, has had its
+attractions, nor have earth-fixing and earth-flattening been neglected;
+but attacking the law of gravitation has been the favourite work of
+paradoxists. Newton has been praised as surpassing the whole human race
+in genius; mathematicians and astronomers have agreed to laud him as
+unequalled; why should not Paradoxus displace him and be praised in like
+manner? It would be unfair, perhaps, to say that the paradoxist
+consciously argues thus. He doubtless in most instances convinces
+himself that he has really detected some flaw in the theory of
+gravitation. Yet it is impossible not to recognise, as the real motive
+of every paradox-monger, the desire to have that said of him which has
+been said of Newton: '<i>Genus humanum ingenio superavit.</i>'</p>
+
+<p>I remember a curious instance of this which occurred soon after the
+appearance of the comet of 1858. It chanced that, while that object was
+under discussion, reference was made to the action of a repulsive force
+exerted by the sun upon the matter of the comet's tail. On this, some
+one addressed a long letter to a Glasgow newspaper, announcing that he
+had long ago proved that the sun's attraction alone is insufficient to
+account for the planetary motions. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> reasoning was amazingly simple.
+If the sun's attraction is powerful enough to keep the outer planets in
+their course, it must be too powerful for Venus and Mercury close by the
+sun; if it only just suffices to keep these in their course, it cannot
+possibly be powerful enough to restrain the outer planets. The writer of
+this letter said that he had been very badly treated by scientific
+bodies. He had announced his discovery to the Royal Astronomical
+Society, the Royal Society, the Imperial Academy at Paris, and other
+scientific bodies; but they had one and all refused to listen to him. He
+had forsaken or neglected his trade for several years in order to give
+attention to the new and (as he thought) the true theory of the
+universe. He complained in a specially bitter manner of the unfavourable
+comments which men of science had made upon his views in private letters
+addressed to him in reply to his communications.</p>
+
+<p>There is something melancholy even in what is most ridiculous in cases
+of this sort. The simplicity which supposes that considerations so
+obvious as those adduced could escape the scrutiny, not of Newton only,
+but of all who have followed in the same track during two centuries, is
+certainly stupendous; nor can one fail to smile at seeing a difficulty,
+such as might naturally suggest itself to a beginner, and such as
+half-a-dozen words from an expert would clear up, regarded gravely as a
+discovery calculated to make its author famous for all time. Yet, when
+one considers the probable consequences of the blunder to the unhappy
+enthusiast, and perchance to his family, it is difficult not to feel a
+sense of pity, quite apart from that pity allied to contempt which is
+excited by his mistake. A few words added to the account of Newton's
+theory, which the paradoxist had probably read in some astronomical
+treatise, would have prevented all this mischief. Indeed, this
+difficulty, which, as we have said, is a natural one, should be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> dealt
+with and removed in any account of the planetary system intended for
+beginners. The simple statement that the outer planets move more slowly
+than the inner, and so <i>require</i> a smaller force to keep them in their
+course, would have sufficed, not, perhaps, altogether to remove the
+difficulty, but to show the beginner where the explanation was to be
+looked for.</p>
+
+<p>It was in connection with this subject of gravitation that one of the
+most well-meaning of the paradoxists&mdash;the late Mr. James Reddie&mdash;came
+under Professor De Morgan's criticism. Mr. Reddie was something more
+than well-meaning. He was earnestly desirous of advancing the interests
+of science, as well as of defending religion from what he mistakenly
+supposed to be the dangerous teachings of the Newtonians. He founded for
+these purposes the Victoria Institute, of which society he was the
+secretary from the time of its institution until his decease, some years
+since; and, probably, many who declined to join that society because of
+the Anti-Newtonian proclivities of its secretary, were unaware that to
+that secretary the institute owed its existence.</p>
+
+<p>It so chanced that I had myself a good deal of correspondence with Mr.
+Reddie (who was, however, personally unknown to me). This correspondence
+served to throw quite a new light on the mental habitudes and ways of
+thinking of the honest paradoxist. I believe that Professor De Morgan
+hardly gave Mr. Reddie credit for the perfect honesty which he really
+possessed. It may have been that a clear reasoner like De Morgan could
+hardly (despite his wide experience) appreciate the confusion of mind
+which is the normal characteristic of the paradoxist. But certainly the
+very candid way in which Mr. Reddie admitted, in the correspondence
+above named, that he had not known some facts and had misunderstood
+others, afforded to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> my mind the most satisfactory proofs of his
+straightforwardness.</p>
+
+<p>It may be instructive to consider a few of those paradoxes of Mr.
+Reddie's which Professor De Morgan found chief occasion to pulverise.</p>
+
+<p>In a letter to the Astronomer-Royal Mr. Reddie announced that he was
+about to write 'a paper intended to be hereafter published, elaborating
+more minutely and discussing more rigidly than before the glaring
+fallacies, dating from the time of Newton, relating to the motion of the
+moon.' He proceeded to 'indicate the nature of the issues he intended to
+raise.' He had discovered that the moon does not, as a matter of fact,
+go round the earth at the rate of 2288 miles an hour, as astronomers
+say, but follows an undulatory path round the sun at a rate varying
+between 65,000 and 70,000 miles an hour; because, while the moon seems
+to go round the earth, the latter is travelling onwards at the rate of
+67,500 miles an hour round the sun. Of course he was quite right in his
+facts, and quite wrong in his inferences; as the Astronomer-Royal
+pointed out in a brief letter, closing with the remark that, 'as a very
+closely occupied man,' Mr. Airy could 'not enter further into the
+matter.' But further Mr. Reddie persisted in going, though he received
+no more letters from Greenwich. His reply to Sir G. Airy contained, in
+fact, matter enough for a small pamphlet.</p>
+
+<p>Now here was certainly an amazing fact. A well-known astronomical
+relation, which astronomers have over and over again described and
+explained, is treated as though it were something which had throughout
+all ages escaped attention. It is not here the failure to comprehend the
+<i>rationale</i> of a simple explanation which is startling, but the notion
+that an obvious fact had been wholly overlooked.</p>
+
+<p>Of like nature was the mistake which brought Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> Reddie more especially
+under Professor De Morgan's notice. It is known that the sun, carrying
+with him his family of planets, is speeding swiftly through space&mdash;his
+velocity being estimated as probably not falling short of 20,000 miles
+per hour. It follows, of course, that the real paths of the planets in
+space are not closed curves, but spirals of different orders. How, then,
+can the theory of Copernicus be right, according to which the planets
+circle in closed orbits round the sun? Here was Mr. Reddie's difficulty;
+and like the other, it appeared to his mind as a great discovery. He was
+no whit concerned by the thought that astronomers ought surely to have
+noticed the difficulty before. It did not seem in the least wonderful
+that he, lightly reading a book or two of popular astronomy, should
+discover that which Laplace, the Herschels, Leverrier, Airy, Adams, and
+a host of others, who have given their whole lives to astronomy, had
+failed to notice. Accordingly, Mr. Reddie forwarded to the British
+Association (in session at Newcastle) a paper controverting the theory
+of the sun's motion. The paper was declined with thanks by that bigoted
+body 'as opposed to Newtonian astronomy.' 'That paper I published,' says
+Mr. Reddie, 'in September 1863, with an appendix, in both thoroughly
+exhibiting the illogical reasoning and absurdities involved in the
+theory; and with what result? The members of Section A of the British
+Association, and Fellows of the Royal Society and of the Royal
+Astronomical Society, to whom I sent copies of my paper, were, without
+exception, <i>dumb</i>.' Professor De Morgan, however, having occasion to
+examine Mr. Reddie's publications some time after, was in no sort dumb,
+but in very plain and definite terms exhibited their absurdity. After
+all, however, the real absurdity consisted, not in the statements which
+Mr. Reddie made, nor even in the conclusions which he drew from them,
+but in the astounding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> simplicity which could suppose that astronomers
+were unaware of the facts which their own labours had revealed.</p>
+
+<p>In my correspondence with Mr. Reddie I recognised the real source of the
+amazing self-complacency displayed by the true paradoxist. The very
+insufficiency of the knowledge which a paradoxist possesses of his
+subject, affords the measure of his estimate of the care with which
+other men have studied that subject. Because the paradoxist is ready to
+pronounce an opinion about matters he has not studied, it does not seem
+strange to him that Newton and his followers should be equally ready to
+discuss subjects they had not inquired into.</p>
+
+<p>Another very remarkable instance was afforded by Mr. Reddie's treatment
+of the subject of comets. And here, by the way, I shall quote a remark
+made by Sir John Herschel soon after the appearance of the comet of
+1861. 'I have received letters,' he said, 'about the comets of the last
+few years, enough to make one's hair stand on end at the absurdity of
+the theories they propose, and at the ignorance of the commonest laws of
+optics, of motion, of heat, and of general physics, they betray in their
+writers.' In the present instance, the correspondence showed that the
+paradoxist supposed the parabolic paths of some comets to be regarded by
+astronomers as analogous to the parabolic paths traversed by
+projectiles. He expressed considerable astonishment when I informed him
+that, in the first place, projectiles do not travel on truly parabolic
+paths; and secondly, that in all respects their motion differs
+essentially from that which astronomers ascribe to comets. These last
+move more and more quickly until they reach what is called the vertex of
+the parabola (the point of such a path which lies nearest to the sun):
+projectiles, on the contrary, move more and more slowly as they approach
+the corresponding point of their path; and further, the comet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> first
+approaches and then recedes from the centre of attraction&mdash;the
+projectile first recedes from and then approaches the attracting centre.</p>
+
+<p>The earth-flatteners form a considerable section of the paradoxical
+family. They experienced a practical rebuff, a few years since, which
+should to some degree have shaken their faith in the present chief of
+their order. To do this chief justice, he is probably far less confident
+about the flatness of the earth than any of his disciples. Under the
+assumed name of Parallax he visited most of the chief towns of England,
+propounding what he calls his system of zetetic astronomy. Why he should
+call himself Parallax it would be hard to say; unless it be that the
+verb from which the word is derived signifies primarily to shift about
+or dodge, and secondarily to alter a little, especially for the worse.
+His employment of the word zetetic is less doubtful, as he claims for
+his system that it alone is founded on the true seeking out of Nature's
+secrets.</p>
+
+<p>The experimental basis of the theory of Parallax is mainly this: Having
+betaken himself to a part of the Bedford Canal, where there is an
+uninterrupted water-line of about six miles, he tested the water surface
+for signs of curvature, and (as he said) found none.</p>
+
+<p>It chanced, unfortunately, that a disciple&mdash;Mr. John Hampden, of
+Swindon&mdash;accepted the narrative of this observation in an unquestioning
+spirit; and was so confident that the Bedford Canal has a truly plane
+surface, that he wagered five hundred pounds on his opinion, challenging
+the believers in the earth's rotundity to repeat the experiment. The
+challenge was accepted by Mr. Wallace, the eminent naturalist; and the
+result may be anticipated. Three boats were to be moored in a line,
+three miles or so between each. Each carried a mast of given length. If,
+when the summits of the first and last masts were seen in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> a line
+through a telescope, the summit of the middle mast was not found to be
+above the line, then Mr. Hampden was to receive five hundred pounds from
+Mr. Wallace. If, on the contrary, the top of the middle mast was found,
+as the accepted theory said it should be, to be several feet above the
+line joining the tops of the two outer masts, then Mr. Hampden was to
+lose the five hundred pounds he had so rashly ventured. Everything was
+conducted in accordance with the arrangements agreed upon. The editor of
+a well-known sporting paper acted as stakeholder, and unprejudiced
+umpires were to decide as to what actually was seen through the
+telescope. It need scarcely be said that the accepted theory held its
+own, and that Mr. Hampden lost his money. He scarcely bore the loss with
+so good a grace as was to have been expected from a philosopher merely
+desirous of ascertaining the truth. His wrath was not expended on
+Parallax, whom he might have suspected of having led him astray; nor
+does he seem to have been angry with himself, as would have seemed
+natural. All his anger was reserved for those who still continued to
+believe in the earth's rotundity. Whether he believed that the Bedford
+water had risen under the middle boat to oblige Mr. Wallace, or how it
+came to pass that his own chosen experiment had failed him, does not
+appear.</p>
+
+<p>The subsequent history of this matter has been unpleasant. It
+illustrates, unfortunately but too well, the mischief which may ensue
+from the tricks of those who make a trade of paradox&mdash;tricks which would
+be scarce possible, however, if text-books of science were more
+carefully written, and by those only who are really acquainted with the
+subject of which they treat.</p>
+
+<p>The book which originally led to Mr. Hampden's misfortunes, and has
+misled not a few, ought to have deceived none. I have already mentioned
+the statement on which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> Parallax (whose true name is Rowbotham) rested
+his theory. Of course, if that statement had been true&mdash;if he had, with
+his eye a few inches from the surface of the water of the Bedford Canal,
+seen an object close to the surface six miles from him&mdash;there manifestly
+would have been something wrong in the accepted theory about the earth's
+rotundity. So, also, if a writer were to announce a new theory of
+gravity, stating as the basis of his theory that a heavy missile which
+he had thrown into the air had gone upwards on a serpentine course to
+the moon, any one who accepted the statement would be logically bound to
+admit at least that the fact described was inconsistent with the
+accepted theory. But no one would accept such a statement; and no one
+should have accepted Mr. Rowbotham's statement.</p>
+
+<p>His statement was believed, however, and perhaps is still believed by
+many. Twenty years ago De Morgan wrote that 'the founder of the zetetic
+astronomy gained great praise from provincial newspapers for his
+ingenuity in proving that the earth is a flat, surrounded by ice,' with
+the north polar ice in the middle. 'Some of the journals rather incline
+to this view; but the "Leicester Advertiser" thinks that the statement
+"would seem to invalidate some of the most important conclusions of
+modern astronomy;" while the "<a name="corr10" id="corr10"></a>Norfolk Herald" is clear
+that "there must be great error on one side or the other." ... The fact
+is worth noting that from 1849&ndash;1857 arguments on the roundness or
+flatness of the earth did itinerate. I have no doubt they did much good,
+for very few persons have any distinct idea of the evidence for the
+rotundity of the earth. The "Blackburn Standard" and "Preston Guardian"
+(December 12 and 16, 1849) unite in stating that the lecturer ran away
+from his second lecture at Burnley, having been rather too hard pressed,
+at the end of his first lecture, to explain why the large hull of a ship
+disappeared before the masts. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> persons present and waiting for the
+second lecture assuaged their disappointment by concluding that the
+lecturer had slipped off the ice edge of his flat disc, and that he
+would not be seen again till he peeped up on the opposite side.' ...
+'The zetetic system,' proceeds De Morgan, 'still lives in lectures and
+books; as it ought to do, for there is no way of teaching a truth
+comparable to opposition. The last I heard of it was in lectures at
+Plymouth, in October 1864. Since this time a prospectus has been issued
+of a work entitled "The Earth not a Globe;" but whether it has been
+published I do not know.'</p>
+
+<p>The book was published soon after the above was written, and De Morgan
+gives the following quaint account of it: 'August 28, 1865. The zetetic
+astronomy has come into my hands. When in 1851 I went to see the Great
+Exhibition I heard an organ played by a performer who seemed very
+desirous of exhibiting one particular stop. "What do you think of that
+stop?" I was asked. "That depends on the name of it," said I "Oh! what
+can the name of it have to do with the sound? 'that which we call a
+rose,' etc." "The name has everything to do with it: if it be a flute
+stop I think it very harsh; but if it be a railway-whistle stop, I think
+it very sweet." So as to this book: if it be childish, it is clever; if
+it be mannish, it is unusually foolish. The flat earth floating
+tremulously on the sea; the sun moving always over the flat, giving day
+when near enough, and night when too far off; the self-luminous moon,
+with a semi-transparent invisible moon created to give her an eclipse
+now and then; the new law of perspective, by which the vanishing of the
+hull before the masts, usually thought to prove the earth globular,
+really proves it flat;&mdash;all these and other things are well fitted to
+form exercises for a person who is learning the elements of astronomy.
+The manner in which the sun dips into the sea, especially<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> in tropical
+climates, upsets the whole. Mungo Park, I think, gives an African
+hypothesis which explains phenomena better than this. The sun dips into
+the Western ocean, and the people there cut him in pieces, fry him in a
+pan, and then join him together again; take him round the under way, and
+set him up in the East. I hope this book will be read, and that many
+will be puzzled by it; for there are many whose notions of astronomy
+deserve no better fate. There is no subject on which there is so little
+accurate conception as on that of the motions of the heavenly
+bodies.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> The author, though confident in the extreme, neither
+impeaches the honesty of those whose opinion he assails, nor allots them
+any future inconvenience: in these points he is worthy to live on a
+globe and to rotate in twenty-four hours.'</p>
+
+<p>I chanced to reside near Plymouth when Mr. Rowbotham lectured there in
+October 1864. It will readily be understood that, in a town where there
+are so many naval men, his lectures were not altogether so successful as
+they have sometimes been in small inland towns. Numbers of naval
+officers, however, who were thoroughly well assured of the fact that the
+earth is a globe, were not able to demolish the crafty arguments of
+Parallax publicly, during the discussions which he challenged at the
+close of each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> lecture. He was too skilled in that sort of evasion which
+his assumed name (as interpreted by Liddell and Scott) suggests, to be
+readily cornered. When an argument was used which he could not easily
+meet, or seem to meet, he would say simply: 'Well, sir, you have now had
+your fair share of the discussion; let some one else have his turn.' It
+was stated in the newspapers that one of his audience was so wrathful
+with the lecturer on account of these evasions, that he endeavoured to
+strike Parallax with a knobbed stick at the close of the second lecture;
+but probably there was no real foundation for the story.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rowbotham did a very bold thing, however, at Plymouth. He undertook
+to prove, by observations made with a telescope upon the Eddystone
+Lighthouse from the Hoe and from the beach, that the surface of the
+water is flat. From the beach usually only the lantern can be seen. From
+the Hoe the whole of the lighthouse is visible under favourable
+conditions. Duly on the morning appointed, Mr. Rowbotham appeared. From
+the Hoe a telescope was directed towards the lighthouse, which was well
+seen, the morning being calm and still, and tolerably clear. On
+descending to the beach it was found that, instead of the whole lantern
+being visible as usual, only half could be seen&mdash;a circumstance
+doubtless due to the fact that the air's refractive power, which usually
+diminishes the dip due to the earth's curvature by about one-sixth part,
+was less efficient that morning than usual. The effect of the
+peculiarity was manifestly unfavourable to Mr. Rowbotham's theory. The
+curvature of the earth produced a greater difference than usual between
+the appearance of a distant object as seen from a certain high station
+and from a certain low station (though still the difference fell short
+of that which would be shown if there were no air). But Parallax claimed
+the peculiarity observable that morning as an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>argument in favour of his
+flat earth. It is manifest, he said, that there is something wrong about
+the accepted theory; for it tells us that so much less of the lighthouse
+should be seen from the beach than from the Hoe, whereas less still was
+seen. And many of the Plymouth folk went away from the Hoe that morning,
+and from the second lecture, in which Parallax triumphantly quoted the
+results of the observation, with the feeling which had been expressed
+seven years before in the 'Leicester Advertiser,' that 'some of the most
+important conclusions of modern astronomy had been seriously
+invalidated.' If our books of astronomy, in referring to the effects of
+the earth's curvature, had only been careful to point out how surveyors
+and sailors and those who build lighthouses take into account the
+modifying effects of atmospheric refraction, and how these effects have
+long been known to vary with the temperature and pressure of the air,
+this mischief would have been avoided. It would not be fair to say of
+the persons misled on that occasion by Parallax that they deserved no
+better; since the fault is not theirs as readers, but that of careless
+or ill-informed writers.</p>
+
+<p>Another experiment conducted by Parallax the same morning was creditable
+to his ingenuity. Nothing better, perhaps, was ever devised to deceive
+people, apparently by ocular evidence, into the belief that the earth is
+flat&mdash;nor is there any clearer evidence of the largeness of the earth's
+globe compared with our ordinary measures. On the Hoe, some ninety or a
+hundred feet above the sea-level, he had a mirror suspended in a
+vertical position facing the sea, and invited the bystanders to look in
+that mirror at the sea-horizon. To all appearance the line of the
+horizon corresponded exactly with the level of the eye-pupils of the
+observer. Now, of course, when we look into a mirror whose surface is
+exactly vertical, the line of sight to the eye-pupils of our image in
+the mirror is exactly horizontal;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> whereas the line of sight from the
+eyes to the image of the sea-horizon is depressed exactly as much as the
+line from the eyes to the real sea-horizon. Here, then, seemed to be
+proof positive that there is no depression of the sea-horizon; for the
+horizontal line to the image of the eye-pupil seemed to coincide exactly
+with the line to the image of the sea-horizon. It is not necessary to
+suppose here that the mirror was wrongly adjusted, though the slightest
+error of adjustment would affect the result either favourably or
+unfavourably for Parallax's flat-earth theory. It is a matter of fact
+that, if the mirror were perfectly vertical, only very acute vision
+could detect the depression of the image of the sea-horizon below the
+image of the eye-pupil. The depression can easily be calculated for any
+given circumstances. Parallax encouraged observers to note very closely
+the position of the eye-pupil in the image, so that most of them
+approached the image within about ten inches, or the glass within about
+five. Now, in such a case, for a height of one hundred feet above the
+sea-level the image of the sea-horizon would be depressed below the
+image of the eye-pupil by less than three hundredths of an inch&mdash;an
+amount which could not be detected by one eye in a hundred. The average
+diameter of the pupil itself is one-fifth of an inch, or about seven
+times as great as the depression of the sea-horizon in the case
+supposed. It would require very close observation and a good eye to
+determine whether a horizontal line seen on either side of the head were
+on the level of the centres of the eye-pupils, or lower by about
+one-seventh of the breadth of either pupil.</p>
+
+<p>The experiment is a pretty one, however, and well worth trying by any
+one who lives near to the sea-shore and sea-cliffs. But there is a much
+more effective experiment which can be much more easily tried&mdash;only it
+is open to the disadvantage that it at once demolishes the argument<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> of
+our friend Parallax. It occurred to me while I was writing the above
+paragraph. Let a very small mirror (it need not be larger than a
+sixpence) be so suspended to a small support and so weighted that when
+left to itself it hangs with its face perfectly vertical&mdash;an arrangement
+which any competent optician will easily secure&mdash;and let a fine
+horizontal line or several horizontal lines be marked on the mirror;
+which, by the way, should be a metallic one, as its indications will
+then be altogether more trustworthy. This mirror can be put into the
+waistcoat pocket and conveniently carried to much greater height than
+the mirror used by Parallax. Now, at some considerable height&mdash;say five
+or six hundred feet above the sea-level, but a hundred or even fifty
+will suffice&mdash;look into this small mirror while <i>facing</i> the sea. The
+true horizon will then be seen to be visibly below the centre of the
+eye-pupil&mdash;visibly in this case because the horizontal line traced on
+the mirror can be made to coincide with the sea-horizon exactly, and
+will then be found <i>not</i> to coincide with the centre of the eye-pupil.
+Such an instrument could be readily made to show the distance of the
+sea-horizon, which at once determines the height of the observer above
+the sea-level. For this purpose all that would be necessary would be a
+means of placing the eye at some definite distance from the small
+mirror, and a fine vertical scale on the mirror to show the exact
+depression of the sea-horizon. For balloonists such an instrument would
+sometimes be useful, as showing the elevation independently of the
+barometer, whenever any portion of the sea-horizon was in view.</p>
+
+<p>The mention of balloon experiences leads me to another delusive argument
+of the earth-flatteners.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> It has been the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> experience of all
+aeronauts that, as the balloon rises, the appearance of the earth is by
+no means what would be expected from the familiar teachings in our books
+of astronomy. There is a picture in most of these books representing the
+effect of ascent above the sea-level in depressing the line of sight to
+the horizon, and bringing more and more into view the convexity of the
+earth's globe. One would suppose, from the picture, that when an
+observer is at a great height the earth would appear to rise under him,
+like some great round and well-curved shield whose convexity was towards
+him. Instead of this, the aeronaut finds the earth presenting the
+appearance of a great hollow basin, or of the concave side of a
+well-curved shield. The horizon seems to rise as he rises, while the
+earth beneath him sinks lower and lower. A somewhat similar phenomenon
+may be noted when, after ascending the landward side of a high cliff, we
+come suddenly upon a view of the sea&mdash;invariably the sea-horizon is
+higher than we expected to find it. <i>Only</i>, in this case, the surface of
+the sea seems to rise from the beach below towards the distant horizon
+convexly not concavely; the reason of which I take to be this, that the
+waves, and especially long rollers or uniform large ripples, teach the
+eye to form true conceptions of the shape of the sea-surface even when
+the eye is deceived as to the position of the sea-horizon. Indeed, I
+should much like to know what would be the appearance of the sea from a
+balloon when no land was in sight (though I do not particularly wish to
+make the observation myself): the convexity discernible, for the reason
+just named, would contend strangely with the concavity imagined, for the
+reason now to be indicated.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p><p>The deception arises from the circumstance that the scene displayed
+below and around the balloon is judged by the eye from the experience of
+more familiar scenes. The horizon is depressed, but so little that the
+eye cannot detect the depression, especially where the boundary of the
+horizon is irregular. It is here that the text-book pictures mislead;
+for they show the depression as far too great to be overlooked, setting
+the observer sometimes about two thousand miles above the sea-level. The
+eye, then, judges the horizon to be where it usually is&mdash;on the same
+level as the observer; but looking downwards, the eye perceives, and at
+once appreciates if it does not even exaggerate, the great depth at
+which the earth lies below the balloon. The appearance, then, as judged
+by the eye, is that of a mighty basin whose edge rises up all round to
+the level of the balloon, while its bottom lies two or three miles or
+more below the balloon.</p>
+
+<p>The zetetic faithful reason about this matter as though the impressions
+of the senses were trustworthy under all conditions, familiar or
+otherwise; whereas, in point of fact, we know that the senses often
+deceive, even under familiar conditions, and almost always deceive under
+conditions, which are not familiar. A person, for example, accustomed to
+the mist and haze of our British air, is told by the sense of sight,
+when he is travelling where a clearer atmosphere prevails, that a
+mountain forty miles from him is a hill a few miles away. On the other
+hand, an Italian travelling through the Highlands is impressed with the
+belief that all the features of the scenery are much larger (because he
+supposes them much more remote) than they really are. A hundred such
+instances of deception might easily be cited. The conditions under which
+the aeronaut observes the earth are certainly less familiar than those
+under which the Briton views the Alps and Apennines, or the Italian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+views Ben Lomond or Ben Lawers. It would be rash, therefore, even if no
+other evidence were available, to reject the faith that the earth is a
+globe because, as seen from a balloon, it looks like a basin. Indeed, to
+be strictly logical, the followers of Parallax ought on this account to
+adopt the faith that the earth is not flat, but basin-shaped, which
+hitherto they have not been ready to do.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen that Parallax describes a certain experiment on the Bedford
+Level, which, if made as he states, would have shown certainly that
+something was wrong in the accepted system&mdash;for a six-mile straight-edge
+along water would be as severe a blow to the belief in a round earth, as
+a straight line on the sea-surface from Queenstown to New York. Another
+curious experiment adorns his little book, which, if it could be
+repeated successfully before a dozen trustworthy witnesses, would rather
+astonish men of science. Having, he says, by certain
+reasoning&mdash;altogether erroneous, but that is a detail&mdash;convinced himself
+that, on the accepted theory, a bullet fired vertically upwards ought to
+fall far to the west of the place whence it was fired, he carefully
+fixed an air-gun in a vertical position, and fired forty bullets
+vertically upwards. All these fell close to the gun&mdash;which is not
+surprising, though it must have made such an experiment rather
+dangerous; but two fell back into the barrel itself&mdash;which certainly was
+very surprising indeed. One might fairly challenge the most experienced
+gunner in the world to achieve one such vertical shot in a thousand
+trials; two in forty bordered on the miraculous.</p>
+
+<p>The earth-flatteners I have been speaking of claim, as one of their
+objects, the defence of Scripture. But some of the earth-flatteners of
+the last generation (or a little farther back) took quite another view
+of the matter. For instance, Sir Richard Phillips, a more vehement
+earth-flattener<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> than Parallax, was so little interested in defending
+the Scriptures, that in 1793 he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment
+for selling a book regarded as atheistic. In 1836 he attempted the
+conversion of Professor De Morgan, opening the correspondence with the
+remark that he had 'an inveterate abhorrence of all the pretended wisdom
+of philosophy derived from the monks and doctors of the Middle Ages, and
+not less those of higher name who merely sought to make the monkish
+philosophy more plausible, or so to disguise it as to mystify the mob of
+small thinkers.' He seems himself to have succeeded in mystifying many
+of those whom he intended to convert. Admiral Smyth gives the following
+account of an interview he had with Phillips: 'This pseudo-mathematical
+knight once called upon me at Bedford, without any previous
+acquaintance, to discuss "those errors of Newton, which he almost
+blushed to name," and which were inserted in the "Principia" to "puzzle
+the vulgar." He sneered with sovereign contempt at the "Trinity of
+Gravitating Force, Projectile Force, and Void Space," and proved that
+all change of place is accounted for by motion.' [Startling hypothesis!]
+'He then exemplified the conditions by placing some pieces of paper on a
+table, and slapping his hand down close to them, thus making them fly
+off, which he termed applying the momentum. All motion, he said, is in
+the direction of the forces; and atoms seek the centre by "terrestrial
+centripetation"&mdash;a property which causes universal pressure; but in what
+these attributes of pushing and pulling differ from gravitation and
+attraction was not expounded. Many of his "truths" were as mystified as
+the conundrums of Rabelais; so nothing was made of the motion.'</p>
+
+<p>A favourite subject of paradoxical ideas has been the moon's motion of
+rotation. Strangely enough, De Morgan, who knew more about past
+paradoxists than any man of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> time, seems not to have heard of the
+dispute between Keill and Bentley over this matter in 1690. He says,
+'there was a dispute on the subject, in 1748, between James Ferguson and
+an anonymous opponent; and I think there have been others;' but the
+older and more interesting dispute he does not mention. Bentley, who was
+no mathematician, pointed out in a lecture certain reasons for believing
+that the moon does not turn on her axis, or has no axis on which she
+turns. Keill, then only nineteen years old, pointed out that the
+arguments used by Bentley proved that the moon does rotate instead of
+showing that she does not. (Twenty years later Keill was appointed
+Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford. He was the first holder of
+that office to teach the Newtonian astronomy.)</p>
+
+<p>In recent times, as most of my readers know, the paradox that the moon
+does not rotate has been revived more than once. In 1855 it was
+sustained by Mr. Jellinger Symons, one of whose staunchest supporters,
+Mr. H. Perigal, had commenced the attack a few years earlier. Of course,
+the gist of the argument against the moon's rotation lies in the fact
+that the moon always keeps the same face turned towards the earth, or
+very nearly so. If she did so exactly, and if her distance from the
+earth were constantly the same, then her motion would be exactly the
+same as though she were rigidly connected with the earth, and turned
+round an axis at the earth. The case may be thus illustrated: Through
+the middle of a large orange thrust one short rod vertically, and
+another long rod horizontally; thrust the further end of the latter
+through a small apple, and now turn the whole affair round the short
+vertical rod as an axis. Then the apple will move with respect to the
+orange as the moon would move with respect to the earth on the
+suppositions just made. No one in this case would say that the apple was
+turning round on its axis, since its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> motion would be one of rotation
+round the upright axis through the orange. Therefore, say the opponents
+of the moon's rotation, no one should say that the moon turns round on
+her axis.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the answer would be obvious even if the moon's motions were
+as supposed. The moon is not connected with the earth as the apple is
+with the orange in the illustrative case. If the apple, without rigid
+connection with the orange, were carried round the orange so as to move
+precisely as if it were so connected, it would unquestionably have to
+rotate on its axis, as any one will find who may try the experiment.
+Thus for the straight rod thrust through the apple substitute a straight
+horizontal bar carrying a small basin of water in which the apple
+floats. Sway the bar steadily and slowly round, and it will be found (if
+a mark is placed on the apple) that the apple no longer keeps the same
+face towards the centre of motion; but that, to cause it to do so, a
+slow motion of rotation must be communicated to the apple in the same
+direction and at the same rate (neglecting the effects of the friction
+of the water against the sides of the basin) as the bar is rotating. In
+my 'Treatise on the Moon' I have described and pictured a simple
+apparatus by which this experiment may easily be made.</p>
+
+<p>But, of course, such experiments are not essential to the argument by
+which the paradox is overthrown. This argument simply is, that the moon
+as she travels on her orbit round the sun&mdash;the real centre of her
+motion&mdash;turns every part of her equator in succession towards him once
+in a lunar month. At the time of new moon the sun illuminates the face
+of the moon turned from us; at the time of full moon he illuminates the
+face which has been gradually brought round to him as the moon has
+passed through her first two quarters. As she passes onwards to new
+moon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> again, the face we see is gradually turned from him until he
+shines full upon the other face. And so on during successive lunations.
+This could not happen unless the moon rotated. Again, if we lived on the
+moon we should find the heaven of the fixed stars turning round from
+east to west once in rather more than twenty-seven days; and unless we
+supposed, as we should probably do for a long time, that our small world
+was the centre of the universe, and that the stars turned round it, we
+should be compelled to admit that it was turning on its own axis from
+west to east once in the time just named. There would be no escape. The
+mere fact that all the time the stars thus seemed to be turning round
+the moon, the earth would not so seem to move, but would lie always in
+the same direction, would in no sort help to remove the difficulty.
+Lunarian paradoxists would probably argue that she was in some way
+rigidly connected with the moon; but even they would never think of
+arguing that their world did not turn on its axis, <i>unless</i> they
+maintained that it was the centre of the universe. This, I think, they
+would very probably do; but as yet terrestrial paradoxists have not, I
+believe, maintained this hypothesis. I once asked Mr. Perigal whether
+that was the true theory of the universe&mdash;the moon central, the earth,
+sun, and heavens carried round her. He admitted that his objections to
+accepted views were by no means limited to the moon's rotation; and, if
+I remember rightly, he said that the idea I had thrown out in jest was
+nearer the truth than I thought, or used words to that effect. But as
+yet the theory has not been definitely enunciated that the moon is the
+boss of the universe.</p>
+
+<p>Comets, as already mentioned, have been the subjects of paradoxes
+innumerable; but as yet comets have been so little understood, even by
+astronomers, that paradoxes respecting them cannot be so readily dealt
+with as those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> relating to well-established facts. Among thoroughly
+paradoxical ideas respecting comets, however, may be mentioned one whose
+author is a mathematician of well-deserved repute&mdash;Professor Tait's
+'Sea-Bird Theory' of Comets' Tails. According to this theory, the rapid
+formation of long tails and the rapid changes of their position may be
+explained on the same principle that we explain the rapid change of
+appearance of a flight of sea-birds, when, from having been in a
+position where the eye looks athwart it, the flight assumes a position
+where the eye looks at it edgewise. In the former position it is
+scarcely visible (when at a distance), in the latter it is seen as a
+well-defined streak; and as a very slight change of position of each
+bird may often suffice to render an extensive flight thus visible
+throughout its entire length, which but a few moments before had been
+invisible, so the entire length of a comet's tail may be brought into
+view, and apparently be formed in a few hours, through some
+comparatively slight displacement of the individual meteorites composing
+it.</p>
+
+<p>This paradox&mdash;for paradox it unquestionably is&mdash;affords a curious
+illustration of the influence which mathematical power has on the minds
+of men. Every one knows that Professor Tait has potential mathematical
+energy competent to dispose, in a very short time, of all the
+difficulties involved in his theory; therefore few seem to inquire
+whether this potential energy has ever been called into action. It is
+singular, too, that other mathematicians of great eminence have been
+content to take the theory on trust. Thus Sir W. Thomson, at the meeting
+of the British Association at Edinburgh, described the theory as
+disposing easily of the difficulties presented by Newton's comet in
+1680. Glashier, in his translation of Guillemin's 'Les Com&egrave;tes,' speaks
+of the theory as one not improbably correct, though only to be
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>established by rigid investigation of the mathematical problems
+involved.</p>
+
+<p>In reality, not five minutes' inquiry is needed to show any one
+acquainted with the history of long-tailed comets that Tait's theory is
+quite untenable. Take Newton's comet. It had a tail ninety millions of
+miles long, extending directly from the sun as the comet approached him,
+and seen, four days later, extending to the same distance, and still
+directly from the sun, as the comet receded from him in an entirely
+different direction. According to Tait's sea-bird theory, the earth was
+at both these epochs in the plane of a sheet of meteorites forming the
+tail; but on each occasion the sun also was in the same plane, for the
+edge of the sheet of meteorites was seen to be directly in a line with
+the sun. The comet's head, of course, was in the same plane; but three
+points, not in a straight line, determine a plane. Hence we have, as the
+definite result of the sea-bird theory, that the layer or stratum of
+meteorites, forming the tail of Newton's comet, lay in the same plane
+which contained the sun, the earth, and the comet. But the comet crossed
+the ecliptic (the plane in which the earth travels round the sun)
+between the epochs named, crossing it at a great angle. When crossing
+it, then, the great layer of meteorites was in the plane of the
+ecliptic; before crossing it the layer was greatly inclined to that
+plane one way, and after crossing it the layer was greatly inclined to
+that plane another way. So that we have in no way escaped the difficulty
+which the sea-bird theory was intended to remove. If it was a startling
+and, indeed, incredible thing that the particles along a comet's tail
+should have got round in four days from the first to the second position
+of the tail considered above, it is as startling and incredible that a
+mighty layer of meteorites should have shifted bodily in the way
+required by the sea-bird<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> theory. Nay, there is an element in our result
+which is still more startling than any of the difficulties yet
+mentioned; and that is, the singular care which the great layer of
+meteorites would seem to have shown to keep its plane always passing
+through the earth, with which it was in no way connected. Why should
+this preference have been shown by the meteor flock for our earth above
+all the other members of the solar system?&mdash;seeing that the sea-bird
+theory <i>requires</i> that this comet, and not Newton's comet alone but all
+others having tails, should not only be thus complaisant with respect to
+our little earth, but should behave in a totally different way with
+respect to every other member of the sun's family.</p>
+
+<p>We can understand that, while several have been found who have applauded
+the sea-bird paradox for what it <i>might</i> do in explaining comets' tails,
+its advocates have as yet not done much to reconcile it with cometic
+observation.</p>
+
+<p>The latest astronomical paradox published is perhaps still more
+startling. It relates to the planet Venus, and is intended to explain
+the appearance presented by this planet when crossing the sun's face,
+or, technically, when in transit. At this time she is surrounded by a
+ring of light, which appears somewhat brighter than the disc of the sun
+itself. Before fully entering on the sun's face, also, the part of
+Venus's globe as yet outside the sun's disc is seen to be girt round by
+a ring of exceedingly bright light&mdash;so bright, indeed, that it has left
+its record in photographs where the exposure was only for the small
+fraction of a second allowable in the case of so intensely brilliant a
+body as the sun. Astronomers have not found it difficult to explain
+either peculiarity. It has been proved clearly in other ways that Venus
+has an atmosphere like our own, but probably denser. As the sun is
+raised into view above the horizon (after he has really<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> passed below
+the horizon plane) by the bending power of our air upon his rays, so the
+bending power of Venus's air brings the sun into our view round the dark
+body of the planet. But the new paradox advances a much bolder theory.
+Instead of an atmosphere such as ours, Venus has a glass envelope; and
+instead of a surface of earth and water, in some cases covered with
+clouds, Venus has a surface shining with metallic lustre.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p>
+
+<p>The author of this theory, Mr. Jos. Brett, startled astronomers by
+announcing, a few years ago, that with an ordinary telescope he could
+see the light of the sun's corona without the aid of an eclipse, though
+astronomers had observed that the delicate light of the corona fades out
+of view with the first returning rays of the sun after total eclipse.</p>
+
+<p>The latest paradoxist, misled by the incorrect term 'centrifugal force,'
+proposes to 'modify, if not banish,' the old-fashioned astronomy. What
+is called centrifugal force is in truth only inertia. In the familiar
+instance of a body whirled round by a string, the breaking of the string
+no more implies that an active force has pulled away the body, than the
+breaking of a rope by which a weight is pulled implies that the weight
+has exerted an active resistance. Of course, here again the text-books
+are chiefly in fault.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p><p>Such are a few among the paradoxes of various orders by which
+astronomers, like the students of other sciences, have been from time to
+time amused. It is not altogether, as it may seem at first sight, 'a sin
+against the twenty-four hours' to consider such matters; for much may be
+learned not only from the study of the right road in science, but from
+observing where and how men may go astray. I know, indeed, few more
+useful exercises for the learner than to examine a few paradoxes, when
+leisure serves, and to consider how, if left to his own guidance, he
+would confute them.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p>
+<h3>XI.<br />
+
+<i>ON SOME ASTRONOMICAL MYTHS.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">The</span> expression 'astronomical myth' has recently been used, on the
+title-page of a translation from the French, as synonymous with false
+systems of astronomy. It is not, however, in that sense that I here use
+it. The history of astronomy presents the records of some rather
+perplexing observations, not confirmed by later researches, but yet not
+easily to be explained away or accounted for. Such observations Humboldt
+described as belonging to the myths of an uncritical period; and it is
+in that sense that I employ the term 'astronomical myth' in this essay.
+I propose briefly to describe and comment on some of the more
+interesting of these observations, which, in whatever sense they are to
+be interpreted, will be found to afford a useful lesson.</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary, perhaps, to point out that the cases which I
+include here I regard as really cases in which astronomers have been
+deceived by illusory observations. Other students of astronomy may
+differ from me as respects some of these instances. I do not wish to
+dogmatise, but simply to describe the facts as I see them, and the
+impressions which I draw from them. Those who view the facts differently
+will not, I think, have to complain that I have incorrectly described
+them.</p>
+
+<p>At the outset, let me point out that some observations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> which were for a
+long time regarded as mythical have proved to be exact. For instance,
+when as yet very few telescopes existed, and those very feeble,
+Galileo's discovery of moons travelling round Jupiter was rejected as an
+illusion for which Satan received the chief share of credit. There is an
+amusing and yet in one aspect almost pathetic reference to this in his
+account of his earlier observations of Saturn. He had seen the planet
+apparently attended on either side by two smaller planets, as if helping
+old Saturn along. But on December 4, 1612,<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> turning his telescope on
+the planet, he found to his infinite amazement not a trace of the
+companion planets could be seen; there in the field of view of his
+telescope was the golden-tinted disc of the planet as smoothly rounded
+as the disc of Mars or Jupiter. 'What,' he wrote, 'is to be said
+concerning so strange a metamorphosis? Are the two lesser stars consumed
+after the manner of the solar spots? Have they vanished or suddenly
+fled? Has Saturn, perhaps, devoured his children? Or were the
+appearances, indeed, illusion or fraud with which the glasses have so
+long deceived me as well as many others to whom I have shown them? Now,
+perhaps, is the time come to revive the well-nigh withered hopes of
+those who, guided by more profound contemplations, have discovered the
+fallacy of the new observations, and demonstrated the utter
+impossibility of the existence of those things which the telescope
+appears to show. I do not know what to say in a case so surprising, so
+unlooked for, and so novel. The shortness of the time, the unexpected
+nature of the event,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> the weakness of my understanding, and the fear of
+being mistaken, have greatly confounded me.' We now know that these
+observations, as well as those made soon after by Hevelius, though
+wrongly interpreted, were correct enough. Nay, we know that if either
+Galileo or Hevelius had been at the pains to reason out the meaning of
+the alternate visibility and disappearance of objects looking like
+attendant planets, they must have anticipated the discovery made in 1656
+by Huyghens, that Saturn's globe is girdled about by a thin flat ring so
+vast that, if a score of globes like our earth were set side by side,
+the range of that row of worlds would be less than the span of the
+Saturnian ring system.</p>
+
+<p>There is a reference in Galileo's letter to the solar spots; 'Are the
+two lesser stars,' he says, 'consumed after the manner of the solar
+spots?' When he thus wrote the spots were among the myths or fables of
+astronomy, and an explanation was offered, by those who did not reject
+them utterly, which has taken its place among forsaken doctrines, those
+broken toys of astronomers. It is said that when Scheiner, himself a
+Jesuit, communicated to the Provincial of the Jesuits his discovery of
+the spots on the sun, the latter, a staunch Aristotelian, cautioned him
+not to see these things. 'I have read Aristotle's writings from
+beginning to end many times,' he said, 'and I can assure you I have
+nowhere found in them anything similar to what you mention' [amazing
+circumstances!] 'Go, therefore, my son, tranquillise yourself; be
+assured that what you take for spots on the sun are the faults of your
+glasses or your eyes.' As the idea was obviously inadmissible that a
+celestial body could be marked by spots, the theory was started that the
+dark objects apparently seen on the sun's body were in reality small
+planets revolving round the sun, and a contest arose for the possession
+of these mythical planets. Tard&eacute; maintained that they should be called
+<i>Astra Borbonia</i>, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> honour of the royal family of France; but C.
+Malapert insisted that they should be called <i>Sidera Austriaca</i>.
+Meantime the outside world laughed at the spots, and their names, and
+the astronomers who were thought to have invented both. 'Fabritius puts
+only three spots,' wrote Burton in his 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' 'and
+those in the sun; Apelles 15, and those without the sun, floating like
+the Cyanean Isles in the Euxine Sea. Tard&eacute; the Frenchman hath observed
+33, and those neither spots nor clouds as Galileus supposed, but planets
+concentric with the sun, and not far from him, with regular motions.
+Christopher Schemer' [a significant way of spelling Scheiner's name], 'a
+German Suisser Jesuit, divides them <i>in maculas et faculas</i>, and will
+have them to be fixed <i>in solis superficie</i> and to absolve their
+periodical and regular motions in 27 or 28 dayes; holding withall the
+rotation of the sun upon his centre, and are all so confident that they
+have made schemes and tables of their motions. The Hollander censures
+all; and thus they disagree among themselves, old and new,
+irreconcilable in their opinions; thus Aristarchus, thus Hipparchus,
+thus Ptolom&aelig;us, thus Albategnius, etc., with their followers, vary and
+determine of these celestial orbs and bodies; and so whilst these men
+contend about the sun and moon, like the philosophers in Lucian, it is
+to be feared the sun and moon will hide themselves, and be as much
+offended as she was with those, and send another message to Jupiter, by
+some new-fangled Icaromenippus, to make an end of all these curious
+controversies, and scatter them abroad.'</p>
+
+<p>It is well to notice how in this, as in many other instances, the very
+circumstance which makes scientific research trustworthy caused the
+unscientific to entertain doubt. If men of science were to arrange
+beforehand with each other what observations they should publish, how
+their accounts should be ended, what theories they would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> endeavour to
+establish, their results would seem far more trustworthy, their theories
+far more probable, than according to the method actually adopted.
+Science, which should be exact, seems altogether inexact, because one
+observer seems to obtain one result, another a different result.
+Scientific theories seem unworthy of reliance because scientific men
+entertain for a long time rival doctrines. But in another and a worthier
+sense than as the words are used in the 'Critic,' when men of science do
+agree their agreement is wonderful. It <i>is</i> wonderful, worthy of all
+admiration, because before it has been attained errors long entertained
+have had to be honestly admitted; because the taunt of inconsistency is
+not more pleasant to the student of science than to others, and the man
+who having a long time held one doctrine adopts and enforces another
+(one perhaps which he had long resisted), is sure to be accused by the
+many of inconsistency, the truly scientific nature of his procedure
+being only recognised by the few. The agreement of men of science ought
+to be regarded also as most significant in another sense. So long as
+there is room for refusing to admit an important theory advanced by a
+student of science, it is natural that other students of science should
+refuse to do so; for in admitting the new theory they are awarding the
+palm to a rival. In strict principle, of course, this consideration
+ought to have no influence whatever; as a matter of fact, however, men
+of science, being always men and not necessarily strengthened by
+scientific labours against the faults of humanity, the consideration has
+and must always have influence. Therefore, when the fellow-writers and
+rivals of Newton or of his followers gave in their adhesion to the
+Newtonian theory; when in our own time&mdash;but let us leave our own time
+alone, in this respect&mdash;when, speaking generally, a novel doctrine, or
+some new generalisation, or some great and startling discovery, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+admitted by rival students of the branch of astronomy to which it
+belongs, the probability is great that the weight of evidence has been
+found altogether overwhelming.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now, however, turn to cases in which, while many observations
+seem to point to some result, it has appeared that, after all, those
+observations must have been illusory.</p>
+
+<p>A striking instance in point is found in the perplexing history of the
+supposed satellite of Venus.</p>
+
+<p>On January 25, 1672, the celebrated astronomer, J.D. Cassini saw a
+crescent shaped and posited like Venus, but smaller, on the western side
+of the planet. More than fourteen years later, he saw a crescent east of
+the planet. The object continued visible in the latter case for half an
+hour, when the approach of daylight obliterated the planet and this
+phantom moon from view. The apparent distance of the moon from Venus was
+in both cases small, viz., only one diameter of the planet in the former
+case, and only three-fifths of that diameter in the latter.</p>
+
+<p>Next, on October 23, 1740, old style, the optician Short, who had had
+considerable experience in observation, saw a small star perfectly
+defined but less luminous than Venus, at a distance from the planet
+equal to about one-third of the apparent diameter of our moon. This is a
+long distance, and would correspond to a distance from Venus certainly
+not less than the moon's distance from the earth. Short was aware of the
+risk of optical illusion in such matters, and therefore observed Venus
+with a second telescope; he also used four eye-pieces of different
+magnifying power. He says that Venus was very distinct, the air very
+pure, insomuch that he was able to use a power of 240. The seeming moon
+had a diameter less than a third of Venus's, and showed the same phase
+as the planet. Its disc was exceedingly well defined. He observed it
+several times during a period of about one hour.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p><p>Still more convincing, to all appearance, is the account of the
+observations made by M. Montaigne, as presented to the Academy of
+Sciences at Paris by M. Baudouin in 1761. The transit of Venus which was
+to take place on June 6 in that year led to some inquiry as to the
+satellite supposed to have been seen by Cassini and Short, for of course
+a transit would be a favourable occasion for observing the satellite. M.
+Montaigne, who had no faith in the existence of such an attendant, was
+persuaded to look for it early in 1761. On May 3 he saw a little
+crescent moon about twenty minutes of arc (nearly two-thirds the
+apparent diameter of our moon) from the planet. He repeated his
+observation several times that night, always seeing the small body, but
+not quite certain, despite its crescent shape, whether it might not be a
+small star. On the next evening, and again on May 7 and 10, he saw the
+small companion apparently somewhat farther from Venus and in a
+different position. He found that it could be seen when Venus was not in
+the field of view. The following remarks were made respecting these
+observations in a French work, 'Dictionnaire de Physique,' published in
+1789:&mdash;'The year 1761 will be celebrated in astronomy in consequence of
+the discovery that was made on May 3 of a satellite circulating round
+Venus. We owe it to M. Montaigne, member of the Society of Limoges. M.
+Baudouin read before the Academy of Sciences at Paris a very interesting
+memoir, in which he gave a determination of the revolution and distance
+of the satellite. From the calculations of this expert astronomer we
+learn that the new star has a diameter about one-fourth that of Venus,
+is distant from Venus almost as far as the moon from our earth, has a
+period of nine days seven hours' [much too short, by the way, to be
+true, expert though M. Baudouin is said to have been], 'and its
+ascending node'&mdash;but we need not trouble ourselves about its ascending
+node.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p><p>Three years later R&ouml;dkier, at Copenhagen, March 3 and 4, 1764, saw the
+satellite of Venus with a refracting telescope 38 feet long, which
+should have been effective if longitude has any virtue. He could not see
+the satellite with another telescope which he tried. But several of his
+friends saw it with the long telescope. Amongst others, Horrebow,
+Professor of Astronomy, saw the satellite on March 10 and 11, after
+taking several precautions to prevent optical illusion. A few days later
+Montbaron, at Auxerre, who had heard nothing of these observations, saw
+a satellite, and again on March 28 and 29 it appeared, always in a
+different position.</p>
+
+<p>It should be added that Scheuten asserted that during the transit of
+1761 Venus was accompanied by a small satellite in her motion across the
+sun's face.</p>
+
+<p>So confidently did many believe in this satellite of Venus that
+Frederick the Great, who for some reason imagined that he was entitled
+to dispose as he pleased of the newly discovered body, proposed to
+assign it away to the mathematician D'Alembert, who excused himself from
+accepting the questionable honour in the following terms:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Your Majesty does me too much honour in wishing to baptize this new
+planet with my name. I am neither great enough to become the satellite
+of Venus in the heavens, nor well enough (<i>assez bien portant</i>) to be so
+on the earth, and I am too well content with the small place I occupy in
+this lower world to be ambitious of a place in the firmament.'</p>
+
+<p>It is not at all easy to explain how this phantom satellite came to be
+seen. Father Hell, of Vienna&mdash;the same astronomer whom Sir G. Airy
+suspects of falling asleep during the progress of the transit of Venus
+in 1769&mdash;made some experiments showing how a false image of the planet
+might be seen beside the true one, the false image being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> smaller and
+fainter, like the moons seen by Schort (as Hell called Short), Cassini,
+and the rest. And more recently Sir David Brewster stated that Wargentin
+'had in his possession a good achromatic telescope, which always showed
+Venus with such a satellite.' But Hell admitted that the falsehood of
+the unreal Venus was easily detected, and Brewster adds to his account
+of Wargentin's phantom moon, that 'the deception was discovered by
+turning the telescope about its axis.' As Admiral Smyth well remarks, to
+endeavour to explain away in this manner the observations made by
+Cassini and Short 'must be a mere pleasantry, for it is impossible such
+accurate observers could have been deceived by so gross a neglect.'
+Smyth, by the way, was a believer in the moon of Venus. 'The contested
+satellite is perhaps extremely minute,' he says, 'while some parts of
+its body may be less capable of reflecting light than others; and when
+the splendour of its primary and our inconvenient station for watching
+it are considered, it must be conceded that, however slight the hope may
+be, search ought not to be relinquished.'</p>
+
+<p>Setting aside Scheuten's asserted recognition of a dark body near Venus
+during the transit of 1761, Venus has always appeared without any
+attendant when in transit. As no one else claimed to have seen what
+Scheuten saw in 1761, though the transit was observed by hundreds, of
+whom many used far finer telescopes than he, we must consider that he
+allowed his imagination to deceive him. During the transit of 1769, and
+again on December 8&ndash;9, 1874, Venus certainly had no companion during her
+transit.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, was it that Cassini, Short, Montaigne, and the rest supposed
+they saw? The idea has been thrown out by Mr. Webb that mirage caused
+the illusion. But he appears to have overlooked the fact that though an
+image of Venus formed by mirage would be fainter than the planet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> it
+would not be smaller. It might, according to the circumstances, be above
+Venus or below, or even somewhat towards either side, and it might be
+either a direct or an inverted image, but it could not possibly be a
+diminished image.</p>
+
+<p>Single observations like Cassini's or Short's might be explained as
+subjective phenomena, but this explanation will not avail in the case of
+the Copenhagen observations.</p>
+
+<p>I reject, as every student of astronomy will reject, the idea of wilful
+deception. Occasionally an observer may pretend to see what he has not
+seen, though I believe this very seldom happens. But even if Cassini and
+the rest had been notoriously untrustworthy persons instead of being
+some of them distinguished for the care and accuracy with which their
+observations were made and recorded, these occasional views of a phantom
+satellite are by no means such observations as they would have invented.
+No distinction was to be gained by observations which could not be
+confirmed by astronomers possessing more powerful telescopes. Cassini,
+for example, knew well that nothing but his well-earned reputation could
+have saved him from suspicion or ridicule when he announced that he had
+seen Venus attended by a satellite.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to me probable that the false satellite was an optical illusion
+brought about in a different way from those referred to by Hell and
+Brewster, though among the various circumstances which in an imperfect
+instrument might cause such a result I do not undertake to make a
+selection. It is certain that Venus's satellite has vanished with the
+improvement of telescopes, while it is equally certain that even with
+the best modern instruments illusions occasionally appear which deceive
+even the scientific elect. Three years have passed since I heard the
+eminent observer Otto Struve, of Pulkowa, give an elaborate account of a
+companion to the star Procyon, describing the apparent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> brightness,
+distance, and motions of this companion body, for the edification of the
+Astronomer-Royal and many other observers. I had visited but a few
+months before the Observatory at Washington, where, with a much more
+powerful telescope, that companion to Procyon had been systematically
+but fruitlessly sought for, and I entertained a very strong opinion,
+notwithstanding the circumstantial nature of Struve's account and his
+confidence (shared in unquestioningly by the observers present), that he
+had been in some way deceived. But I could not then see, nor has any one
+yet explained, how this could be. The fact, however, that he had been
+deceived is now undoubted. Subsequent research has shown that the
+Pulkowa telescope, though a very fine instrument, possesses the
+undesirable quality of making a companion orb for all first-class stars
+in the position where O. Struve and his assistant Lindenau saw the
+supposed companion of Procyon.</p>
+
+<p>I may as well point out, however, that theories so wild have recently
+been broached respecting Venus, that far more interesting explanations
+of the enigma than this optical one may be looked for presently. It has
+been gravely suggested by Mr. Jos. Brett, the artist, that Venus has a
+surface of metallic brilliancy, with a vitreous atmosphere,&mdash;which can
+only be understood to signify a glass case. This stupendous theory has
+had its origin in an observation of considerable interest which
+astronomers (it is perhaps hardly necessary to say) explain somewhat
+differently. When Venus has made her entry in part upon the sun's face
+at the beginning of transit, there is seen all round the portion of her
+disc which still remains outside the sun an arc of light so brilliant
+that it records its photographic trace during the instantaneous exposure
+required in solar photography. It is mathematically demonstrable that
+this arc of light is precisely what <i>should</i> be seen if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> Venus has an
+atmosphere like our earth's. But mathematical demonstration is not
+sufficient (or perhaps we may say it is too much) for some minds.
+Therefore, to simplify matters, Venus has been provided with a mirror
+surface and a glass case. (See preceding essay, on Astronomical
+Paradoxes, for further details.)</p>
+
+<p>The enigma next to be considered is of a more doubtful character than
+the myth relating to the satellite of Venus. Astronomers are pretty well
+agreed that Venus has no moon, but many, including some deservedly
+eminent, retain full belief in the story of the planet Vulcan.</p>
+
+<p>More than seventeen years ago the astronomical world was startled by the
+announcement that a new planet had been discovered, under circumstances
+unlike any which had heretofore attended the discovery of fresh members
+of the solar system. At that time astronomers had already become
+accustomed to the discovery, year after year, of several asteroids,
+which are in reality planets, though small ones. In fact, no less than
+fifty-six of these bodies were then known, whereof fifty-one had been
+discovered during the years 1847&ndash;1858 inclusive, not one of these years
+having passed without the detection of an asteroid. But all these
+planets belonged to one family, and as there was every reason to believe
+that thousands more travel in the same region of the solar system, the
+detection of a few more among the number had no longer any special
+interest for astronomers. The discovery of the first known member of the
+family had indeed been full of interest, and had worthily inaugurated
+the present century, on the first day of which it was made. For it had
+been effected in pursuance of a set scheme, and astronomers had almost
+given up all hopes of success in that scheme when Piazzi announced his
+detection of little Ceres. Again the discovery of the next few members
+of the family had been interesting as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> revealing the existence of a new
+order of bodies in the solar system. No one had suspected the
+possibility that besides the large bodies which travel round the sun,
+either singly or attended by subordinate families of moons, there might
+be a ring of many planets. This was what the discovery of Ceres, Pallas,
+Juno, and Vesta seemed to suggest, unless&mdash;still stranger thought&mdash;these
+were but fragments of a mighty planet which had been shattered in
+long-past ages by some tremendous explosion. Since then, however, this
+startling theory has been (itself) exploded. Year after year new members
+of the ring of multitudinous planets are discovered, and that, not as
+was recently predicted, in numbers gradually decreasing, but so rapidly
+that more have been discovered during the last ten years than during the
+preceding twenty.</p>
+
+<p>The discovery of the giant planet Uranus, an orb exceeding our earth
+twelve and a half times in mass and seventy-four times in volume, was a
+matter of much greater importance, so far as the dignity of the
+planetary system was concerned, for it is known that the whole ring of
+asteroids together does not equal one-tenth part of the earth in mass,
+while Uranus exceeds many times in volume the entire family of
+terrestrial planets&mdash;Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars. The detection
+of Uranus, unlike that of Ceres, was effected by accident. Sir W.
+Herschel was looking for double stars of a particular kind in the
+constellation Gemini when by good fortune the stranger was observed.</p>
+
+<p>The interest with which astronomers received the announcement of the
+discovery of Uranus, though great, was not to be compared with that with
+which they deservedly welcomed the discovery of Neptune, a larger and
+more massive planet, revolving at a distance one-half greater even than
+the mighty space which separates Uranus from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> the sun, a space so great
+that by comparison with it the range of 184,000,000 of miles, which
+forms the diameter of our earth's orbit, seems quite insignificant. It
+was not, however, the vastness of Neptune's mass or volume, or the awful
+remoteness of the path along which he pursues his gloomy course, which
+attracted the interest of astronomers, but the strangeness of the
+circumstances under which the planet had been detected. His influence
+had been felt for many years before astronomers thought of looking for
+him, and even when the idea had occurred to one or two, it was
+considered, and that, too, by an astronomer as deservedly eminent as Sir
+G. Airy, too chimerical to be reasonably entertained. All the world now
+knows how Leverrier, the greatest living master of physical astronomy,
+and Adams, then scarce known outside Cambridge, both conceived the idea
+of finding the planet, not by the simple method of looking for it with a
+telescope, but by the mathematical analysis of the planet's disturbing
+influence upon known members of the solar system. All know, too, that
+these mathematicians succeeded in their calculations, and that the
+planet was found in the very region and close to the very point
+indicated first by Adams, and later, but independently, and (fortunately
+for him more publicly) by Leverrier.</p>
+
+<p>None of these instances of the discovery of members of the solar system
+resembled in method or details the discovery announced early in the year
+1859. It was not amid the star-depths and in the darkness of night that
+the new planet was looked for, but in broad day, and on the face of the
+sun himself. It was not on the outskirts of the solar system that the
+planet was supposed to be travelling, but within the orbit of Mercury,
+hitherto regarded as of all planets the nearest to the sun. It was not
+hoped that any calculation of the perturbations of other planets would
+show<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> the place of the stranger, though certain changes in the orbit of
+Mercury seemed clearly enough to indicate the stranger's existence.</p>
+
+<p>Early in 1860 Leverrier had announced that the position of Mercury's
+path was not precisely in agreement with calculations based on the
+adopted estimates of the masses of those planets which chiefly disturb
+the motions of Mercury. The part of the path where Mercury is nearest to
+the sun, and where, therefore, he travels fastest, had slightly shifted
+from its calculated place. This part of the path was expected to move,
+but it had moved more than was expected; and of course Mercury having
+his region of swiftest motion somewhat differently placed than was
+anticipated, himself moved somewhat differently.</p>
+
+<p>Leverrier found that to explain this feature of Mercury's motion either
+the mass of Venus must be regarded as one-tenth greater than had been
+supposed, or some unknown cause must be regarded as affecting the motion
+of Mercury. A planet as large as Mercury, about midway between Mercury
+and the sun, would account for the observed disturbance; but Leverrier
+rejected the belief that such a planet exists, simply because he could
+not 'believe that it would be invisible during total eclipses of the
+sun.' 'All difficulties disappear,' he added, 'if we admit, in place of
+a single planet, small bodies circulating between Mercury and the sun.'
+Considering their existence as not at all improbable, he advised
+astronomers to watch for them.</p>
+
+<p>It was on January 2, 1860, that Leverrier thus wrote. On December 22,
+1859, a letter had been addressed by a M. Lescarbault of Org&egrave;res to
+Leverrier, through M. Vall&eacute;e, hon. inspector-general of roads and
+bridges, announcing that on March 26, 1859, about four in the afternoon,
+Lescarbault had seen a round black spot on the face of the sun, and had
+watched it as it passed across like a planet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> in transit&mdash;not with the
+slow motion of an ordinary sun-spot. The actual time during which the
+round spot was visible was one hour, seventeen minutes, nine seconds,
+the rate of motion being such that, had the spot crossed the middle of
+the sun's disc, at the same rate, the transit would have lasted more
+than four hours. The spot thus merely skirted the sun's disc, being at
+no time more than about one forty-sixth part of the sun's apparent
+diameter from the edge of the sun. Lescarbault expressed his conviction
+that on a future day, a black spot, perfectly round and very small, will
+be seen passing over the sun, and 'this point will very probably be the
+planet whose path I observed on March 26, 1859.' 'I am persuaded,' he
+added, 'that this body is the planet, or one of the planets, whose
+existence in the vicinity of the sun M. Leverrier had made known a few
+months ago' (referring to the preliminary announcement of results which
+Leverrier published afterwards more definitely).</p>
+
+<p>Leverrier, when the news of Lescarbault's observation first reached him,
+was surprised that the observation should not have been announced
+earlier. He did not consider the delay sufficiently justified by
+Lescarbault's statement that he wished to see the spot again. He
+therefore set out for Org&egrave;res, accompanied by M. Vall&eacute;e. 'The
+predominant feeling in Leverrier's mind,' says Abb&eacute; Moigno, 'was the
+wish to unmask an attempt to impose upon him, as the person more likely
+than any other astronomer to listen to the allegation that his prophecy
+had been fulfilled.'</p>
+
+<p>'One should have seen M. Lescarbault,' says Moigno, 'so small, so
+simple, so modest, and so timid, in order to understand the emotion with
+which he was seized, when Leverrier, from his great height, and with
+that blunt intonation which he can command, thus addressed him: "It is
+then you, sir, who pretend to have observed the intra-mercurial planet,
+and who have committed the grave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> offence of keeping your observation
+secret for nine months. I warn you that I have come here with the
+intention of doing justice to your pretensions, and of demonstrating
+either that you have been dishonest or deceived. Tell me, then,
+unequivocally, what you have seen."' This singular address did not bring
+the interview, as one might have expected, to an abrupt end. The lamb,
+as the Abb&eacute; calls the doctor, trembling, stammered out an account of
+what he had seen. He explained how he had timed the passage of the black
+spot. 'Where is your chronometer?' asked Leverrier. 'It is this watch,
+the faithful companion of my professional journeys.' 'What! with that
+old watch, showing only minutes, dare you talk of estimating seconds. My
+suspicions are already too well confirmed.' 'Pardon me, I have a
+pendulum which beats seconds.' 'Show it me.' The doctor brings down a
+silk thread to which an ivory ball is attached. Fixing the upper end to
+a nail, he draws the ball a little from the vertical, counts the number
+of oscillations, and shows that his pendulum beats seconds; he explains
+also how his profession, requiring him to feel pulses and count
+pulsations, he has no difficulty in mentally keeping record of
+successive seconds.</p>
+
+<p>Having been shown the telescope with which the observation was made, the
+record of the observation (on a piece of paper covered with grease and
+laudanum, and doing service as a marker in the 'Connaissance des Temps,'
+or French Nautical Almanac), Leverrier presently inquired if Lescarbault
+had attempted to deduce the planet's distance from the sun from the
+period of its transit. The doctor admitted that he had attempted this,
+but, being no mathematician, had failed to achieve success with the
+problem. He showed the rough draughts of his futile attempts at
+calculation on a board in his workshop, 'for,' said he na&iuml;vely, 'I am a
+joiner as well as an astronomer.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p><p>The interview satisfied Leverrier that a new planet, travelling within
+the orbit of Mercury, had really been discovered. 'With a grace and
+dignity full of kindness,' says a contemporary narrative of these
+events,<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> 'he congratulated Lescarbault on the important discovery
+which he had made.' Anxious to obtain some mark of respect for the
+discoverer of Vulcan, Leverrier made inquiry concerning his private
+character, and learned from the village cur&eacute;, the juge de paix, and
+other functionaries, that he was a skilful physician and a worthy man.
+With such high recommendations, M. Leverrier requested from M. Rouland,
+the Minister of Public Instruction, the decoration of the Legion of
+Honour for M. Lescarbault. The Minister, in a brief but interesting
+statement of his claim, communicated this request to the Emperor, who,
+by a decree dated January 25, conferred upon the village astronomer the
+honours so justly due to him. His professional brethren in Paris were
+equally solicitous to testify their regard; and MM. Felix Roubaud,
+Legrande, and Caffe, as delegates of the scientific press, proposed to
+the medical body, and to the scientific world in Paris, to invite
+Lescarbault to a banquet in the H&ocirc;tel du Louvre on January 18.</p>
+
+<p>The announcement of the supposed discovery caused astronomers to
+re-examine records of former observations of black spots moving across
+the sun. Several such records existed, but they had gradually come to be
+regarded as of no real importance. Wolff of Zurich published a list of
+no fewer than twenty such observations made since 1762. Carrington added
+many other cases. Comparing together three of these observations, Wolff
+found that they would be satisfied by a planet having a period of
+revolution of 19 days, agreeing fairly with the period of rather more
+than 19-<span class="above">1</span>&#8260;<span class="below">3</span> days inferred by Leverrier for Lescarbault's planet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> But
+the entire set of observations of black spots require that there should
+be at least three new planets travelling between Mercury and the sun.
+Many observers also set themselves the task of searching for Vulcan, as
+the supposed new planet was called. They have continued fruitlessly to
+observe the sun for this purpose until the present time.</p>
+
+<p>While the excitement over Lescarbault's discovery was at its height,
+another observer impugned not only the discovery but the honesty of the
+discoverer.</p>
+
+<p>M. Liais, a French astronomer of considerable skill, formerly of the
+Paris Observatory, but at the time of Lescarbault's achievement in the
+service of the Brazilian Government, published a paper, 'Sur la Nouvelle
+Plan&egrave;te annonc&eacute;e par M. Lescarbault,' in which he endeavoured to
+establish the four following points:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>First, the observation of Lescarbault was never made.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, Leverrier was mistaken in considering that a planet such as
+Vulcan might have escaped detection when off the sun's face.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, that Vulcan would certainly have been seen during total solar
+eclipses, if the planet had a real objective existence.</p>
+
+<p>Fourthly, M. Leverrier's reasons for believing that the planet exists
+are based on the supposition that astronomical observations are more
+precise than they really are.</p>
+
+<p>Probably, Liais's objections would have had more weight with Leverrier
+had the fourth point been omitted. It was rash in a former subordinate
+to impugn the verdict of the chief of the Paris Observatory on a matter
+belonging to that special department of astronomy which an observatory
+chief might be expected to understand thoroughly. It is thought daring
+in the extreme for one outside the circles of official astronomy (as
+Newton in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>Flamstead's time, Sir W. Herschel in Maskelyne's, and Sir J.
+Herschel in the present century), to advance or maintain an opinion
+adverse to that of some official chief, but for a subordinate (even
+though no longer so), to be guilty of such rash procedure 'is most
+tolerable and not to be endured,' as a typical official has said.
+Accordingly, very little attention was paid by Leverrier to Liais's
+objections.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, in some respects, what M. Liais had to say was very much to the
+point.</p>
+
+<p>At the very time when Lescarbault was watching the black spot on the
+sun's face, Liais was examining the sun with a telescope of much greater
+magnifying power, and saw no such spot. His attention was specially
+directed to the edge of the sun (where Lescarbault saw the spot) because
+he was engaged in determining the decrease of the sun's brightness near
+the edge. Moreover, he was examining the very part of the sun's edge
+where Lescarbault saw the planet enter, at a time when it must have been
+twelve minutes in time upon the face of the sun, and well within the
+margin of the solar disc. The negative evidence here is strong; though
+it must always be remembered that negative evidence requires to be
+overwhelmingly strong before it can be admitted as effective against
+positive evidence. It seems at a first view utterly impossible that
+Liais, examining with a more powerful telescope the region where
+Lescarbault saw the spot, could have failed to see it had it been there;
+but experience shows that it is not impossible for an observer engaged
+in examining phenomena of one class to overlook a phenomenon of another
+class, even when glaringly obvious. All we can say is that Liais was not
+likely to have overlooked Lescarbault's planet had it been there; and we
+must combine this probability against Vulcan's existence with arguments
+derived from other <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>considerations. There is also the possibility of an
+error in time. As the writer in the 'North British Review' remarks,
+'twelve minutes is so short a time that it is just possible that the
+planet may not have entered upon the sun during the time that Liais
+observed it.'</p>
+
+<p>The second and third arguments are stronger. In fact, I do not see how
+they can be resisted.</p>
+
+<p>It is, in the first place, clear from Lescarbault's account that Vulcan
+must have a considerable diameter&mdash;certainly if Vulcan's diameter in
+miles were only half the diameter of Mercury, it would have been all but
+impossible for Lescarbault with his small telescope to see Vulcan at
+all, whereas he saw the black spot very distinctly. Say Vulcan has half
+the diameter of Mercury, and let us compare the brightness of these two
+planets when at their greatest apparent distances from the sun, that is,
+when each looks like a half-moon. The distance of Mercury exceeds the
+estimated distance of Vulcan from the sun as 27 exceeds 10, so that
+Vulcan is more strongly illuminated in the proportion of 27 times 27 to
+10 times 10, or 729 to 100&mdash;say at least 7 to 1. But having a diameter
+but half as large the disc of Vulcan could be but about a fourth of
+Mercury's at the same distance from us (and they would be at about the
+same distance from us when seen as half-moons). Hence Vulcan would be
+brighter than Mercury in the proportion of 7 to 4. Of course being so
+near the sun he would not be so easily seen; and we could never expect
+to see him at all, perhaps, with the naked eye&mdash;though even this is not
+certain. But Mercury, when at the same apparent distance from the sun,
+and giving less light than at his greatest seeming distance, is quite
+easily seen in the telescope. Much more easily, then, should Vulcan be
+seen, if a telescope were rightly directed at such a time, or when
+Vulcan was anywhere near his greatest seeming distance from the sun. Now
+it is true<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> astronomers do not know precisely when or where to look for
+him. But he passes from his greatest distance on one side of the sun to
+his greatest distance on the other in less than ten days, according to
+the computed period, and certainly (that is, if the planet exists) in a
+very short time. The astronomer has then only to examine day after day a
+region of small extent on either side of the sun, for ten or twelve days
+in succession (an hour's observation each day would suffice), to be sure
+of seeing Vulcan. Yet many astronomers have made such search many times
+over, without seeing any trace of the planet. During total solar
+eclipses, again, the planet has been repeatedly looked for
+unsuccessfully&mdash;though it should at such a time be a very conspicuous
+object, when favourably placed, and could scarcely fail of being very
+distinctly seen wherever placed.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth argument of Lescarbault's is not so effective, and in fact he
+gets beyond his depth in dealing with it. But it is to be noticed that a
+considerable portion of the discrepancy between Mercury's observed and
+calculated motions has long since been accounted for by the changed
+estimate of the earth's mass as compared with the sun's, resulting from
+the new determination of the sun's distance. However, the arguments
+depending on this consideration would not be suited to these pages.</p>
+
+<p>There was one feature in Liais's paper which was a little unfortunate.
+He questioned Lescarbault's honesty. He said 'Lescarbault contradicts
+himself in having first asserted that he saw the planet enter upon the
+sun's disc, and having afterwards admitted to Leverrier that it had been
+on the disc some seconds before he saw it, and that he had merely
+inferred the time of its entry from the rate of its motion afterwards.
+If this one assertion be fabricated, the whole may be so.' 'He considers
+these arguments to be strengthened,' says the 'North British Review,'
+'by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> assertion which, as we have seen, perplexed Leverrier himself,
+that if M. Lescarbault had actually seen a planet on the sun, he could
+not have kept it secret for nine months.'</p>
+
+<p>This charge of dishonesty, unfortunate in itself, had the unfortunate
+effect of preventing Lescarbault or the Abb&eacute; Moigno from replying. The
+latter simply remarked that the accusation was of such a nature as to
+dispense him from any obligation to refute it. This was an error of
+judgment, I cannot but think, if an effective reply was really
+available.</p>
+
+<p>The Remarks with which the North British Reviewer closes his account may
+be repeated now, so far as they relate to the force of the negative
+evidence, with tenfold effect. 'Since the first notice of the discovery
+in the beginning of January 1860 the sun has been anxiously observed by
+astronomers; and the limited area around him in which the planet <i>must
+be</i>, if he is not upon the sun, has doubtless been explored with equal
+care by telescopes of high power, and processes by which the sun's
+direct light has been excluded from the tube of the telescope as well as
+the eye of the observer, and yet no planet has been found. This fact
+would entitle us to conclude that no such planet exists if its existence
+had been merely conjectured, or if it had been deduced from any of the
+laws of planetary distance, or even if Leverrier or Adams had announced
+it as the probable result of planetary perturbations. If the finest
+telescopes cannot rediscover a planet which with the small power used by
+Lescarbault has a visible disc, within so limited an area of which the
+sun is the centre, or rather within a narrow belt of that circle, we
+should unhesitatingly declare that no such planet exists. But the
+question assumes a very different aspect when it involves moral
+considerations. If,' proceeds the Reviewer, writing in August 1860,
+'after the severe scrutiny which the sun and its vicinity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> will undergo
+before and after and during his total eclipse in July, no planet shall
+be seen; and if no round black spot distinctly separable from the usual
+solar spots shall be seen on the solar spots' (<i>sic</i>, presumably solar
+disc was intended), 'we will not dare to say that it does not exist. We
+cannot doubt the honesty of M. Lescarbault, and we can hardly believe
+that he was mistaken. No solar spot, no floating scoria, could maintain
+in its passage over the sun a circular and uniform shape, and we are
+confident that no other hypothesis but that of an intra-mercurial planet
+can explain the phenomena seen and measured by M. Lescarbault, a man of
+high character, possessing excellent instruments, and in every way
+competent to use them well, and to describe clearly and correctly the
+results of his observations. Time, however, tries facts as well as
+speculations. The phenomena observed by the French astronomer may never
+be again seen, and the disturbance of Mercury which rendered it probable
+may be otherwise explained. Should this be the case, we must refer the
+round spot on the sun to some of those illusions of the eye or of the
+brain which have sometimes disturbed the tranquillity of science.'</p>
+
+<p>The evidence which has accumulated against Vulcan in the interval since
+this was written is not negative only, but partly positive, as the
+following instance, which I take from my own narrative at the time in a
+weekly journal, serves to show:&mdash;After more than sixteen years of
+fruitless watching, astronomers learned last August (1876) that in the
+month of April Vulcan had been seen on the sun's disc in China. On April
+4, it appeared, Herr Weber, an observer of considerable skill, stationed
+at Pecheli, had seen a small round spot on the sun, looking very much as
+a small planet might be expected to look. A few hours later he turned
+his telescope upon the sun, and lo! the spot had vanished, precisely as
+though the planet had passed away after the manner of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> planets in
+transit. He forwarded the news of his observation to Europe. The
+astronomer Wolff, well known for his sun-spot studies, carefully
+calculated the interval which had passed since Lescarbault saw Vulcan on
+March 26, 1859, and to his intense satisfaction was enabled to announce
+that this interval contained the calculated period of the planet an
+exact number of times. Leverrier at Paris received the announcement
+still more joyfully; while the Abb&eacute; Moigno, who gave Vulcan its name,
+and has always staunchly believed in the planet's existence,
+congratulated Lescarbault warmly upon this new view of the shamefaced
+Vulcan. Not one of those who already believed in the planet had the
+least doubt as to the reality of Weber's observations, and of these only
+Lescarbault himself received the news without pleasure. He, it seems,
+has never forgiven the Germans for destroying his observatory and
+library during the invasion of France in 1870, and apparently would
+prefer that his planet should never be seen again rather than that a
+German astronomer should have seen it. But the joy of the rest and
+Lescarbault's sorrow were alike premature. It was found that the spot
+seen by Weber had not only been observed at the Madrid observatory,
+where careful watch is kept upon the sun, but had been photographed at
+Greenwich; and when the description of its appearance, as seen in a
+powerful telescope at one station, and its picture as photographed by a
+fine telescope at the other, came to be examined, it was proved
+unmistakably that the spot was an ordinary sun-spot (not even quite
+round), which had after a few hours disappeared, as even larger
+sun-spots have been known to do in even a shorter time.</p>
+
+<p>It is clear that had not Weber's spot been fortunately seen at Madrid
+and photographed at Greenwich, his observation would have been added to
+the list of recorded apparitions of Vulcan in transit, for it fitted in
+perfectly with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> the theory of Vulcan's real existence. I think, indeed,
+for my own part, that the good fortune was Weber's. Had it so chanced
+that thick weather in Madrid and at Greenwich had destroyed the evidence
+actually obtained to show that what Weber described he really saw,
+although it was not what he thought, some of the more suspicious would
+have questioned whether, in the euphonious language of the North British
+Reviewer, 'the round spot on the sun' was not due 'to one of those
+illusions of the eye or of the brain which have sometimes disturbed the
+tranquillity of science.' Of course no one acquainted with M. Weber's
+antecedents would imagine for a moment that he had invented the
+observation, even though the objective reality of his spot had not been
+established. But if a person who is entirely unknown, states that he has
+seen Vulcan, there is antecedently some degree of probability in favour
+of the belief that the observation is as much a myth as the planet
+itself. Some observations of Vulcan have certainly been invented. I have
+received several letters purporting to describe observations of bodies
+in transit over the sun's face, either the rate of transit, the size of
+the body, or the path along which it was said to move, being utterly
+inconsistent with the theory that it was an intra-mercurial planet,
+while yet (herein is the suspicious circumstance of such narratives) the
+epoch of transit accorded in the most remarkable manner with the period
+assigned to Vulcan. A paradoxist in America (of Louisville, Kentucky)
+who had invented a theory of the weather, in which the planets, by their
+influence on the sun, were supposed to produce all weather-changes, the
+nearer planets being the most effective, found his theory wanted Vulcan
+very much. Accordingly, he saw Vulcan crossing the sun's face in
+September, which, being half a year from March, is a month wherein,
+according to Lescarbault's observation, Vulcan may be seen in transit,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>
+and by a strange coincidence the interval between our paradoxist's
+observation and Lescarbault's exactly contained a certain number of
+times the period calculated by Leverrier for Vulcan. This was a noble
+achievement on the part of our paradoxist. At one stroke it established
+his theory of the weather, and promised to ensure him text-book
+immortality as one of the observers of Vulcan. But, unfortunately, a
+student of science residing in St. Louis, after leaving the Louisville
+paradoxist full time to parade his discovery, heartlessly pointed out
+that an exact number of revolutions of Vulcan after Lescarbault's March
+observation, must of necessity have brought the planet on that side of
+the sun on which the earth lies in March, so that to see Vulcan so
+placed on the sun's face in September was to see Vulcan through the sun,
+a very remarkable achievement indeed. The paradoxist was abashed, the
+reader perhaps imagines. Not in the least. The planet's period must have
+been wrongly calculated by Leverrier&mdash;that was all: the real period was
+less than half as long as Leverrier had supposed; and instead of having
+gone a certain number of times round since Lescarbault had seen it,
+Vulcan had gone twice as many times round and half once round again. The
+circumstance that if Vulcan's period had been thus short, the time of
+crossing the sun's face would have been much less than, according to
+Lescarbault's account, it actually was, had not occurred to the
+Louisville weather-prophet.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p>
+
+<p>Leverrier's faith in Vulcan, however, has remained unshaken. He has used
+all the observations of spots which, like Weber's, have been seen only
+for a short time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> At least he has used all which have not, like
+Weber's, been proved to be only transient sun-spots. Selecting those
+which fit in well with Lescarbault's observation, he has pointed out how
+remarkable it is that they show this accord. The possibility that some
+of them might be explicable as Weber's proved to be, and that some even
+may have been explicable as completely, but less satisfactorily, in
+another way, seems to have been thought scarcely worth considering.
+Using the imperfect materials available, but with exquisite skill&mdash;as a
+Phidias might model an exquisite figure of materials that would
+presently crumble into dust&mdash;Leverrier came to the conclusion that
+Vulcan would cross the sun's disc on or about March 22, 1876. 'He,
+therefore,' said Sir G. Airy, addressing the Astronomical Society,
+'circulated a despatch among his friends, asking them carefully to
+observe the sun on March 22.' Sir G. Airy, humouring his honoured
+friend, sent telegrams to India, Australia, and New Zealand, requesting
+that observations might be made every two hours or oftener. Leverrier
+himself wrote to Santiago de Chili and other places, so that, including
+American and European observations, the sun could be watched all through
+the twenty-four hours on March 21, 22, and 23. 'Without saying
+positively that he believed or disbelieved in the existence of the
+planet,' proceeds the report, 'Sir G. Airy thought, since M. Leverrier
+was so confident, that the opportunity ought not to be neglected by
+anybody who professed to take an interest in the progress of planetary
+astronomy.'</p>
+
+<p>It is perhaps unnecessary to add that observations were made as
+requested. Many photographs of the sun also were taken during the hours
+when Vulcan, if he exists at all, might be expected to cross the sun's
+face. But the 'planet of romance,' as Abb&eacute; Moigno has called Vulcan,
+failed to appear, and the opinion I had expressed last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> October
+('English Mechanic and World of Science,' for October 27, 1876, p. 160),
+that Vulcan might perhaps better be called the 'planet of fiction' was
+<i>pro tanto</i> confirmed. Nevertheless, I would not be understood to mean
+by the word 'fiction' aught savouring of fraud so far as Lescarbault is
+concerned&mdash;I prefer the North Briton's view of Lescarbault's spot, that
+so to speak, it was</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+... the blot upon his brain,<br />
+That <i>would</i> show itself without.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I have left small space to treat of other fancied discoveries among the
+orbs of heaven. Yet there are some which are not only interesting but
+instructive, as showing how even the most careful observers may be led
+astray. In this respect the mistakes into which observers of great and
+well deserved eminence have fallen are specially worthy of attention.
+With the description of three such mistakes, made by no less an
+astronomer than Sir W. Herschel, I shall bring this paper to a close.</p>
+
+<p>When Sir W. Herschel examined the planet Uranus with his most powerful
+telescope he saw the planet to all appearance girt about by two rings at
+right angles to one another. The illusion was so complete that Herschel
+for several years remained in the belief that the rings were real. They
+were, however, mere optical illusions, due to the imperfect defining
+qualities of the telescope with which he observed the planet. Later he
+wrote that 'the observations which tend to ascertain' (indicate?) 'the
+existence of rings not being satisfactorily supported, it will be proper
+that surmises of them should either be given up, as ill-founded, or at
+least reserved till superior instruments can be provided.'</p>
+
+<p>Sir W. Herschel was more completely misled by the false Uranian
+satellites. He had seen, as he supposed, no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> less than six of these
+bodies. As only two of these had been seen again, while two more were
+discovered by Lassell, the inference was that Uranus has eight
+satellites in all. These for a long time flourished in our text-books of
+astronomy; and many writers, confident in the care and skill of Sir W.
+Herschel, were unable for a long time to believe that he had been
+deceived. Thus Admiral Smyth, in his 'Celestial Cycle,' wrote of those
+who doubted the extra satellites:&mdash;'They must have but a meagre notion
+of Sir W. Herschel's powerful means, his skill in their application, and
+his method of deliberate procedure. So far from doubting there being six
+satellites' (this was before Lassell had discovered the other two) 'it
+is highly probable that there are still more.' Whewell, also, in his
+'Bridgewater Treatise,' says, 'that though it no longer appears probable
+that Uranus has a ring like Saturn, he has at least five satellites
+which are visible to us, and we believe that the astronomer will hardly
+deny that he' (Uranus, not the astronomer), 'may possibly have thousands
+of smaller ones circulating about him.' But in this case Sir W.
+Herschel, anxiously though he endeavoured to guard against the
+possibility of error, was certainly mistaken. Uranus may, for anything
+that is known to the contrary, have many small satellites circulating
+about him, but he certainly has not four satellites (besides those
+known) which could have been seen by Sir W. Herschel with the telescope
+he employed. For the neighbourhood of the planet has been carefully
+examined with telescopes of much greater power by observers who with
+those telescopes have seen objects far fainter than the satellites
+supposed to have been seen by the elder Herschel.</p>
+
+<p>The third of the Herschelian myths was the lunar volcano in eruption,
+which he supposed he had seen in progress in that part of the moon which
+was not at the time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> illuminated by the sun's rays. He saw a bright
+star-like point of light, which corresponded in position with the crater
+of the lunar mountain Aristarchus. He inferred that a volcano was in
+active eruption because the brightness of the point of light varied from
+time to time, and also because he did not remember to have seen it
+before under the same conditions. There is no doubt something very
+remarkable in the way in which this part of the moon's surface shines
+when not illumined by the sun. If it were always bright we should
+conclude at once that the earth-light shining upon it rendered it
+visible. For it must be remembered that the part of the moon which looks
+dark (or seems wanting to the full disc) is illuminated by our earth,
+shining in the sky of the moon as a disc thirteen times as large as that
+of the moon we see, and with the same proportion of its disc sunlit as
+is dark in the moon's disc. Thus when the moon is nearly new our earth
+is shining in the lunar skies as a nearly full moon thirteen times as
+large as ours. The light of this noble moon must illumine the moon's
+surface much more brightly than a terrestrial landscape is illumined by
+the full moon, and if any parts of her surface are very white they will
+shine out from the surface around, just as the snow-covered peak of a
+mountain shines out upon a moonlit night from among the darker hills and
+dales and rocks and forests of the landscape. But Herschel considered
+that the occasional brightness of the crater Aristarchus could not be
+thus explained. The spot had been seen before the time of Herschel's
+observations by Cassini and others. It has been seen since by Captain
+Kater, Francis Baily, and many others. Dr. Maskelyne tells us that in
+March 1794 it was seen by the naked eye by two persons.</p>
+
+<p>Baily thus describes the appearance presented by this lunar crater on
+December 22, 1835: 'Directed telescope<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> to the moon, and pointing it to
+the dark part in the vicinity of Aristarchus, soon saw the outline of
+that mountain very distinctly, formed like an irregular nebula. Nearly
+in the centre was a light resembling that of a star of the ninth or
+tenth magnitude. It appeared by glimpses, but at times was brilliant,
+and visible for several seconds together.'</p>
+
+<p>There can be little doubt, however, that the apparent brightness of this
+lunar crater, or rather of its summit, is due to some peculiar quality
+in the surface, which may perhaps be covered by some crystalline or
+vitreous matter poured out in the far distant time when the crater was
+an active one. Prof. Shaler, who examined the crater when it was
+illuminated only by earthshine, with the fine 15-inch telescope of the
+Harvard Observatory (Cambridge U.S.), says that he has been able to
+recognise nearly all the craters over 15 miles in diameter in the dark
+part. 'There are several degrees of brightness,' he says, 'observable in
+the different objects which shine out by the earth-light. This fact
+probably explains the greater part of the perplexing statements
+concerning the illumination of certain craters. It certainly accounts
+for the volcanic activity which has so often been supposed to be
+manifested by Aristarchus. Under the illumination by the earth-light
+this is by far the brightest object on the dark part of the moon's face,
+and is visible much longer and with poorer glasses than any other object
+there.'</p>
+
+<p>Here my record of astronomical myths must be brought to a close. It will
+be noticed that in every instance either the illusion has affected the
+actual observations of eminent and skilful astronomers, or has caused
+such astronomers to put faith for a while in illusory observations. Had
+I cared to include the mistakes which have been made by or have misled
+observers of less experience, I could have filled many sheets for each
+page of the present article. But it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> has seemed to me more instructive
+to show how error may affect the observations even of the most careful
+and deservedly eminent astronomers, how even the most cautious may be
+for a time misled by the mistakes of inferior observers, especially when
+the fact supposed to have been observed accords with preconceived
+opinions.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span></p>
+<h3>XII.<br />
+
+<i>THE ORIGIN OF THE CONSTELLATION-FIGURES.</i></h3>
+
+
+<p class="noin"><span class="smcap">Although</span> the strange figures which astronomers still allow to straggle
+over their star maps no longer have any real scientific interest, they
+still possess a certain charm, not only for the student of astronomy,
+but for many who care little or nothing about astronomy as a science.
+When I was giving a course of twelve lectures in Boston, America, a
+person of considerable culture said to me, 'I wish you would lecture
+about the constellations; I care little about the sun and moon and the
+planets, and not much more about comets; but I have always felt great
+interest in the Bears and Lions, the Chained and Chaired Ladies, King
+Cepheus and the Rescuer Perseus, Orion, Ophiuchus, Hercules, and the
+rest of the mythical and fanciful beings with which the old astronomers
+peopled the heavens. I say with Carlyle, "Why does not some one teach me
+the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are
+always overhead, and which I don't half know to this day."' We may
+notice, too, that the poets by almost unanimous consent have recognised
+the poetical aspect of the constellations, while they have found little
+to say about subjects which belong especially to astronomy as a science.
+Milton has indeed made an Archangel reason (not unskilfully for Milton's
+day) about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, while Tennyson makes
+frequent reference to astronomical theories. 'There sinks the nebulous
+star we call the Sun, if that hypothesis of theirs be sound,' said Ida;
+but she said no more, save 'let us down and rest,' as though the subject
+were wearisome to her. Again, in the Palace of Art the soul of the poet
+having built herself that 'great house so royal, rich, and wide,'
+thither&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+... when all the deep unsounded skies<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shuddered with silent stars, she clomb,</span><br />
+And as with optic glasses her keen eyes<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pierced through the mystic dome,</span><br />
+Regions of lucid matter taking forms,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brushes of fire, hazy gleams,</span><br />
+Clusters and beds of worlds and beelike swarms<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of suns, and starry streams:</span><br />
+She saw the snowy poles of moonless Mars,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That marvellous round of milky light</span><br />
+Below Orion, and those double stars<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whereof the one more bright</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is circled by the other.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>But the poet's soul so wearied of these astronomical researches that the
+beautiful lines I have quoted disappeared (more's the pity) from the
+second and all later editions. Such exceptions, indeed, prove the rule.
+Poets have been chary in referring to astronomical researches and
+results, full though these have been of unspeakable poetry; while from
+the days of Homer to those of Tennyson, the constellations which
+'garland the heavens' have always been favourite subjects of poetic
+imagery.</p>
+
+<p>It is not my present purpose, however, to discuss the poetic aspect of
+the constellations. I propose to inquire how these singular figures
+first found their way to the heavens, and, so far as facts are available
+for the purpose,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> to determine the history and antiquity of some of the
+more celebrated constellations.</p>
+
+<p>Long before astronomy had any existence as a science men watched the
+stars with wonder and reverence. Those orbs, seemingly countless&mdash;which
+bespangle the dark robe of night&mdash;have a charm and beauty of their own
+apart from the significance with which the science of astronomy has
+invested them. The least fanciful mind is led to recognise on the
+celestial concave the emblems of terrestrial objects, pictured with more
+or less distinctness among the mysterious star-groupings. We can imagine
+that long before the importance of the study of the stars was
+recognised, men had begun to associate with certain star-groups the
+names of familiar objects animate or inanimate. The flocks and herds
+which the earliest observers of the heavens tended would suggest names
+for certain sets of stars, and thus the Bull, the Ram, the Kids, would
+appear in the heavens. Other groups would remind those early observers
+of the animals from whom they had to guard their flocks, or of the
+animals to whose vigilance they trusted for protection, and thus the
+Bear, the Lion, and the Dogs would find their place among the stars. The
+figures of men and horses, and of birds and fishes, would naturally
+enough be recognised, nor would either the implements of husbandry, or
+the weapons by which the huntsman secured his prey, remain unrepresented
+among the star-groupings. And lastly, the altar on which the
+first-fruits of harvest and vintage were presented, or the flesh of
+lambs and goats consumed, would be figured among the innumerable
+combinations which a fanciful eye can recognise among the orbs of
+heaven.</p>
+
+<p>In thus suggesting that the first observers of the heavens were
+shepherds, huntsmen, and husbandmen, I am not advancing a theory on the
+difficult questions connected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> with the origin of exact astronomy. The
+first observations of the heavens were of necessity made by men who
+depended for their subsistence on a familiarity with the progress and
+vicissitudes of the seasons, and doubtless preceded by many ages the
+study of astronomy as a science. And yet the observations made by those
+early shepherds and hunters, unscientific though they must have been in
+themselves, are full of interest to the student of modern exact
+astronomy. The assertion may seem strange at first sight, but is
+nevertheless strictly true, that if we could but learn with certainty
+the names assigned to certain star-groups, before astronomy had any real
+existence, we could deduce lessons of extreme importance from the rough
+observations which suggested those old names. In these days, when
+observations of such marvellous exactness are daily and nightly made,
+when instruments capable of revealing the actual constitution of the
+stars are employed, and observers are so numerous, it may seem strange
+to attach any interest to the question whether half-savage races
+recognised in such and such a star-group the likeness of a bear, or in
+another group the semblance of a ship. But though we could learn more,
+of course, from exacter observations, yet even such rough and imperfect
+records would have their value. If we could be certain that in long-past
+ages a star-group really resembled some known object, we should have in
+the present resemblance of that group to the same object evidence of the
+general constancy of stellar lustre, or if no resemblance could be
+recognised we should have reason to doubt whether other suns (and
+therefore our own sun) may not be liable to great changes.</p>
+
+<p>The subject of the constellation-figures as first known is interesting
+in other ways. For instance, it is full of interest to the antiquarian
+(and most of us are to some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> degree antiquarians) as relating to the
+most ancient of all human sciences. The same mental quality which causes
+us to look with interest on the buildings raised in long-past ages, or
+on the implements and weapons of antiquity, renders the thought
+impressive that the stars which we see were gazed on perhaps not less
+wonderingly in the very infancy of the human race. It is, again, a
+subject full of interest to the chronologist to inquire in what era of
+the world's history exact astronomy began, the moon was assigned her
+twenty-eight zodiacal mansions, the sun his twelve zodiacal signs. It is
+well known, indeed, that Newton himself did not disdain to study the
+questions thus suggested; and the speculations of the ingenious Dupuis
+found favour with the great mathematician Laplace.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, the evidence is not sufficiently exact to be very
+trustworthy. In considering, for instance, the chronological inquiries
+of Newton, one cannot but feel that the reliance placed by him on the
+statements made by different writers is not justified by the nature of
+those statements, which were for the most part vague in the extreme. We
+owe many of them to poets who, knowing little of astronomy, mixed up the
+phenomena of their own time with those which they found recorded in the
+writings of astronomers. Some of the statements left by ancient writers
+are indeed ludicrously incongruous; insomuch that Grotius not unjustly
+said of the account of the constellations given by the poet Aratus, that
+it could be assigned to no fixed epoch and to no fixed place. However,
+this would not be the place to discuss details such as are involved in
+exact inquiries. I have indicated some of these in an appendix to my
+treatise on 'Saturn,' and others in the preface to my 'Gnomonic Star
+Atlas'; but for the most part they do not admit very readily of familiar
+description. Let us turn to less technical considerations, which
+fortunately are in this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> case fully as much to the point as exact
+inquiries, seeing that there is no real foundation for such inquiries in
+any of the available evidence.</p>
+
+<p>The first obvious feature of the old constellations is one which somehow
+has not received the attention it deserves. It is as instructive as any
+of those which have been made the subject of profound research.</p>
+
+<p>There is a great space in the heavens over which none of the old
+constellations extend, except the River Eridanus as now pictured, but we
+do not know where this winding stream of stars was supposed by the old
+observers to come to an end. This great space surrounds the southern
+pole of the heavens, and thus shows that the first observers of the
+stars were not acquainted with the constellations which can be seen only
+from places far south of Chald&aelig;a, Persia, Egypt, India, China, and
+indeed of all the regions to which the invention of astronomy has been
+assigned. Whatever the first astronomers were, however profound their
+knowledge of astronomy may have been (as some imagine), they had
+certainly not travelled far enough towards the south to know the
+constellations around the southern pole. If they had been as well
+acquainted with geography as some assert, if even any astronomer had
+travelled as far south as the equator, we should certainly have had
+pictured in the old star charts some constellations in that region of
+the heavens wherein modern astronomers have placed the Octant, the Bird
+of Paradise, the Sword-fish, the Flying-fish, Toucan, the Net, and other
+uncelestial objects.</p>
+
+<p>In passing I may note that this fact disposes most completely of a
+theory lately advanced that the constellations were invented in the
+southern hemisphere, and that thus is to be explained the ancient
+tradition that the sun and stars have changed their courses. For though
+all the northern constellations would have been more or less visible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>
+from parts of the southern hemisphere near the equator, it is absurd to
+suppose that a southern observer would leave untenanted a full fourth of
+the heavens round the southern or visible pole, while carefully filling
+up the space around the northern or unseen pole with incomplete
+constellations whose northern unknown portions would include that pole.
+Supposing it for a moment to be true, as a modern advocate of the
+southern theory remarks, that 'one of the race migrating from one side
+to the other of the equator would take his position from the sun, and
+fancy he was facing the same way when he looked at it at noon, and so
+would think the motion of the stars to have altered instead of his
+having turned round,' the theory that astronomy was brought to us from
+south of the equator cannot possibly be admitted in presence of that
+enormous vacant region around the southern pole. I think, however, that,
+apart from this, a race so profoundly ignorant as to suppose any such
+thing, to imagine they were looking north when in reality they were
+looking south, can hardly be regarded as the first founders of the
+science of astronomy.</p>
+
+<p>The great gap I have spoken of has long been recognised. But one
+remarkable feature in its position has not, to the best of my
+remembrance, been considered&mdash;the vacant space is eccentric with regard
+to the southern pole of the heavens. The old constellations, the Altar,
+the Centaur, and the ship Argo, extend within twenty degrees of the
+pole, while the Southern Fish and the great sea-monster Cetus, which are
+the southernmost constellations on the other side, do not reach within
+some sixty degrees of the pole.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, in saying that this peculiarity has not been considered, I am
+not suggesting that it has not been noticed, or that its cause is in any
+way doubtful or unknown. We know that the earth, besides whirling once a
+day on its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> axis, and rushing on its mighty orbit around the sun
+(spanning some 184,000,000 of miles) reels like a gigantic top, with a
+motion so slow that 25,868 years are required for a single circuit of
+the swaying axis around an imaginary line upright to the plane in which
+the earth travels. And we know that in consequence of this reeling
+motion the points of the heavens opposite the earth's poles necessarily
+change. So that the southern pole, now eccentrically placed amid the
+region where there were no constellations in old times, was once
+differently situated. But the circumstance which seems to have been
+overlooked is this, that by calculating backwards to the time when the
+southern pole was in the centre of that vacant region, we have a much
+better chance of finding the date (let us rather say the century) when
+the older constellations were formed, than by any other process. We may
+be sure not to be led very far astray; for we are not guided by one
+constellation but by several, whereas all the other indications which
+have been followed depend on the supposed ancient position of single
+constellations. And then most of the other indications are such as might
+very well have belonged to periods following long after the invention of
+the constellations themselves. An astronomer might have ascertained, for
+instance, that the sun in spring was in some particular part of the Ram
+or of the Fishes, and later a poet like Aratus might describe that
+relation (erroneously for his own epoch) as characteristic of one or
+other constellation; but who is to assure us that the astronomer who
+noted the relation correctly may not have made his observation many
+hundreds of years after those constellations were invented? Whereas,
+there was one period, and only one period, when the most southernmost of
+the old constellations could have marked the limits of the region of sky
+visible from some northern region. Thus, too, may we form some idea of
+the latitude in which the first observers lived.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> For in high latitudes
+the southernmost of the old constellations would not have been visible
+at all, and in latitudes much lower than a certain latitude, presently
+to be noted, these constellations would have ridden high above the
+southern horizon, other star-groups showing below them which were not
+included among the old constellations.</p>
+
+<p>I have before me as I write a picture of the southern heavens, drawn by
+myself, in which this vacant space&mdash;eccentric in position but circular
+in shape&mdash;is shown. The centre lies close by the Lesser Magellanic
+cloud&mdash;between the stars Kappa Toucani and Eta Hydri of our modern maps,
+but much nearer to the last named. Near this spot, then, we may be sure,
+lay the southern pole of the star-sphere when the old constellations, or
+at least the southern ones, were invented. (If there had been
+astronomers in the southern hemisphere Eta Hydri would certainly have
+been their pole-star.)</p>
+
+<p>Now it is a matter of no difficulty whatever to determine the epoch when
+the southern pole of the heavens was thus placed.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> Between 2100 and
+2200 years before the Christian era the southern constellations had the
+position described, the invisible southern pole lying at the centre of
+the vacant space of the star-sphere&mdash;or rather of the space free from
+constellations. It is noteworthy that for other reasons this period, or
+rather a definite epoch within it, is indicated as that to which must be
+referred the beginning of exact astronomy. Amongst others must be
+mentioned this&mdash;that in the year 2170 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> <i>quam proxim&egrave;</i>, the Pleiades
+rose to their highest above the horizon at noon (or technically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> made
+their noon culmination), at the spring equinox. We can readily
+understand that to minds possessed with full faith in the influence of
+the stars on the earth, this fact would have great significance. The
+changes which are brought about at that season of the year, in reality,
+of course, because of the gradual increase in the effect of the sun's
+rays as he rises higher and higher above the celestial equator, would be
+attributed, in part at least, to the remarkable star-cluster coming then
+close by the sun on the heavens, though unseen. Thus we can readily
+understand the reference in Job to the 'sweet influences of the
+Pleiades.' Again at that same time, 2170 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> when the sun and the
+Pleiades opened the year (with commencing spring) together, the star
+Alpha of the Dragon, which was the pole-star of the period, had that
+precise position with respect to the true pole of the heavens which is
+indicated by the slope of the long passage extending downwards aslant
+from the northern face of the Great Pyramid; that is to say, when due
+north below the pole (or at what is technically called its sub-polar
+meridional passage) the pole-star of the period shone directly down that
+long passage, and I doubt not could be seen not only when it came to
+that position during the night, but also when it came there during the
+day-time.</p>
+
+<p>But some other singular relations are to be noted in connection with the
+particular epoch I have indicated.</p>
+
+<p>It is tolerably clear that in imagining figures of certain objects in
+the heavens, the early observers would not be apt to picture these
+objects in unusual positions. A group of stars may form a figure so
+closely resembling that of a familiar object that even a wrong position
+would not prevent the resemblance from being noticed, as for instance
+the 'Chair,' the 'Plough,' and so forth. But such cases are not
+numerous; indeed, to say the truth, one must 'make believe a good deal'
+to see resemblance between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> the star-groups and <i>most</i> of the
+constellation-figures, even under the most favourable conditions. When
+there is no very close resemblance, as is the case with all the large
+constellations, position must have counted for something in determining
+the association between a star-group and a known object.</p>
+
+<p>Now the constellations north of the equator assume so many and such
+various positions that this special consideration does not apply very
+forcibly to them. But those south of the equator are only seen above the
+southern horizon, and change little in position during their progress
+from east to west of the south point. The lower down they are the less
+they change in position. And the very lowest&mdash;such as those were, for
+instance, which I have been considering in determining the position of
+the southern pole&mdash;are only fully visible when due south. They must,
+then, in all probability, have stood upright or in their natural
+position when so placed, for if they were not rightly placed then they
+only were so when below the horizon and consequently invisible.</p>
+
+<p>Let us, then, inquire what was the position of the southernmost
+constellations when fully seen above the southern horizon at midnight.</p>
+
+<p>The Centaur stood then as he does now, upright; only&mdash;whereas now in
+Egypt, Chald&aelig;a, India, Persia, and China, only the upper portions of his
+figure rise above the horizon, he then stood, the noblest save Orion of
+all the constellations, with his feet (marked by the bright Alpha and
+Beta still belonging to the constellation, and by the stars of the
+Southern Cross which have been taken from it) upon the horizon itself.
+In latitude twenty degrees or so north he may still be seen thus placed
+when due south.</p>
+
+<p>The Centaur was represented in old times as placing an offering upon the
+altar, which was pictured, says <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>Manilius, as bearing a fire of incense
+represented by stars. This to a student of our modern charts seems
+altogether perplexing. The Centaur carries the wolf on the end of his
+spear; but instead of placing the wolf (not a very acceptable meat
+offering, one would suppose) upon the altar, he is directing this animal
+towards the base of the altar, whose top is downwards, the flames
+represented there tending (naturally) downwards also. It is quite
+certain the ancient observers did not imagine anything of this sort. As
+I have said, Aratus tells us the celestial Centaur was placing an
+offering <i>upon</i> the altar, which was therefore upright, and Manilius
+describes the altar as</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Ferens thuris, stellis imitantibus, ignem,<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>so that the fire was where it should be, on the top of an upright altar,
+where also on the sky itself were stars looking like the smoke from
+incense fires. Now that was precisely the appearance presented by the
+stars forming the constellation at the time I have indicated, some 2170
+years <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> Setting the altar upright above the southern horizon (that
+is, inverting the absurd picture at present given of it) we see it just
+where it should be placed to receive the Centaur's offering. A most
+remarkable portion of the Milky Way is then seen to be directly above
+the altar in such a way as to form a very good imitation of smoke
+ascending from it. This part of the Milky Way is described by Sir J.
+Herschel, who studied it carefully during his stay at the Cape of Good
+Hope, as forming a complicated system of interlaced streaks and masses
+which covers the tail of Scorpio (extending from the altar which lies
+immediately south of the Scorpion's Tail). The Milky Way divides, in
+fact, just above the altar as the constellation was seen 4000 years ago
+above the southern horizon, one branch being that just described, the
+other (like another stream<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> of smoke) 'passing,' says Herschel, 'over
+the stars Iota of the Altar, Theta and Iota of the Scorpion, etc., to
+Gamma of the Archer, where it suddenly collects into a vivid oval mass,
+so very rich in stars that a very moderate calculation makes their
+number exceed 100,000.' Nothing could accord better with the
+descriptions of Aratus and Manilius.</p>
+
+<p>But there is another constellation which shows in a more marked way than
+either the Centaur or the Altar that the date when the constellations
+were invented must have been near that which I have named. Both Ara and
+Centaurus look now in suitable latitudes (about twenty degrees north) as
+they looked in higher latitudes (about forty degrees north) 4000 years
+ago. For, the reeling motion of our earth has changed the place of the
+celestial pole in such a way as only to depress these constellations
+southwards without much changing their <i>position</i>; they are nearly
+upright when due south now as they were 4000 years ago, only lower down.
+But the great ship Argo has suffered a much more serious displacement.
+One cannot now see this ship <i>like</i> a ship at any time or from any place
+on the earth's surface. If we travel south till the whole constellation
+comes into visibility above the southern horizon at the proper season
+(January and February for the midnight hours) the keel of the ship is
+aslant, the stern being high above the waist (the fore part is wanting).
+If we travel still further south, we can indeed reach places where the
+course of the ship is so widened, and the changes of position so
+increased, that she appears along part of her journey on an even keel,
+but then she is high above the horizon. Now 4000 years ago she stood on
+the horizon itself at her southern culmination, with level keel and
+upright mast.</p>
+
+<p>In passing I may note that for my own part I imagine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> that this great
+ship represented the Ark, its fore part being originally the portion of
+the Centaur now forming the horse, so that the Centaur was represented
+as a man (not as a man-horse) offering a gift on the Altar. Thus in this
+group of constellations I recognise the Ark, and Noah going up from the
+Ark towards the altar 'which he builded unto the Lord; and took of every
+clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the
+altar.' I consider further that the constellation-figures of the Ship,
+the Man with an offering, and the Altar, painted or sculptured in some
+ancient astrological temple, came at a later time to be understood as
+picturing a certain series of events, interpreted and expanded by a
+poetical writer into a complete narrative. Without venturing to insist
+on so heterodox a notion, I may remark as an odd coincidence that
+probably such a picture or sculpture would have shown the smoke
+ascending from the Altar which I have already described, and in this
+smoke there would be shown the bow of Sagittarius; which, interpreted
+and expanded in the way I have mentioned, might have accounted for the
+'bow set in the clouds, for a token of a covenant.' It is noteworthy
+that all the remaining constellations forming the southern limit of the
+old star-domes or charts, were watery ones&mdash;the Southern Fish, over
+which Aquarius is pouring a quite unnecessary stream of water, the Great
+Sea Monster towards which in turn flow the streams of the River
+Eridanus. The equator, too, was then occupied along a great part of its
+length by the great sea serpent Hydra, which reared its head above the
+equator, very probably indicated then by a water horizon, for nearly all
+the signs below it were then watery. At any rate, as the length of Hydra
+then lay horizontally above the Ship, whose masts reached it, we may
+well believe that this part of the picture of the heavens showed a
+sea-horizon and a ship, the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> sea serpent lying along the horizon.
+On the back of Hydra is the Raven, which again may be supposed by those
+who accept the theory mentioned above to have suggested the raven which
+went forth to and fro from the ark. He is close enough to the rigging of
+Argo to make an easy journey of it. The dove, however, must not be
+confounded with the modern constellation Columba, though this is placed
+(suitably enough) near the Ark. We must suppose the idea of the dove was
+suggested by a bird pictured in the rigging of the celestial ship. The
+sequence in which the constellations came above the horizon as the year
+went round corresponded very satisfactorily with the theory, fanciful
+though this seem to some. First Aquarius pouring streams of water, the
+three fishes (Pisces and Piscis australis), and the great sea monster
+Cetus, showing how the waters prevailed over the highest hills, then the
+Ark sailing on the waters, a little later the Raven (Corvus), the man
+descending from the ark and offering a gift on the Altar, and last the
+Bow set amid the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>The theory just described may not meet with much favour. But wilder
+theories of the story of the deluge have been adopted and advocated with
+considerable confidence. One of the wildest, I fear, is the
+Astronomer-Royal's, that the deluge was simply a great rising of the
+Nile; and Sir G. Airy is so confident respecting this that he says, 'I
+cannot entertain the smallest doubt that the flood of Noah was a flood
+of the Nile;' precisely as he might say, 'I cannot entertain the
+smallest doubt that the earth moves round the sun.' On one point we can
+entertain very little doubt indeed. If it ever rained before the flood,
+which seems probable, and if the sun ever shone on falling rain, which
+again seems likely, nothing short of a miracle could have prevented the
+rainbow from making its appearance before the flood. The wildest theory
+that can be invented to explain the story<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> of the deluge cannot be
+wilder than the supposition that the rays of sunlight shining on falling
+raindrops could have ever failed to show the prismatic colours. The
+theory I have suggested above, without going so far as strongly to
+advocate it, far less insist upon it, is free at any rate from objection
+on this particular score, which cannot be said of the ordinary theory. I
+am not yet able, however, to say that 'I cannot entertain the smallest
+doubt' about my theory.</p>
+
+<p>We may feel tolerably sure that the period when the old southern
+constellations were formed must have been between 2400 and 2000 years
+before the present era, a period, by the way, including the date usually
+assigned to the deluge,&mdash;which, however, must really occupy our
+attention no further. In fact, let us leave the watery constellations
+lying below the equator of those remote times and seek at once the
+highest heavens above them.</p>
+
+<p>Here, at the northern pole of these days, we find the great Dragon,
+which in any astrological temple of the time must have formed the
+highest or crowning constellation, surrounding the very key-stone of the
+dome. He has fallen away from that proud position since. In fact, even
+4000 years ago he only held to the pole, so to speak, by his tail, and
+we have to travel back 2000 years or so to find the pole situate in a
+portion of the length of the Dragon which can be regarded as central.
+One might almost, if fancifully disposed, recognise the gradual
+displacement of the Dragon from his old place of honour, in certain
+traditions of the downfall of the great Dragon whose 'tail drew the
+third part of the stars of heaven.'</p>
+
+<p>The central position of the Dragon, for even when the pole-star had
+drawn near to the Dragon's tail the constellation was still central,
+will remind the classical reader of Homer's description of the Shield of
+Hercules<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+The scaly horror of a dragon, coil'd<br />
+Full in the central field, unspeakable,<br />
+With eyes oblique retorted, that ascant<br />
+Shot gleaming fire. (<i>Elton's translation.</i>)<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>I say Homer's description, for I cannot understand how any one who
+compares together the description of the Shield of Achilles in the Iliad
+and that of the Shield of Hercules in the fragmentary form in which we
+have it, can doubt for a moment that both descriptions came from the
+same hand. (The theory that Hesiod composed the latter poem can scarcely
+be entertained by any scholar.) As I long since pointed out in my essay
+'A New Theory of Achilles' Shield' ('Light Science,' first series), no
+poet so inferior as actually to borrow Homer's words in part of the
+description of the Shield of Hercules could have written the other parts
+not found in the Shield of Achilles. 'I cannot for my own part entertain
+the slightest doubt'&mdash;that is to say, I think it altogether
+probable&mdash;that Homer composed the lines supposed to describe the Shield
+of Hercules long before he introduced the description, pruned and
+strengthened, into that particular part of the Iliad where it served his
+purpose best. And I have as little doubt that the original description,
+of which we only get fragments in either poem, related to something far
+more important than a shield. The constellations are not suitable
+adornments for the shield of fighting man, even though he was under the
+special care of a celestial mother and had armour made for him by a
+celestial smith. Yet we learn that Achilles' shield displayed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+The starry lights that heav'n's high convex crown'd<br />
+The Pleiads, Hyads, and the northern beam,<br />
+And great Orion's more refulgent beam,&mdash;<br />
+To which, around the cycle of the sky,<br />
+The bear revolving, points his golden eye,&mdash;<br />
+Still shines exalted.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p><p>And so forth. The Shield of Hercules displayed at its centre the polar
+constellation the Dragon. We read also that&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+There was the knight of fair-hair'd Danae born,<br />
+Perseus.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Orion is not specially mentioned, but Orion, Lepus, and the Dogs seem
+referred to:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 16em;">Men of chase</span><br />
+Were taking the fleet hares; two keen-toothed dogs<br />
+Bounded beside.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Homer would find no difficulty in pluralising the mighty Hunter and the
+hare into huntsmen and hares when utilising a description originally
+referring to the constellation.</p>
+
+<p>I conceive that the original description related to one of those zodiac
+temples whose remains are still found in Egypt, though the Egyptian
+temples of this kind were probably only copies of more ancient Chald&aelig;an
+temples. We know from Assyrian sculptures that representations of the
+constellations (and especially the zodiacal constellations) were common
+among the Babylonians; and, as I point out in the essay above referred
+to, 'it seems probable that in a country where Sab&aelig;anism or star-worship
+was the prevailing form of religion, yet more imposing proportions would
+be given to zodiac temples than in Egypt.' My theory, then, respecting
+the two famous 'Shields' is that Homer in his eastern travels visited
+imposing temples devoted to astronomical observation and star-worship,
+and that nearly every line in both descriptions is borrowed from a poem
+in which he described a temple of this sort, its domed zodiac, and those
+illustrations of the labours of different seasons and of military or
+judicial procedures which the astrological proclivities of
+star-worshippers led them to associate with the different
+constellations. For the arguments on which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> this theory is based I have
+not here space. They are dealt with in the essay from which I have
+quoted.</p>
+
+<p>One point only I need touch upon here, besides those I have mentioned
+already. It may be objected that the description of a zodiac temple has
+nothing to connect it with the subject of the Iliad. This is certainly
+true; but no one who is familiar with Homer's manner can doubt that he
+would work in, if he saw the opportunity, a poem on some subject outside
+that of the Iliad, so modifying the language that the description would
+correspond with the subject in hand. There are many passages, though
+none of such length, in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, which seem thus
+to have been brought into the poem; and other passages not exactly of
+this kind yet show that Homer was not insensible to the advantage of
+occasionally using memory instead of invention.</p>
+
+<p>Any one who considers attentively the aspect of the constellation Draco
+in the heavens, will perceive that the drawing of the head in the maps
+is not correct; the head is no longer pictured as it must have been
+conceived by those who first formed the constellation. The two bright
+stars Beta and Gamma are now placed on a head in profile. Formerly they
+marked the two eyes. I would not lay stress on the description of the
+Dragon in the Shield of Hercules, 'with eyes oblique retorted, that
+<a name="corr11" id="corr11"></a>askant shot gleaming fire;' for all readers may not be
+prepared to accept my opinion that that description related to the
+constellation Draco. But the description of the constellation itself by
+Aratus suffices to show that the two bright stars I have named marked
+the eyes of the imagined monster&mdash;in fact, Aratus's account singularly
+resembles that given in the Shield of Hercules. 'Swol'n is his neck,'
+says Aratus of the Dragon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">... Eyes charg'd with sparkling fire</span><br />
+His crested head illume. As if in ire,<br />
+To Helice he turns his foaming jaw,<br />
+And darts his tongue, barb'd with a blazing star.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>And the dragon's head with sparkling eyes can be recognised to this day,
+so soon as this change is made in its configuration, whereas no one can
+recognise the remotest resemblance to a dragon's head in profile. The
+star barbing the Dragon's tongue would be Xi of the Dragon according to
+Aratus's account, for so only would the eyes be turned towards Helice
+the Bear. But when Aratus wrote, the practice of separating the
+constellations from each other had been adopted; in fact, he derived his
+knowledge of them chiefly from Eudoxus, the astronomer and
+mathematician, who certainly would not have allowed the constellations
+to be intermixed. In the beginning, there are reasons for believing it
+was different, and if a group of stars resembled any known object it
+would be called after that object, even though some of the stars
+necessary to make up the figure belonged already to some other figure.
+This being remembered, we can have no difficulty in retorting the
+Dragon's head more naturally&mdash;not to the star Xi of the Dragon, but to
+the star Iota of Hercules. The four stars are situated thus,
+<img src="images/image5.jpg" width="100" height="127" alt="" title="" />
+the larger ones representing the eyes; and so far as the
+head is concerned it is a matter of indifference whether the lower or
+the upper small star be taken to represent the tongue. But, as any one
+will see who looks at these stars when the Dragon is best placed for
+ordinary (non-telescopic) observation, the attitude of the animal is far
+more natural when the star Iota of Hercules marks the tongue, for then
+the creature is situated like a winged serpent hovering above the
+horizon and looking downwards, whereas when the star Xi marks the
+tongue, the hovering Dragon is looking upwards and is in an unnaturally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>
+constrained position. (I would not, indeed, claim to understand
+perfectly all the ways of dragons; still it may be assumed that a dragon
+hovering above the horizon would rather look downwards in a natural
+position than upwards in an awkward one.)</p>
+
+<p>The star Iota of Hercules marks the heel of this giant, called the
+Kneeler (Engonasin) from time immemorial. He must have been an important
+figure on the old zodiac temples, and not improbably his presence there
+as one of the largest and highest of the human figures may have caused a
+zodiac-dome to be named after Hercules. The Dome of Hercules would come
+near enough to the title, 'The Shield of Hercules,' borne by the
+fragmentary poem dealt with above. The foot of the kneeling man was
+represented on the head of the dragon, the dragon having hold of the
+heel. And here, again, some imagine that a sculptured representation of
+these imagined figures in the heavens may have been interpreted and
+expanded into the narrative of a contest between the man and the old
+serpent the dragon, Ophiuchus the serpent-bearer being supposed to
+typify the eventual defeat of the dragon. This fancy might be followed
+out like that relating to the deluge; but the present place would be
+unsuitable for further inquiries in that particular direction.</p>
+
+<p>Some interest attaches to the constellation Ophiuchus, to my mind, in
+the evidence it affords respecting the way in which the constellations
+were at first intermixed. I have mentioned one instance in which, as I
+think, the later astronomers separated two constellations which had once
+been conjoined. Many others can be recognised when we compare the actual
+star-groups with the constellation-figures as at present depicted. No
+one can recognise the poop of a ship in the group of stars now assigned
+to the stern of Argo, but if we include the stars of the Greater Dog,
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> others close by, a well-shaped poop can be clearly seen. The head
+of the Lion of our maps is as the head of a dog, so far as stars are
+concerned; but if stars from the Crab on one side and from Virgo on the
+other be included in the figure, and especially Berenice's hair to form
+the tuft of the lion's tail, a very fine lion with waving mane can be
+discerned, with a slight effort of the imagination. So with Bootes the
+herdsman. He was of old 'a fine figure of a man,' waving aloft his arms,
+and, as his name implies, shouting lustily at the retreating bear. Now,
+and from some time certainly preceding that of Eudoxus, one arm has been
+lopped off to fashion the northern crown, and the herdsman holds his
+club as close to his side as a soldier holds his shouldered musket. The
+constellation of the Great Bear, once I conceive the only bear (though
+the lesser bear is a very old constellation), has suffered wofully.
+Originally it must have been a much larger bear, the stars now forming
+the tail marking part of the outline of the back; but first some folks
+who were unacquainted with the nature of bears turned the three stars
+(the horses of the plough) into a long tail, abstracting from the animal
+all the corresponding portion of his body, and then modern astronomers
+finding a great vacant space where formerly the bear's large frame
+extended, incontinently formed the stars of this space into a new
+constellation, the Hunting Dogs. No one can recognise a bear in the
+constellation as at present shaped, but any one who looks attentively at
+the part of the skies occupied by the constellation will recognise
+(always 'making believe a good deal') a monstrous bear, with the proper
+small head of creatures of the bear family, and with exceedingly
+well-developed plantigrade feet. Of course this figure cannot at all
+times be recognised with equal facility; but before midnight during the
+last four or five months in the year, the bear occupies positions
+favouring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> his recognition, being either upright on his feet, or as if
+descending a slope, or squatting on his great haunches. As a long-tailed
+animal the creature is more like one of those wooden toy-monkeys which
+used to be made for children, and may be now, in which the sliding
+motion of a ringed rod carried the monkey over the top of a stick. The
+little bear has I think been borrowed from the dragon, which was
+certainly a winged monster originally.</p>
+
+<p>Now the astronomers who separated from each other, and in so doing
+spoiled the old constellation-figures, seem to have despaired of freeing
+Ophiuchus from his entanglements. The Serpent is twined around his body,
+the Scorpion is clawing at one leg. The constellation makers have <i>per
+fas et nefas</i> separated Scorpio from the Serpent Holder, spoiling both
+figures. But the Serpent has been too much for them, insomuch that they
+have been reduced to the abject necessity of leaving one part of the
+Serpent on one side of the region they allow to Ophiuchus, and the other
+part of the Serpent to the other.</p>
+
+<p>A group of constellations whose origin and meaning are little understood
+remains to be mentioned. Close by the Dragon is King Cepheus, beside him
+his wife Cassiopeia (the Seated Lady), near whom is Andromeda the
+Chained Lady. The Sea Monster Cetus is not far away, though not near
+enough to threaten her safety, the Ram and Triangle being between the
+monster's head and her feet, the Fishes intervening between the body of
+the monster and her fair form. Close at hand is Perseus, the Rescuer,
+with a sword (looking very much like a reaping-hook in all the old
+pictures) in his right hand, and bearing in his left the head of Medusa.
+The general way of accounting for the figures thus associated has been
+by supposing that, having a certain tradition about Cepheus and his
+family, men imagined in the heavens the pictorial representation of the
+events of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> the tradition. I have long believed that the actual order in
+this and other cases was the reverse of this, that men imagined certain
+figures in the heavens, pictured these figures in their astronomical
+temples or observatories, and made stories to fit the pictures
+afterwards, probably many generations afterwards. Be this as it may, we
+can at present give no satisfactory explanation of the group of
+constellations.</p>
+
+<p>Wilford gives an account, in his 'Asiatic Researches,' of a conversation
+with a pundit or astronomer respecting the names of the Indian
+constellations. 'Asking him,' he says, 'to show me in the heavens the
+constellation Antarmada, he immediately pointed to Andromeda, though I
+had not given him any information about it beforehand. He afterwards
+brought me a very rare and curious work in Sanscrit, which contained a
+chapter devoted to <i>Upanachatras</i>, or extra-zodiacal constellations,
+with drawings of <i>Capuja</i> (Cepheus) and of <i>Casyapi</i> (Cassiopeia) seated
+and holding a lotus-flower in her hand, of Antarmada charmed with the
+Fish beside her, and last of <i>Paraseia</i> (Perseus), who, according to the
+explanation of the book, held the head of a monster which he had slain
+in combat; blood was dropping from it, and for hair it had snakes.' Some
+have inferred from the circumstance that the Indian charts thus showed
+the Cassiopeian set of constellations, that the origin of these figures
+is to be sought in India. But probably both the Indian and the Greek
+constellation-figures were derived from a much older source.</p>
+
+<p>The zodiacal twelve are in some respects the most important and
+interesting of all the ancient constellations. If we could determine the
+origin of these figures, their exact configuration as at first devised,
+and the precise influences assigned to them in the old astrological
+systems, we should have obtained important evidence as to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> origin of
+astronomy itself. Not indeed that the twelve signs of the zodiac were
+formed at the beginning or even in the early infancy of astronomy. It
+seems abundantly clear that the division of the zodiac (which includes
+the moon's track as well as the sun's) had reference originally to the
+moon's motions. She circuits the star-sphere in about twenty-seven days
+and a third, while the lunation or interval from new moon to new moon
+is, as we all know, about twenty-nine days and a half in length. It
+would appear that the earliest astronomers, who were of course
+astrologers also, of all nations&mdash;the Indian, Egyptian, Chinese,
+Persian, and Chald&aelig;an astronomers&mdash;adopted twenty-eight days (probably
+as a rough mean between the two periods just named) for their chief
+lunar period, and divided the moon's track round the ecliptic into
+twenty-eight portions or mansions. How they managed about the fractions
+of days outstanding&mdash;whether the common lunation was considered or the
+moon's motion round the star-sphere&mdash;is not known. The very
+circumstance, however, that they were for a long time content with their
+twenty-eight lunar mansions shows that they did not seek great precision
+at first. Doubtless they employed some rough system of 'leap-months' by
+which, as occasion required, the progress of the month was reconciled
+with the progress of the moon, just as by our leap-years the progress of
+the year is reconciled with the progress of the sun or seasons.</p>
+
+<p>The use of the twenty-eight-day period naturally suggested the division
+of time into weeks of seven days each. The ordinary lunar month is
+divided in a very obvious manner into four equal parts by the lunar
+aspects. Every one can recognise roughly the time of full moon and the
+times of half moon before and after full, while the time of new moon is
+recognised from these two last epochs. Thus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> the four quarters of the
+month, or roughly the four weeks of the month, would be the first
+time-measure thought of;&mdash;after the day, which is the necessary
+foundation of all time measures. The nearest approach which can be made
+to a quarter-month in days is the week of seven days; and although some
+little awkwardness arose from the fact that four weeks differ
+appreciably from a lunar month, this would not long prevent the adoption
+of the week as a measure of time. In fact, just as our years begin on
+different days of the week without causing any inconvenience, so the
+ancient months might be made to begin with different week-days. All that
+would be necessary to make the week measure fairly well the quarters of
+the month, would be to start each month on the proper or nearest
+week-day. To inform people about this, some ceremony could be appointed
+for the day of the new moon, and some signal employed to indicate the
+time when this ceremony was to take place. This&mdash;the natural and obvious
+course&mdash;we find was the means actually adopted, the festival of the new
+moon and the blowing of trumpets in the new moon being an essential part
+of the arrangements adopted by nations who used the week as a chief
+measure of time. The seven days were not affected by the new moons so
+far as the nomenclature of these days, or special duties connected with
+any one of them, might be concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Originally the idea may have been to have festivals and sacrifices at
+the time of new moon, first quarter, full moon, and third quarter; but
+this arrangement would naturally (and did, as we know, actually) give
+way before long to a new moon festival regulating the month and
+seventh-day festivals, each class of festival having its appropriate
+sacrifices and duties. This, I say, was the natural course. Its adoption
+<i>may</i> have been aided by the recognition of the fact that the seven
+planets of the old system of astronomy might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> conveniently be taken to
+rule the days and the hours in the way described in the essay on
+astrology. That that nomenclature and that system of association between
+the planets and the hours, days, and weeks of time-measurement was
+eventually adopted, is certain; but whether the convenience and apparent
+mystical fitness of this arrangement led to the use of weekly festivals
+in conjunction with monthly ones, or whether those weekly festivals were
+first adopted in the way described above, or whether (which seems
+altogether more likely) both sets of considerations led to the
+arrangement, we cannot certainly tell. The arrangement was in every way
+a natural one; and one may say, considering all the circumstances, that
+it was almost an inevitable one.</p>
+
+<p>There was, however, another possible arrangement, viz., the division of
+time into ten-day periods, three to each month, with corresponding new
+moon festivals. But as the arrival of the moon at the <i>thirds</i> of her
+progress are not at all so well marked as her arrival at the quarters,
+and as there is no connection between the number ten and the planets,
+this arrangement was far less likely to be adopted than the other.
+Accordingly we find that only one or two nations adopted it. Six sets of
+five days would be practically the same arrangement; five sets of six
+for each month would scarcely be thought of, as with that division the
+use of simple direct observations of the moon for time measurement,
+which was the real aim of all such divisions, would not be convenient or
+indeed even possible for the generality of persons. Few could tell
+easily when the moon is two-fifths or four-fifths full, whereas every
+one can tell when she is half-full or quite full (the requisite for
+weekly measurement); and it would be possible to guess pretty nearly
+when she is one-third or two-thirds full, the requisite for the
+tridecennial division.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span></p><p>My object in the above discussion of the origin of the week (as
+distinguished from the origin of the Sabbath, which I considered in the
+essay on astrology), has been to show that the use of the twelve
+zodiacal signs was in every case preceded by the use of the twenty-eight
+lunar mansions. It has been supposed that those nations in whose
+astronomy the twenty-eight mansions still appear, adopted one system,
+while the use of the twelve signs implies that another system had been
+adopted. Thus the following passage occurs in Mr. Blake's version of
+Flammarion's 'History of the Heavens:'&mdash;'the Chinese have twenty-eight
+constellations, though the word <i>sion</i> does not mean a group of stars,
+but simply a mansion or hotel. In the Coptic and ancient Egyptian the
+word for constellations has the same meaning. They also have
+twenty-eight, and the same number is found among the Arabians, Persians,
+and Indians. Among the Chald&aelig;ans or Accadians we find no sign of the
+number twenty-eight. The ecliptic, or "yoke of the sky," with them, as
+we see in the newly-discovered tablet, was divided into twelve
+divisions, as now, and the only connection that can be imagined between
+this and the twenty-eight is the opinion of M. Biot, who thinks that the
+Chinese had originally only twenty-four mansions, four more being added
+by Chenkung, 1100 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, and that they corresponded with the twenty-four
+stars, twelve to the north and twelve to the south, that marked the
+twelve signs of the zodiac amongst the Chald&aelig;ans. But under this
+supposition the twenty-eight has no reference to the moon, whereas we
+have every reason to believe it has.' The last observation is
+undoubtedly correct&mdash;the twenty-eight mansions have been mansions of the
+moon from the beginning. But in this very circumstance, as also in the
+very tablets referred to in the preceding passage, we find all the
+evidence needed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> show that originally the Chald&aelig;ans divided the
+zodiac into twenty-eight parts. For we find from the tablets that, like
+the other nations who had twenty-eight zodiacal mansions, the Chald&aelig;ans
+used a seven-day period, derived from the moon's motions, every seventh
+day being called <i>sabbatu</i>, and held as a day of rest. We may safely
+infer that the Chald&aelig;an astronomers, advancing beyond those of other
+nations, recognised the necessity of dividing the zodiac with reference
+to the sun's motions instead of the moon's. They therefore discarded the
+twenty-eight lunar mansions, and adopted instead twelve solar signs;
+this number twelve, like the number twenty-eight itself, being selected
+merely as the most convenient approximation to the number of parts into
+which the zodiac was naturally divided by another period. Thus the
+twenty-eighth part of the zodiac corresponds roughly with the moon's
+daily motion, and the twelfth part of the zodiac corresponds roughly
+with the moon's monthly motion; and both the numbers twenty-eight and
+twelve admit of being subdivided, while twenty-nine (a nearer approach
+than twenty-eight to the number of days in a lunation) and thirteen
+(almost as near an approach as twelve to the number of months in a year)
+do not.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to me highly probable that the date to which all inquiries into
+the origin of the constellations and the zodiacal signs seems to
+point&mdash;viz. 2170 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>&mdash;was the date at which the Chald&aelig;an astronomers
+definitely adopted the new system, the lunisolar instead of lunar
+division of the zodiac and of time. One of the objects which the
+architects of the Great Pyramid (not the king who built it) may have had
+was not improbably this&mdash;the erection of a building indicating the epoch
+when the new system was entered upon, and defining in its proportions,
+its interior<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> passages, and other features, fundamental elements of the
+new system. The great difficulty, an overwhelming difficulty it has
+always seemed to me, in accepting the belief that the year 2170 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>
+defined the beginning of exact astronomy, has been this, that several of
+the circumstances insisted upon as determining that date imply a
+considerable knowledge of astronomy. Thus astronomers must have made
+great progress in their science before they could select as a day for
+counting from, the epoch when the slow reeling motion of the earth (the
+so-called precessional motion) brought the Pleiades centrally south, at
+noon, at the time of the vernal equinox. The construction of the Great
+Pyramid, again, in all its astronomical features, implies considerable
+proficiency in astronomical observation. Thus the year 2170 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> may
+very well be regarded as defining the introduction of a new system of
+astronomy, but certainly not the beginning of astronomy itself. Of
+course we may cut the knot of this difficulty, as Prof. Smyth and Abb&eacute;
+Moigno do, by saying that astronomy began 2170 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, the first
+astronomers being instructed supernaturally, so that the astronomical
+Minerva came into full-grown being. But I apprehend that argument
+against such a belief is as unnecessary as it would certainly be
+useless.</p>
+
+<p>And now let us consider how this theory accords with the result to which
+we were led by the position of the great vacant space around the
+southern pole. So far as the date is concerned, we have already seen
+that the epoch 2170 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span> accords excellently with the evidence of the
+vacant space. But this evidence, as I mentioned at the outset,
+establishes more than the date; it indicates the latitude of the place
+where the most ancient of Ptolemy's forty-eight constellations were
+first definitely adopted by astronomers. If we assume that at this place
+the southernmost constellations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> were just fully seen when due south, we
+find for the latitude about thirty-eight degrees north. (The student of
+astronomy who may care to test my results may be reminded here that it
+is not enough to show that every star of a constellation would when due
+south be above the horizon of the place&mdash;what is wanted is, that the
+whole constellation when towards the south should be visible at a single
+view. However, the whole constellation may not have included all the
+stars now belonging to it.) The station of the astronomers who founded
+the new system can scarcely have been more than a degree or two north of
+this latitude. On the other side, we may go a little further, for by so
+doing we only raise the constellations somewhat higher above the
+southern horizon, to which there is less objection than to a change
+thrusting part of the constellations below the horizon. Still it may be
+doubted whether the place where the constellations were first formed was
+less than 32 or 33 degrees north of the equator. The Great Pyramid, as
+we know, is about 30 degrees north of the equator; but we also know that
+its architects travelled southwards to find a suitable place for it. One
+of their objects may well have been to obtain a fuller view of the
+star-sphere south of their constellations. I think from 35 to 39 degrees
+north would be about the most probable limits, and from 32 to 41 degrees
+north the certain limits of the station of the first founders of solar
+zodiacal astronomy.</p>
+
+<p>What their actual station may have been is not so easily established.
+Some think the region lay between the sources of the Oxus (Amoor) and
+Indus, others that the station of these astronomers was not very far
+from Mount Ararat&mdash;a view to which I was led long ago by other
+considerations discussed in the first appendix to my treatise on 'Saturn
+and its System.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p><p>At the epoch indicated, the first constellation of the zodiac was not,
+as now, the Fishes, nor, as when a fresh departure was made by
+Hipparchus, the Ram, but the Bull, a trace of which is found in Virgil's
+words&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum Taurus.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The Bull then was the spring sign, the Pleiades and ruddy Aldebaran
+joining their rays with the sun's at the time of the vernal equinox. The
+midsummer sign was the Lion (the bright Cor Leonis nearly marking the
+sun's highest place). The autumn sign was the Scorpion, the ruddy
+Antares and the stars clustering in the head of the Scorpion joining
+their rays with the sun's at the time of the autumnal equinox. And
+lastly the winter sign was the Water Bearer, the bright Fomalhaut
+conjoining his rays with the sun's at midwinter. It is noteworthy that
+all these four constellations really present some resemblance to the
+objects after which they are named. The Scorpion is in the best drawing,
+but the Bull's head is well marked, and, as already mentioned, a leaping
+lion can be recognised. The streams of stars from the Urn of Aquarius
+and the Urn itself are much better defined than the Urn Bearer.</p>
+
+<p>I have not left myself much space to speak of the finest of all the
+constellations, the glorious Orion&mdash;the Giant in his might, as he was
+called of old. In this noble asterism the figure of a giant ascending a
+slope can be readily discerned when the constellation is due south. At
+the time to which I have referred the constellation Orion was
+considerably below the equator, and instead of standing nearly upright
+when due south high above the horizon, as now in our northern latitudes,
+he rose upright above the south-eastern horizon. The resemblance to a
+giant figure must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> then have been even more striking than it is at
+present (except in high northern latitudes, where Orion, when due south,
+is just fully above the horizon). The giant Orion has long been
+identified with Nimrod; and those who recognise the antitypes of the Ark
+in Argo, of the old dragon in Draco, and of the first and second Adams
+in the kneeling Hercules defeated by the serpent and the upright
+Ophiuchus triumphant over the serpent, may, if they so please, find in
+the giant Orion, the Two Dogs, the Hare, and the Bull (whom Orion is
+more directly dealing with), the representations of Nimrod, that mighty
+hunter before the Lord, his hunting dogs, and the animals he hunted.
+Pegasus, formerly called the Horse, was regarded in very ancient times
+as the Steed of Nimrod.</p>
+
+<p>In modern astronomy the constellations no longer have the importance
+which once attached to them. They afford convenient means for naming the
+stars, though I think many observers would prefer the less attractive
+but more business-like methods adopted by Piazzi and others, according
+to which a star rejoices in no more striking title than 'Piazzi XIIIh.
+273,' or 'Struve, 2819.' They still serve, however, to teach beginners
+the stars, and probably many years will pass before even exact astronomy
+dismisses them altogether to the limbo of discarded symbolisms. It is,
+indeed, somewhat singular that astronomers find it easier to introduce
+new absurdities among the constellations than to get rid of these old
+ones. The new and utterly absurd figures introduced by Bode still remain
+in many charts despite such inconvenient names as <i>Honores Frederici</i>,
+<i>Globum &AElig;rostaticum</i> and <i>Machina Pneumatica</i>; and I have very little
+doubt that a new constellation, if it only had a specially inconvenient
+title, would be accepted. But when Francis Baily tried to simplify the
+heavens by removing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> many of Bode's absurd constellations, he was abused
+by many as violently as though he had proposed the rejection of the
+Newtonian system. I myself tried a small measure of reform in the three
+first editions of my 'Library Atlas,' but have found it desirable to
+return to the old nomenclature in the fourth.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE END.<br /><br /><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Printed by</i> <span class="smcap">Ballantyne, Hanson &amp; Co.</span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Edinburgh and London</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> These reflections were suggested to Tacitus by the conduct
+of Thrasyllus (chief astrologer of the Emperor Tiberius), when his skill
+was tested by his imperial employer after a manner characteristic of
+that agreeable monarch. The story runs thus (I follow Whewell's
+version): 'Those who were brought to Tiberius on any important matter,
+were admitted to an interview in an apartment situated on a lofty cliff
+in the island of Capre&aelig;. They reached this place by a narrow path,
+accompanied by a single freedman of great bodily strength; and on their
+return, if the emperor had conceived any doubts of their
+trustworthiness, a single blow buried the secret and its victim in the
+ocean below. After Thrasyllus had, in this retreat, stated the results
+of his art as they concerned the emperor, Tiberius asked him whether he
+had calculated how long he himself had to live. The astrologer examined
+the aspect of the stars, and while he did this showed hesitation, alarm,
+increasing terror, and at last declared that "The present hour was for
+him critical, perhaps fatal." Tiberius embraced him, and told him "he
+was right in supposing he had been in danger, but that he should escape
+it," and made him henceforward his confidential counsellor.' It is
+evident, assuming the story to be true (as seems sufficiently probable),
+that the emperor was no match for the charlatan in craft. It was a
+natural thought on the former's part to test the skill of his astrologer
+by laying for him a trap such as the story indicates&mdash;a thought so
+natural, indeed, that it probably occurred to Thrasyllus himself long
+before Tiberius put the plan into practice. Even if Thrasyllus had not
+been already on the watch for such a trick, he would have been but a
+poor trickster himself if he had not detected it the moment it was
+attempted, or failed to see the sole safe course which was left open to
+him. Probably, with a man of the temper of Tiberius, such a
+counter-trick as Galeotti's in <i>Quentin Durward</i> would have been
+unsafe.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The belief in the influence of the stars and the planets on
+the fortunes of the new-born child was still rife when Shakespeare made
+Glendower boast:
+</p>
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 13em;">At my nativity</span><br />
+The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes<br />
+Of burning cressets; know, that at my birth<br />
+The frame and huge foundation of the earth<br />
+Shook like a coward.<br />
+</p>
+<p>And Shakespeare showed himself dangerously tainted with freethought in
+assigning (even to the fiery Hotspur) the reply:
+</p>
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 12em;">So it would have done</span><br />
+At the same season, if your mother's cat<br />
+Had kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born.<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+In a similar vein Butler, in <i>Hudibras</i> ridiculed the folly of those who
+believe in horoscopes and nativities:
+</p>
+<p class="poem">
+As if the planet's first aspect<br />
+The tender infant did infect<br />
+In soul and body, and instil<br />
+All future good and future ill;<br />
+Which in their dark fatalities lurking,<br />
+At destined periods fall a-working,<br />
+And break out, like the hidden seeds<br />
+Of long diseases, into deeds,<br />
+In friendships, enmities, and strife.<br />
+And all th' emergencies of life.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Preface to the <i>Rudolphine Tables</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> It is commonly stated that Bacon opposed the Copernican
+theory because he disliked Gilbert, who had advocated it. 'Bacon,' says
+one of his editors, 'was too jealous of Gilbert to entertain one moment
+any doctrine that he advanced.' But, apart from the incredible
+littleness of mind which this explanation imputes to Bacon, it would
+also have been an incredible piece of folly on Bacon's part to advocate
+an inferior theory while a rival was left to support a better theory.
+Bacon saw clearly enough that men were on their way to the discovery of
+the true theory, and, so far as in him lay, he indicated how they should
+proceed in order most readily to reach the truth. It must, then, have
+been from conviction, not out of mere contradiction, that Bacon declared
+himself in favour of the Ptolemaic system. In fact, he speaks of the
+diurnal motion of the earth as 'an opinion which we can demonstrate to
+be most false;' doubtless having in his thoughts some such arguments as
+misled Tycho Brahe.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> To Bacon's theological contemporaries this must have seemed
+a dreadful heresy, and possibly in our own days the assertion would be
+judged scarcely less harshly, seeing that the observance of the
+(so-called) Sabbath depends directly upon the belief in quite another
+origin of the week. Yet there can be little question that the week
+really had its origin in astrological formul&aelig;.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> In Bohn's edition the word 'defective' is here used,
+entirely changing the meaning of the sentence. Bacon registers an
+<i>Astrologia Sana</i> amongst the things needed for the advancement of
+learning, whereas he is made to say that such an astrology must be
+registered as defective.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> The astrologers were exceedingly ingenious in showing that
+their art had given warning of the great plague and fire of London.
+Thus, the star which marks the Bull's northern horn&mdash;and which is
+described by Ptolemy as like Mars&mdash;was, they say, exactly in that part
+of the sign Gemini which is the ascendant of London, in 1666. Lilly,
+however, for whom they claim the credit of predicting the year of this
+calamity, laid no claim himself to that achievement; nay, specially
+denied that he knew when the fire was to happen. The story is rather
+curious. In 1651 Lilly had published his <i>Monarchy or no Monarchy</i>,
+which contained a number of curious hieroglyphics. Amongst these were
+two (see frontispiece) which appeared to portend plague and fire
+respectively. The hieroglyphic of the plague represents three dead
+bodies wrapped in death-clothes, and for these bodies two coffins lie
+ready and two graves are being dug; whence it was to be inferred that
+the number of deaths would exceed the supply of coffins and graves. The
+hieroglyphic of the fire represents several persons, gentlefolk on one
+side and commonfolk on the other, emptying water vessels on a furious
+fire into which two children are falling headlong. The occurrence of the
+plague in 1665 attracted no special notice to Lilly's supposed
+prediction of that event, though probably many talked of the coincidence
+as remarkable. But when in 1666 the great fire occurred, the House of
+Commons summoned Lilly to attend the committee appointed to enquire into
+the cause of the fire. 'At two of the clock on Friday, the 25th of
+October 1666,' he attended in the Speaker's chamber, 'to answer such
+questions as should then and there be asked him.' Sir Robert Brooke
+spoke to this effect: 'Mr. Lilly, this committee thought fit to summon
+you to appear before them this day, to know if you can say anything as
+to the cause of the late fire, or whether there might be any design
+therein. You are called the rather hither, because in a book of yours
+long since printed, you hinted some such thing by one of your
+hieroglyphics.' Unto which he replied: 'May it please your honours,
+after the beheading of the late king, considering that in the three
+subsequent years the Parliament acted nothing which concerned the
+settlement of the nation's peace, and seeing the generality of the
+people dissatisfied, the citizens of London discontented, and the
+soldiery prone to mutiny, I was desirous, according to the best
+knowledge God had given me, to make enquiry by the art I studied, what
+might, from that time, happen unto the Parliament and nation in general.
+At last, having satisfied myself as well as I could, and perfected my
+judgment therein, I thought it most convenient to signify my intentions
+and conceptions thereof in forms, shapes, types, hieroglyphics, etc.,
+without any commentary, that so my judgment might be concealed from the
+vulgar, and made manifest only unto the wise; I herein imitating the
+examples of many wise philosophers who had done the like. Having found,
+sir, that the great city of London should be sadly afflicted with a
+great plague, and not long after with an exorbitant fire, I framed these
+two hieroglyphics, as represented in the book, which in effect have
+proved very true.' 'Did you foresee the year?' said one. 'I did not,'
+said Lilly; 'nor was desirous; of that I made no scrutiny. Now, sir,
+whether there was any design of burning the city, or any employed to
+that purpose, I must deal ingenuously with you, that since the fire I
+have taken much pains in the search thereof, but cannot or could not
+give myself the least satisfaction therein. I conclude that it was the
+finger of God only; but what instruments He used thereunto I am
+ignorant.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek were evidently not
+well taught in astrology. 'Shall we set about some revels?' says the
+latter. 'What shall we do else?' says Toby; 'were we not born under
+Taurus?' 'Taurus, that's sides and heart,' says sapient Andrew. 'No,
+sir,' responds Toby, 'it's legs and thighs. Let me see thee caper.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> 'This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we
+are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behaviour), we make
+guilty of our disasters the sun, moon, and stars: as if we were villains
+on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
+treacherous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers,
+by inforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are, evil,
+by a divine thrusting on.'&mdash;<span class="smcap">Shakespeare</span> (<i>King Lear</i>).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> There are few things more remarkable, or to reasoning
+minds more inexplicable, than the readiness with which men undertook in
+old times, and even now undertake, to interpret omens and assign
+prophetic significance to casual events. One can understand that foolish
+persons should believe in omens, and act upon the ideas suggested by
+their superstitions. The difficulty is to comprehend how these
+superstitions came into existence. For instance, who first conceived the
+idea that a particular line in the palm of the hand is the line of life;
+and what can possibly have suggested so absurd a notion? To whom did the
+thought first present itself that the pips on playing-cards are
+significant of future events; and why did he think so? How did the
+'grounds' of a teacup come to acquire that deep significance which they
+now possess for Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Prig? If the believers in these
+absurdities be asked <i>why</i> they believe, they answer readily enough
+either that they themselves or their friends have known remarkable
+fulfilments of the ominous indications of cards or tea-dregs, which must
+of necessity be the case where millions of forecasts are daily made by
+these instructive methods. But the persons who first invented those
+means of divination can have had no such reasons. They must have
+possessed imaginations of singular liveliness and not wanting in
+ingenuity. It is a pity that we know so little of them.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Wellington lived too long for the astrologers, his death
+within the year having unfortunately been predicted by them many times
+during the last fifteen years of his life. Some astrologers were more
+cautious, however. I have before me his horoscope, carefully calculated,
+<i>secundum artem</i>, by Rapha&euml;l in 1828, with results 'sufficiently
+evincing the surprising verity and singular accuracy of astrological
+calculations, when founded on the correct time of birth, and
+mathematically calculated. I have chosen,' he proceeds, 'the nativity of
+this illustrious native, in preference to others, as the subject is now
+living, and, consequently, all possibility of making up any fictitious
+horoscope is at once set aside; thus affording me a most powerful shield
+against the insidious representations of the envious and ignorant
+traducer of my sublime science.' By some strange oversight, however,
+Rapha&euml;l omits to mention anything respecting the future fortunes of
+Wellington, showing only how wonderfully Wellington's past career had
+corresponded with his horoscope.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> 'I have still observed,' says an old author, 'that your
+right Martialist doth seldom exceed in height, or be at the most above a
+yard or a yard and a half in height' (which is surely stint measure).
+'It hath been always thus,' said that right Martialist Sir Geoffrey
+Hudson to Julian Peveril; 'and in the history of all ages, the clean
+tight dapper little fellow hath proved an overmatch for his burly
+antagonist. I need only instance, out of Holy Writ, the celebrated
+downfall of Goliath and of another lubbard, who had more fingers in his
+hand, and more inches to his stature, than ought to belong to an honest
+man, and who was slain by a nephew of good King David; and of many
+others whom I do not remember; nevertheless, they were all Philistines
+of gigantic stature. In the classics, also, you have Tydeus, and other
+tight compact heroes, whose diminutive bodies were the abode of large
+minds.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> It is likely that Swedenborg in his youth studied
+astrology, for in his visions the Mercurial folk have this desire of
+knowledge as their distinguishing characteristic.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> It is singular that, when there is this perfectly simple
+explanation of the origin of the nomenclature of the days of the week,
+an explanation given by ancient historians and generally received,
+Whewell should have stated that 'various accounts are given, all the
+methods proceeding upon certain arbitrary arithmetical processes
+connected in some way with astrological views.' Speaking of the
+arrangement of the planets in the order of their supposed distances, and
+of the order in which the planets appear in the days of the week, he
+says, 'It would be difficult to determine with certainty why the former
+order was adopted, and how and why the latter was derived from it.' But,
+in reality, there is no difficulty about either point. The former
+arrangement corresponded precisely with the periodic times of the seven
+planets of the old Egyptian system (unquestionably far more ancient than
+the system adopted by the Greeks), while the latter springs directly
+from the former. Assign to the hours of the day, successively, the seven
+planets in the former order, continuing the sequence without
+interruption day after day, and in the course of seven days each one of
+the planets will have ruled the first hour of a day, in the
+order,&mdash;Saturn, the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus.
+What arbitrary arithmetical process there is in this it would be
+difficult to conceive. Arithmetic does not rule the method at all. Nor
+has any other method ever been suggested; though this method has been
+presented in several ways, some arithmetical and some geometrical. We
+need then have no difficulty in understanding what seems so
+<a name="corr5" id="corr5"></a>perplexing to Whewell, the universality, namely, of
+the notions 'which have produced this result,' for the notions were not
+fantastic, but such as naturally sprang from the ideas on which
+astrology itself depends.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> The following remarks by the Astronomer-Royal on this
+subject seem to me just, in the main. They accord with what I had said
+earlier in my essay on Saturn and the Sabbath of the Jews ('Our Place
+among Infinities,' 11th essay). 'The importance which Moses attached to
+it [the hebdomadal rest] is evident; and, with all reverence, I
+recognise to the utmost degree the justice of his views. No direction
+was given for religious ceremonial' (he seems to have overlooked Numbers
+xxviii. 9, and cognate passages), 'but it was probably seen that the
+health given to the mind by a rest from ordinary cares, and by the
+opportunity of meditation, could not fail to have a most beneficial
+religious effect. But, to give sanction to this precept, the authority
+of at least a myth was requisite. I believe it was simply for this
+reason that the myth of the six days of creation was preserved. It is
+expressly cited in the first delivery of the commandments, as the solemn
+authority (Exodus xxxi. 17) for the command. It is remarkable that at
+the second mention of the commandment (Deuteronomy v.) no reference is
+made to the creation; perhaps, after the complete establishment of
+Jehovistic ideas in the minds of the Israelites, they had nearly lost
+the recollection of the Elohistic account, and it was not thought
+desirable to refer to it' (Airy, 'On the Early Hebrew Scriptures,' p.
+17). It must be regarded as a singular instance of the persistency of
+myths, if this view be correct, that a myth which had become obsolete
+for the Jews between the time of Moses and that of the writer (whoever
+he may have been) who produced the so-called Mosaic book of Deuteronomy,
+should thereafter have been revived, and have come to be regarded by the
+Jews themselves and by Christians as the Word of God.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Of course it may be argued that nothing in the world is
+the result of <i>mere</i> accident, and some may assert that even matters
+which are commonly regarded as entirely casual have been specially
+designed. It would not be easy to draw the precise line dividing events
+which all men would regard as to all intents and purposes accidental
+from those which some men would regard as results of special providence.
+But common sense draws a sufficient distinction, at least for our
+present purpose.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> This star, called <i>Thuban</i> from the Arabian <i>al-Th&uacute;ban</i>,
+the Dragon, is now not very bright, being rated at barely above the
+fourth magnitude, but it was formerly the brightest star of the
+constellation, as its name indicates. Bayer also assigned to it the
+first letter of the Greek alphabet; though this is not absolutely
+decisive evidence that so late as his day it retained its superiority
+over the second magnitude stars to which Bayer assigned the second and
+third Greek letters. In the year 2790 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, or thereabouts, the star was
+at its nearest to the true north pole of the heavens, the diameter of
+the little circle in which it then moved being considerably less than
+one-fourth the apparent diameter of the moon. At that time the star must
+have seemed to all ordinary observation an absolutely fixed centre,
+round which all the other stars revolved. At the time when the pyramid
+was built this star was about sixty times farther removed from the true
+pole, revolving in a circle whose apparent diameter was about seven
+times as great as the moon's. Yet it would still be regarded as a very
+useful pole-star, especially as there are very few conspicuous stars in
+the neighbourhood.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Even that skilful astronomer Hipparchus, who may be justly
+called the father of observational astronomy, overlooked this
+peculiarity, which Ptolemy would seem to have been the first to
+recognise.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> It would only be by a lucky accident, of course, that the
+direction of the slant tunnel's axis and that of the vertical from the
+selected central point would lie in the same vertical plane. The object
+of the tunnelling would, in fact, be to determine how far apart the
+vertical planes through these points lay, and the odds would be great
+against the result proving to be zero.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> It may, perhaps, occur to the reader to inquire what
+diameter of the earth, supposed to be a perfect sphere, would be derived
+from a degree of latitude measured with absolute accuracy near latitude
+30&deg;. A degree of latitude measured in polar regions would indicate a
+diameter greater even than the equatorial; one measured in equatorial
+regions would indicate a diameter less even than the polar. Near
+latitude 30&deg; the measurement of a degree of latitude would indicate a
+diameter very nearly equal to the true polar diameter of the earth. In
+fact, if it could be proved that the builders of the pyramid used for
+their unit of length an exact subdivision of the polar diameter, the
+inference would be that, while the coincidence itself was merely
+accidental, their measurement of a degree of latitude in their own
+country had been singularly accurate. By an approximate calculation I
+find that, taking the earth's compression at <span class="above">1</span>&#8260;<span class="below">300</span>, the diameter of the
+earth, estimated from the accurate measurement of a degree of latitude
+in the neighbourhood of the great pyramid, would have made the sacred
+cubit&mdash;taken at one 20,000,000th of the diameter&mdash;equal to 24&middot;98 British
+inches; a closer approximation than Professor Smyth's to the estimated
+mean probable value of the sacred cubit.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> It is, however, almost impossible to mark any limits to
+what may be regarded as evidence of design by a coincidence-hunter. I
+quote the following from the late Professor De Morgan's <i>Budget of
+Paradoxes</i>. Having mentioned that 7 occurs less frequently than any
+other digit in the number expressing the ratio of circumference to
+diameter of a circle, he proceeds: 'A correspondent of my friend Piazzi
+Smyth notices that 3 is the number of most frequency, and that 3-<span class="above">1</span>&#8260;<span class="below">7</span> is
+the nearest approximation to it in simple digits. Professor Smyth, whose
+work on Egypt is paradox of a very high order, backed by a great
+quantity of useful labour, the results of which will be made available
+by those who do not receive the paradoxes, is inclined to see
+confirmation for some of his theory in these phenomena.' In passing, I
+may mention as the most singular of these accidental digit relations
+which I have yet noticed, that in the first 110 digits of the square
+root of 2, the number 7 occurs more than twice as often as either 5 or
+9, which each occur eight times, 1 and 2 occurring each nine times, and
+7 occurring no less than eighteen times.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> I have substituted this value in the article 'Astronomy,'
+of the <i>British Encyclop&aelig;dia</i>, for the estimate formerly used, viz.
+95,233,055 miles. But there is good reason for believing that the actual
+distance is nearly 92,000,000 miles.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> It may be matched by other coincidences as remarkable and
+as little the result of the operation of any natural law. For instance,
+the following strange relation, introducing the dimensions of the sun
+himself, nowhere, so far as I have yet seen, introduced among pyramid
+relations, even by pyramidalists: 'If the plane of the ecliptic were a
+true surface, and the sun were to commence rolling along that surface
+towards the part of the earth's orbit where she is at her mean distance,
+while the earth commenced rolling upon the sun (round one of his great
+circles), each globe turning round in the same time,&mdash;then, by the time
+the earth had rolled its way once round the sun, the sun would have
+almost exactly reached the earth's orbit. This is only another way of
+saying that the sun's diameter exceeds the earth's in almost exactly the
+same degree that the sun's distance exceeds the sun's diameter.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> It has been remarked that, though Hipparchus had the
+enormous advantage of being able to compare his own observations with
+those recorded by the Chald&aelig;ans, he estimated the length of the year
+less correctly than the Chald&aelig;ans. It has been thought by some that the
+Chald&aelig;ans were acquainted with the true system of the universe, but I do
+not know that there are sufficient grounds for this supposition.
+Diodorus Siculus and Apollonius Myndius mention, however, that they were
+able to predict the return of comets, and this implies that their
+observations had been continued for many centuries with great care and
+exactness.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> The language of the modern Zadkiels and Rapha&euml;ls, though
+meaningless and absurd in itself, yet, as assuredly derived from the
+astrology of the oldest times, may here be quoted. (It certainly was not
+invented to give support to the theory I am at present advocating.) Thus
+runs the jargon of the tribe: 'In order to illustrate plainly to the
+reader what astrologers mean by the "houses of heaven," it is proper for
+him to bear in mind the four cardinal points. The eastern, facing the
+rising sun, has at its centre the first grand angle or first house,
+termed the Horoscope or ascendant. The northern, opposite the region
+where the sun is at midnight, or the <i>cusp</i> of the lower heaven or
+nadir, is the Imum C&#339;li, and has at its centre the fourth house. The
+western, facing the setting sun, has at its centre the third grand angle
+or seventh house or descendant. And lastly, the southern, facing the
+noonday sun, has at its centre the astrologer's tenth house, or
+Mid-heaven, the most powerful angle or house of honour.' 'And although,'
+proceeds the modern astrologer, 'we cannot in the ethereal blue discern
+these lines or terminating divisions, both reason and experience assure
+us that they certainly exist; therefore the astrologer has certain
+grounds for the choice of his four angular houses' (out of twelve in
+all) 'which, resembling the palpable demonstration they afford, are in
+the astral science esteemed the most powerful of the whole. '&mdash;Rapha&euml;l's
+<i>Manual of Astrology</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Arabian writers give the following account of Egyptian
+progress in astrology and the mystical arts: Nacrawasch, the progenitor
+of Misraim, was the first Egyptian prince, and the first of the
+magicians who excelled in astrology and enchantment. Retiring into Egypt
+with his family of eighty persons, he built Essous, the most ancient
+city of Egypt, and commenced the first dynasty of Misraimitish princes,
+who excelled as cabalists, diviners, and in the mystic arts generally.
+The most celebrated of the race were Naerasch, who first represented by
+images the twelve signs of the zodiac; Gharnak, who openly described the
+arts before kept secret; Hersall, who first worshipped idols; Sehlouk,
+who worshipped the sun; Saurid (King Saurid of Ibn Abd Alkohm's
+account), who erected the first pyramids and invented the magic mirror;
+and Pharaoh, the last king of the dynasty, whose name was afterwards
+taken as a kingly title, as C&aelig;sar later became a general imperial
+title.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> It is noteworthy how Swedenborg here anticipates a saying
+of Laplace, the greatest mathematician the world has known, save Newton
+alone. Newton's remark that he seemed but as a child who had gathered a
+few shells on the shores of ocean, is well known. Laplace's words, '<i>Ce
+que nous connaissons est peu de chose; ce que nous ignorons est
+immense</i>,' were not, as is commonly stated, his last. De Morgan gives
+the following account of Laplace's last moments, on the authority of
+Laplace's friend and pupil, the well-known mathematician Poisson: 'After
+the publication (in 1825) of the fifth volume of the M&eacute;canique C&eacute;leste,
+Laplace became gradually weaker, and with it musing and abstracted. He
+thought much on the great problems of existence, and often muttered to
+himself, "<i>Qu'est-ce que c'est que tout cela!</i>" After many alternations
+he appeared at last so permanently prostrated that his family applied to
+his favourite pupil, M. Poisson, to try to get a word from him. Poisson
+paid a visit, and after a few words of salutation, said, "J'ai une bonne
+nouvelle &agrave; vous annoncer: on a re&ccedil;u au Bureau des Longitudes une lettre
+d'Allemagne annon&ccedil;ant que M. Bessel a v&eacute;rifi&eacute; par l'observation vos
+d&eacute;couvertes th&eacute;oriques sur les satellites de Jupiter." Laplace opened
+his eyes and answered with deep gravity. "<i>L'homme ne poursuit que des
+chim&egrave;res.</i>" He never spoke again. His death took place March 5, 1827.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> The reason assigned by Swedenborg is fanciful enough. 'In
+the spiritual sense,' he says, 'a horse signifies the intellectual
+principle formed from scientifics, and as they are afraid of cultivating
+the intellectual faculties by worldly sciences, from this comes an
+influx of fear. They care nothing for scientifics which are of human
+erudition.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Similar reasoning applies to the moons of Jupiter, and it
+so chances that the result in their case comes out exactly the same as
+in the case of Saturn; all the Jovian moons, if full together, would
+reflect only the sixteenth part of the light which we receive from the
+full moon. It is strange that scientific men of considerable
+mathematical power have used the argument from design apparently
+supplied by the satellites, without being at the pains to test its
+validity by the simple mathematical calculations necessary to determine
+the quantity of light which these bodies can reflect to the planets
+round which they travel. Brewster and Whewell, though they took opposite
+sides in the controversy about other inhabited worlds, agreed in this.
+Brewster, of course, holding the theory that all the planets are
+inhabited, very naturally accepted the argument from design in this
+case. Whewell, in opposing that theory, did not dwell at all upon the
+subjects of the satellites. But in his 'Bridgewater Treatise on
+Astronomy and General Physics,' he says, 'Taking only the ascertained
+cases of Venus, the Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, we conceive that a
+person of common understanding will be strongly impressed with the
+persuasion that the satellites are placed in the system with a view to
+compensate for the diminished light of the sun at greater distances.
+Mars is an exception; some persons might conjecture from this case that
+the arrangement itself, like other useful arrangements, has been brought
+about by some wider law which we have not yet detected. But whether or
+not we entertain such a guess (it can be nothing more), we see in other
+parts of creation so many examples of apparent exceptions to rules,
+which are afterwards found to be capable of explanation, or to be
+provided for by particular contrivances, that no one familiar with such
+contemplations will, by one anomaly, be driven from the persuasion that
+the end which the arrangements of the satellites seem suited to answer
+is really one of the ends of their creation.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> The reader who cares enough about such subjects to take
+the necessary trouble, can easily make a little model of Saturn and his
+ring system, which will very prettily illustrate the effect of the rings
+both in reflecting light to the planet's darkened hemisphere and in
+cutting off light from the planet's illuminated hemisphere. Take a ball,
+say an ordinary hand-ball, and pierce it through the centre with a fine
+knitting-needle. Cut out a flat ring of card, proportioned to the ball
+as the ring system of Saturn to his ball. (If the ball is two inches in
+diameter, strike out on a sheet of cardboard two concentric circles, one
+of them with a radius of a little more than an inch and a half, the
+other with a radius of about two inches and three-eights, and cut out
+the ring between these two circles.) Thrust the knitting-needle through
+this ring in such a way that the ball shall lie in the middle of the
+ring, as the globe of Saturn hangs (without knitting-needle connections)
+in the middle of his ring system. Thrust another knitting-needle
+centrally through the ball square to the plane of the ring, and use this
+second needle, which we may call the polar one, as a handle. Now take
+the ball and ring into sunlight, or the light of a lamp or candle,
+holding them so that the shadow of the ring is as thin as possible. This
+represents the position of the shadow at the time of Saturnian spring or
+autumn. Cause the shadow slowly to shift until it surrounds the part of
+the ball through which the polar needle passes on one side. This will
+represent the position of the shadow at the time of midwinter for the
+hemisphere corresponding to that side of the ball. Notice that while the
+shadow is traversing this half of the ball, the side of the ring which
+lies towards that half is in shadow, so that a fly or other small insect
+on that half of the ball would see the darkened side of the ring. A
+Saturnian correspondingly placed would get no reflected sunlight from
+the ring system. Move the ball and ring so that the shadow slowly
+returns to its first position. You will then have illustrated the
+changes taking place during one half of a Saturnian year. Continue the
+motion so that the shadow passes to the other half of the ball, and
+finally surrounds the other point through which the polar needle passes.
+The polar point which the shadow before surrounded will now be seen to
+be in the light, and this half of the ball will illustrate the
+hemisphere of Saturn where it is midsummer. It will also be seen that
+the side of the ring towards this half of the ball is now in the light,
+so that a small insect on this half of the ball would see the bright
+side of the ring. A Saturnian correspondingly placed would get reflected
+sunlight from the ring system <i>both by day and by night</i>. Moving the
+ball and ring so that the shadow returns to its first position, an
+entire Saturnian year will have been illustrated. These changes can be
+still better shown with a Saturnian orrery (see plate viii. of my
+Saturn), which can be very easily constructed.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Not 'of course' because Tycho used it, for, like other
+able students of science, he made mistakes from time to time. Thus he
+argued that the earth cannot rotate on her axis, because if she did
+bodies raised above her surface would be left behind&mdash;an argument which
+even the mechanical knowledge of his own time should have sufficed to
+invalidate, though it is still used from time to time by paradoxers of
+our own day.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Chinese chronicles contain other references to new stars.
+The annals of Ma-touan-lin, which contain the official records of
+remarkable appearances in the heavens, include some phenomena which
+manifestly belong to this class. Thus they record that in the year 173 a
+star appeared between the stars which mark the hind feet of the Centaur.
+This star remained visible from December in that year until July in the
+next (about the same time as Tycho Brahe's and Kepler's new stars,
+presently to be described). Another star, assigned by these annals to
+the year 1011, seems to be the same as a star referred to by Hepidannus
+as appearing <span class="ampm">A.D.</span> 1012. It was of extraordinary brilliancy, and remained
+visible in the southern part of the heavens during three months. The
+annals of Ma-touan-lin assign to it a position low down in Sagittarius.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Still a circumstance must be mentioned which tends to show
+that the star may have been visible a few hours earlier than Dr. Schmidt
+supposed. Mr. M. Walter, surgeon of the 4th regiment, then stationed in
+North India, wrote (oddly enough, on May 12, 1867, the first anniversary
+of Mr. Birmingham's discovery) as follows to Mr. Stone:&mdash;'I am certain
+that this same conflagration was distinctly perceptible here at least
+six hours earlier. My knowledge of the fact came about in this wise. The
+night of the 12th of May last year was exceedingly sultry, and about
+eight o'clock on that evening I got up from the tea-table and rushed
+into my garden to seek a cooler atmosphere. As my door opens towards the
+east, the first object that met my view was the Northern Crown. My
+attention was at once arrested by the sight of a strange star outside
+the crown' (that is, outside the circlet of stars forming the diadem,
+not outside the constellation itself). The new star 'was then certainly
+quite as bright&mdash;I rather thought more so&mdash;as its neighbour Alphecca,'
+the chief gem of the crown. 'I was so much struck with its appearance,
+that I exclaimed to those indoors, "Why, here is a new comet!'" He made
+a diagram of the constellation, showing the place of the new star
+correctly. Unfortunately, Mr. Walter does not state why he is so
+confident, a year after the event, that it was on the 12th of May, and
+not on the 13th, that he noticed the new star. If he fixed the date only
+by the star's appearance as a second-magnitude star, his letter proves
+nothing; for we know that on the 13th it was still shining as brightly
+as Alphecca, though on the 14th it was perceptibly fainter.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> The velocity of three or four miles per second inferred by
+the elder Struve must now be regarded (as I long since pointed out would
+prove to be the case) as very far short of the real velocity of our
+system's motion through stellar space.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> M. Cornu's observations are full of interest, and he
+deserves considerable credit for his energy in availing himself of the
+few favourable opportunities he had for making them. But he goes beyond
+his province in adding to his account of them some remarks, intended
+apparently as a reflection on Mr. Huggins's speculations respecting the
+star in the Northern Crown. '<i>I</i>,' says M. Cornu, 'will not try to form
+any hypothesis about the cause of the outburst. To do so would be
+unscientific, and such speculations, though interesting, cumber science
+wofully.' This is sheer nonsense, and comes very ill from an observer
+whose successes in science have been due entirely to the employment of
+methods of observation which would have had no existence had others been
+as unready to think out the meaning of observed facts as he appears to
+be himself.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> The same peculiarity has been noticed since the discovery
+of the dark ring, the space within that ring being observed by Coolidge
+and G. Bond at Harvard in 1856 to be apparently darker than the
+surrounding sky.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> I cannot understand why Mr. Webb, in his interesting
+little work, <i>Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes</i>, says that the
+satellite theory of the rings certainly seems insufficient to account
+for the phenomena of the dark ring. It seems, on the contrary, manifest
+that the dark ring can scarcely be explained in any other way. The
+observations recently made are altogether inexplicable on any other
+theory.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> A gentleman, whose acquaintance I made in returning from
+America last spring, assured me that he had found demonstrative evidence
+showing that a total eclipse of the moon then occurred; for he could
+prove that Abraham's vision occurred at the time of full moon, so that
+it could not otherwise have been dark when the sun went down (v. 17).
+But the horror of great darkness occurred when the sun was going down,
+and total eclipses of the moon do not behave that way&mdash;at least, in our
+time.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> It is not easy to understand what else it could have been.
+The notion that a conjunction of three planets, which took place shortly
+before the time of Christ's birth, gave rise to the tradition of the
+star in the east, though propounded by a former president of the
+Astronomical Society, could hardly be entertained by an astronomer,
+unless he entirely rejected Matthew's account, which the author of this
+theory, being a clergyman, can scarcely have done.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> As, for instance, when he makes Homer say of the moon that
+</p>
+<p class="poem">
+Around her throne the vivid planets roll,<br />
+And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole.<br />
+</p>
+<p>It is difficult, indeed, to understand how so thorough an astronomer as
+the late Admiral Smyth could have called the passage in which these
+lines occur one of the finest bursts of poetry in our language, except
+on the principle cleverly cited by Waller when Charles II. upbraided him
+for the warmth of his panegyric on Cromwell, that 'poets succeed better
+with fiction than with truth.' Macaulay, though not an astronomer,
+speaks more justly of the passage in saying that this single passage
+contains more inaccuracies than can be found in all Wordsworth's
+'Excursion.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> It may be necessary to throw in here a few words of
+explanation, lest the non-astronomical reader should run away with the
+idea that the so-called exact science is a very inexact science indeed,
+so far as comets are concerned. The comet of 1680 was one of those which
+travel on a very eccentric orbit. Coming, indeed, from out depths many
+times more remote than the path even of the remotest planet, Neptune,
+this comet approached nearer to the sun than any which astronomers have
+ever seen, except only the comet of 1843. When at its nearest its
+nucleus was only a sixth part of the sun's diameter from his surface.
+Thus the part of the comet's orbit along which astronomers traced its
+motion was only a small part at one end of an enormously long oval, and
+very slight errors of observation were sufficient to produce very large
+errors in the determination of the nature of the comet's orbit. Encke
+admitted that the period might, so far as the comparatively imperfect
+observations made in 1680 were concerned, be any whatever, from 805
+years to many millions of years, or even to infinity&mdash;that is, the comet
+might have a path not re-entering into itself, but carrying the comet
+for ever away from the sun after its one visit to our system.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> For a portion of the passages which I have quoted in this
+essay I am indebted to Guillemin's 'Treatise on Comets,' a useful
+contribution to the literature of the subject, though somewhat
+inadequate so far as exposition is concerned.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Something very similar happened only a few years ago, so
+that we cannot afford to laugh too freely at the terrors of France in
+1773. It was reported during the winter of 1871&ndash;1872, that Plantamour,
+the Swiss astronomer, had predicted the earth's destruction by a comet
+on August 12, 1872. Yet there was no other foundation for this rumour
+than the fact that Plantamour, in a lecture upon comets and meteors, had
+stated that the meteors seen on August 10, 11, and 12 are bodies
+following in the track of a comet whose orbit passes very near to the
+earth's. It was very certainly known to astronomers that there could be
+no present danger of a collision with this comet, for the comet has a
+period of at least 150 years, and had last passed close to the earth's
+orbit (not to the earth herself, be it understood) in 1862. But it was
+useless to point this out. Many people insisted on believing that on
+August 12, 1872, the earth would come into collision, possibly
+disastrous, with a mighty comet, which Plantamour was said to have
+detected and to have shown by a profound calculation to be rushing
+directly upon our unfortunate earth.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> A rather amusing mistake was made by the stenographers of
+a New York paper in reporting the above sentence, which I happened to
+quote in a lecture upon Comets and Meteors. Instead of Paradise they
+wrote Paris. Those acquainted with Pitman's system of short-hand, the
+one most commonly employed by reporters, will easily understand how the
+mistake was made, the marks made to represent the consonants p, r, d,
+and s differing little from those made to represent the consonants p, r,
+and s (the 'd' or 't' sound is represented, or may be represented, by
+simply shortening the length of the sign for the preceding consonant).
+The mistake led naturally to my remarking in my next lecture that I had
+not before known how thoroughly synonymous the words are in America,
+though I had heard it said that 'Good Americans, when they die, go to
+Paris.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> On the occasion of my first visit to America, in 1873, I
+for the first time succeeded in obtaining a copy of this curious
+pamphlet. It had been mentioned to me (by Emerson, I think) as an
+amusing piece of trickery played off by a scientific man on his
+brethren; and Dr. Wendell Holmes, who was present, remarked that he had
+a copy in his possession. This he was good enough to lend me. Soon
+after, a valued friend in New York presented me with a copy.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> This Locke must not be confounded with Richard Lock, the
+circle-squarer and general paradoxist, who flourished a century
+earlier.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> The nurses' tale is, that the man was sent to the moon by
+Moses for gathering sticks on the Sabbath, and they refer to the
+cheerful story in Numbers xv. 32&ndash;36. According to German nurses the day
+was not the Sabbath, but Sunday. Their tale runs as follows: 'Ages ago
+there went one Sunday an old man into the woods to hew sticks. He cut a
+faggot and slung it on a stout staff, cast it over his shoulder, and
+began to trudge home with his burthen. On his way he met a handsome man
+in Sunday suit, walking towards the church. The man stopped, and asked
+the faggot-bearer; "Do you know that this is Sunday on earth, when all
+must rest from their labours?" "Sunday on earth or Monday in heaven,
+it's all one to me?" laughed the wood-cutter. "Then bear your bundle for
+ever!" answered the stranger. "And as you value not Sunday on earth,
+yours shall be a perpetual Moon-day in heaven; you shall stand for
+eternity in the moon, a warning to all Sabbath-breakers." Thereupon the
+stranger vanished; and the man was caught up with his staff and faggot
+into the moon, where he stands yet.' According to some narrators the
+stranger was Christ; but whether from German laxity in such matters or
+for some other reason, no text is quoted in evidence, as by the more
+orthodox British nurses. Luke vi. 1&ndash;5 might serve.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Milton's opinion may be quoted against me here; and as
+received ideas respecting angels, good and bad, the fall of man, and
+many other such matters, are due quite as much to Milton as to any other
+authority, his opinion must not be lightly disregarded. But though, when
+Milton's Satan 'meets a vast vacuity' where his wings are of no further
+service to him,
+</p>
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 15em;">'All unawares</span><br />
+Flutt'ring his pennons vain, plumb down he drops<br />
+Ten thousand fathoms deep, and to this hour<br />
+Down had been falling, had not by ill chance<br />
+The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud,<br />
+Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him<br />
+As many miles aloft,'<br />
+</p>
+<p>yet this was written nearly a quarter of a century before Newton had
+established the law of gravity. Moreover, there is no evidence to show
+in what direction Satan fell; 'above is below and below above,' says
+Richter, 'to one stripped of gravitating body;' and whether Satan was
+under the influence of gravity or not, he would be practically exempt
+from its action when in the midst of that 'dark, illimitable ocean' of
+space,
+</p>
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 16em;">'Without bound,</span><br />
+Without dimensions, where length, breadth, and height,<br />
+And time and place are lost.'<br />
+</p>
+<p>His lighting 'on Niphates' top,' and overleaping the gate of Paradise,
+may be used as arguments either way. On the whole, I must (according to
+my present lights) claim for Satan a freedom from all scientific
+restraints. This freedom is exemplified by his showing all the kingdoms
+of the world from an exceeding high mountain, thus affording the first
+practical demonstration of the flat-earth theory, the maintenance of
+which led to poor Mr. Hampden's incarceration.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> The <i>Sun</i> itself claimed to have established the veracity
+of the account in a manner strongly recalling a well-known argument used
+by orthodox believers in the Bible account of the cosmogony. Either, say
+these, Moses discovered how the world was made, or the facts were
+revealed to him by some one who had made the discovery: but Moses could
+not have made the discovery, knowing nothing of the higher departments
+of science; therefore, the account came from the only Being who could
+rationally be supposed to know anything about the beginning of the
+world. 'Either,' said the <i>New York Sun</i>, speaking of a mathematical
+problem discussed in the article, 'that problem was predicated by us or
+some other person, who has thereby made the greatest of all modern
+discoveries in mathematical astronomy. We did not make it, for we know
+nothing of mathematics whatever; therefore, it was made by the only
+person to whom it can rationally be ascribed, namely Herschel the
+astronomer, its only avowed and undeniable author.' In reality,
+notwithstanding this convincing argument, the problem was stolen by
+Locke from a paper by Olbers, shortly before published, and gave the
+method followed by Beer and M&auml;dler throughout their selenographical
+researches in 1833&ndash;37.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> I had at the same time the good fortune to satisfy in
+equal degree, though quite unexpectedly, an English student of the sun,
+who at that time bore me no great good-will. Something in the article
+chanced to suggest that it came from another, presumably a rival, hand;
+while an essay which appeared about the same time (the spring of 1872)
+was commonly but erroneously attributed to me. Accordingly, a leading
+article in <i>Nature</i> was devoted to the annihilation of the writer
+supposed to be myself, and to the lavish and quite undeserved laudation
+of the article I had written, which was selected as typifying all the
+good qualities which an article of the kind should possess. Those
+acquainted with the facts were not a little amused by the mistake.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> The Astronomer-Royal once told me that he had found that
+few persons have a clear conception of the fact that the stars rise and
+set. Still fewer know how the stars move, which stars rise and set,
+which are always above the horizon, which move on large circles, which
+on small ones; though a few hours' observation on half-a-dozen nights in
+the year (such observations being continuous, but made only at hourly
+intervals) would show dearly how the stars move. It is odd to find even
+some who write about astronomy making mistakes on matters so elementary.
+For instance, in a primer of astronomy recently published, it is stated
+that the stars which pass overhead in London rise and set on a
+slant&mdash;the real fact being that <i>those</i> stars never rise or set at all,
+never coming within some two dozen moon-breadths of the horizon.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> In passing let me note that, of course, I am not
+discussing the arguments of paradoxists with the remotest idea of
+disproving them. They are not, in reality, worth the trouble. But they
+show where the general reader of astronomical text-books, and other such
+works, is likely to go astray, and thus conveniently indicate matters
+whose explanation may be useful or interesting.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Sterne anticipated this paradoxist in (jestingly)
+attributing glassiness to an inferior planet. He made the inhabitants,
+however, not the air, glassy. 'The intense heat of the country,' he
+says, speaking of the planet Mercury, 'must, I think, long ago have
+vitrified the bodies of the inhabitants to suit them for the climate; so
+that all the tenements of their souls may be nothing else, for aught the
+soundest philosophy can show to the contrary, but one fine transparent
+body of clear glass; so that till the inhabitant grows old and tolerably
+wrinkled, whereby the rays of light become monstrously refracted, or
+return reflected from the surface, etc., his soul might as well play the
+fool out o' doors as in her own house.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> It will be seen from Table X. of my treatise on Saturn
+that the ring disappeared on December 12, remaining invisible (because
+turning its dark side earthwards) till the spring of 1613. But on
+December 4, the ring must have been quite invisible in a telescope so
+feeble as Galileo's. The ring then would have been little more than a
+fine line of light as seen with one of our powerful modern telescopes.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> <i>North British Review</i> for August 1860.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> He had, indeed, at an earlier stage, shown a marvellous
+ignorance of astronomy by the remark, which doubtless appeared to him a
+safe one, that when he saw a planet on the sun in September he supposed
+it was Mercury; a September transit of Mercury being as impossible as an
+eclipse of the sun during the moon's third quarter.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> It is, by the way, somewhat amusing to find Baron Humboldt
+referring a question of this sort to the great mathematician Gauss, and
+describing the problem as though it involved the most profound
+calculations. Ten minutes should suffice to deal with any problem of the
+kind.</p></div>
+</div>
+<hr />
+<div class="tn">
+<p class="center"><a name="trans_note" id="trans_note"></a><big><b>Transcriber&rsquo;s&nbsp;Note</b></big></p>
+
+<p class="center">The following typographical errors were corrected.</p>
+
+<table style="margin-left: 20%;" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" summary="typos">
+<tr>
+  <td><b>Page</b></td>
+
+  <td><b>Error</b></td>
+  <td><b>Correction</b></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#corr1">4</a></td>
+  <td>Julias</td>
+  <td>Julius</td>
+
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#corr2">35</a></td>
+  <td>genuis</td>
+  <td>genius</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#corr3">36</a></td>
+  <td>artficers</td>
+  <td>artificers</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#corr4">37</a></td>
+  <td>signfies</td>
+  <td>signifies</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#corr5">footnote 14</a></td>
+  <td>preplexing</td>
+  <td>perplexing</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#corr6">45</a></td>
+  <td>Chaldean</td>
+  <td>Chald&aelig;an</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#corr7">46</a></td>
+  <td>Chaldeans</td>
+  <td>Chald&aelig;ans</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#corr8">225</a></td>
+  <td>peruquier</td>
+  <td>perruquier</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#corr9">237</a></td>
+  <td>peruque</td>
+  <td>perruque</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#corr10">281</a></td>
+  <td>Northfolk</td>
+  <td>Norfolk</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#corr11">350</a></td>
+  <td>ascant</td>
+  <td>askant</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Myths and Marvels of Astronomy, by 
+Richard A. Proctor
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+Project Gutenberg's Myths and Marvels of Astronomy, by Richard A. Proctor
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Myths and Marvels of Astronomy
+
+Author: Richard A. Proctor
+
+Release Date: September 8, 2008 [EBook #26556]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYTHS AND MARVELS OF ASTRONOMY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brenda Lewis, Scott Marusak, Greg Bergquist
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  Transcriber's Note
+
+  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A list of corrections
+  is found at the end of the text.
+
+[Illustration: LILLY'S HIEROGLYPHS (PUBLISHED IN 1651)]
+
+
+
+
+  MYTHS AND MARVELS
+  OF ASTRONOMY
+
+  BY
+  RICHARD A. PROCTOR
+
+  AUTHOR OF
+
+  "ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH," "THE EXPANSE OF HEAVEN," "OUR PLACE
+  AMONG INFINITIES," "PLEASANT WAYS IN SCIENCE,"
+  ETC., ETC.
+
+  _NEW EDITION_
+
+  LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
+  LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY
+  1896
+
+
+
+
+  _Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO
+
+  _At the Ballantyne Press_
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The chief charm of Astronomy, with many, does not reside in the wonders
+revealed to us by the science, but in the lore and legends connected
+with its history, the strange fancies with which in old times it has
+been associated, the half-forgotten myths to which it has given birth.
+In our own times also, Astronomy has had its myths and fancies, its wild
+inventions, and startling paradoxes. My object in the present series of
+papers has been to collect together the most interesting of these old
+and new Astronomical myths, associating with them, in due proportion,
+some of the chief marvels which recent Astronomy has revealed to us. To
+the former class belong the subjects of the first four and the last five
+essays of the present series, while the remaining essays belong to the
+latter category.
+
+Throughout I have endeavoured to avoid technical expressions on the one
+hand, and ambiguous phraseology (sometimes resulting from the attempt
+to avoid technicality) on the other. I have, in fact, sought to present
+my subjects as I should wish to have matters outside the range of my
+special branch of study presented for my own reading.
+
+  RICHARD A. PROCTOR.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                   PAGE
+
+  I. ASTROLOGY                                        1
+
+  II. THE RELIGION OF THE GREAT PYRAMID              53
+
+  III. THE MYSTERY OF THE PYRAMIDS                   78
+
+  IV. SWEDENBORG'S VISIONS OF OTHER WORLDS          106
+
+  V. OTHER WORLDS AND OTHER UNIVERSES               135
+
+  VI. SUNS IN FLAMES                                160
+
+  VII. THE RINGS OF SATURN                          191
+
+  VIII. COMETS AS PORTENTS                          212
+
+  IX. THE LUNAR HOAX                                242
+
+  X. ON SOME ASTRONOMICAL PARADOXES                 268
+
+  XI. ON SOME ASTRONOMICAL MYTHS                    299
+
+  XII. THE ORIGIN OF THE CONSTELLATION-FIGURES      332
+
+
+
+
+MYTHS AND MARVELS
+
+OF
+
+ASTRONOMY
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+_ASTROLOGY._
+
+     Signs and planets, in aspects sextile, quartile, trine, conjoined,
+     or opposite; houses of heaven, with their cusps, hours, and
+     minutes; Almuten, Almochoden, Anahibazon, Catahibazon; a thousand
+     terms of equal sound and significance.--_Guy Mannering._
+
+  ... Come and see! trust thine own eyes.
+  A fearful sign stands in the house of life,
+  An enemy: a fiend lurks close behind
+  The radiance of thy planet--oh! be warned!--COLERIDGE.
+
+
+Astrology possesses a real interest even in these days. It is true that
+no importance attaches now even to the discussion of the considerations
+which led to the rejection of judicial astrology. None but the most
+ignorant, and therefore superstitious, believe at present in divination
+of any sort or kind whatsoever. Divination by the stars holds no higher
+position than palmistry, fortune-telling by cards, or the indications of
+the future which foolish persons find in dreams, tea-dregs,
+salt-spilling, and other absurdities. But there are two reasons which
+render the history of astrology interesting. In the first place, faith
+in stellar influences was once so widespread that astrological
+terminology came to form a part of ordinary language, insomuch that it
+is impossible rightly to understand many passages of ancient and
+mediaeval literature, or rightly to apprehend the force of many allusions
+and expressions, unless the significance of astrological teachings to
+the men of those times be recognised. In the second place, it is
+interesting to examine how the erroneous teachings of astrology were
+gradually abandoned, to note the way in which various orders of mind
+rejected these false doctrines or struggled to retain them, and to
+perceive how, with a large proportion of even the most civilised races,
+the superstitions of judicial astrology were long retained, or are
+retained even to this very day. The world has still to see some
+superstitions destroyed which are as widely received as astrology ever
+was, and which will probably retain their influence over many minds long
+after the reasoning portion of the community have rejected them.
+
+Even so far back as the time of Eudoxus the pretensions of astrologers
+were rejected, as Cicero informs us ('De Div.' ii. 42). And though the
+Romans were strangely superstitious in such matters, Cicero reasons with
+excellent judgment against the belief in astrology. Gassendi quotes the
+argument drawn by Cicero against astrology, from the predictions of the
+Chaldaeans that Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey would die 'in a full old age,
+in their own houses, in peace and honour,' whose deaths, nevertheless,
+were 'violent, immature, and tragical.' Cicero also used an argument
+whose full force has only been recognised in modern times. 'What
+contagion,' he asked, 'can reach us from the planets, whose distance is
+almost infinite?' It is singular that Seneca, who was well acquainted
+with the uniform character of the planetary motions, seems to have
+entertained no doubt respecting their influence. Tacitus expresses some
+doubts, but was on the whole inclined to believe in astrology.
+'Certainly,' he says, 'the majority of mankind cannot be weaned from the
+opinion that at the birth of each man his future destiny is fixed;
+though some things may fall out differently from the predictions, by the
+ignorance of those who profess the art; and thus the art is unjustly
+blamed, confirmed as it is by noted examples in all ages.'[1]
+
+Probably, the doubt suggested by the different fortunes and characters
+of men born at the same time must have occurred to many before Cicero
+dwelt upon it. Pliny, who followed Cicero in this, does not employ the
+argument quite correctly, for he says that, 'in every hour, in every
+part of the world, are born lords and slaves, kings and beggars.' But of
+course, according to astrological principles, it would be necessary that
+two persons, whose fortunes were to be alike, should be born, not only
+in the same hour, but in the same place. The fortunes and character of
+Jacob and Esau, however, should manifestly have been similar, which was
+certainly not the case, if their history has been correctly handed down
+to us. An astrologer of the time of Julius Caesar, named Publius Nigidius
+Figulus, used a singular argument against such reasoning. When an
+opponent urged the different fortunes of men born nearly at the same
+instant, Nigidius asked him to make two contiguous marks on a potter's
+wheel which was revolving rapidly. When the wheel was stopped, the two
+marks were found to be far apart. Nigidius is said to have received the
+name of Figulus (the potter), in remembrance of the story; but more
+probably he was a potter by trade, and an astrologer only during those
+leisure hours which he could devote to charlatanry. St. Augustine, who
+relates the story (which I borrow from Whewell's 'History of the
+Inductive Sciences'), says, justly, that the argument of Nigidius was as
+fragile as the ware made on the potter's wheel.
+
+The belief must have been all but universal in those days that at the
+birth of any person who was to hold an important place in the world's
+history the stars would either be ominously conjoined, or else some
+blazing comet or new star would make its appearance. For we know that
+some such object having appeared, or some unusual conjunction of planets
+having occurred, near enough to the time of Christ's birth to be
+associated in men's minds with that event, it came eventually to be
+regarded as belonging to his horoscope, and as actually indicating to
+the Wise Men of the East (Chaldaean astrologers, doubtless) the future
+greatness of the child then born. It is certain that that is what the
+story of the Star in the East means as it stands. Theologians differ as
+to its interpretation in points of detail. Some think the phenomenon was
+meteoric, others that a comet then made its appearance, others that a
+new star shone out, and others that the account referred to a
+conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, which occurred at about that
+time. As a matter of detail it may be mentioned, that none of these
+explanations in the slightest degree corresponds with the account, for
+neither meteor, nor comet, nor new star, nor conjoined planets, would go
+before travellers from the east, to show them their way to any place.
+Yet the ancients sometimes regarded comets as guides. Whichever view we
+accept, it is abundantly clear that an astrological significance was
+attached by the narrator to the event. And not so very long ago, when
+astrologers first began to see that their occupation was passing from
+them, the Wise Men of the East were appealed to against the enemies of
+astrology,[2]--very much as Moses was appealed to against Copernicus
+and Galileo, and more recently to protect us against certain
+relationships which Darwin, Wallace, and Huxley unkindly indicate for
+the human race divine.
+
+Although astronomers now reject altogether the doctrines of judicial
+astrology, it is impossible for the true lover of that science to regard
+astrology altogether with contempt. Astronomy, indeed, owes much more to
+the notions of believers in astrology than is commonly supposed.
+Astrology bears the same relation to modern astronomy that alchemy bears
+to modern chemistry. As it is probable that nothing but the hope of
+gain, literally in this case _auri sacra fames_, would have led to those
+laborious researches of the alchemists which first taught men how to
+analyse matter into its elementary constituents, and afterwards to
+combine these constituents afresh into new forms, so the belief that, by
+carefully studying the stars, men might acquire the power of predicting
+future events, first directed attention to the movements of the
+celestial bodies. Kepler's saying, that astrology, though a fool, was
+the daughter of a wise mother,[3] does not by any means present truly
+the relationship between astrology and astronomy. Rather we may say that
+astrology and alchemy, though foolish mothers, gave birth to those wise
+daughters, astronomy and chemistry. Even this way of speaking scarcely
+does justice to the astrologers and alchemists of old times. Their views
+appear foolish in the light of modern scientific knowledge, but they
+were not foolish in relation to what was known when they were
+entertained. Modern analysis goes far to demonstrate the immutability,
+and, consequently, the non-transmutability of the metals, though it is
+by no means so certain as many suppose that the present position of the
+metals in the list of _elements_ is really correct. Certainly a chemist
+of our day would be thought very unwise who should undertake a series of
+researches with the object of discovering a mineral having such
+qualities as the alchemists attributed to the philosopher's stone. But
+when as yet the facts on which the science of chemistry is based were
+unknown, there was nothing unreasonable in supposing that such a mineral
+might exist, or the means of compounding it be discovered. Nay, many
+arguments from analogy might be urged to show that the supposition was
+altogether probable. In like manner, though the known facts of astronomy
+oppose themselves irresistibly to any belief in planetary influences
+upon the fates of men and nations, yet before those facts were
+discovered it was not only not unreasonable, but was in fact, highly
+reasonable to believe in such influences, or at least that the sun, and
+moon, and stars moved in the heavens in such sort as to indicate what
+would happen. If the wise men of old times rejected the belief that 'the
+stars in their courses fought' for or against men, they yet could not
+very readily abandon the belief that the stars were for signs in the
+heavens of what was to befall mankind.
+
+If we consider the reasoning now commonly thought valid in favour of the
+doctrine that other orbs besides our earth are inhabited, and compare it
+with the reasoning on which judicial astrology was based, we shall not
+find much to choose between the two, so far as logical weight is
+concerned. Because the only member of the solar system which we can
+examine closely is inhabited, astronomers infer a certain degree of
+probability for the belief that the other planets of the system are also
+inhabited. And because the only sun we know much about is the centre of
+a system of planets, astronomers infer that probably the stars, those
+other suns which people space, are also the centres of systems; although
+no telescope which man can make would show the members of a system like
+ours, attending on even the nearest of all the stars. The astrologer had
+a similar argument for his belief. The moon, as she circles around the
+earth, exerts a manifest influence upon terrestrial matter--the tidal
+wave rising and sinking synchronously with the movements of the moon,
+and other consequences depending directly or indirectly upon her
+revolution around the earth. The sun's influence is still more manifest;
+and, though it may have required the genius of a Herschel or of a
+Stephenson to perceive that almost every form of terrestrial energy is
+derived from the sun, yet it must have been manifest from the very
+earliest times that the greater light which rules the day rules the
+seasons also, and, in ruling them, provides the annual supplies of
+vegetable food, on which the very existence of men and animals depends.
+If these two bodies, the sun and moon, are thus potent, must it not be
+supposed, reasoned the astronomers of old, that the other celestial
+bodies exert corresponding influences? _We_ know, but they did not know,
+that the moon rules the tides effectually because she is near to us, and
+that the sun is second only to the moon in tidal influence because of
+his enormous mass and attractive energy. We know also that his position
+as fire, light, and life of the earth and its inhabitants, is due
+directly to the tremendous heat with which the whole of his mighty
+frame is instinct. Not knowing this, the astronomers of old times had no
+sufficient reason for distinguishing the sun and moon from the other
+celestial bodies, so far at least as the general question of celestial
+influences was concerned.
+
+So far as particulars were concerned, it was not altogether so clear to
+them as it is to us, that the influence of the sun must be paramount in
+all respects save tidal action, and that of the moon second only to the
+sun's in other respects, and superior to his in tidal sway alone. Many
+writers on the subject of life in other worlds are prepared to show (as
+Brewster attempts to do, for example) that Jupiter and Saturn are far
+nobler worlds than the earth, because superior in this or that
+circumstance. So the ancient astronomers, in their ignorance of the
+actual conditions on which celestial influences depend, found abundant
+reasons for regarding the feeble influences exerted by Saturn, Jupiter,
+and Mars, as really more potent than those exerted by the sun himself
+upon the earth. They reasoned, as Milton afterwards made Raphael reason,
+that 'great or bright infers not excellence,' that Saturn or Jupiter,
+though 'in comparison so small, nor glist'ring' to like degree, may yet
+'of solid good contain more plenty than the sun.' Supposing the
+influence of a celestial body to depend on the magnitude of its sphere,
+in the sense of the old astronomy (according to which each planet had
+its proper sphere, around the earth as centre), then the influence of
+the sun would be judged to be inferior to that of either Saturn,
+Jupiter, or Mars; while the influences of Venus and Mercury, though
+inferior to the influence of the sun, would still be held superior to
+that of the moon. For the ancients measured the spheres of the seven
+planets of their system by the periods of the apparent revolution of
+those bodies around the celestial dome, and so set the sphere of the
+moon innermost, enclosed by the sphere of Mercury, around which in turn
+was the sphere of Venus, next the sun's, then, in order, those of Mars,
+Jupiter, and Saturn. We can readily understand how they might come to
+regard the slow motions of the sphere of Saturn and Jupiter, taking
+respectively some thirty and twelve years to complete a revolution, as
+indicating power superior to the sun's, whose sphere seemed to revolve
+once in a single year. Many other considerations might have been urged,
+before the Copernican theory was established, to show that, possibly,
+some of the planets exert influences more effective than those of the
+sun and moon.
+
+It is, indeed, clear that the first real shock sustained by astrology
+came from the arguments of Copernicus. So long as the earth was regarded
+as the centre round which all the celestial bodies move, it was hopeless
+to attempt to shake men's faith in the influences of the stars. So far
+as I know, there is not a single instance of a believer in the old
+Ptolemaic system who rejected astrology absolutely. The views of
+Bacon--the last of any note who opposed the system of
+Copernicus[4]--indicate the extreme limits to which a Ptolemaist could
+go in opposition to astrology. It may be worth while to quote Bacon's
+opinion in this place, because it indicates at once very accurately the
+position held by believers in astrology in his day, and the influence
+which the belief in a central fixed earth could not fail to exert on the
+minds of even the most philosophical reasoners.
+
+'Astrology,' he begins, 'is so full of superstition that scarce anything
+sound can be discovered in it; though we judge it should rather be
+purged than absolutely rejected. Yet if any one shall pretend that this
+science is founded not in reason and physical contemplations, but in the
+direct experience and observation of past ages, and therefore not to be
+examined by physical reasons, as the Chaldaeans boasted, he may at the
+same time bring back divination, auguries, soothsaying, and give in to
+all kinds of fables; for these also were said to descend from long
+experience. But we receive astrology as a part of physics, without
+attributing more to it than reason and the evidence of things allow, and
+strip it of its superstition and conceits. Thus we banish that empty
+notion about the horary reign of the planets, as if each resumed the
+throne thrice in twenty-four hours, so as to leave three hours
+supernumerary; and yet this fiction produced the division of the
+week,[5] a thing so ancient and so universally received. Thus likewise
+we reject as an idle figment the doctrine of horoscopes, and the
+distribution of the houses, though these are the darling inventions of
+astrology, which have kept revel, as it were, in the heavens. And
+lastly, for the calculation of nativities, fortunes, good or bad hours
+of business, and the like fatalities, they are mere levities, that have
+little in them of certainty and solidity, and may be plainly confuted by
+physical reasons. But here we judge it proper to lay down some rules for
+the examination of astrological matters, in order to retain what is
+useful therein, and reject what is insignificant. Thus, 1. Let the
+greater revolutions be retained, but the lesser, of horoscopes and
+houses, be rejected--the former being like ordnance which shoot to a
+great distance, whilst the other are but like small bows, that do no
+execution. 2. The celestial operations affect not all kinds of bodies,
+but only the more sensible, as humours, air, and spirits. 3. All the
+celestial operations rather extend to masses of things than to
+individuals, though they may obliquely reach some individuals also which
+are more sensible than the rest, as a pestilent constitution of the air
+affects those bodies which are least able to resist it. 4. All the
+celestial operations produce not their effects instantaneously, and in a
+narrow compass, but exert them in large portions of time and space. Thus
+predictions as to the temperature of a year may hold good, but not with
+regard to single days. 5. There is no fatal necessity in the stars; and
+this the more prudent astrologers have constantly allowed. 6. We will
+add one thing more, which, if amended and improved, might make for
+astrology--viz. that we are certain the celestial bodies have other
+influences besides heat and light, but these influences act not
+otherwise than by the foregoing rules, though they lie so deep in
+physics as to require a fuller explanation. So that, upon the whole, we
+must register as needed,[6] an astrology written in conformity with
+these principles, under the name of _Astrologia Sana_.'
+
+He then proceeds to show what this just astrology should comprehend--as,
+1, the doctrine of the commixture of rays; 2, the effect of nearest
+approaches and farthest removes of planets to and from the point
+overhead (the planets, like the sun, having their summer and winter); 3,
+the effects of distance, 'with a proper enquiry into what the vigour of
+the planets may perform of itself, and what through their nearness to
+us; for,' he adds, but unfortunately without assigning any reason for
+the statement, 'a planet is more brisk when most remote, but more
+communicative when nearest;' 4, the other accidents of the planet's
+motions as they pursue
+
+  Their wand'ring course, now high, now low, then hid,
+  Progressive, retrograde, or standing still;
+
+5, all that can be discovered of the general nature of the planets and
+fixed stars, considered in their own essence and activity; 6, lastly,
+let this just astrology, he says, 'contain, from tradition, the
+particular natures and alterations of the planets and fixed stars; for'
+(here is a reason indeed) 'as these are delivered with general consent,
+they are not lightly to be rejected, unless they directly contradict
+physical considerations. Of such observations let a just astrology be
+formed; and according to these alone should schemes of the heavens be
+made and interpreted.'
+
+The astrology thus regarded by Bacon as sane and just did not differ, as
+to its primary object, from the false systems which now seem to us so
+absurd. 'Let this astrology be used with greater confidence in
+prediction,' says Bacon, 'but more cautiously in election, and in both
+cases with due moderation. Thus predictions may be made of comets, and
+all kinds of meteors, inundations, droughts, heats, frosts, earthquakes,
+fiery eruptions, winds, great rains, the seasons of the year, plagues,
+epidemic diseases, plenty, famine, wars, seditions, sects,
+transmigrations of people, and all commotions, or great innovations of
+things, natural and civil. Predictions may possibly be made more
+particular, though with less certainty, if, when the general tendencies
+of the times are found, a good philosophical or political judgment
+applies them to such things as are most liable to accidents of this
+kind. For example, from a foreknowledge of the seasons of any year, they
+might be apprehended more destructive to olives than grapes, more
+hurtful in distempers of the lungs than the liver, more pernicious to
+the inhabitants of hills than valleys, and, for want of provisions, to
+monks than courtiers, etc. Or if any one, from a knowledge of the
+influence which the celestial bodies have upon the spirits of mankind,
+should find it would affect the people more than their rulers, learned
+and inquisitive men more than the military, etc. For there are
+innumerable things of this kind that require not only a general
+knowledge gained from the stars which are the agents, but also a
+particular one of the passive subjects. Nor are elections to be wholly
+rejected, though not so much to be trusted as predictions; for we find
+in planting, sowing, and grafting, observations of the moon are not
+absolutely trifling, and there are many particulars of this kind. But
+elections are more to be curbed by our rules than predictions; and this
+must always be remembered, that election only holds in such cases where
+the virtue of the heavenly bodies, and the action of the inferior bodies
+also, is not transient, as in the examples just mentioned; for the
+increases of the moon and planets are not sudden things. But punctuality
+of time should here be absolutely rejected. And perhaps there are more
+of these instances to be found in civil matters than some would
+imagine.'
+
+The method of inquiry suggested by Bacon as proper for determining the
+just rules of the astrology he advocated, was, as might be expected,
+chiefly inductive. There are, said he, 'but four ways of arriving at
+this science, viz.--1, by future experiments; 2, past experiments; 3,
+traditions; 4, physical reasons.' But he was not very hopeful as to the
+progress of the suggested researches. It is vain, he said, to think at
+present of future experiments, because many ages are required to procure
+a competent stock of them. As for the past, it is true that past
+experiments are within our reach, 'but it is a work of labour and much
+time to procure them. Thus astrologers may, if they please, draw from
+real history all greater accidents, as inundations, plagues, wars,
+seditions, deaths of kings, etc., as also the positions of the celestial
+bodies, not according to fictitious horoscopes, but the above-mentioned
+rules of their revolutions, or such as they really were at the time,
+and, when the event conspires, erect a probable rule of prediction.'
+Traditions would require to be carefully sifted, and those thrown out
+which manifestly clashed with physical considerations, leaving those in
+full force which complied with such considerations. Lastly, the physical
+reasons worthiest of being enquired into are those, said Bacon, 'which
+search into the universal appetites and passions of matter, and the
+simple genuine motions of the heavenly bodies.'
+
+It is evident there was much which, in our time at least, would be
+regarded as wild and fanciful in the 'sound and just astrology'
+advocated by Bacon. Yet, in passing, it may be noticed that even in our
+own time we have seen similar ideas promulgated, not by common
+astrologers and fortune-tellers (who, indeed, know nothing about such
+matters), but by persons supposed to be well-informed in matters
+scientific. In a roundabout way, a new astrology has been suggested,
+which is not at all unlike Bacon's 'astrologia sana,' though not based,
+as he proposed that astrology should be, on experiment, or tradition, or
+physical reasons. It has been suggested, first, that the seasons of our
+earth are affected by the condition of the sun in the matter of spots,
+and very striking evidence has been collected to show that this must be
+the case. For instance, it has been found that years when the sun has
+been free from spots have been warmer than the average; and it has also
+been found that such years have been cooler than the average: a
+double-shotted argument wholly irresistible, especially when it is also
+found that when the sun has many spots the weather has sometimes been
+exceptionally warm and sometimes exceptionally cold. If this be not
+considered sufficient, then note that in one country or continent or
+hemisphere the weather, when the sun is most spotted (or least, as the
+case may be), may be singularly hot, while in another country,
+continent, or hemisphere, the weather may be as singularly cold. So with
+wind and calm, rain and drought, and so forth. Always, whether the sun
+is very much spotted or quite free from spots, something unusual in the
+way of weather must be going on somewhere, demonstrating in the most
+significant way the influence of sun-spots or the want of sun-spots on
+the weather. It is true that captious minds might say that this method
+of reasoning proved too much in many ways, as, for example,
+thus--always, whether the sun is very much spotted or quite free from
+spots, some remarkable event, as a battle, massacre, domestic tragedy on
+a large scale, or the like, may be going on, demonstrating in the most
+significant way the influence of sun-spots or the want of sun-spots on
+the passions of men--which sounds absurd. But the answer is twofold.
+First, such reasoning is captious, and secondly, it is not certain that
+sun-spots, or the want of them, may not influence human passions; it may
+be worth while to enquire into this possible solar influence as well as
+the other, which can be done by crossing the hands of the new
+fortune-tellers with a sufficient amount of that precious metal which
+astrologers have in all ages dedicated to the sun.
+
+That the new system of divination is not solely solar, but partly
+planetary also, is seen when we remember that the sun-spots wax and wane
+in periods of time which are manifestly referable to the planetary
+motions. Thus, the great solar spot-period lasts about eleven years, the
+successive spotless epochs being separated on the average by about that
+time; and so nearly does this period agree with the period of the planet
+Jupiter's revolution around the sun, that during eight consecutive
+spot-periods the spots were most numerous when Jupiter was farthest from
+the sun, and it is only by going back to the periods preceding these
+eight that we find a time when the reverse happened, the spots being
+most numerous when Jupiter was nearest to the sun. So with various other
+periods which the ingenuity of Messrs. De la Rue and Balfour Stewart has
+detected, and which, under the closest scrutiny, exhibit almost exact
+agreement for many successive periods, preceded and followed by almost
+exact disagreement. Here, again, the captious may argue that such
+alternate agreements and disagreements may be noted in every case where
+two periods are not very unequal, whether there be any connection
+between them or not; but much more frequently when there is no
+connection: and that the only evidence really proving a connection
+between planetary motions and the solar spots would be constant
+agreement between solar spot periods and particular planetary periods.
+But the progress of science, and especially the possible erection of a
+new observatory for finding out ('for a consideration') how sun-spots
+affect the weather, etc., ought not to be interfered with by captious
+reasoners in this objectionable manner. Nor need any other answer be
+given them. Seeing, then, that sun-spots manifestly affect the weather
+and the seasons, while the planets rule the sun-spots, it is clear that
+the planets really rule the seasons. And again, seeing that the planets
+rule the seasons, while the seasons largely affect the well-being of men
+and nations (to say nothing of animals), it follows that the planets
+influence the fates of men and nations (and animals). _Quod erat
+demonstrandum._
+
+Let us return, however, to the more reasonable astrology of the
+ancients, and enquire into some of the traditions which Bacon considered
+worthy of attention in framing the precepts of a sound and just
+astrology.
+
+It was natural that the astrologers of old should regard the planetary
+influences as depending in the main on the position of the celestial
+bodies on the sky above the person or place whose fortunes were in
+question. Thus two men at the same moment in Rome and in Persia would by
+no means have the same horoscope cast for their nativities, so that
+their fortunes, according to the principles of judicial astrology, would
+be quite different. In fact it might happen that two men, born at the
+same instant of time, would have all the principal circumstances of
+their lives contrasted--planets riding high in the heavens of one being
+below the horizon of the other, and _vice versa_.
+
+The celestial sphere placed as at the moment of the native's birth was
+divided into twelve parts by great circles supposed to pass through the
+point overhead, and its opposite, the point vertically beneath the feet.
+These twelve divisions were called 'houses.'
+
+Their position is illustrated in the following figure, taken from
+Raphael's Astrology.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  Particular Significations
+  OF THE
+  _Twelve Celestial Houses_,
+  According to various
+  Astrological Authors.
+
+  Sun-rise.
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Ascendant_.
+
+  LIFE
+  and
+  HEALTH
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Second House_.
+
+  RICHES
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Third House_.
+
+  KINDRED
+  and
+  SHORT JOURNEYS
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Fourth House_.
+
+  INHERITANCES
+
+  Mid-night.
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Fifth House_.
+
+  CHILDREN
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Sixth House_.
+
+  SICKNESS
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Seventh House_.
+
+  MARRIAGE
+
+  Sun-set.
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Eighth House_.
+
+  DEATH
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Ninth House_.
+
+  LONG JOURNEYS
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Mid-heaven_.
+
+  HONOR
+
+  Noon-day.
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Eleventh House_.
+
+  FRIENDS
+
+  Cusp of the
+  _Twelfth House_.
+
+  ENEMIES
+
+]
+
+The first, called the Ascendant House, was the portion rising above the
+horizon at the east. It was regarded as the House of Life, the planets
+located therein at the moment of birth having most potent influence on
+the life and destiny of the native. Such planets were said to rule the
+ascendant, being in the ascending house; and it is from this usage that
+our familiar expression that such and such an influence is 'in the
+ascendant' is derived. The next house was the House of Riches, and was
+one-third of the way from the east below the horizon towards the place
+of the sun at midnight. The third was the House of Kindred, short
+journeys, letters, messages, etc. It was two-thirds of the way towards
+the place of the midnight sun. The fourth was the House of Parents, and
+was the house which the sun reached at midnight. The fifth was the House
+of Children and Women, also of all sorts of amusements, theatres,
+banquets, and merry-making. The sixth was the House of Sickness. The
+seventh was the House of Love and Marriage. These three houses (the
+fifth, sixth, and seventh) followed in order from the fourth, so as to
+correspond to the part of the sun's path below the horizon, between his
+place at midnight and his place when descending in the west. The
+seventh, opposite to the first, was the Descendant. The eighth house was
+the first house above the horizon, lying to the west, and was the House
+of Death. The ninth house, next to the mid-heaven on the west, was the
+House of Religion, science, learning, books, and long voyages. The
+tenth, which was in the mid-heaven, or region occupied by the sun at
+midday, was the House of Honour, denoting credit, renown, profession or
+calling, trade, preferment, etc. The eleventh house, next to the
+mid-heaven on the east, was the House of Friends. Lastly, the twelfth
+house was the House of Enemies.
+
+The houses were not all of equal potency. The _angular_ houses, which
+are the first, the fourth, the seventh, and the tenth--lying east,
+north, west, and south--were first in power, whether for good or evil.
+The second, fifth, eighth, and eleventh houses were called _succedents_,
+as following the angular houses, and next to them in power. The
+remaining four houses--viz. the third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth
+houses--were called _cadents_, and were regarded as weakest in
+influence. The houses were regarded as alternately masculine and
+feminine: the first, third, fifth, etc., being masculine; while the
+second, fourth, sixth, etc., were feminine.
+
+The more particular significations of the various houses are shown in
+the accompanying figure from the same book.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  A
+  CELESTIAL DIAGRAM
+  representing at one view the
+  various symbolical significations
+  of the
+  _Twelve Heavenly Houses_;
+  according to ancient manuscript
+  writers of the twelfth century;
+  _and not to be found in Authors_.
+
+  Brethren
+  of
+  friends, fathers
+  of kings, sickness of
+  public enemies, wives of
+  enemies, death of servants,
+  long journeys of children, friends
+  of brethren, thoughts of the asker.
+
+  The end of youth, brethren of private
+  enemies, fathers and grandsires of
+  friends, king's sons, enemies
+  of wives, magistery of
+  children, private
+  enemies of
+  brethren.
+
+  Sects,
+  dreams,
+  churches, fathers
+  of private enemies, sons
+  of friends, sickness of kings,
+  enemies of the religious, trade of
+  servants, private enemies of fathers.
+
+  Dead men's goods, castles, treasure hid,
+  the fate of the corpse in the grave,
+  money of brethren, children
+  of private enemies, sickness
+  of friends, king's
+  enemies, friends
+  of servants.
+
+  Cards,
+  dice, brethren's
+  brethren, father's money,
+  sickness of private enemies,
+  enemies of friends, death of kings,
+  friends of enemies, enemies of servants.
+
+  Vassals, children's money, brethren's
+  fathers, father's brethren, enemies'
+  enemies, death of friends,
+  journeys and religion of
+  kings, lay dignities,
+  enemies of
+  wives.
+
+  Fines,
+  pleas, laws,
+  nuptials, death of
+  enemies, friends of brethren,
+  sons of friends, sisters
+  of brethren, death of enemies and
+  of great beasts, religion of friends.
+
+  Labour, sorrow, inheritance of the dead,
+  money of enemies, brethren of servants,
+  sickness of brethren,
+  dignity of friends, king's
+  friends, enemies
+  of religious
+  persons.
+
+  Prophets, prayers, visions, omens, divine
+  worship, wife's brethren, fathers of
+  servants, children's children,
+  sickness of fathers, enemies
+  of brethren,
+  friends of friends,
+  enemies of
+  kings.
+
+  Judges, brethren
+  of enemies,
+  servants, fathers of enemies,
+  children of servants,
+  sickness of sons, death of brethren,
+  friends of enemies, enemies of friends.
+
+  Knights, esquires, children of enemies,
+  sickness of servants, enemies
+  and wives of offspring,
+  death of fathers, journeys
+  of brethren, enemies
+  of enemies.
+
+  Envy, sorrow, guile, long hidden wrath,
+  money of friends, brethren of kings,
+  sickness of wives, servants'
+  enemies, death of children,
+  trade of brethren,
+  a prison.
+
+]
+
+It will be easily understood how these houses were dealt with in
+erecting a scheme of nativity. The position of the planets at the moment
+of the native's birth, in the several houses, determined his fortunes
+with regard to the various matters associated with these houses. Thus
+planets of good influence in the native's ascendant, or first house,
+signified generally a prosperous life; but if at the same epoch a planet
+of malefic influence was in the seventh house, then the native, though
+on the whole prosperous, would be unfortunate in marriage. A good planet
+in the tenth house signified good fortune and honour in office or
+business, and generally a prosperous career as distinguished from a
+happy life; but evil planets in the ninth house would suggest to the
+native caution in undertaking long voyages, or entering upon religious
+or scientific controversies.
+
+Similar considerations applied to questions relating to horary
+astronomy, in which the position of the planets in the various houses at
+some epoch guided the astrologer's opinion as to the fortune of that
+hour, either in the life of a man or the career of a State. In such
+inquiries, however, not only the position of the planets, etc., at the
+time had to be considered, but also the original horoscope of the
+person, or the special planets and signs associated with particular
+States. Thus if Jupiter, the most fortunate of all the planets, was in
+the ascendant, or in the House of Honour, at the time of the native's
+birth, and at some epoch this planet was ill-aspected or afflicted by
+other planets potent for evil in the native's horoscope, then that epoch
+would be a threatening one in the native's career.
+
+The sign Gemini was regarded by astrologers as especially associated
+with the fortunes of London, and accordingly they tell us that the great
+fire of London, the plague, the building of London Bridge, and other
+events interesting to London, all occurred when this sign was in the
+ascendant, or when special planets were in this sign.[7]
+
+The signs of the zodiac in the various houses were in the first place
+to be noted, because not only had these signs special powers in special
+houses, but the effects of the planets in particular houses varied
+according to the signs in which the planets were situated. If we were to
+follow the description given by the astrologers themselves, not much
+insight would be thrown upon the meaning of the zodiacal signs. For
+instance, astrologers say that Aries is a vernal, dry, fiery, masculine,
+cardinal, equinoctial, diurnal, movable, commanding, eastern, choleric,
+violent, and quadrupedalian sign. We may, however, infer generally from
+their accounts the influences which they assigned to the zodiacal signs.
+
+Aries is the house and joy of Mars, signifies a dry constitution, long
+face and neck, thick shoulders, swarthy complexion, and a hasty,
+passionate temper. It governs the head and face, and all diseases
+relating thereto. It reigns over England, France, Switzerland, Germany,
+Denmark, Lesser Poland, Syria, Naples, Capua, Verona, etc. It is a
+masculine sign, and is regarded as fortunate.
+
+Taurus gives to the native born under his auspices a stout athletic
+frame, broad bull-like forehead, dark curly hair, short neck, and so
+forth, and a dull apathetic temper, exceedingly cruel and malicious if
+once aroused. It governs the neck and throat, and reigns over Ireland,
+Great Poland, part of Russia, Holland, Persia, Asia Minor, the
+Archipelago, Mantua, Leipsic, etc. It is a feminine sign, and
+unfortunate.
+
+Gemini is the house of Mercury. The native of Gemini will have a
+sanguine complexion and tall, straight figure, dark eyes quick and
+piercing, brown hair, active ways, and will be of exceedingly ingenious
+intellect. It governs the arms and shoulders, and rules over the
+south-west parts of England, America, Flanders, Lombardy, Sardinia,
+Armenia, Lower Egypt, London, Versailles, Brabant, etc. It is a
+masculine sign, and fortunate.
+
+Cancer is the house of the Moon and exaltation of Jupiter, and its
+native will be of fair but pale complexion, round face, grey or mild
+blue eyes, weak voice, the upper part of the body large, slender arms,
+small feet, and an effeminate constitution. It governs the breast and
+the stomach, and reigns over Scotland, Holland, Zealand, Burgundy,
+Africa, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Constantinople, New York, etc. It is a
+feminine sign, and unfortunate.
+
+The native born under Leo will be of large body, broad shoulders,
+austere countenance, with dark eyes and tawny hair, strong voice, and
+leonine character, resolute and ambitious, but generous, free, and
+courteous. Leo governs the heart and back, and reigns over Italy,
+Bohemia, France, Sicily, Rome, Bristol, Bath, Taunton, Philadelphia,
+etc. It is a masculine sign, and fortunate.
+
+Virgo is the joy of Mercury. Its natives are of moderate stature, seldom
+handsome, slender but compact, thrifty and ingenious. It governs the
+abdomen, and reigns over Turkey both in Europe and Asia, Greece, and
+Mesopotamia, Crete, Jerusalem, Paris, Lyons, etc. It is a feminine sign,
+and generally unfortunate.
+
+Libra is the house of Venus. The natives of Libra are tall and well
+made, elegant in person, round-faced and ruddy, but plain-featured and
+'inclined to eruptions that disfigure the face when old; they' (the
+natives) 'are of sweet disposition, just and upright in dealing.' It
+governs the lumbar regions, and reigns over Austria, Alsace, Savoy,
+Portugal, Livonia, India, Ethiopia, Lisbon, Vienna, Frankfort, Antwerp,
+Charleston, etc. It is a masculine sign, and fortunate.
+
+Scorpio is, like Aries, the house of Mars, 'and also his joy.' Its
+natives are strong, corpulent, and robust, with large bones, 'dark curly
+hair and eyes' (presumably the eyes dark only, not curly), middle
+stature, dusky complexion, active bodies; they are usually reserved in
+speech. It governs the region of the groin, and reigns over Judaea,
+Mauritania, Catalonia, Norway, West Silesia, Upper Batavia, Barbary,
+Morocco, Valentia, Messina, etc. It is feminine, and unfortunate. (It
+would appear likely, by the way, that astrology was a purely masculine
+science.)
+
+Sagittarius is the house and joy of Jupiter. Its natives are well formed
+and tall, ruddy, handsome, and jovial, with fine clear eyes, chestnut
+hair, and oval fleshy face. They are 'generally jolly fellows at either
+bin or board,' active, intrepid, generous, and obliging. It governs the
+legs and thighs,[8] and reigns over Arabia Felix, Spain, Hungary,
+Moravia, Liguria, Narbonne, Cologne, Avignon, etc. It is masculine, and
+of course fortunate.
+
+Capricorn is the house of Saturn and exaltation of Mars. This sign gives
+to its natives a dry constitution and slender make, with a long thin
+visage, thin beard (a generally goaty aspect, in fact), dark hair, long
+neck, narrow chin, and weak knees. It governs, nevertheless, the knees
+and hams, and reigns over India, Macedonia, Thrace and Greece, Mexico,
+Saxony, Wilna, Mecklenburgh, Brandenburg, and Oxford. It is feminine,
+and unfortunate.
+
+Aquarius also is the house of Saturn. Its natives are robust, steady,
+strong, healthy, and of middle stature; delicate complexion, clear but
+not pale, sandy hair, hazel eyes, and generally an honest disposition.
+It governs the legs and ankles, and reigns over Arabia, Petraea, Tartary,
+Russia, Denmark, Lower Sweden, Westphalia, Hamburg, and Bremen. It is
+masculine, and fortunate.
+
+Pisces is the house of Jupiter and exaltation of Venus. Its natives are
+short, pale, thick-set, and round-shouldered (like fish), its character
+phlegmatic and effeminate. It governs the feet and toes, and reigns over
+Portugal, Spain, Egypt, Normandy, Galicia, Ratisbon, Calabria, etc. It
+is feminine, and therefore, naturally, unfortunate.
+
+Let us next consider the influences assigned to the various planets and
+constellations.
+
+Though we can understand that in old times the planets and stars were
+regarded as exercising very potent influences upon the fates of men and
+nations,[9] it is by no means easy to understand how astrologers came to
+assign to each planet its special influence. That is, it is not easy to
+understand how they could have been led to such a result by actual
+reasoning, still less by any process of observation.[10] There was a
+certain scientific basis for the belief in the possibility of
+determining the special influences of the stars; and we should have
+expected to find some scientific process adopted for the purpose. Yet,
+so far as can be judged, the influences assigned to the planets depended
+on entirely fanciful considerations. In some cases we seem almost to see
+the line along which the fancies of the old astrologers led them, just
+as in some cases we can perceive how mythological superstitions (which
+are closely related to astrological ideas) had their origin; though it
+is not quite clear whether the planets were first regarded as deities
+with special qualities, and these qualities afterwards assigned to the
+planetary influences, or whether the planetary influences were first
+assigned, and came eventually to be regarded as the qualities of the
+deities associated with the several planets.
+
+It is easy, for instance, to understand why astrologers should have
+regarded the sun as the emblem of kingly power and dignity, and equally
+easy to understand why, to the sun regarded as a deity, corresponding
+qualities should have been ascribed; but it is not easy to determine
+whether the astrological or the Sabaistic superstitions were the
+earlier. And in like manner of the moon and planets. There seems to me
+no sufficient evidence in favour of Whewell's opinion, that 'in whatever
+manner the sun, moon, and planets came to be identified with gods and
+goddesses, the characters ascribed to these gods and goddesses,
+regulated the virtues and powers of the stars which bear their names.'
+As he himself very justly remarks, 'We do not possess any of the
+speculations of the earlier astrologers; and we cannot, therefore, be
+certain that the notions which operated in men's minds when the art had
+its birth, agreed with the views on which it was afterwards defended.'
+He does not say why he infers that, though at later periods supported by
+physical analogies, it was originally suggested by mythological beliefs.
+Quite as probably mythological beliefs were suggested by astrological
+notions. Some of these beliefs, indeed, seem manifestly to have been so
+suggested; as the character of the deity Mercury, from the rapid motions
+of the planet Mercury, and the difficulty of detecting it; the character
+of Mars from the blood-red hue of the planet when close to the horizon,
+and so forth.
+
+Let us examine, however, the characteristics ascribed by astrologers to
+various planets.
+
+It is unfortunate for astrology that, despite the asserted careful
+comparison of events with the planetary positions preceding and
+indicating them, nothing was ever observed which seemed to suggest the
+possibility that there may be an unknown planet ruling very strongly the
+affairs of men. Astrologers tell us now that Uranus is a very potent
+planet; yet the old astrologers seem to have got on very well without
+him. By the way, one of the moderns, the grave Raphael, gives a very
+singular account of the discovery of Uranus, in a book published sixteen
+years before Neptune was discovered by just such a process as Raphael
+imagined in the case of Uranus. He says that Drs. Halley, Bradley, and
+others, having frequently observed that Saturn was disturbed in his
+motion by some force exerted from beyond his orbit, and being unable to
+account for the disturbance on the known principles of gravitation,
+pursued their enquiry into the matter, 'till at length the discovery of
+this hitherto unknown planet covered their labours with success, and has
+enabled us to enlarge our present solar system to nearly double its
+bounds.' Of course there is not a word of truth in this; Uranus having
+been discovered by accident long after Halley and Bradley were in the
+grave. But the account suggests what might have been, and curiously
+anticipates the actual manner in which Neptune was discovered.
+
+Astrologers agree in attributing evil effects to Uranus. But the evil he
+does is always peculiarly strange, unaccountable, and totally
+unexpected. He causes the native born under his influence to be of a
+very eccentric and original disposition, romantic, unsettled, addicted
+to change, a seeker after novelty; though, if the moon or Mercury have a
+good aspect towards Uranus, the native will be profound in the secret
+sciences, magnanimous, and lofty of mind. But let all beware of marriage
+when Uranus is in the seventh house, or afflicting the moon. And in
+general, let the fair sex remember that Uranus is peculiarly hostile to
+them, and very evil in love.
+
+Saturn is the Greater Infortune of the old system of astrology, and is
+by universal experience acknowledged to be the most potent, evil, and
+malignant of all the planets. Those born under him are of dark and pale
+complexion, with small, black, leering eyes, thick lips and nostrils,
+large ears, thin face, lowering looks, cloudy aspect, and seemingly
+melancholy and unhappy; and though they have broad shoulders, they have
+but short lips and a thin beard, They are in character austere and
+reserved, covetous, laborious, and revengeful; constant in friendship,
+and good haters. The most remarkable and certain characteristic of the
+Saturnine man is that, as an old author observes 'he will never look
+thee in the face.' 'If they have to love any one, these Saturnines,'
+says another old author, 'they love most constantly; and if they hate,
+they hate to the death.' The persons signified symbolically by Saturn
+are grandparents, and other old persons, day labourers, paupers,
+beggars, clowns, husbandmen of the meaner sort, and especially
+undertakers, sextons, and gravediggers. Chaucer thus presents the chief
+effects which Saturn produces in the fortunes of men and nations--Saturn
+himself being the speaker:--
+
+          ... quod Saturne
+  My cours, that hath so wide for to turne,
+  Hath more power than wot any man.
+  Min is the drenching in the sea so wan,
+  Min is the prison in the derke cote,
+  Min is the strangel and hanging by the throte,
+  The murmure and the cherles rebelling,
+  The groyning, and the prive empoysoning,
+  I do vengaunce and pleine correction,
+  While I dwell in the signe of the leon;
+  Min is the ruine of the high halles,
+  The falling of the toures and of the walles
+  Upon the minour or the carpenter:
+  I slew Sampson in shaking the piler.
+  Min ben also the maladies colde,
+  The derke tresons, and the castes olde:
+  My loking is the fader of pestilence.
+
+Jupiter, on the contrary, though Saturn's next neighbour in the solar
+system, produces effects of an entirely contrary kind. He is, in fact,
+the most propitious of all the planets, and the native born under his
+influence has every reason to be jovial in fact as he is by nature. Such
+a native will be tall and fair, handsome and erect, robust, ruddy, and
+altogether a good-looking person, whether male or female. The native
+will also be religious, or at least a good moral honest man, unless
+Jupiter be afflicted by the aspects of Saturn, Mars, or Uranus; in which
+case he may still be a jolly fellow, no man's enemy but his own--only he
+will probably be his own enemy to a very considerable extent,
+squandering his means and ruining his health by gluttony and
+intoxication. The persons represented by Jupiter (when he is not
+afflicted) are judges, counsellors, church dignitaries, from cardinals
+to curates, scholars, chancellors, barristers, and the highest orders of
+lawyers, woollendrapers (possibly there may be some astral significance
+in the woolsack), and clothiers. When Jupiter is afflicted, however, he
+denotes quacks and mountebanks, knaves, cheats, and drunkards. The
+influence of the planet on the fortunes is nearly always good.
+Astrologers, who to a man reverence dignities, consider Great Britain
+fortunate in that the lady whom, with customary effusion, they term 'Our
+Most Gracious Queen,' was born when Jupiter was riding high in the
+heavens near his culmination, this position promising a most fortunate
+and happy career. The time has passed when the fortunes of this country
+were likely to be affected by such things; but we may hope, for the
+lady's own sake, that this prediction has been fulfilled. Astrologers
+assert the same about the Duke of Wellington, assigning midnight, May 1,
+1769, as the hour of his birth. There is some doubt both as to the date
+and place of the great soldier's birth; but the astrologer finds in the
+facts of his life the means of removing all such doubts.[11]
+
+Next in order comes Mars, inferior only in malefic influence to Saturn,
+and called by the old astrologers the Lesser Infortune. The native born
+under the influence of Mars is usually of fierce countenance, his eyes
+sparkling, or sharp and darting, his complexion fiery or yellowish, and
+his countenance scarred or furrowed. His hair is reddish or sandy,
+unless Mars chances to be in a watery sign, in which case the hair will
+be flaxen; or in an earthly sign, in which case the hair will be
+chestnut. The Martialist is broad-shouldered, steady, and strong, but
+short,[12] and often bony and lean. In character the Martialist is fiery
+and choleric, naturally delighting in war and contention, but generous
+and magnanimous. This when Mars is well aspected; should the planet be
+evil aspected, then will the native be treacherous, thievish,
+treasonable, cruel, and wicked. The persons signified by Mars are
+generals, soldiers, sailors (if he is in a watery sign), surgeons,
+chemists, doctors, armourers, barbers, curriers, smiths, carpenters,
+bricklayers, sculptors, cooks, and tailors. When afflicted with Mercury
+or the moon, he denotes thieves, hangmen, and 'all cut throat people.'
+In fact, except the ploughboy, who belongs to Saturn, all the members of
+the old septet, 'tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, apothecary, ploughboy,
+thief,' are favourites with Mars. The planet's influence is not quite so
+evil as Saturn's, nor are the effects produced by it so long-lasting.
+'The influence of Saturn,' says an astrologer, 'may be compared to a
+lingering but fatal consumption; that of Mars to a burning fever.' He is
+the cause of anger, quarrels, violence, war, and slaughter.
+
+The sun comes next; for it must be remembered that, according to the old
+system of astronomy, the sun was a planet. Persons born under the sun as
+the planet ruling their ascendant, would be more apt to be aware of the
+fact than Saturnine, Jovial, Martial, or any other folk, because the
+hour of birth, if remembered, at once determines whether the native is a
+solar subject or not. The solar native has generally a round face (like
+pictures of the sun in old books of astronomy), with a short chin; his
+complexion somewhat sanguine; curling sandy hair, and a white tender
+skin. As to character, he is bold and resolute, desirous of praise, of
+slow speech and composed judgment; outwardly decorous, but privately not
+altogether virtuous. The sun, in fact, according to astrologers, is the
+natural significator of respectability; for which I can discover no
+reason, unless it be that the sun travelling always in the ecliptic has
+no latitude, and so solar folk are allowed none. When the sun is ill
+aspected, the native is both proud and mean, tyrannical and sycophantic,
+exceedingly unamiable, and generally disliked because of his arrogance
+and ignorant pomposity. The persons signified by the sun are emperors,
+kings, and titled folk generally, goldsmiths, jewellers, and coiners.
+When 'afflicted,' the sun signifies pretenders either to power or
+knowledge. The sun's influence is not in itself either good or evil, but
+is most powerful for good when he is favourably aspected, and for evil
+when he is afflicted by other planets.
+
+Venus, the next in order, bore the same relation to the Greater Fortune
+Jupiter which Mars bore to Saturn the Greater Ill-fortune. She was the
+Lesser Fortune, and her influence was in nearly all respects benevolent.
+The persons born under the influence of this planet are handsome, with
+beautiful sparkling hazel or black eyes (but another authority assigns
+the subject of Venus, 'a full eye, usually we say goggle-eyed,' by which
+we do not usually imply beauty), ruddy lips, the upper lip short, soft
+smooth hair, dimples in the cheek and chin, an amorous look and a sweet
+voice. One old astrologer puts the matter thus pleasantly:--'The native
+of Venus hath,' quoth he, 'a love-dimple in the chin, a lovely mouth,
+cherry lips, and a right merry countenance.' In character the native of
+Venus is merry 'to a fault,' but of temper engaging, sweet and cheerful,
+unless she be ill aspected, when her native is apt to be too fond of
+pleasure and amusement. That her influence is good is shown (in the
+opinion of Raphael, writing in 1828) by the character of George IV.,
+'our present beloved monarch and most gracious majesty, who was born
+just as this benevolent star' was in the ascendant; 'for it is well
+known to all Europe what a refined and polished genius, and what
+exquisite taste, the King of England possesses, which therefore may be
+cited as a most illustrious proof of the celestial science; a proof
+likewise which is palpably demonstrable, even to the most casual
+observer, since the time of his nativity is taken from the public
+journals of the period, and cannot be gainsaid.' 'This illustrious and
+regal horoscope is replete with wonderful verifications of planetary
+influence, and England cannot but prosper while she is blessed with the
+mild and beneficent sway of this potent monarch.' Strengthened in faith
+by this convincing proof of the celestial science, we proceed to notice
+that Venus is the protectrice of musicians, embroiderers, perfumers,
+classic modellers, and all who work in elegant attire or administer to
+the luxuries of the great; but when she is afflicted, she represents
+'the lower orders of the votaries of voluptuousness.'
+
+Mercury is considered by astrologers 'a cold, dry, melancholy star.' The
+Mercurial is neither dark nor fair, but between both, long-faced, with
+high forehead and thin sharp nose, 'thin beard (many times none at all),
+slender of body, and with small weak eyes;' long slender hands and
+fingers are 'especial marks of Mercury,' says Raphael. In character the
+Mercurial is busy and prattling. But when well affected, Mercury gives
+his subjects a strong, vigorous, active mind, searching and exhaustive,
+a retentive memory, a natural thirst for knowledge.[13] The persons
+signified by Mercury are astrologers, philosophers, mathematicians,
+politicians, merchants, travellers, teachers, poets, artificers, men of
+science, and all ingenious, clever men. When he is ill affected,
+however, he represents pettifoggers, cunning vile persons, thieves,
+messengers, footmen, and servants, etc.
+
+The moon comes last in planetary sequence, as nearest to the earth. She
+is regarded by astrologers as a cold, moist, watery, phlegmatic planet,
+variable to an extreme, and, like the sun, partaking of good or evil
+according as she is aspected favourably or the reverse. Her natives are
+of good stature, fair, and pale, moon-faced, with grey eyes, short arms,
+thick hands and feet, smooth, corpulent and phlegmatic body. When she is
+in watery signs, the native has freckles on the face, or, says Lilly,
+'he or she is blub-cheeked, not a handsome body, but a muddling
+creature.' Unless the moon is very well aspected, she ever signifies an
+ordinary vulgar person. She signifies sailors (not as Mars does, the
+fighting-men of war-ships, but nautical folk generally) and all persons
+connected with water or any kind of fluid; also all who are engaged in
+inferior and common offices.
+
+We may note, in passing, that to each planet a special metal is
+assigned, as also particular colours. Chaucer, in the Chanones Yemannes'
+Tale, succinctly describes the distribution of the metals among the
+planets:--
+
+  Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe;
+  Mars iren, Mercurie silver we clepe:
+  Saturnus led, and Jupiter is tin,
+  And Venus coper, by my [the Chanones Yemannes'] faderkin.
+
+The colours are thus assigned:--to Saturn, black; to Jupiter, mixed red
+and green; to Mars, red; to the sun, yellow or yellow-purple; to Venus,
+white or purple; to Mercury, azure blue; to the moon, a colour spotted
+with white and other mixed colours.
+
+Again, the planets were supposed to have special influence on the seven
+ages of human life. The infant, 'mewling and puking in the nurse's
+arms,' was very appropriately dedicated to the moist moon; the whining
+schoolboy (did schoolboys whine in the days of good Queen Bess?) was
+less appropriately assigned to Mercury, the patron of those who eagerly
+seek after knowledge: then very naturally, the lover sighing like
+furnace was regarded as the special favourite of Venus. Thus far the
+order has been that of the seven planets of the ancient astrology, in
+supposed distance. Now, however, we have to pass over the sun, finding
+Mars the patron of mid life, appropriately (in this respect) presiding
+over the soldier full of strange oaths, and so forth; the 'justice in
+fair round belly with good capon lined' is watched over by the
+respectable sun; maturer age by Jupiter; and, lastly, old age by Saturn.
+
+Colours were also assigned to the twelve zodiacal signs--to Aries, white
+and red; to Taurus, white and lemon; to Gemini, white and red (the same
+as Aries); to Cancer, green or russet; to Leo, red or green; to Virgo,
+black speckled with blue; to Libra, black, or dark crimson, or tawny
+colour; to Scorpio, brown; to Sagittarius, yellow, or a green sanguine
+(this is as strange a colour as the _gris rouge_ of Moliere's
+_L'Avare_); Capricorn, black or russet, or a swarthy brown; to Aquarius,
+a sky-coloured blue; to Pisces, white glistening colour (like a fish
+just taken out of the water).
+
+The chief fixed stars had various influences assigned to them by
+astrologers. These influences were mostly associated with the imaginary
+figures of the constellations. Thus the bright star in the head of
+Aries, called by some the Ram's Horn, was regarded as dangerous and
+evil, denoting bodily hurts. The star Menkar in the Whale's jaw denoted
+sickness, disgrace, and ill-fortune, with danger from great beasts.
+Betelgeux, the bright star on Orion's right shoulder, denoted martial
+honours or wealth; Bellatrix, the star on Orion's left shoulder, denoted
+military or civic honours; Rigel, on Orion's left foot, denoted honours;
+Sirius and Procyon, the greater and lesser Dog Stars, both implied
+wealth and renown. Star clusters seem to have portended loss of sight;
+at least we learn that the Pleiades were 'eminent stars,' but denoting
+accidents to the sight or blindness, while the cluster Praesepe or the
+Beehive in like manner threatened blindness. The cluster in Perseus does
+not seem to have been noticed by astrologers. The variable star Algol or
+Caput Medusae, which marks the head of Gorgon, was accounted 'the most
+unfortunate, violent, and dangerous star in the heavens.' It is
+tolerably clear that the variable character of this star had been
+detected long before Montanari (to whom the discovery is commonly
+attributed) noticed the phenomenon. The name Algol is only a variation
+of Al-ghul, the monster or demon, and it cannot be doubted that the
+demoniac, Gorgonian character assigned to this star was suggested by its
+ominous change, as though it were the eye of some fierce monster slowly
+winking amid the gloom of space. The two stars called the Aselli, which
+lie on either side of the cluster Praesepe, 'are said' (by astrologers)
+'to be of a burning nature, and to give great indications of a violent
+death, or of violent and severe accidents by fire.' The star called Cor
+Hydrae, or the serpent's heart, denotes trouble through women (said I not
+rightly that Astrology was a masculine science?); the Lion's heart,
+Regulus, implied glory and riches; Deneb, the Lion's tail, misfortune
+and disgrace. The southern scale of Libra meant bad fortune, while the
+northern was eminently fortunate.
+
+Astrology was divided into three distinct branches--the doctrine of
+nativities, horary astrology, and state astrology. The first assigned
+the rules for determining the general fortunes of the native, by drawing
+up his scheme of nativity or casting his horoscope. It took into account
+the positions of the various planets, signs, stars, etc., at the time of
+the native's birth; and as the astrologer could calculate the movements
+of the planets thereafter, he could find when those planets which were
+observed by the horoscope to be most closely associated with the
+native's fortunes would be well aspected or the reverse. Thus the
+auspicious and unlucky epochs of the native's life could be
+predetermined. The astrologer also claimed some degree of power to rule
+the planets, not by modifying their movements in any way, but by
+indicating in what way the ill effects portended by their positions
+could be prevented. The Arabian and Persian astrologers, having less
+skill than the followers of Ptolemy, made use of a different method of
+determining the fortunes of men, not calculating the positions of the
+planets for many years following the birth of the native, but assigning
+to every day after his birth a whole year of his life and for every two
+hours' motion of the moon one month. Thus the positions of the stars and
+planets, twenty-one days after the birth of the native, would indicate
+the events corresponding to the time when he would have completed his
+twenty-first year. There was another system called the Placidian, in
+which the effects of the positions of the planets were judged with sole
+reference to the motion of the earth upon her axis. It is satisfactory
+to find astrologers in harmony amongst each other as to these various
+methods, which one would have supposed likely to give entirely different
+results. 'Each of them,' says a modern astrologer, 'is not only correct
+and approved by long-tried practice, but may be said to defy the least
+contradiction from those who will but take the pains to examine them
+(and no one else should deliver an opinion upon the subject). Although
+each of the above methods are different, yet they by no means contradict
+each other, but each leads to _true results_, and in many instances they
+each lead to the foreknowledge of the same event; in which respect they
+may be compared to the ascent of a mountain by different paths, where,
+although some paths are longer and more difficult than others, they
+notwithstanding all lead to the same object.' All which, though
+plausible in tone labours under the disadvantage of being untrue.
+
+Ptolemy is careful to point out, in his celebrated work the
+'Tetrabiblos,' that, of all events whatsoever which take place after
+birth, the most essential is the continuance of life. 'It is useless,'
+he says, 'to consider what events might happen to the native in later
+years if his life does not extend, for instance, beyond one year. So
+that the enquiry into the duration of life takes precedence of all
+others.' In order to deal properly with this question, it is necessary
+to determine what planet shall be regarded as the Hyleg, Apheta, or Lord
+of Life, for the native. Next the Anareta, or Destroyer of Life, must be
+ascertained. The Anaretic planets are, by nature, Saturn, Mars, and
+Uranus, though the sun, moon, and Mercury may be endowed with the same
+fatal influence, if suitably afflicted. The various ways in which the
+Hyleg, or Giver of Life, may be afflicted by the Anareta, correspond to
+the various modes of death. But astrologers have always been singularly
+careful, in casting horoscopes, to avoid definite reference to the
+native's death. There are but few cases where the actual day of death is
+said to have been assigned. One is related in Clarendon's 'History of
+the Rebellion.' He tells us that William Earl of Pembroke died at the
+age of fifty, on the day upon which his tutor Sandford had predicted his
+decease. Burton, the author of the 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' having cast
+his own horoscope, and ascertained that he was to die on January 23,
+1639, is said to have committed suicide in order that the accuracy of
+his calculations might not be called in question. A similar story is
+related of Cardan by Dr. Young (Sidrophel Vapulans), on the authority of
+Gassendi, who, however, says only that either Cardan starved himself,
+or, being confident in his art, took the predicted day for a fatal one,
+and by his fears made it so. Gassendi adds that while Cardan pretended
+to describe the fates of his children in his voluminous commentaries, he
+all the while never suspected, from the rules of his great art, that his
+dearest son would be condemned in the flower of his youth to be beheaded
+on a scaffold, by an executioner of justice, for destroying his own wife
+by poison.
+
+Horary astrology relates to particular questions, and is a comparatively
+easy branch of the science. The art of casting nativities requires many
+years of study; but horary astrology 'may be well understood,' says
+Lilly, 'in less than a quarter of a year.' 'If a proposition of any
+nature,' he adds, 'be made to any individual, about the result of which
+he is anxious, and therefore uncertain whether to accede to it or not,
+let him but note the hour and minute when it was _first_ made, and erect
+a figure of the heavens, and his doubts will be instantly resolved. He
+may thus in five minutes learn whether the affair will succeed or not:
+and consequently whether it is prudent to accept the offer made or not.
+If he examine the sign on the first house of the figure, the planet
+therein, or the planet ruling the sign, _will exactly describe the party
+making the offer_, both in person and character, and this may at once
+convince the enquirer for truth of the reality of the principles of the
+science. Moreover, the descending sign, etc., _will describe his own
+person and character_--a farther proof of the truth of the science.'
+
+There is one feature of horary astrology which is probably almost as
+ancient as any portion of the science, yet which remains even to the
+present day, and will probably remain for many years to come. I refer to
+the influence which the planets were supposed to exert on the
+successive hours of every day--a belief from which the division of time
+into weeks of seven days unquestionably had its origin--though we may
+concede that the subdivision of the lunar month into four equal parts
+was also considered in selecting this convenient measure of time. Every
+hour had its planet. Now dividing twenty-four by seven, we get three and
+three over; whence, each day containing twenty-four hours, it follows
+that in each day the complete series of seven planets was run through
+three times, and three planets of the next series were used. The order
+of the planets was that of their distances, as indicated above. Saturn
+came first, then Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon.
+Beginning with Saturn, as ruling the first hour of Saturn's day
+(Saturday), we get through the above series three times, and have for
+the last three hours of the day, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. Thus the
+next hour, the first hour of the next day, belongs to the sun--Sunday
+follows Saturday. We again run three times through the series, and the
+three remaining hours are governed by the sun, Venus, and
+Mercury,--giving the moon as the first planet for the next day. Monday
+thus follows Sunday. The last three hours of Monday are ruled by the
+moon, Saturn, and Jupiter; leaving Mars to govern the next day--Martis
+dies, Mardi, Tuesday or Tuisco's day. Proceeding in the same way, we get
+Mercury for the next day, Mercurii dies, Mercredi, Wednesday or Woden's
+day; Jupiter for the next day, Jovis dies, Jeudi, Thursday or Thor's
+day; Venus for the next day, Veneris dies, Vendredi, Friday or Freya's
+day; and so we come to Saturday again.[14]
+
+The period of seven days, which had its origin in, and derived its
+nomenclature from astrological ideas, shows by its wide prevalence how
+widely astrological superstitions were once spread among the nations. As
+Whewell remarks (though, for reasons which will readily be understood he
+was by no means anxious to dwell upon the true origin of the Sabbatical
+week), 'the usage is found over all the East; it existed among the
+Arabians, Assyrians, and Egyptians. The same week is found in India,
+among the Brahmins; it has there also its days marked by the names of
+the heavenly bodies; and it has been ascertained that the same day has,
+in that country, the name corresponding with its designation in other
+nations.... The period has gone on without interruption or irregularity
+from the earliest recorded times to our own days, traversing the extent
+of ages and the revolutions of empires; the names of ancient deities,
+which were associated with the stars, were replaced by those of the
+objects of the worship of our Teutonic ancestors, according to their
+views of the correspondence of the two mythologies; and the Quakers, in
+rejecting these names of days, have cast aside the most ancient existing
+relic of astrological as well as idolatrous superstition.
+
+Not only do the names remain, but some of the observances connected with
+the old astrological systems remain even to this day. As ceremonies
+derived from Pagan worship are still continued, though modified in form,
+and with a different interpretation, in Christian and especially Roman
+Catholic observances, so among the Jews and among Christians the rites
+and ceremonies of the old Egyptian and Chaldaean astrology are still
+continued, though no longer interpreted as of yore. The great Jewish
+Lawgiver and those who follow him seem, for example, to have recognised
+the value of regular periods of rest (whether really required by man or
+become a necessity through long habit), but to have been somewhat in
+doubt how best to continue the practice without sanctioning the
+superstitions with which it had been connected. At any rate two
+different and inconsistent interpretations were given in the earlier and
+later codes of law. But whether the Jews accepted the Sabbath because
+they believed that an All-powerful Being, having created the world in
+six days, required and took rest ('and was refreshed') on the seventh,
+as stated in Exodus (xx. 11 and xxxi. 17), or whether they did so in
+remembrance of their departure from Egypt, as stated in Deuteronomy (v.
+15), there can be no question that among the Egyptians the Sabbath or
+Saturn's day was a day of rest because of the malignant nature of the
+powerful planet-deity who presided over that day. Nor can it be
+seriously doubted that the Jews descended from the old Chaldaeans, among
+whom (as appears from stone inscriptions recently discovered) the very
+word Sabbath was in use for a seventh day of rest connected with
+astrological observances, were familiar with the practice even before
+their sojourn in Egypt. They had then probably regarded it as a
+superstitious practice to be eschewed like those idolatrous observances
+which had caused Terah to remove with Abraham and Lot from Ur of the
+Chaldees. At any rate, we find no mention of the seventh day of rest as
+a religious observance until after the Exodus.[15] It was not their only
+religious observance having in reality an astrological origin. Indeed,
+if we examine the Jewish sacrificial system as described in Numbers
+xxviii. and elsewhere, we shall find throughout a tacit reference to the
+motions or influences of the celestial bodies. There was the morning and
+evening sacrifice guided by the movements of the sun; the Sabbath
+offering, determined by the predominance of Saturn; the offering of the
+new moon, depending on the motions of the moon; and lastly, the Paschal
+sacrifice, depending on the combined movements of the sun and
+moon--made, in fact, during the lunation following the sun's ascending
+passage of the equator at the sign of Aries.
+
+Let us return, however, after this somewhat long digression, to
+astrological matters.
+
+Horary astrology is manifestly much better fitted than the casting of
+nativities for filling the pocket of the astrologer himself; because
+only one nativity can be cast, but any number of horary questions can be
+asked. It is on account of their skill in horary astrology that the
+Zadkiels of our own time have occasionally found their way into the
+twelfth house, or House of Enemies. Even Lilly himself, not devoting, it
+would seem, five minutes to inquire into the probable success of the
+affair, was indicted in 1655 by a half-witted young woman, because he
+had given judgment respecting stolen goods, receiving two shillings and
+sixpence, contrary to an Act made under and provided by the wise and
+virtuous King James, First of England and Sixth of Scotland.
+
+State astrology relates to the destinies of kingdoms, thrones, empires,
+and may be regarded as a branch of horary science relating to subjects
+(and rulers) of more than ordinary importance.
+
+In former ages all persons likely to occupy an important position in the
+history of the world had their horoscopes erected; but in these
+degenerate days neither the casting of nativities nor the art of ruling
+the planets flourishes as it should do. Our Zadkiels and Raphaels
+publish, indeed, the horoscopes of kings and emperors, princes and
+princesses, and so forth; but their fate is as that of Benedict
+(according to Beatrice)--men 'wonder they will still be talking, for
+nobody marks them.' Even those whose horoscopes have been erected show
+no proper respect for the predictions made in their behalf. Thus the
+Prince of Wales being born when Sagittarius was in the ascendant should
+have been, according to Zadkiel, a tall man, with oval face, ruddy
+complexion, somewhat dusky, and so forth; but I understand he has by no
+means followed these directions as to his appearance. The sun, being
+well aspected, prognosticated honours--a most remarkable and
+unlooked-for circumstance, strangely fulfilled by the event; but then
+being in Cancer, in sextile with Mars, the Prince of Wales was to be
+partial to maritime affairs and attain naval glory, whereas as a
+field-marshal he can only win military glory. (I would not be understood
+to say that he is not quite as competent to lead our fleets as our
+battalions into action.) The House of Wealth was occupied by Jupiter,
+aspected by Saturn, which betokened great wealth through inheritance--a
+prognostication, says Professor Miller, which is not unlikely to come
+true. The House of Marriage was unsettled by the conflicting influences
+of Venus, Mars, and Saturn; but the first predominating, the Prince,
+after some trouble in his matrimonial speculations, was to marry a
+Princess of high birth, and one not undeserving of his kindest and most
+affectionate attention, probably in 1862. As to the date, an almanack
+informs me that the Prince married a Danish Princess in March 1863,
+which looks like a most culpable neglect of the predictions of our
+national astrologer. Again, in May 1870, when Saturn was stationary in
+the ascending degree, the Prince ought to have been injured by a horse,
+and also to have received a blow on the left side of the head, near the
+ear; but reprehensibly omitted both these ceremonies. A predisposition
+to fever and epileptic attacks was indicated by the condition of the
+House of Sickness. The newspapers described, a few years since, a
+serious attack of fever; but as most persons have some experience of the
+kind, the fulfilment of the prediction can hardly be regarded as very
+wonderful. Epileptic attacks, which, as less common, might have saved
+the credit of the astrologers, have not visited 'this royal native.' The
+position of Saturn in Capricorn betokened loss or disaster in one or
+other of the places ruled over by Capricorn--which, as we have seen, are
+India, Macedonia, Thrace, Greece, Mexico, Saxony, Wilna, Mecklenburgh,
+Brandenburgh, and Oxford. Professor Miller expresses the hope that
+Oxford was the place indicated, and the disaster nothing more serious
+than some slight scrape with the authorities of Christchurch. But
+princes never get into scrapes with college dons. Probably some one or
+other of the 'hair-breadth 'scapes' chronicled by the reporters of his
+travels in India was the event indicated by the ominous position of
+Saturn in Capricorn.
+
+A remarkable list of characteristics were derived by Zadkiel from the
+positions of the various planets and signs in the twelve houses of the
+'royal native.' Some, of course, were indicated in more ways than one,
+which will explain the parenthetical notes in the following alphabetical
+table which Professor Miller has been at the pains to draw up from
+Zadkiel's predictions. The prince was to be 'acute, affectionate,
+amiable, amorous, austere, avaricious, beneficent, benevolent, brave,
+brilliant, calculated for government' (a quality which may be understood
+two ways), 'candid, careful of his person, careless, compassionate,
+courteous (twice over), delighting in eloquence, discreet, envious, fond
+of glory, fond of learning, fond of music, fond of poetry, fond of
+sports, fond of the arts and sciences, frank, full of expedients,
+generous (three times), gracious, honourable, hostile to crime,
+impervious, ingenious, inoffensive, joyous, just (twice), laborious,
+liberal, lofty, magnanimous, modest, noble, not easy to be understood
+(!), parsimonious, pious (twice), profound in opinion, prone to regret
+his acts, prudent, rash, religious, reverent, self-confident, sincere,
+singular in mode of thinking, strong, temperate, unreserved, unsteady,
+valuable in friendship, variable, versatile, violent, volatile, wily,
+and worthy.' Zadkiel concludes thus:--'The square of Saturn to the moon
+will add to the gloomy side of the picture, and give a tinge of
+melancholy at times to the native's character, and also a disposition to
+look at the dark side of things, and lead him to despondency; nor will
+he be at all of a sanguine character, but cool and calculating, though
+occasionally rash. Yet, all things considered, though firm and sometimes
+positive in opinion, this royal native, if he live to mount the throne,
+will sway the sceptre of these realms in moderation and justice, and be
+a pious and benevolent man, and a merciful sovereign.' Fortunately, the
+time has long since passed when swaying the sceptre of these realms had
+any but a figurative meaning, or when Englishmen who obeyed their
+country's laws depended on the mercy of any man, or when even bad
+citizens were judged by princes. But we still prefer that princes should
+be well-mannered gentlemen, and therefore it is sincerely to be hoped
+that Zadkiel's prediction, so far as it relates to piety and
+benevolence, may be fulfilled, should this 'royal native' live to mount
+the throne. As for mercy, it is a goodly quality even in these days and
+in this country; for if the law no longer tolerates cruelty to men, even
+on the part of princes, who once had prescribed rights in that
+direction, there are still some cruel, nay brutal sports in which 'royal
+natives' might sometimes be tempted to take part. Wherefore let us hope
+that, even in regard to mercy, the predictions of astrologers respecting
+this 'royal native' may be fulfilled.
+
+Passing however, from trivialities, let us consider the lessons which
+the history of astrology teaches us respecting the human mind, its
+powers and weaknesses. It has been well remarked by Whewell that for
+many ages 'mysticism in its various forms was a leading character both
+of the common mind and the speculations of the most intelligent and
+profound reasoners.' Thus mysticism was the opposite of that habit of
+thought which science requires, 'namely, clear ideas, distinctly
+employed to connect well-ascertained facts; inasmuch as the ideas in
+which it dealt were vague and unstable, and the temper in which they
+were contemplated was an urgent and aspiring enthusiasm, which could not
+submit to a calm conference with experience upon even terms.' We have
+seen what has been the history of one particular form of the mysticism
+of ancient and mediaeval ages. If we had followed the history of alchemy,
+magic, and other forms of mysticism, we should have seen similar
+results. True science has gradually dispossessed science falsely so
+called, until now none but the weaker minds hold by the tenets formerly
+almost universally adopted. In mere numbers, believers in the ancient
+superstitions may be by no means insignificant; but they no longer have
+any influence. It has become a matter of shame to pay any attention to
+what those few say or do who not merely hold but proclaim the ancient
+faith in these matters. We can also see why this has been. In old times
+enthusiasm usurped the place of reason in these cases; but opinions so
+formed and so retained could not maintain their ground in the presence
+of reasoning and experience. So soon as intelligent and thoughtful men
+perceived that facts were against the supposed mysterious influences of
+the stars, the asserted powers of magicians, the pretended knowledge of
+alchemists, the false teachings of magic, alchemy, and astrology, were
+rejected. The lesson thus learned respecting erroneous doctrines which
+were once widely prevalent has its application in our time, when, though
+the influence of those teachings has passed away, other doctrines
+formerly associated with them still hold their ground. Men in old times,
+influenced by erroneous teachings, wasted their time and energies in
+idle questionings of the stars, vain efforts to find Arcana of
+mysterious power, and to acquire magical authority over the elements. Is
+it altogether clear that in these our times men are not hampered,
+prevented to some degree from doing all the good they might do in the
+short life-time allotted to them, by doctrines of another kind? Is there
+in our day no undue sacrifice of present good in idle questionings? is
+there no tendency to trust in a vain fetishism to prevent or remove
+evils which energy could avert or remedy? The time will come, in my
+belief, when the waste of those energies which in these days are devoted
+(not merely with the sanction, but the high approval, of some of the
+best among us) to idle aims, will be deplored as regretfully--but, alas,
+as idly--as the wasted speculations and labours of those whom Whewell
+has justly called the most intelligent and profound reasoners of the
+'stationary age' of science. The words with which Whewell closes his
+chapter on the 'Mysticism of the Middle Ages' have their application to
+the mysticism of the nineteenth century:--'Experience collects her
+stores in vain, or ceases to collect them, when she can only pour them
+into the flimsy folds of the lap of Mysticism, who is, in truth, so much
+absorbed in looking for the treasures which are to fall from the skies,
+that she heeds little how scantily she obtains, or how loosely she
+holds, such riches as she might find beside her.'
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+_THE RELIGION OF THE GREAT PYRAMID._
+
+
+During the last few years a new sect has appeared which, though as yet
+small in numbers, is full of zeal and fervour. The faith professed by
+this sect may be called the religion of the Great Pyramid, the chief
+article of their creed being the doctrine that that remarkable edifice
+was built for the purpose of revealing--in the fulness of time, now
+nearly accomplished--certain noteworthy truths to the human race. The
+founder of the pyramid religion is described by one of the present
+leaders of the sect as 'the late worthy John Taylor, of Gower Street,
+London;' but hitherto the chief prophets of the new faith have been in
+this country Professor Smyth, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, and in
+France the Abbe Moigno. I propose to examine here some of the facts most
+confidently urged by pyramidalists in support of their views.
+
+But it will be well first to indicate briefly the doctrines of the new
+faith. They may be thus presented:
+
+The great pyramid was erected, it would seem, under the instructions of
+a certain Semitic king, probably no other than Melchizedek. By
+supernatural means, the architects were instructed to place the pyramid
+in latitude 30 deg. north; to select for its figure that of a square
+pyramid, carefully oriented; to employ for their unit of length the
+sacred cubit corresponding to the 20,000,000th part of the earth's
+polar axis; and to make the side of the square base equal to just so
+many of these sacred cubits as there are days and parts of a day in a
+year. They were further, by supernatural help, enabled to square the
+circle, and symbolised their victory over this problem by making the
+pyramid's height bear to the perimeter of the base the ratio which the
+radius of a circle bears to the circumference. Moreover, the great
+precessional period, in which the earth's axis gyrates like that of some
+mighty top around the perpendicular to the ecliptic, was communicated to
+the builders with a degree of accuracy far exceeding that of the best
+modern determinations, and they were instructed to symbolise that
+relation in the dimensions of the pyramid's base. A value of the sun's
+distance more accurate by far than modern astronomers have obtained
+(even since the recent transit) was imparted to them, and they embodied
+that dimension in the height of the pyramid. Other results which modern
+science has achieved, but which by merely human means the architects of
+the pyramid could not have obtained, were also supernaturally
+communicated to them; so that the true mean density of the earth, her
+true shape, the configuration of land and water, the mean temperature of
+the earth's surface, and so forth, were either symbolised in the great
+pyramid's position, or in the shape and dimensions of its exterior and
+interior. In the pyramid also were preserved the true, because
+supernaturally communicated, standards of length, area, capacity,
+weight, density, heat, time, and money. The pyramid also indicated, by
+certain features of its interior structure, that when it was built the
+holy influences of the Pleiades were exerted from a most effective
+position--the meridian, through the points where the ecliptic and
+equator intersect. And as the pyramid thus significantly refers to the
+past, so also it indicates the future history of the earth, especially
+in showing when and where the millennium is to begin. Lastly, the apex
+or crowning stone of the pyramid was no other than the antitype of that
+stone of stumbling and rock of offence, rejected by builders who knew
+not its true use, until it was finally placed as the chief stone of the
+corner. Whence naturally, 'whosoever shall fall upon it'--that is, upon
+the pyramid religion--'shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall
+it will grind him to powder.'
+
+If we examine the relations actually presented by the great pyramid--its
+geographical position, dimensions, shape, and internal
+structure--without hampering ourselves with the tenets of the new faith
+on the one hand, or on the other with any serious anxiety to disprove
+them, we shall find much to suggest that the builders of the pyramid
+were ingenious mathematicians, who had made some progress in astronomy,
+though not so much as they had made in the mastery of mechanical and
+scientific difficulties.
+
+The first point to be noticed is the geographical position of the great
+pyramid, so far, at least, as this position affects the aspect of the
+heavens, viewed from the pyramid as from an observatory. Little
+importance, I conceive, can be attached to purely geographical relations
+in considering the pyramid's position. Professor Smyth notes that the
+pyramid is peculiarly placed with respect to the mouth of the Nile,
+standing 'at the southern apex of the Delta-land of Egypt.' This region
+being shaped like a fan, the pyramid, set at the part corresponding to
+the handle, was, he considers, 'that monument pure and undefiled in its
+religion through an idolatrous land, alluded to by Isaiah; the monument
+which was both "an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt,
+and a pillar at the border thereof," and destined withal to become a
+witness in the latter days, and before the consummation of all things,
+to the same Lord, and to what He hath purposed upon man kind.' Still
+more fanciful are some other notes upon the pyramid's geographical
+position: as (i.) that there is more land along the meridian of the
+pyramid than on any other all the world round; (ii.) that there is more
+land in the latitude of the pyramid than in any other; and (iii.) that
+the pyramid territory of Lower Egypt is at the centre of the dry land
+habitable by man all the world over.
+
+It does not seem to be noticed by those who call our attention to these
+points that such coincidences prove too much. It might be regarded as
+not a mere accident that the great pyramid stands at the centre of the
+arc of shore-line along which lie the outlets of the Nile; or it might
+be regarded as not a mere coincidence that the great pyramid stands at
+the central point of all the habitable land-surface of the globe; or,
+again, any one of the other relations above mentioned might be regarded
+as something more than a mere coincidence. But if, instead of taking
+only one or other of these four relations, we take all four of them, or
+even any two of them, together, we must regard peculiarities of the
+earth's configuration as the result of special design which certainly
+have not hitherto been so regarded by geographers. For instance, if it
+was by a special design that the pyramid was placed at the centre of the
+Nile delta, and also by special design that the pyramid was placed at
+the centre of the land-surface of the earth, if these two relations are
+each so exactly fulfilled as to render the idea of mere accidental
+coincidence inadmissible, then it follows, of necessity, that it is
+through no merely accidental coincidence that the centre of the Nile
+delta lies at the centre of the land-surface of the earth; in other
+words, the shore-line along which lie the mouths of the Nile has been
+designedly curved so as to have its centre so placed. And so of the
+other relations. The very fact that the four conditions _can_ be
+fulfilled simultaneously is evidence that a coincidence of the sort may
+result from mere accident.[16] Indeed, the peculiarity of geographical
+position which really seems to have been in the thoughts of the pyramid
+architects, introduces yet a fifth condition which by accident could be
+fulfilled along with the four others.
+
+It would seem that the builders of the pyramid were anxious to place it
+in latitude 30 deg., as closely as their means of observation permitted.
+Let us consider what result they achieved, and the evidence thus afforded
+respecting their skill and scientific attainments. In our own time, of
+course, the astronomer has no difficulty in determining with great
+exactness the position of any given latitude-parallel. But at the time
+when the great pyramid was built it must have been a matter of very
+serious difficulty to determine the position of any required
+latitude-parallel with a great degree of exactitude. The most obvious
+way of dealing with the difficulty would have been by observing the
+length of shadows thrown by upright posts at noon in spring and autumn.
+In latitude 30 deg. north, the sun at noon in spring (or, to speak
+precisely, on the day of the vernal equinox) is just twice as far from
+the horizon as he is from the point vertically overhead; and if a
+pointed post were set exactly upright at true noon (supposed to occur at
+the moment of the vernal or autumnal equinox), the shadow of the post
+would be exactly half as long as a line drawn from the top of the pole
+to the end of the shadow. But observations based on this principle would
+have presented many difficulties to the architects of the pyramid. The
+sun not being a point of light, but a globe, the shadow of a pointed rod
+does not end in a well-defined point. The moment of true noon, which is
+not the same as ordinary or civil noon, never does agree exactly with
+the time of the vernal or autumnal equinox, and may be removed from it
+by any interval of time not exceeding twelve hours. And there are many
+other circumstances which would lead astronomers, like those who
+doubtless presided over the scientific preparations for building the
+great pyramid, to prefer a means of determining the latitude depending
+on another principle. The stellar heavens would afford practically
+unchanging indications for their purpose. The stars being all carried
+round the pole of the heavens, as if they were fixed points in the
+interior of a hollow revolving sphere, it becomes possible to determine
+the position of the pole of the star sphere, even though no bright
+conspicuous star actually occupies that point. Any bright star close by
+the pole is seen to revolve in a very small circle, whose centre is the
+pole itself. Such a star is our present so-called pole-star; and, though
+in the days when the great pyramid was built, that star was not near the
+pole, another, and probably a brighter star lay near enough to the
+pole[17] to serve as a pole-star, and to indicate by its circling motion
+the position of the actual pole of the heavens. This was at that time,
+and for many subsequent centuries, the leading star of the great
+constellation called the Dragon.
+
+The pole of the heavens, we know, varies in position according to the
+latitude of the observer. At the north pole it is exactly overhead; at
+the equator the poles of the heavens are both on the horizon; and, as
+the observer travels from the equator towards the north or south pole of
+the earth, the corresponding pole of the heavens rises higher and higher
+above the horizon. In latitude 30 deg. north, or one-third of the way from
+the equator to the pole, the pole of the heavens is raised one-third of
+the way from the horizon to the point vertically overhead; and when this
+is the case the observer knows that he is in latitude 30 deg. The builders
+of the great pyramid, with the almost constantly clear skies of Egypt,
+may reasonably be supposed to have adopted this means of determining the
+true position of that thirtieth parallel on which they appear to have
+designed to place the great building they were about to erect.
+
+It so happens that we have the means of forming an opinion on the
+question whether they used one method or the other; whether they
+employed the sun or the stars to guide them to the geographical position
+they required. In fact, were it not for this circumstance, I should not
+have thought it worth while to discuss the qualities of either method.
+It will presently be seen that the discussion bears importantly on the
+opinion we are to form of the skill and attainments of the pyramid
+architects. Every celestial object is apparently raised somewhat above
+its true position by the refractive power of our atmosphere, being most
+raised when nearest the horizon and least when nearest the point
+vertically overhead. This effect is, indeed, so marked on bodies close
+to the horizon that if the astronomers of the pyramid times had observed
+the sun, moon, and stars attentively when so placed, they could not have
+failed to discover the peculiarity. Probably, however, though they noted
+the time of rising and setting of the celestial bodies, they only made
+instrumental observations upon them when these bodies were high in the
+heavens. Thus they remained ignorant of the refractive powers of the
+air.[18] Now, if they had determined the position of the thirtieth
+parallel of latitude by observations of the noonday sun (in spring or
+autumn), then since, owing to refraction, they would have judged the sun
+to be higher than he really was, it follows that they would have
+supposed the latitude of any station from which they observed to be
+lower than it really was. For the lower the latitude the higher is the
+noonday sun at any given season. Thus, when really in latitude 30 deg.
+they would have supposed themselves in a latitude lower than 30 deg., and
+would have travelled a little further north to find the proper place, as
+they would have supposed, for erecting the great pyramid. On the other
+hand, if they determined the place from observations of the movements of
+stars near the pole of the heavens, they would make an error of a
+precisely opposite nature. For the higher the latitude the higher is the
+pole of the heavens; and refraction, therefore, which apparently raises
+the pole of the heavens, gives to a station the appearance of being in
+a higher latitude than it really is, so that the observer would consider
+he was in latitude 30 north when in reality somewhat south of that
+latitude. We have only then to inquire whether the great pyramid was set
+north or south of latitude 30 deg., to ascertain whether the pyramid
+architects observed the noonday sun or circumpolar stars to determine
+their latitude; always assuming (as we reasonably may) that those
+architects did propose to set the pyramid in that particular latitude,
+and that they were able to make very accurate observations of the apparent
+positions of the celestial bodies, but that they were not acquainted
+with the refractive effects of the atmosphere. The answer comes in no
+doubtful terms. The centre of the great pyramid's base lies about one
+mile and a third _south_ of the thirtieth parallel of latitude; and from
+this position the pole of the heavens, as raised by refraction, would
+appear to be very near indeed to the required position. In fact, if the
+pyramid had been set about half a mile still farther south the pole
+would have _seemed_ just right.
+
+Of course, such an explanation as I have here suggested appears
+altogether heretical to the pyramidalists. According to them the pyramid
+architects knew perfectly well where the true thirtieth parallel lay,
+and knew also all that modern science has discovered about refraction;
+but set the pyramid south of the true parallel and north of the position
+where refraction would just have made the apparent elevation of the pole
+correct, simply in order that the pyramid might correspond as nearly as
+possible to each of two conditions, whereof both could not be fulfilled
+at once. The pyramid would indeed, they say, have been set even more
+closely midway between the true and the apparent parallels of 30 deg.
+north, but that the Jeezeh hill on which it is set does not afford a rock
+foundation any farther north. 'So very close,' says Professor Smyth,
+'was the great pyramid placed to the northern brink of its hill, that
+the edges of the cliff might have broken off under the terrible
+pressure had not the builders banked up there most firmly the immense
+mounds of rubbish which came from their work, and which Strabo looked so
+particularly for 1800 years ago, but could not find. Here they were,
+however, and still are, utilised in enabling the great pyramid to stand
+on the very utmost verge of its commanding hill, within the limits of
+the _two_ required latitudes, as well as over the centre of the land's
+physical and radial formation, and at the same time on the sure and
+proverbially wise foundation of rock.'
+
+The next circumstance to be noted in the position of the great pyramid
+(as of all the pyramids) is that the sides are carefully oriented. This,
+like the approximation to a particular latitude, must be regarded as an
+astronomical rather than a geographical relation. The accuracy with
+which the orientation has been effected will serve to show how far the
+builders had mastered the methods of astronomical observation by which
+orientation was to be secured. The problem was not so simple as might be
+supposed by those who are not acquainted with the way in which the
+cardinal points are correctly determined. By solar observations, or
+rather by the observations of shadows cast by vertical shafts before and
+after noon, the direction of the meridian, or north and south line, can
+theoretically be ascertained. But probably in this case, as in
+determining the latitude, the builders took the stars for their guide.
+The pole of the heavens would mark the true north; and equally the
+pole-star, when below or above the pole, would give the true north, but,
+of course, most conveniently when below the pole. Nor is it difficult to
+see how the builders would make use of the pole-star for this purpose.
+From the middle of the northern side of the intended base they would
+bore a slant passage tending always from the position of the pole-star
+at its lower meridional passage, that star at each successive return to
+that position serving to direct their progress; while its small range,
+east and west of the pole, would enable them most accurately to
+determine the star's true mid-point below the pole; that is, the true
+north. When they had thus obtained a slant tunnel pointing truly to the
+meridian, and had carried it down to a point nearly below the middle of
+the proposed square base, they could, from the middle of the base, bore
+vertically downwards, until by rough calculation they were near the
+lower end of the slant tunnel; or both tunnels could be made at the same
+time. Then a subterranean chamber would be opened out from the slant
+tunnel. The vertical boring, which need not be wider than necessary to
+allow a plumb-line to be suspended down it, would enable the architects
+to determine the point vertically below the point of suspension. The
+slant tunnel would give the direction of the true north, either from
+that point or from a point at some known small distance east or west of
+that point.[19] Thus, a line from some ascertained point near the mouth
+of the vertical boring to the mouth of the slant tunnel would lie due
+north and south, and serve as the required guide for the orientation of
+the pyramid's base. If this base extended beyond the opening of the
+slant tunnel, then, by continuing this tunnelling through the base tiers
+of the pyramid, the means would be obtained of correcting the
+orientation.
+
+This, I say, would be the course naturally suggested to astronomical
+architects who had determined the latitude in the manner described
+above. It may even be described as the only very accurate method
+available before the telescope had been invented. So that if the
+accuracy of the orientation appears to be greater than could be obtained
+by the shadow method, the natural inference, even in the absence of
+corroborative evidence, would be that the stellar method, and no other,
+had been employed. Now, in 1779, Nouet, by refined observations, found
+the error of orientation measured by less than 20 minutes of arc,
+corresponding roughly to a displacement of the corners by about 37-1/2
+inches from their true position, as supposed to be determined from the
+centre; or to a displacement of a southern corner by 53 inches on an
+east and west line from a point due south of the corresponding northern
+corner. This error, for a base length of 9140 inches, would not be
+serious, being only one inch in about five yards (when estimated in the
+second way). Yet the result is not quite worthy of the praise given to
+it by Professor Smyth. He himself, however, by much more exact
+observations, with an excellent altazimuth, reduced the alleged error
+from 20 minutes to only 4-1/2, or to 9-40ths of its formerly supposed
+value. This made the total displacement of a southern corner from the
+true meridian through the corresponding northern corner, almost exactly
+one foot, or one inch in about twenty-one yards--a degree of accuracy
+rendering it practically certain that some stellar method was used in
+orienting the base.
+
+Now there _is_ a slanting tunnel occupying precisely the position of the
+tunnel which should, according to this view, have been formed in order
+accurately to orient the pyramid's base, assuming that the time of the
+building of the pyramid corresponded with one of the epochs when the
+star Alpha Draconis was distant 3 deg. 42' from the pole of the heavens.
+In other words, there is a slant tunnel directed northwards and upwards
+from a point deep down below the middle of the pyramid's base, and
+inclined 26 deg. 17' to the horizon, the elevation of Alpha Draconis at
+its lower culmination when 3 deg. 42' from the pole. The last epoch when
+the star was thus placed was _circiter_ 2160 B.C.; the epoch next before
+that was 3440 B.C. Between these two we should have to choose, on the
+hypothesis that the slant tunnel was really directed to that star when
+the foundations of the pyramid were laid. For the next epoch before the
+earlier of the two named was about 28,000 B.C., and the pyramid's date
+cannot have been more remote than 4000 B.C.
+
+The slant tunnel, while admirably fulfilling the requirements suggested,
+seems altogether unsuited for any other. Its transverse height (that is,
+its width in a direction perpendicular to its upper and lower faces) did
+not amount to quite four feet; its breadth was not quite three feet and
+a half. It was, therefore, not well fitted for an entrance passage to
+the subterranean chamber immediately under the apex of the pyramid (with
+which chamber it communicates in the manner suggested by the above
+theory). It could not have been intended to be used for observing
+meridian transits of the stars in order to determine sidereal time; for
+close circumpolar stars, by reason of their slow motion, are the least
+suited of all for such a purpose. As Professor Smyth says, in arguing
+against this suggested use of the star, 'no observer in his senses, in
+any existing observatory, when seeking to obtain the time, would observe
+the transit of a circumpolar star for anything else than _to get the
+direction of the meridian to adjust his instrument by_.' (The italics
+are his.) It is precisely such a purpose (the adjustment, however, not
+of an instrument, but of the entire structure of the pyramid itself),
+that I have suggested for this remarkable passage--this 'cream-white,
+stone-lined, long tube,' where it traverses the masonry of the pyramid,
+and below that dug through the solid rock to a distance of more than 350
+feet.
+
+Let us next consider the dimensions of the square base thus carefully
+placed in latitude 30 deg. north to the best of the builders' power, with
+sides carefully oriented.
+
+It seems highly probable that, whatever special purpose the pyramid was
+intended to fulfil, a subordinate idea of the builders would have been
+to represent symbolically in the proportions of the building such
+mathematical and astronomical relations as they were acquainted with.
+From what we know by tradition of the men of the remote time when the
+pyramid was built, and what we can infer from the ideas of those who
+inherited, however remotely, the modes of thought of the earliest
+astronomers and mathematicians, we can well believe that they would look
+with superstitious reverence on special figures, proportions, numbers,
+and so forth. Apart from this, they may have had a quasi-scientific
+desire to make a lasting record of their discoveries, and of the
+collected knowledge of their time.
+
+It seems altogether probable, then, that the smaller unit of measurement
+used by the builders of the great Pyramid was intended, as Professor
+Smyth thinks, to be equal to the 500,000,000th part of the earth's
+diameter, determined from their geodetical observations. It was
+perfectly within the power of mechanicians and mathematicians so
+experienced as they undoubtedly were--the pyramid attests so much--to
+measure with considerable accuracy the length of a degree of latitude.
+They could not possibly (always setting aside the theory of divine
+inspiration) have known anything about the compression of the earth's
+globe, and therefore could not have intended, as Professor Smyth
+supposes, to have had the 500,000,000th part of the earth's polar axis,
+as distinguished from any other, for their unit of length. But if they
+made observations in or near latitude 30 deg. north on the supposition
+that the earth is a globe, their probable error would exceed the
+difference even between the earth's polar and equatorial diameters. Both
+differences are largely exceeded by the range of difference among the
+estimates of the actual length of the sacred cubit, supposed to have
+contained twenty-five of these smaller units. And, again, the length of
+the pyramid base-side, on which Smyth bases his own estimate of the
+sacred cubit, has been variously estimated, the largest measure being
+9168 inches, and the lowest 9110 inches. The fundamental theory of the
+pyramidalists, that the sacred cubit was exactly one 20,000,000th part
+of the earth's polar diameter, and that the side of the base contained
+as many cubits and parts of a cubit as there are days and parts of a day
+in the tropical year (or year of seasons), requires that the length of
+the side should be 9140 inches, lying between the limits indicated, but
+still so widely removed from either that it would appear very unsafe to
+base a theory on the supposition that the exact length is or was 9140
+inches. If the measures 9168 inches and 9110 inches were inferior, and
+several excellent measures made by practised observers ranged around the
+length 9140 inches, the case would be different. But the best recent
+measures gave respectively 9110 and 9130 inches; and Smyth exclaims
+against the unfairness of Sir H. James in taking 9120 as 'therefore the
+[probable] true length of the side of the great pyramid when perfect,'
+calling this 'a dishonourable shelving of the honourable older observers
+with their larger results.' The only other measures, besides these two,
+are two by Colonel Howard Vyse and by the French _savants_, giving
+respectively 9168 and 9163.44 inches. The pyramidalists consider 9140
+inches a fair mean value from these four. The natural inference,
+however, is, that the pyramid base is not now in a condition to be
+satisfactorily measured; and assuredly no such reliance can be placed
+on the mean value 9140 inches that, on the strength of it, we should
+believe what otherwise would be utterly incredible, viz. that the
+builders of the great pyramid knew 'both the size and shape of the earth
+exactly.' 'Humanly, or by human science, finding it out in that age was,
+of course, utterly impossible,' says Professor Smyth. But he is so
+confident of the average value derived from widely conflicting base
+measures as to assume that this value, not being humanly discoverable,
+was of necessity 'attributable to God and to His Divine inspiration.' We
+may agree, in fine, with Smyth, that the builders of the pyramid knew
+the earth to be a globe; that they took for their measure of length the
+sacred cubit, which, by their earth measures, they made very fairly
+approximate to the 20,000,000th part of the earth's mean diameter; but
+there seems no reason whatever for supposing (even if the supposition
+were not antecedently of its very nature inadmissible) that they knew
+anything about the compression of the earth, or that they had measured a
+degree of latitude in their own place with very wonderful accuracy.[20]
+
+But here a very singular coincidence may be noticed, or, rather, is
+forced upon our notice by the pyramidalists, who strangely enough
+recognise in it fresh evidence of design, while the unbeliever finds in
+it proof that coincidences are no sure evidence of design. The side of
+the pyramid containing 365-1/4 times the sacred cubit of 25 pyramid
+inches, it follows that the diagonal of the base contains 12,912 such
+inches, and the two diagonals together contain 25,824 pyramid inches, or
+almost exactly as many inches as there are years in the great
+precessional period. 'No one whatever amongst men,' says Professor Smyth
+after recording various estimates of the precessional period, 'from his
+own or school knowledge, knew anything about such a phenomenon, until
+Hipparchus, some 1900 years after the great pyramid's foundation, had a
+glimpse of the fact; and yet it had been ruling the heavens for ages,
+and was recorded in Jeezeh's ancient structure.' To minds not moved to
+most energetic forgetfulness by the spirit of faith, it would appear
+that when a square base had been decided upon, and its dimensions fixed,
+with reference to the earth's diameter and the year, the diagonals of
+the square base were determined also; and, if it so chanced that they
+corresponded with some other perfectly independent relation, the fact
+was not to be credited to the architects. Moreover it is manifest that
+the closeness of such a coincidence suggests grave doubts how far other
+coincidences can be relied upon as evidence of design. It seems, for
+instance, altogether likely that the architects of the pyramid took the
+sacred cubit equal to one 20,000,000th part of the earth's diameter for
+their chief unit of length, and intentionally assigned to the side of
+the pyramid's square base a length of just so many cubits as there are
+days in the year; and the closeness of the coincidence between the
+measured length and that indicated by this theory strengthens the idea
+that this was the builder's purpose. But when we find that an even
+closer coincidence immediately presents itself, which manifestly is a
+coincidence _only_, the force of the evidence before derived from mere
+coincidence is _pro tanto_ shaken. For consider what this new
+coincidence really means. Its nature may be thus indicated: Take the
+number of days in the year, multiply that number by 50, and increase the
+result in the same degree that the diagonal of a square exceeds the
+side--then the resulting number represents very approximately the number
+of years in the great precessional period. The error, according to the
+best modern estimates, is about one 575th part of the true period. This
+is, of course, a merely accidental coincidence, for there is no
+connection whatever in nature between the earth's period of rotation,
+the shape of a square, and the earth's period of gyration. Yet this
+merely accidental coincidence is very much closer than the other
+supposed to be designed could be proved to be. It is clear, then, that
+mere coincidence is a very unsafe evidence of design.
+
+Of course the pyramidalists find a ready reply to such reasoning. They
+argue that, in the first place, it may have been by express design that
+the period of the earth's rotation was made to bear this particular
+relation to the period of gyration in the mighty precessional movement:
+which is much as though one should say that by express design the height
+of Monte Rosa contains as many feet as there are miles in the 6000th
+part of the sun's distance.[21] Then, they urge, the architects were
+not bound to have a square base for the pyramid; they might have had an
+oblong or a triangular base, and so forth--all which accords very ill
+with the enthusiastic language in which the selection of a square base
+had on other accounts been applauded.
+
+Next let us consider the height of the pyramid. According to the best
+modern measurements, it would seem that the height when (if ever) the
+pyramid terminated above in a pointed apex, must have been about 486
+feet. And from the comparison of the best estimates of the base side
+with the best estimates of the height, it seems very likely indeed that
+the intention of the builders was to make the height bear to the
+perimeter of the base the same ratio which the radius of a circle bears
+to the circumference. Remembering the range of difference in the base
+measures it might be supposed that the exactness of the approximation to
+this ratio could not be determined very satisfactorily. But as certain
+casing stones have been discovered which indicate with considerable
+exactness the slope of the original plane-surfaces of the pyramid, the
+ratio of the height to the side of the base may be regarded as much more
+satisfactorily determined than the actual value of either dimension. Of
+course the pyramidalists claim a degree of precision indicating a most
+accurate knowledge of the ratio between the diameter and the
+circumference of a circle; and the angle of the only casing stone
+measured being diversely estimated at 51 deg. 50' and 51 deg. 52-1/4',
+they consider 50 deg. 51' 14.3" the true value, and infer that the
+builders regarded the ratio as 3.14159 to 1. The real fact is, that the
+modern estimates of the dimensions of the casing stones (which, by the
+way, ought to agree better if these stones are as well made as stated)
+indicate the values 3.1439228 and 3.1396740 for the ratio; and all we
+can say is, that the ratio really used lay _probably_ between these
+limits, though it may have been outside either. Now the approximation of
+either is not remarkably close. It requires no mathematical knowledge at
+all to determine the circumference of a circle much more exactly. 'I
+thought it very strange,' wrote a circle-squarer once to De Morgan
+(_Budget of Paradoxes_, p. 389), 'that so many great scholars in all
+ages should have failed in finding the true ratio, and have been
+determined to try myself.' 'I have been informed,' proceeds De Morgan,
+'that this trial makes the diameter to the circumference as 64 to 201,
+giving the ratio equal to 3.1410625 exactly. The result was obtained by
+the discoverer in three weeks after he first heard of the existence of
+the difficulty. This quadrator has since published a little slip and
+entered it at Stationers' Hall. He says he has done it by actual
+measurement; and I hear from a private source that he uses a disc of
+twelve inches diameter which he rolls upon a straight rail.' The
+'rolling is a very creditable one; it is as much below the mark as
+Archimedes was above it. Its performer is a joiner who evidently knows
+well what he is about when he measures; he is not wrong by 1 in 3000.'
+Such skilful mechanicians as the builders of the pyramid could have
+obtained a closer approximation still by mere measurement. Besides, as
+they were manifestly mathematicians, such an approximation as was
+obtained by Archimedes must have been well within their power; and that
+approximation lies well within the limits above indicated. Professor
+Smyth remarks that the ratio was 'a quantity which men in general, and
+all human science too, did not begin to trouble themselves about until
+long, long ages, languages, and nations had passed away after the
+building of the great pyramid; and after the sealing up, too, of that
+grand primeval and prehistoric monument of the patriarchal age of the
+earth according to Scripture.' I do not know where the Scripture records
+the sealing up of the great pyramid; but it is all but certain that
+during the very time when the pyramid was being built astronomical
+observations were in progress which, for their interpretation, involved
+of necessity a continual reference to the ratio in question. No one who
+considers the wonderful accuracy with which, nearly two thousand years
+before the Christian era, the Chaldaeans had determined the famous cycle
+of the Saros, can doubt that they must have observed the heavenly bodies
+for several centuries before they could have achieved such a success;
+and the study of the motions of the celestial bodies compels 'men to
+trouble themselves' about the famous ratio of the circumference to the
+diameter.
+
+We now come upon a new relation (contained in the dimensions of the
+pyramid as thus determined) which, by a strange coincidence, causes the
+height of the pyramid to appear to symbolise the distance of the sun.
+There were 5813 pyramid inches, or 5819 British inches, in the height of
+the pyramid according to the relations already indicated. Now, in the
+sun's distance, according to an estimate recently adopted and freely
+used,[22] there are 91,400,000 miles or 5791 thousand millions of
+inches--that is, there are approximately as many thousand millions of
+inches in the sun's distance as there are inches in the height of the
+pyramid. If we take the relation as exact we should infer for the sun's
+distance 5819 thousand millions of inches, or 91,840,000 miles--an
+immense improvement on the estimate which for so many years occupied a
+place of honour in our books of astronomy. Besides, there is strong
+reason for believing that, when the results of recent observations are
+worked out, the estimated sun distance will be much nearer this pyramid
+value than even to the value 91,400,000 recently adopted. This result,
+which one would have thought so damaging to faith in the evidence from
+coincidence--nay, quite fatal after the other case in which a close
+coincidence had appeared by merest accident--is regarded by the
+pyramidalist as a perfect triumph for their faith.
+
+They connect it with another coincidence, viz. that, assuming the height
+determined in the way already indicated, then it so happens that the
+height bears to half a diagonal of the base the ratio 9 to 10. Seeing
+that the perimeter of the base symbolises the annual motion of the earth
+round the sun, while the height represents the radius of a circle with
+that perimeter, it follows that the height should symbolise the sun's
+distance. 'That line, further,' says Professor Smyth (speaking on behalf
+of Mr. W. Petrie, the discoverer of this relation), 'must represent'
+this radius 'in the proportion of 1 to 1,000,000,000' (or _ten_ raised
+to power _nine_), 'because amongst other reasons 10 to 9 is practically
+the shape of the great pyramid.' For this building 'has such an angle at
+the corners, that for every ten units its structure advances inwards on
+the diagonal of the base, it practically rises upwards, or points to
+sunshine' (_sic_) 'by _nine_. Nine, too, out of the ten characteristic
+parts (viz. five angles and five sides) being the number of those parts
+which the sun shines on in such a shaped pyramid, in such a latitude
+near the equator, out of a high sky, or, as the Peruvians say, when the
+sun sets on the pyramid with all its rays.' The coincidence itself on
+which this perverse reasoning rests is a singular one--singular, that
+is, as showing how close an accidental coincidence may run. It amounts
+to this, that if the number of days in the year be multiplied by 100,
+and a circle be drawn with a circumference containing 100 times as many
+inches as there are days in the year, the radius of the circle will be
+very nearly one 1,000,000,000th part of the sun's distance. Remembering
+that the pyramid inch is assumed to be one 500,000,000th part of the
+earth's diameter, we shall not be far from the truth in saying that, as
+a matter of fact, the earth by her orbital motion traverses each day a
+distance equal to two hundred times her own diameter. But, of course,
+this relation is altogether accidental. It has no real cause in
+nature.[23]
+
+Such relations show that mere numerical coincidences, however close,
+have little weight as evidence, except where they occur in series. Even
+then they require to be very cautiously regarded, seeing that the
+history of science records many instances where the apparent law of a
+series has been found to be falsified when the theory has been extended.
+Of course this reason is not quoted in order to throw doubt on the
+supposition that the height of the pyramid was intended to symbolise the
+sun's distance. That supposition is simply inadmissible if the
+hypothesis, according to which the height was already independently
+determined in another way, is admitted. Either hypothesis might be
+admitted were we not certain that the sun's distance could not possibly
+have been known to the builders of the pyramid; or both hypotheses may
+be rejected: but to admit both is out of the question.
+
+Considering the multitude of dimensions of length, surface, capacity,
+and position, the great number of shapes, and the variety of material
+existing within the pyramid, and considering, further, the enormous
+number of relations (presented by modern science) from among which to
+choose, can it be wondered at if fresh coincidences are being
+continually recognised? If a dimension will not serve in one way, use
+can be found for it in another; for instance, if some measure of length
+does not correspond closely with any known dimension of the earth or of
+the solar system (an unlikely supposition), then it can be understood to
+typify an interval of time. If, even after trying all possible changes
+of that kind, no coincidence shows itself (which is all but impossible),
+then all that is needed to secure a coincidence is that the dimensions
+should be manipulated a little.
+
+Let a single instance suffice to show how the pyramidalists (with
+perfect honesty of purpose) hunt down a coincidence. The slant tunnel
+already described has a transverse height, once no doubt uniform, now
+giving various measures from 47.14 pyramid inches to 47.32 inches, so
+that the vertical height from the known inclination of the tunnel would
+be estimated at somewhere between 52.64 inches and 52.85. Neither
+dimension corresponds very obviously with any measured distance in the
+earth or solar system. Nor when we try periods, areas, etc., does any
+very satisfactory coincidence present itself. But the difficulty is
+easily turned into a new proof of design. Putting all the observations
+together (says Professor Smyth), 'I deduced 47.24 pyramid inches to be
+the transverse height of the entrance passage; and computing from thence
+with the observed angle of inclination the vertical height, that came
+out 52.76 of the same inches. But the sum of those two heights, or the
+height taken up and down, equals 100 inches, which length, as elsewhere
+shown, is the general pyramid linear representation of a day of
+twenty-four hours. And the mean of the two heights, or the height taken
+one way only, and impartially to the middle point between them, equals
+fifty inches; which quantity is, therefore, the general pyramid linear
+representation of only half a day. In which case, let us ask what the
+entrance passage has to do with half rather than a whole day?'
+
+On relations such as these, which, if really intended by the architect,
+would imply an utterly fatuous habit of concealing elaborately what he
+desired to symbolise, the pyramidalists base their belief that 'a Mighty
+Intelligence did both think out the plans for it, and compel unwilling
+and ignorant idolators, in a primal age of the world, to work mightily
+both for the future glory of the one true God of Revelation, and to
+establish lasting prophetic testimony touching a further development,
+still to take place, of the absolutely Divine Christian dispensation.'
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+_THE MYSTERY OF THE PYRAMIDS._
+
+
+Few subjects of inquiry have proved more perplexing than the question of
+the purpose for which the pyramids of Egypt were built. Even in the
+remotest ages of which we have historical record, nothing seems to have
+been known certainly on this point. For some reason or other, the
+builders of the pyramids concealed the object of these structures, and
+this so successfully that not even a tradition has reached us which
+purports to have been handed down from the epoch of the pyramids'
+construction. We find, indeed, some explanations given by the earliest
+historians; but they were professedly only hypothetical, like those
+advanced in more recent times. Including ancient and modern theories, we
+find a wide range of choice. Some have thought that these buildings were
+associated with the religion of the early Egyptians; others have
+suggested that they were tombs; others, that they combined the purposes
+of tombs and temples, that they were astronomical observatories,
+defences against the sands of the Great Desert, granaries like those
+made under Joseph's direction, places of resort during excessive
+overflows of the Nile; and many other uses have been suggested for them.
+But none of these ideas are found on close examination to be tenable as
+representing the sole purpose of the pyramids, and few of them have
+strong claims to be regarded as presenting even a chief object of these
+remarkable structures. The significant and perplexing history of the
+three oldest pyramids--the Great Pyramid of Cheops, Shofo, or Suphis,
+the pyramid of Chephren, and the pyramid of Mycerinus; and the most
+remarkable of all the facts known respecting the pyramids generally,
+viz., the circumstance that one pyramid after another was built as
+though each had become useless soon after it was finished, are left
+entirely unexplained by all the theories above mentioned, save one only,
+the tomb theory, and that does not afford by any means a satisfactory
+explanation of the circumstances.
+
+I propose to give here a brief account of some of the most suggestive
+facts known respecting the pyramids, and, after considering the
+difficulties which beset the theories heretofore advanced, to indicate a
+theory (new so far as I know) which seems to me to correspond better
+with the facts than any heretofore advanced; I suggest it, however,
+rather for consideration than because I regard it as very convincingly
+supported by the evidence. In fact, to advance any theory at present
+with confident assurance of its correctness, would be simply to indicate
+a very limited acquaintance with the difficulties surrounding the
+subject.
+
+Let us first consider a few of the more striking facts recorded by
+history or tradition, noting, as we proceed, whatever ideas they may
+suggest as to the intended character of these structures.
+
+It is hardly necessary to say, perhaps, that the history of the Great
+Pyramid is of paramount importance in this inquiry. Whatever purpose
+pyramids were originally intended to subserve, must have been conceived
+by the builders of _that_ pyramid. New ideas may have been superadded by
+the builders of later pyramids, but it is unlikely that the original
+purpose can have been entirely abandoned. Some great purpose there was,
+which the rulers of ancient Egypt proposed to fulfil by building very
+massive pyramidal structures on a particular plan. It is by inquiring
+into the history of the first and most massive of these structures, and
+by examining its construction, that we shall have the best chance of
+finding out what that great purpose was.
+
+According to Herodotus, the kings who built the pyramids reigned not
+more than twenty-eight centuries ago; but there can be little doubt that
+Herodotus misunderstood the Egyptian priests from whom he derived his
+information, and that the real antiquity of the pyramid-kings was far
+greater. He tells us that, according to the Egyptian priests, Cheops 'on
+ascending the throne plunged into all manner of wickedness. He closed
+the temples, and forbade the Egyptians to offer sacrifice, compelling
+them instead to labour one and all in his service, viz., in building the
+Great Pyramid.' Still following his interpretation of the Egyptian
+account, we learn that one hundred thousand men were employed for twenty
+years in building the Great Pyramid, and that ten years were occupied in
+constructing a causeway by which to convey the stones to the place and
+in conveying them there. 'Cheops reigned fifty years; and was succeeded
+by his brother Chephren, who imitated the conduct of his predecessor,
+built a pyramid--but smaller than his brother's--and reigned fifty-six
+years. Thus during one hundred and six years, the temples were shut and
+never opened.' Moreover, Herodotus tells us that 'the Egyptians so
+detested the memory of these kings, that they do not much like even to
+mention their names. Hence they commonly call the pyramids after
+Philition, a shepherd who at that time fed his flocks about the place.'
+'After Chephren, Mycerinus, son of Cheops, ascended the throne, he
+reopened the temples, and allowed the people to resume the practice of
+sacrifice. He, too, left a pyramid, but much inferior in size to his
+father's. It is built, for half of its height, of the stone of
+Ethiopia,' or, as Professor Smyth (whose extracts from Rawlinson's
+translation I have here followed) adds 'expensive red granite.' 'After
+Mycerinus, Asychis ascended the throne. He built the eastern gateway of
+the Temple of Vulcan (Phtha); and, being desirous of eclipsing all his
+predecessors on the throne, left as a monument of his reign a pyramid of
+brick.'
+
+This account is so suggestive, as will presently be shown, that it may
+be well to inquire whether it can be relied on. Now, although there can
+be no doubt that Herodotus misunderstood the Egyptians in some matters,
+and in particular as to the chronological order of the dynasties,
+placing the pyramid kings far too late, yet in other respects he seems
+not only to have understood them correctly, but also to have received a
+correct account from them. The order of the kings above named
+corresponds with the sequence given by Manetho, and also found in
+monumental and hieroglyphic records. Manetho gives the names Suphis I.,
+Suphis II., and Mencheres, instead of Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus;
+while, according to the modern Egyptologists, Herodotus's Cheops was
+Shofo, Shufu, or Koufou; Chephren was Shafre, while he was also called
+Nou-Shofo or Noum-Shufu as the brother of Shofo; and Mycerinus was
+Menhere or Menkerre. But the identity of these kings is not questioned.
+As to the true dates there is much doubt, and it is probable that the
+question will long continue open; but the determination of the exact
+epochs when the several pyramids were built is not very important in
+connection with our present inquiry. We may, on the whole, fairly take
+the points quoted above from Herodotus, and proceed to consider the
+significance of the narrative, with sufficient confidence that in all
+essential respects it is trustworthy.
+
+There are several very strange features in the account.
+
+In the first place, it is manifest that Cheops (to call the first king
+by the name most familiar to the general reader) attached great
+importance to the building of his pyramid. It has been said, and perhaps
+justly, that it would be more interesting to know the plan of the
+architect who devised the pyramid than the purpose of the king who built
+it. But the two things are closely connected. The architect must have
+satisfied the king that some highly important purpose in which the king
+himself was interested, would be subserved by the structure. Whether the
+king was persuaded to undertake the work as a matter of duty, or only to
+advance his own interests, may not be so clear. But that the king was
+most thoroughly in earnest about the work is certain. A monarch in those
+times would assuredly not have devoted an enormous amount of labour and
+material to such a scheme unless he was thoroughly convinced of its
+great importance. That the welfare of his people was not considered by
+Cheops in building the Great Pyramid is almost equally certain. He
+might, indeed, have had a scheme for their good which either he did not
+care to explain to them or which they could not understand. But the most
+natural inference from the narrative is that his purpose had no
+reference whatever to their welfare. For though one could understand his
+own subjects hating him while he was all the time working for their
+good, it is obvious that his memory would not have been hated if some
+important good had eventually been gained from his scheme. Many a
+far-seeing ruler has been hated while living on account of the very work
+for which his memory has been revered. But the memory of Cheops and his
+successors was held in detestation.
+
+May we, however, suppose that, though Cheops had not the welfare of his
+own people in his thoughts, his purpose was nevertheless not selfish,
+but intended in some way to promote the welfare of the human race? I say
+his purpose, because, whoever originated the scheme, Cheops carried it
+out; it was by means of his wealth and through his power that the
+pyramid was built. This is the view adopted by Professor Piazzi Smyth
+and others, in our own time, and first suggested by John Taylor.
+'Whereas other writers,' says Smyth, 'have generally esteemed that the
+mysterious persons who directed the building of the Great Pyramid (and
+to whom the Egyptians, in their traditions, and for ages afterwards,
+gave an immoral and even abominable character) must therefore have been
+very bad indeed, so that the world at large has always been fond of
+standing on, kicking, and insulting that dead lion, whom they really
+knew not; he, Mr. John Taylor, seeing how religiously bad the Egyptians
+themselves were, was led to conclude, on the contrary, that those _they_
+hated (and could never sufficiently abuse) might, perhaps, have been
+pre-eminently good; or were, at all events, of _different religious
+faith_ from themselves.' 'Combining this with certain unmistakable
+historical facts,' Mr. Taylor deduced reasons for believing that the
+directors of the building designed to record in its proportions, and in
+its interior features, certain important religious and scientific
+truths, not for the people then living, but for men who were to come
+4000 years or so after.
+
+I have already considered at length (see the preceding Essay) the
+evidence on which this strange theory rests. But there are certain
+matters connecting it with the above narrative which must here be
+noticed. The mention of the shepherd Philition, who fed his flocks about
+the place where the Great Pyramid was built, is a singular feature of
+Herodotus's narrative. It reads like some strange misinterpretation of
+the story related to him by the Egyptian priests. It is obvious that if
+the word Philition did not represent a people, but a person, this
+person must have been very eminent and distinguished--a shepherd-king,
+not a mere shepherd. Rawlinson, in a note on this portion of the
+narrative of Herodotus, suggests that Philitis was probably a
+shepherd-prince from Palestine, perhaps of Philistine descent, 'but so
+powerful and domineering, that it may be traditions of his oppressions
+in that earlier age which, mixed up afterwards in the minds of later
+Egyptians with the evils inflicted on their country by the subsequent
+shepherds of better known dynasties, lent so much fear to their
+religious hate of Shepherd times and that name.' Smyth, somewhat
+modifying this view, and considering certain remarks of Manetho
+respecting an alleged invasion of Egypt by shepherd-kings, 'men of an
+ignoble race (from the Egyptian point of view) who had the confidence to
+invade our country, and easily subdued it to their power without a
+battle,' comes to the conclusion that some Shemite prince, 'a
+contemporary of, but rather older than, the Patriarch Abraham,' visited
+Egypt at this time, and obtained such influence over the mind of Cheops
+as to persuade him to erect the pyramid. According to Smyth, the prince
+was no other than Melchizedek, king of Salem, and the influence he
+exerted was supernatural. With such developments of the theory we need
+not trouble ourselves. It seems tolerably clear that certain
+shepherd-chiefs who came to Egypt during Cheops' reign were connected in
+some way with the designing of the Great Pyramid. It is clear also that
+they were men of a different religion from the Egyptians, and persuaded
+Cheops to abandon the religion of his people. Taylor, Smyth, and the
+Pyramidalists generally, consider this sufficient to prove that the
+pyramid was erected for some purpose connected with religion. 'The
+pyramid,' in fine, says Smyth, 'was charged by God's inspired
+shepherd-prince, in the beginning of human time, to keep a certain
+message secret and inviolable for 4000 years, and it has done so; and in
+the next thousand years it was to enunciate that message to all men,
+with more than traditional force, more than all the authenticity of
+copied manuscripts or reputed history; and that part of the pyramid's
+usefulness is now beginning.'
+
+There are many very obvious difficulties surrounding this theory; as,
+for example (i.) the absurd waste of power in setting supernatural
+machinery at work 4000 years ago with cumbrous devices to record its
+object, when the same machinery, much more simply employed now, would
+effect the alleged purpose far more thoroughly; (ii.) the enormous
+amount of human misery and its attendant hatreds brought about by this
+alleged divine scheme; and (iii.) the futility of an arrangement by
+which the pyramid was only to subserve its purpose when it had lost that
+perfection of shape on which its entire significance depended, according
+to the theory itself. But, apart from these, there is a difficulty,
+nowhere noticed by Smyth or his followers, which is fatal, I conceive,
+to this theory of the pyramid's purpose. The second pyramid, though
+slightly inferior to the first in size, and probably far inferior in
+quality of masonry, is still a structure of enormous dimensions, which
+must have required many years of labour from tens of thousands of
+workmen. Now, it seems impossible to explain why Chephren built this
+second pyramid, if we adopt Smyth's theory respecting the first pyramid.
+For either Chephren knew the purpose for which the Great Pyramid was
+built, or he did not know it. If he knew that purpose, and it was that
+indicated by Smyth, then he also knew that no second pyramid was wanted.
+On that hypothesis, all the labour bestowed on the second pyramid was
+wittingly and wilfully wasted. This, of course is incredible. But, on
+the other hand, if Chephren did not know what was the purpose for which
+the Great Pyramid was built, what reason could Chephren have had for
+building a pyramid at all? The only answer to this question seems to be
+that Chephren built the second pyramid in hopes of finding out why his
+brother had built the first, and this answer is simply absurd. It is
+clear enough that whatever purpose Cheops had in building the first
+pyramid, Chephren must have had a similar purpose in building the
+second; and we require a theory which shall at least explain why the
+first pyramid did not subserve for Chephren the purpose which it
+subserved or was meant to subserve for Cheops. The same reasoning may be
+extended to the third pyramid, to the fourth, and in fine to all the
+pyramids, forty or so in number, included under the general designation
+of the Pyramids of Ghizeh or Jeezeh. The extension of the principle to
+pyramids later than the second is especially important as showing that
+the difference of religion insisted on by Smyth has no direct bearing on
+the question of the purpose for which the Great Pyramid itself was
+constructed. For Mycerinus either never left or else returned to the
+religion of the Egyptians. Yet he also built a pyramid, which, though
+far inferior in size to the pyramids built by his father and uncle, was
+still a massive structure, and relatively more costly even than theirs,
+because built of expensive granite. The pyramid built by Asychis, though
+smaller still, was remarkable as built of brick; in fact, we are
+expressly told that Asychis desired to eclipse all his predecessors in
+such labours, and accordingly left this brick pyramid as a monument of
+his reign.
+
+We are forced, in fact, to believe that there was some special relation
+between the pyramid and its builder, seeing that each one of these kings
+wanted a pyramid of his own. This applies to the Great Pyramid quite as
+much as to the others, despite the superior excellence of that
+structure. Or rather, the argument derives its chief force from the
+superiority of the Great Pyramid. If Chephren, no longer perhaps having
+the assistance of the shepherd-architects in planning and superintending
+the work, was unable to construct a pyramid so perfect and so stately as
+his brother's, the very fact that he nevertheless built a pyramid shows
+that the Great Pyramid did not fulfil for Chephren the purpose which it
+fulfilled for Cheops. But, if Smyth's theory were true, the Great
+Pyramid would have fulfilled finally and for all men the purpose for
+which it was built. Since this was manifestly not the case, that theory
+is, I submit, demonstrably erroneous.
+
+It was probably the consideration of this point, viz. that each king had
+a pyramid constructed for himself, which led to the theory that the
+pyramids were intended to serve as tombs. This theory was once very
+generally entertained. Thus we find Humboldt, in his remarks on American
+pyramids, referring to the tomb theory of the Egyptian pyramids as
+though it were open to no question. 'When we consider,' he says, 'the
+pyramidical monuments of Egypt, of Asia, and of the New Continent, from
+the same point of view, we see that, though their form is alike, their
+destination was altogether different. The group of pyramids of Ghizeh
+and at Sakhara in Egypt; the triangular pyramid of the Queen of the
+Scythians, Zarina, which was a stadium high and three in circumference,
+and which was decorated with a colossal figure; the fourteen Etruscan
+pyramids, which are said to have been enclosed in the labyrinth of the
+king Porsenna, at Clusium--were reared to serve as the sepulchres of the
+illustrious dead. Nothing is more natural to men than to commemorate the
+spot where rest the ashes of those whose memory they cherish whether it
+be, as in the infancy of the race, by simple mounds of earth, or, in
+later periods, by the towering height of the tumulus. Those of the
+Chinese and of Thibet have only a few metres of elevation. Farther to
+the west the dimensions increase; the tumulus of the king Alyattes,
+father of Croesus, in Lydia, was six stadia, and that of Ninus was
+more than ten stadia in diameter. In the north of Europe the sepulchre
+of the Scandinavian king Gormus and the queen Daneboda, covered with
+mounds of earth, are three hundred metres broad, and more than thirty
+high.'
+
+But while we have abundant reason for believing that in Egypt, even in
+the days of Cheops and Chephren, extreme importance was attached to the
+character of the place of burial for distinguished persons, there is
+nothing in what is known respecting earlier Egyptian ideas to suggest
+the probability that any monarch would have devoted many years of his
+subjects' labour, and vast stores of material, to erect a mass of
+masonry like the Great Pyramid, solely to receive his own body after
+death. Far less have we any reason for supposing that many monarchs in
+succession would do this, each having a separate tomb built for him. It
+might have been conceivable, had only the Great Pyramid been erected,
+that the structure had been raised as a mausoleum for all the kings and
+princes of the dynasty. But it seems utterly incredible that such a
+building as the Great Pyramid should have been erected for one king's
+body only--and that, not in the way described by Humboldt, when he
+speaks of men commemorating the spot where rest the remains of those
+whose memory they cherish, but at the expense of the king himself whose
+body was to be there deposited. Besides, the first pyramid, the one
+whose history must be regarded as most significant of the true purpose
+of these buildings, was not built by an Egyptian holding in great favour
+the special religious ideas of his people, but by one who had adopted
+other views and those not belonging, so far as can be seen, to a people
+among whom sepulchral rites were held in exceptional regard.
+
+A still stronger objection against the exclusively tombic theory
+resides in the fact that this theory gives no account whatever of the
+characteristic features of the pyramids themselves. These buildings are
+all, without exception, built on special astronomical principles. Their
+square bases are so placed as to have two sides lying east and west, and
+two lying north and south, or, in other words, so that their four faces
+front the four cardinal points. One can imagine no reason why a tomb
+should have such a position. It is not, indeed, easy to understand why
+any building at all, except an astronomical observatory, should have
+such a position. A temple perhaps devoted to sun-worship, and generally
+to the worship of the heavenly bodies, might be built in that way. For
+it is to be noticed that the peculiar figure and position of the
+pyramids would bring about the following relations:--When the sun rose
+and set south of the east and west points, or (speaking generally)
+between the autumn and the spring equinoxes, the rays of the rising and
+setting sun illuminated the southern face of the pyramid; whereas during
+the rest of the year, that is, during the six months between the spring
+and autumn equinoxes, the rays of the rising and setting sun illuminated
+the northern face. Again, all the year round the sun's rays passed from
+the eastern to the western face at solar noon. And lastly, during seven
+months and a half of each year, namely, for three months and three
+quarters before and after midsummer, the noon rays of the sun fell on
+all four faces of the pyramid, or, according to a Peruvian expression
+(so Smyth avers), the sun shone on the pyramid 'with all his rays.' Such
+conditions as these might have been regarded as very suitable for a
+temple devoted to sun-worship. Yet the temple theory is as untenable as
+the tomb theory. For, in the first place, the pyramid form--as the
+pyramids were originally built, with perfectly smooth slant-faces, not
+terraced into steps as now through the loss of the casing-stones--was
+entirely unsuited for all the ordinary requirements of a temple of
+worship. And further, this theory gives no explanation of the fact that
+each king built a pyramid, and each king only one. Similar difficulties
+oppose the theory that the pyramids were intended to serve as
+astronomical observatories. For while their original figure, however
+manifestly astronomical in its relations, was quite unsuited for
+observatory work, it is manifest that if such had been the purpose of
+pyramid-building, so soon as the Great Pyramid had once been built, no
+other would be needed. Certainly none of the pyramids built afterwards
+could have subserved any astronomical purpose which the first did not
+subserve, or have subserved nearly so well as the Great Pyramid those
+purposes (and they are but few) which that building may be supposed to
+have fulfilled as an astronomical observatory.
+
+Of the other theories mentioned at the beginning of this paper none seem
+to merit special notice, except perhaps the theory that the pyramids
+were made to receive the royal treasures, and this theory rather because
+of the attention it received from Arabian literati, during the ninth and
+tenth centuries, than because of any strong reasons which can be
+suggested in its favour. 'Emulating,' says Professor Smyth, 'the
+enchanted tales of Bagdad,' the court poets of Al Mamoun (son of the
+far-famed Haroun al Raschid) 'drew gorgeous pictures of the contents of
+the pyramid's interior.... All the treasures of Sheddad Ben Ad the great
+Antediluvian king of the earth, with all his medicines and all his
+sciences, they declared were there, told over and over again. Others,
+though, were positive that the founder-king was no other than Saurid Ibn
+Salhouk, a far greater one than the other; and these last gave many more
+minute particulars, some of which are at least interesting to us in the
+present day, as proving that, amongst the Egypto-Arabians of more than
+a thousand years ago, the Jeezeh pyramids, headed by the grand one,
+enjoyed a pre-eminence of fame vastly before all the other pyramids of
+Egypt put together; and that if any other is alluded to after the Great
+Pyramid (which has always been the notable and favourite one, and
+chiefly was known then as the East pyramid), it is either the second one
+at Jeezeh, under the name of the West pyramid; or the third one,
+distinguished as the Coloured pyramid, in allusion to its red granite,
+compared with the white limestone casings of the other two (which,
+moreover, from their more near, but by no means exact, equality of size,
+went frequently under the affectionate designation of "the pair").'
+
+The report of Ibn Abd Alkohm, as to what was to be found in each of
+these three pyramids, or rather of what, according to him, was put into
+them originally by King Saurid, runs as follows: 'In the Western
+pyramid, thirty treasuries filled with store of riches and utensils, and
+with signatures made of precious stones, and with instruments of iron
+and vessels of earth, and with arms which rust not, and with glass which
+might be bended and yet not broken, and with strange spells, and with
+several kinds of _alakakirs_ (magical precious stones) single and
+double, and with deadly poisons, and with other things besides. He made
+also in the East' (the Great Pyramid) 'divers celestial spheres and
+stars, and what they severally operate in their aspects, and the
+perfumes which are to be used to them, and the books which treat of
+these matters. He put also into the coloured pyramid the commentaries of
+the priests in chests of black marble, and with every priest a book, in
+which the wonders of his profession and of his actions and of his nature
+were written, and what was done in his time, and what is and what shall
+be from the beginning of time to the end of it.' The rest of this
+worthy's report relates to certain treasurers placed within these three
+pyramids to guard their contents, and (like all or most of what I have
+already quoted) was a work of imagination. Ibn Abd Alkohm, in fact, was
+a romancist of the first water.
+
+Perhaps the strongest argument against the theory that the pyramids were
+intended as strongholds for the concealment of treasure, resides in the
+fact that, search being made, no treasure has been discovered. When the
+workmen employed by Caliph Al Mamoun, after encountering manifold
+difficulties, at length broke their way into the great ascending passage
+leading to the so-called King's Chamber, they found 'a right noble
+apartment, thirty-four feet long, seventeen broad, and nineteen high, of
+polished red granite throughout, walls, floor, and ceiling, in blocks
+squared and true, and put together with such exquisite skill that the
+joints are barely discernible to the closest inspection. But where is
+the treasure--the silver and the gold, the jewels, medicines, and
+arms?--These fanatics look wildly around them, but can see nothing, not
+a single _dirhem_ anywhere. They trim their torches, and carry them
+again and again to every part of that red-walled, flinty hall, but
+without any better success. Nought but pure polished red granite, in
+mighty slabs, looks upon them from every side. The room is clean,
+garnished too, as it were, and, according to the ideas of its founders,
+complete and perfectly ready for its visitors so long expected, so long
+delayed. But the gross minds who occupy it now, find it all barren, and
+declare that there is nothing whatever for them in the whole extent of
+the apartment from one end to another; nothing except an empty stone
+chest without a lid.'
+
+It is, however, to be noted that we have no means of learning what had
+happened between the time when the pyramid was built and when Caliph Al
+Mamoun's workmen broke their way into the King's Chamber. The place
+may, after all, have contained treasures of some kind; nor, indeed, is
+it incompatible with other theories of the pyramid to suppose that it
+was used as a safe receptacle for treasures. It is certain, however,
+that this cannot have been the special purpose for which the pyramids
+were designed. We should find in such a purpose no explanation whatever
+of any of the most stringent difficulties encountered in dealing with
+other theories. There could be no reason why strangers from the East
+should be at special pains to instruct an Egyptian monarch how to hide
+and guard his treasures. Nor, if the Great Pyramid had been intended to
+receive the treasures of Cheops, would Chephren have built another for
+his own treasures, which must have included those gathered by Cheops.
+But, apart from this, how inconceivably vast must a treasure-hoard be
+supposed to be, the safe guarding of which would have repaid the
+enormous cost of the great Pyramid in labour and material! And then, why
+should a mere treasure-house have the characteristics of an astronomical
+observatory? Manifestly, if the pyramids were used at all to receive
+treasures, it can only have been as an entirely subordinate though
+perhaps convenient means of utilising these gigantic structures.
+
+Having thus gone through all the suggested purposes of the pyramids save
+two or three which clearly do not possess any claim to serious
+consideration, and having found none which appear to give any sufficient
+account of the history and principal features of these buildings, we
+must either abandon the inquiry or seek for some explanation quite
+different from any yet suggested. Let us consider what are the principal
+points of which the true theory of the pyramids should give an account.
+
+In the first place, the history of the pyramids shows that the erection
+of the first great pyramid was in all probability either suggested to
+Cheops by wise men who visited Egypt from the East, or else some
+important information conveyed to him by such visitors caused him to
+conceive the idea of building the pyramid. In either case we may
+suppose, as the history indeed suggests, that these learned men, whoever
+they may have been, remained in Egypt to superintend the erection of the
+structure. It may be that the architectural work was not under their
+supervision; in fact, it seems altogether unlikely that shepherd-rulers
+would have much to teach the Egyptians in the matter of architecture.
+But the astronomical peculiarities which form so significant a feature
+of the Great Pyramid were probably provided for entirely under the
+instructions of the shepherd chiefs who had exerted so strange an
+influence upon the mind of King Cheops.
+
+Next, it seems clear that self-interest must have been the predominant
+reason in the mind of the Egyptian king for undertaking this stupendous
+work. It is true that his change of religion implies that some higher
+cause influenced him. But a ruler who could inflict such grievous
+burdens on his people in carrying out his purpose that for ages
+afterwards his name was held in utter detestation, cannot have been
+solely or even chiefly influenced by religious motives. It affords an
+ample explanation of the behaviour of Cheops, in closing the temples and
+forsaking the religion of his country, to suppose that the advantages
+which he hoped to secure by building the pyramid depended in some way on
+his adopting this course. The visitors from the East may have refused to
+give their assistance on any other terms, or may have assured him that
+the expected benefit could not be obtained if the pyramid were erected
+by idolaters. It is certain, in any case, that they were opposed to
+idolatry; and we have thus some means of inferring who they were and
+whence they came. We know that one particular branch of one particular
+race in the East was characterised by a most marked hatred of idolatry
+in all its forms. Terah and his family, or, probably, a sect or division
+of the Chaldaean people, went forth from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into
+the land of Canaan--and the reason why they went forth we learn from a
+book of considerable historical interest (the book of Judith) to have
+been because 'they would not worship the gods of their fathers who were
+in the land of the Chaldaeans.' The Bible record shows that members of
+this branch of the Chaldaean people visited Egypt from time to time. They
+were shepherds, too, which accords well with the account of Herodotus
+above quoted. We can well understand that persons of this family would
+have resisted all endeavours to secure their acquiescence in any scheme
+associated with idolatrous rites. Neither promises nor threats would
+have had much influence on them. It was a distinguished member of the
+family, the patriarch Abraham, who said: 'I have lift up mine hand unto
+the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I
+will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet, and that I will not
+take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram
+rich.' Vain would all the promises and all the threats of Cheops have
+been to men of this spirit. Such men might help him in his plans,
+suggested, as the history shows, by teachings of their own, but it must
+be on their own conditions, and those conditions would most certainly
+include the utter rejection of idolatrous worship by the king in whose
+behalf they worked, as well as by all who shared in their labours. It
+seems probable that they convinced both Cheops and Chephren, that unless
+these kings gave up idolatry, the purpose, whatever it was, which the
+pyramid was erected to promote, would not be fulfilled. The mere fact
+that the Great Pyramid was built either directly at the suggestion of
+these visitors, or because they had persuaded Cheops of the truth of
+some important doctrine, shows that they must have gained great
+influence over his mind. Rather we may say that he must have been so
+convinced of their knowledge and power as to have accepted with
+unquestioning confidence all that they told him respecting the
+particular subject over which they seemed to possess so perfect a
+mastery.
+
+But having formed the opinion, on grounds sufficiently assured, that the
+strangers who visited Egypt and superintended the building of the Great
+Pyramid were kinsmen of the patriarch Abraham, it is not very difficult
+to decide what was the subject respecting which they had such exact
+information. They or their parents had come from the land of the
+Chaldaeans, and they were doubtless learned in all the wisdom of their
+Chaldaean kinsmen. They were masters, in fact, of the astronomy of their
+day, a science for which the Chaldaeans had shown from the earliest ages
+the most remarkable aptitude. What the actual extent of their
+astronomical knowledge may have been it would be difficult to say. But
+it is certain, from the exact knowledge which later Chaldaeans possessed
+respecting long astronomical cycles, that astronomical observations must
+have been carried on continuously by that people for many hundreds of
+years. It is highly probable that the astronomical knowledge of the
+Chaldaeans in the days of Terah and Abraham was much more accurate than
+that possessed by the Greeks even after the time of Hipparchus.[24] We
+see indeed, in the accurate astronomical adjustment of the Great
+Pyramid, that the architects must have been skilful astronomers and
+mathematicians; and I may note here, in passing, how strongly this
+circumstance confirms the opinion that the visitors were kinsmen of
+Terah and Abraham. All we know from Herodotus and Manetho, all the
+evidence from the circumstances connected with the religion of the
+pyramid-kings, and the astronomical evidence given by the pyramids
+themselves, tends to assure us that members of that particular branch of
+the Chaldaean family which went out from Ur of the Chaldees because they
+would not worship the gods of the Chaldaeans, extended their wanderings
+to Egypt, and eventually superintended the erection of the Great Pyramid
+so far as astronomical and mathematical relations were concerned.
+
+But not only have we already decided that the pyramids were not intended
+solely or chiefly to sub serve the purpose of astronomical
+observatories, but it is certain that Cheops would not have been
+personally much interested in any astronomical information which these
+visitors might be able to communicate. Unless he saw clearly that
+something was to be gained from the lore of his visitors, he would not
+have undertaken to erect any astronomical buildings at their suggestion,
+even if he had cared enough for their knowledge to pay any attention to
+them whatever. Most probably the reply Cheops would have made to any
+communications respecting mere astronomy, would have run much in the
+style of the reply made by the Turkish Cadi, Imaum Ali Zade to a friend
+of Layard's who had apparently bored him about double stars and comets:
+'Oh my soul! oh my lamb!' said Ali Zade, 'seek not after the things
+which concern thee not. Thou camest unto us, and we welcomed thee: go in
+peace. Of a truth thou hast spoken many words; and there is no harm
+done, for the speaker is one and the listener is another. After the
+fashion of thy people thou hast wandered from one place to another until
+thou art happy and content in none. Listen, oh my son! There is no
+wisdom equal unto the belief in God! He created the world, and shall we
+liken ourselves unto Him in seeking to penetrate into the mysteries of
+His creation? Shall we say, Behold this star spinneth round that star,
+and this other star with a tail goeth and cometh in so many years! Let
+it go! He from whose hand it came will guide and direct it. But thou
+wilt say unto me, Stand aside, oh man, for I am more learned than thou
+art, and have seen more things. If thou thinkest that thou art in this
+respect better than I am, thou art welcome. I praise God that I seek not
+that which I require not. Thou art learned in the things I care not for;
+and as for that which thou hast seen, I defile it. Will much knowledge
+create thee a double belly, or wilt thou seek paradise with thine eyes?'
+Such, omitting the references to the Creator, would probably have been
+the reply of Cheops to his visitors, had they only had astronomical
+facts to present him with. Or, in the plenitude of his kingly power, he
+might have more decisively rejected their teaching by removing their
+heads.
+
+But the shepherd-astronomers had knowledge more attractive to offer than
+a mere series of astronomical discoveries. Their ancestors had
+
+  Watched from the centres of their sleeping flocks
+  Those radiant Mercuries, that seemed to move
+  Carrying through aether in perpetual round
+  Decrees and resolutions of the gods;
+
+and though the visitors of King Cheops had themselves rejected the
+Sabaistic polytheism of their kinsmen, they had not rejected the
+doctrine that the stars in their courses affect the fortunes of men. We
+know that among the Jews, probably the direct descendants of the
+shepherd-chiefs who visited Cheops, and certainly close kinsmen of
+theirs, and akin to them also in their monotheism, the belief in
+astrology was never regarded as a superstition. In fact, we can trace
+very clearly in the books relating to this people that they believed
+confidently in the influences of the heavenly bodies. Doubtless the
+visitors of King Cheops shared the belief of their Chaldaean kinsmen that
+astrology is a true science, 'founded' indeed (as Bacon expresses their
+views) 'not in reason and physical contemplations, but in the direct
+experience and observation of past ages.' Josephus records the Jewish
+tradition (though not as a tradition but as a fact) that 'our first
+father, Adam, was instructed in astrology by divine inspiration,' and
+that Seth so excelled in the science, that, 'foreseeing the Flood and
+the destruction of the world thereby, he engraved the fundamental
+principles of his art (astrology) in hieroglyphical emblems, for the
+benefit of after ages, on two pillars of brick and stone.' He says
+farther on that the Patriarch Abraham, 'having learned the art in
+Chaldaea, when he journeyed into Egypt taught the Egyptians the sciences
+of arithmetic and astrology.' Indeed, the stranger called Philitis by
+Herodotus may, for aught that appears, have been Abraham himself; for it
+is generally agreed that the word Philitis indicated the race and
+country of the visitors, regarded by the Egyptians as of Philistine
+descent and arriving from Palestine. However, I am in no way concerned
+to show that the shepherd-astronomers who induced Cheops to build the
+Great Pyramid were even contemporaries of Abraham and Melchizedek. What
+seems sufficiently obvious is all that I care to maintain, namely, that
+these shepherd-astronomers were of Chaldaean birth and training, and
+therefore astrologers, though, unlike their Chaldaean kinsmen, they
+rejected Sabaism or star-worship, and taught the belief in one only
+Deity.
+
+Now, if these visitors were astrologers, who persuaded Cheops, and were
+honestly convinced themselves, that they could predict the events of any
+man's life by the Chaldaean method of casting nativities, we can readily
+understand many circumstances connected with the pyramids which have
+hitherto seemed inexplicable. The pyramid built by a king would no
+longer be regarded as having reference to his death and burial, but to
+his birth and life, though after his death it might receive his body.
+Each king would require to have his own nativity-pyramid, built with due
+symbolical reference to the special celestial influences affecting his
+fortunes. Every portion of the work would have to be carried out under
+special conditions, determined according to the mysterious influences
+ascribed to the different planets and their varying positions--
+
+        now high, now low, then hid.
+  Progressive, retrograde, or standing still.
+
+If the work had been intended only to afford the means of predicting the
+king's future, the labour would have been regarded by the monarch as
+well bestowed. But astrology involved much more than the mere prediction
+of future events. Astrologers claimed the power of ruling the
+planets--that is, of course, not of ruling the motions of those bodies,
+but of providing against evil influences or strengthening good
+influences which they supposed the celestial orbs to exert in particular
+aspects. Thus we can understand that while the mere basement layers of
+the pyramid would have served for the process of casting the royal
+nativity, with due mystic observances, the further progress of building
+the pyramid would supply the necessary means and indications for ruling
+the planets most potent in their influence upon the royal career.
+
+Remembering the mysterious influence which astrologers ascribed to
+special numbers, figures, positions, and so forth, the care with which
+the Great Pyramid was so proportioned as to indicate particular
+astronomical and mathematical relations is at once explained. The four
+sides of the square base were carefully placed with reference to the
+cardinal points, precisely like the four sides of the ordinary square
+scheme of nativity.[25] The eastern side faced the Ascendant, the
+southern faced the Mid-heaven, the western faced the Descendant, and the
+northern faced the Imum Coeli. Again, we can understand that the
+architects would have made a circuit of the base correspond in length
+with the number of days in the year--a relation which, according to
+Prof. P. Smyth, is fulfilled in this manner, that the four sides contain
+one hundred times as many pyramid inches as there are days in the year.
+The pyramid inch, again, is itself mystically connected with
+astronomical relations, for its length is equal to the five hundred
+millionth part of the earth's diameter, to a degree of exactness
+corresponding well with what we might expect Chaldaean astronomers to
+attain. Prof. Smyth, indeed, believes that it was exactly equal to that
+proportion of the earth's polar diameter--a view which would correspond
+with his theory that the architects of the Great Pyramid were assisted
+by divine inspiration; but what is certainly known about the sacred
+cubit, which contained twenty-five of these inches, corresponds better
+with the diameter which the Chaldaean astronomers, if they worked very
+carefully, would have deduced from observations made in their own
+country, on the supposition which they would naturally have made that
+the earth is a perfect globe, not compressed at the poles. It is not
+indeed at all certain that the sacred cubit bore any reference to the
+earth's dimensions; but this seems tolerably well made out--that the
+sacred cubit was about 25 inches in length, and that the circuit of the
+pyramid's base contained a hundred inches for every day of the year.
+Relations such as these are precisely what we might expect to find in
+buildings having an astrological significance. Similarly, it would
+correspond well with the mysticism of astrology that the pyramid should
+be so proportioned as to make the height be the radius of a circle whose
+circumference would equal the circuit of the pyramid's base. Again, that
+long slant tunnel, leading downwards from the pyramid's northern face,
+would at once find a meaning in this astrological theory. The slant
+tunnel pointed to the pole-star of Cheops' time, when due north below
+the true pole of the heavens. This circumstance had no observational
+utility. It could afford no indication of time, because a pole-star
+moves very slowly, and the pole-star of Cheops' day must have been in
+view through that tunnel for more than an hour at a time. But, apart
+from the mystical significance which an astrologer would attribute to
+such a relation, it may be shown that this slant tunnel is precisely
+what the astrologer would require in order to get the horoscope
+correctly.
+
+Another consideration remains to be mentioned which, while strengthening
+the astrological theory of the pyramids, may bring us even nearer to the
+true aim of those who planned and built these structures.
+
+It is known also that the Chaldaeans from the earliest times pursued the
+study of alchemy in connection with astrology, not hoping to discover
+the philosopher's stone by chemical investigations alone, but by
+carrying out such investigations under special celestial influence. The
+hope of achieving this discovery, by which he would at once have had the
+means of acquiring illimitable wealth, would of itself account for the
+fact that Cheops expended so much labour and material in the erection of
+the Great Pyramid, seeing that, of necessity, success in the search for
+the philosopher's stone would be a main feature of his fortunes, and
+would therefore be astrologically indicated in his nativity-pyramid, or
+perhaps even be secured by following mystical observances proper for
+ruling his planets.
+
+The elixir of life may also have been among the objects which the
+builders of the pyramids hoped to discover.
+
+It may be noticed, as a somewhat significant circumstance, that, in the
+account given by Ibn Abd Alkohm of the contents of the various pyramids,
+those assigned to the Great Pyramid relate entirely to astrology and
+associated mysteries. It is, of course, clear that Abd Alkohm drew
+largely on his imagination. Yet it seems probable that there was also
+some basis of tradition for his ideas. And certainly one would suppose
+that, as he assigned a treasurer to the East pyramid ('a statue of black
+agate, his eyes open and shining, sitting on a throne with a lance'), he
+would have credited the building with treasure also, had not some
+tradition taught otherwise. But he says that King Saurid placed in the
+East pyramid, not treasures, but 'divers celestial spheres and stars,
+and what they severally operate in their aspects, and the perfumes which
+are to be used to them, and the books which treat of these matters.'[26]
+
+But, after all, it must be admitted that the strongest evidence in
+favour of the astrological (and alchemical) theory of the pyramids is to
+be found in the circumstance that all other theories seem untenable. The
+pyramids were undoubtedly erected for some purpose which was regarded by
+their builders as most important. This purpose certainly related to the
+personal fortunes of the kingly builders. It was worth an enormous
+outlay of money, labour, and material. This purpose was such,
+furthermore, that each king required to have his own pyramid. It was in
+some way associated with astronomy, for the pyramids are built with most
+accurate reference to celestial aspects. It also had its mathematical
+and mystical bearings, seeing that the pyramids exhibit mathematical and
+symbolical peculiarities not belonging to their essentially structural
+requirements. And lastly, the erection of the pyramids was in some way
+connected with the arrival of certain learned persons from Palestine,
+and presumably of Chaldaean origin. All these circumstances accord well
+with the theory I have advanced; while only some of them, and these not
+the most characteristic, accord with any of the other theories.
+Moreover, no fact known respecting the pyramids or their builders is
+inconsistent with the astrological (and alchemical) theory. On the
+whole, then, if it cannot be regarded as demonstrated (in its general
+bearing, of course, for we cannot expect any theory about the pyramids
+to be established in minute details), the astrological theory may fairly
+be described as having a greater degree of probability in its favour
+than any hitherto advanced.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+_SWEDENBORG'S VISIONS OF OTHER WORLDS._
+
+
+If it were permitted to men to select a sign whereby they should know
+that a message came from the Supreme Being, probably the man of science
+would select for the sign the communication of some scientific fact
+beyond the knowledge of the day, but admitting of being readily put to
+the test. The evidence thus obtained in favour of a revelation would
+correspond in some sense to that depending on prophecies; but it would
+be more satisfactory to men having that particular mental bent which is
+called the scientific. Whether this turn of mind is inherent or the
+result of training, it certainly leads men of science to be more
+exacting in considering the value of evidence than any men, except
+perhaps lawyers. In the case of the student of science, St. Paul's
+statement that 'prophecies' 'shall fail' has been fulfilled, whereas it
+may be doubted whether evidence from 'knowledge' would in like manner
+'vanish away.' On the contrary, it would grow stronger and stronger, as
+knowledge from observation, from experiment, and from calculation
+continually increased. It can scarcely be said that this has happened
+with such quasi-scientific statements as have actually been associated
+with revelation. If we regard St. Paul's reference to knowledge as
+relating to such statements as these, then nothing could be more
+complete than the fulfilment of his own prediction, 'Whether there be
+prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease;
+whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.' The evidence from
+prophecies fails for the exact inquirer, who perceives the doubts which
+exist (among the most earnest believers) as to the exact meaning of the
+prophetic words, and even in some cases as to whether prophecies have
+been long since fulfilled or relate to events still to come. The
+evidence from 'tongues' has ceased, and those are dust who are said to
+have spoken in strange tongues. The knowledge which was once thought
+supernatural has utterly vanished away. But if, in the ages of faith,
+some of the results of modern scientific research had been revealed, as
+the laws of the solar system, the great principle of the conservation of
+energy, or the wave theory of light, or if some of the questions which
+still remain for men of science to solve had been answered in those
+times, the evidence for the student of science would have been
+irresistible. Of course he will be told that even then he would have
+hardened his heart; that the inquiry after truth tending naturally to
+depravity of mind, he would reject even evidence based on his beloved
+laws of probability; that his 'wicked and adulterous generation seeketh
+"in vain" after a sign,' and that if he will not accept Moses and the
+prophets, neither would he believe though one rose from the dead. Still
+the desire of the student of science to base his faith on convincing
+evidence (in a matter as important to him as to those who abuse him)
+does seem to have something reasonable in it after all. The mental
+qualities which cause him to be less easily satisfied than others, came
+to him in the same way as his bodily qualities; and even if the result
+to which his mental training leads him is as unfortunate as some
+suppose, that training is not strictly speaking so heinously sinful that
+nothing short of the eternal reprobation meted out to him by earthly
+judges can satisfy divine justice. So that it may be thought not a
+wholly unpardonable sin to speak of a sign which, had it been accorded,
+would have satisfied even the most exacting student of science. Apart,
+too, from all question of faith, the mere scientific interest of
+divinely inspired communications respecting natural laws and processes
+would justify a student of science in regarding them as most desirable
+messages from a being of superior wisdom and benevolence. If prophecies
+and tongues, why not knowledge, as evidence of a divine mission?
+
+Such thoughts are suggested by the claim of some religious teachers to
+the possession of knowledge other than that which they could have gained
+by natural means. The claim has usually been quite honest. The teacher
+of religion tests the reality of his mission in simple _a priori_
+confidence that he has such a mission, and that therefore some one or
+other of the tests he applies will afford the required evidence. To one,
+says St. Paul, is given the word of wisdom; to another, the word of
+knowledge; to another, faith; to another, the gift of healing; to
+another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, the
+discerning of spirits; to another, divers kinds of tongues: and so
+forth. If a man like Mahomet, who believes in his mission to teach,
+finds that he cannot satisfactorily work miracles--that mountains will
+not be removed at his bidding--then some other evidence satisfies him of
+the reality of his mission. Swedenborg, than whom, perhaps, no more
+honest man ever lived, said and believed that to him had been granted
+the discerning of spirits. 'It is to be observed,' he said, 'that a man
+may be instructed by spirits and angels if his interiors be so open as
+to enable him to speak and be in company with them, for man in his
+essence is a spirit, and is with spirits as to his interiors; so that
+he whose interiors are opened by the Lord may converse with them, as
+man with man. _This privilege I have enjoyed daily now for twelve
+years._'
+
+It indicates the fulness of Swedenborg's belief in this privilege that
+he did not hesitate to describe what the spirits taught him respecting
+matters which belong rather to science than to faith; though it must be
+admitted that probably he supposed there was small reason for believing
+that his statements could ever be tested by the results of scientific
+research. The objects to which his spiritual communications related were
+conveniently remote. I do not say this as desiring for one moment to
+suggest that he purposely selected those objects, and not others which
+might be more readily examined. He certainly believed in the reality of
+the communications he described. But possibly there is some law in
+things visionary, corresponding to the law of mental operation with
+regard to scientific theories; and as the mind theorises freely about a
+subject little understood, but cautiously where many facts have been
+ascertained, so probably exact knowledge of a subject prevents the
+operation of those illusions which are regarded as supernatural
+communications. It is in a dim light only that the active imagination
+pictures objects which do not really exist; in the clear light of day
+they can no longer be imagined. So it is with mental processes.
+
+Probably there is no subject more suitable in this sense for the
+visionary than that of life in other worlds. It has always had an
+attraction for imaginative minds, simply because it is enwrapped in so
+profound a mystery; and there has been little to restrain the fancy,
+because so little is certainly known of the physical condition of other
+worlds. Recently, indeed, a somewhat sudden and severe check has been
+placed on the liveliness of imagination which had enabled men formerly
+to picture to themselves the inhabitants of other orbs in space.
+Spectroscopic analysis and exact telescopic scrutiny will not permit
+some speculations to be entertained which formerly met with favour. Yet
+even now there has been but a slight change of scene and time. If men
+can no longer imagine inhabitants of one planet because it is too hot,
+or of another because it is too cold, of one body because it is too
+deeply immersed in vaporous masses, or of another because it has neither
+atmosphere nor water, we have only to speculate about the unseen worlds
+which circle round those other suns, the stars; or, instead of changing
+the region of space where we imagine worlds, we can look backward to the
+time when planets now cold and dead were warm with life, or forward to
+the distant future when planets now glowing with fiery heat shall have
+cooled down to a habitable condition.
+
+Swedenborg's imaginative mind seems to have fully felt the charm of this
+interesting subject. It was, indeed, because of the charm which he found
+in it, that he was readily persuaded into the belief that knowledge had
+been supernaturally communicated to him respecting it. 'Because I had a
+desire,' he says, 'to know if there are other earths, and to learn their
+nature and the character of their inhabitants, it was granted me by the
+Lord to converse and have intercourse with spirits and angels who had
+come from other earths, with some for a day, with some for a week, and
+with some for months. From them I have received information respecting
+the earths from and near which they are, the modes of life, customs and
+worship of their inhabitants, besides various other particulars of
+interest, all which, having come to my knowledge in this way, I can
+describe as things which I have seen and heard.'
+
+It is interesting (psychologically) to notice how the reasoning which
+had convinced Swedenborg of the existence of other inhabited worlds is
+attributed by him to the spirits. 'It is well known in the other life,'
+he says, 'that there are many earths with men upon them; for there (that
+is, in the spiritual life) every one who, from a love of truth and
+consequent use, desires it, is allowed to converse with the spirits of
+other earths, so as to be assured that there is a plurality of worlds,
+and be informed that the human race is not confined to one earth only,
+but extends to numberless earths.... I have occasionally conversed on
+this subject with the spirits of our earth, and the result of our
+conversation was that a man of enlarged understanding may conclude from
+various considerations that there are many earths with human inhabitants
+upon them. For it is an inference of reason that masses so great as the
+planets are, some of which exceed this earth in magnitude, are not empty
+bodies, created only to be carried in their motion round the sun, and to
+shine with their scanty light for the benefit of one earth only; but
+that they must have a nobler use. He who believes, as every one ought to
+believe, that the Deity created the universe for no other end than the
+existence of the human race, and of heaven from it (for the human race
+is the seminary of heaven), must also believe that wherever there is an
+earth there are human inhabitants. That the planets which are visible to
+us, being within the boundary of our solar system, are earths, may
+appear from various considerations. They are bodies of earthy matter,
+because they reflect the sun's light, and when seen through the
+telescope appear, not as stars shining with a flaming lustre, but as
+earths, variegated with obscure spots. Like our earth, they are carried
+round the sun by a progressive motion, through the path of the Zodiac,
+whence they have years and seasons of the year, which are spring,
+summer, autumn, and winter; and they rotate upon their axes, which makes
+days, and times of the day, as morning, midday, evening, and night. Some
+of them also have satellites, which perform their revolutions about
+their globes, as the moon does about ours. The planet Saturn, as being
+farthest from the sun, has besides an immense luminous ring, which
+supplies that earth with much, though reflected, light. How is it
+possible for anyone acquainted with these facts, and who thinks from
+reason, to assert that such bodies are uninhabited?'
+
+Remembering that this reasoning was urged by the spirits, and that
+during twelve years Swedenborg's interiors had been opened in such sort
+that he could converse with spirits from other worlds, it is surprising
+that he should have heard nothing about Uranus or Neptune, to say
+nothing of the zone of asteroids, or again, of planets as yet unknown
+which may exist outside the path of Neptune. He definitely commits
+himself, it will be observed, to the statement that Saturn is the planet
+farthest from the sun. And elsewhere, in stating where in these
+spiritual communications the 'idea' of each planet was conceived to be
+situated, he leaves no room whatever for Uranus and Neptune, and makes
+no mention of other bodies in the solar system than those known in his
+day. This cannot have been because the spirits from then unknown planets
+did not feel themselves called upon to communicate with the spirit of
+one who knew nothing of their home, for he received visitors from worlds
+in the starry heavens far beyond human ken. It would almost seem, though
+to the faithful Swedenborgian the thought will doubtless appear very
+wicked, that the system of Swedenborg gave no place to Uranus and
+Neptune, simply because he knew nothing about those planets. Otherwise,
+what a noble opportunity there would have been for establishing the
+truth of Swedenborgian doctrines by revealing to the world the existence
+of planets hitherto unknown. Before the reader pronounces this a task
+beneath the dignity of the spirits and angels who taught Swedenborg it
+will be well for him to examine the news which they actually imparted.
+
+I may as well premise, however, that it does not seem to me worth while
+to enter here at any length into Swedenborg's descriptions of the
+inhabitants of other worlds, because what he has to say on this subject
+is entirely imaginative. There is a real interest for us in his ideas
+respecting the condition of the planets, because those ideas were based
+(though unconsciously) upon the science of his day, in which he was no
+mean proficient. And even where his mysticism went beyond what his
+scientific attainments suggested, a psychological interest attaches to
+the workings of his imagination. It is as curious a problem to trace his
+ideas to their origin as it sometimes is to account for the various
+phases of a fantastic dream, such a dream, for instance, as that which
+Armadale, the doctor, and Midwinter, in 'Armadale,' endeavour to connect
+with preceding events. But Swedenborg's visions of the behaviour and
+appearance of the inhabitants of other earths have little interest,
+because it is hopeless to attempt to account for even their leading
+features. For instance, what can we make of such a passage as the
+following, relating to the spirits who came from Mercury?--'Some of them
+are desirous to appear, not like the spirits of other earths as men, but
+as crystalline globes. Their desire to appear so, although they do not,
+arises from the circumstance that the knowledges of things immaterial
+are in the other life represented by crystals.'
+
+Yet some even of these more fanciful visions significantly indicate the
+nature of Swedenborg's philosophy. One can recognise his disciples and
+his opponents among the inhabitants of various favoured and unhappy
+worlds, and one perceives how the wiser and more dignified of his
+spiritual visitors are made to advocate his own views, and to deride
+those of his adversaries. Some of the teachings thus circuitously
+advanced are excellent.
+
+For instance, Swedenborg's description of the inhabitants of Mercury and
+their love of abstract knowledge contains an instructive lesson. 'The
+spirits of Mercury imagine,' he says, 'that they know so much, that it
+is almost impossible to know more. But it has been told them by the
+spirits of our earth, that they do not know many things, but few, and
+that the things which they know not are comparatively infinite, and in
+relation to those they do know are as the waters of the largest ocean to
+those of the smallest fountain; and further, that the first advance to
+wisdom is to know, acknowledge, and perceive that what we do know,
+compared with what we do not know, is so little as hardly to amount to
+anything.'[27] So far we may suppose that Swedenborg presents his own
+ideas, seeing that he is describing what has been told the Mercurial
+spirits by the spirits of our earth, of whom (during these spiritual
+conversations) he was one. But he proceeds to describe how angels were
+allowed to converse with the Mercurial spirits in order to convince them
+of their error. 'I saw another angel,' says he, after describing one
+such conversation, 'conversing with them; he appeared at some altitude
+to the right; he was from our earth, and he enumerated very many things
+of which they were ignorant.... As they had been proud on account of
+their knowledges, on hearing this they began to humble themselves. Their
+humiliation was represented by the sinking of the company which they
+formed, for that company then appeared as a volume or roll, ... as if
+hollowed in the middle and raised at the sides.... They were told what
+that signified, that is, what they thought in their humiliation, and
+that those who appeared elevated at the sides were not as yet in any
+humiliation. Then I saw that the volume was separated, and that those
+who were not in humiliation were remanded back towards their earth, the
+rest remaining.'
+
+Little being known to Swedenborg, as indeed little is known to the
+astronomers of our own time, about Mercury, we find little in the
+visions relating to that planet which possesses any scientific interest.
+He asked the inhabitants who were brought to him in visions about the
+sun of the system, and they replied that it looks larger from Mercury
+than as seen from other worlds. This of course was no news to
+Swedenborg. They explained further, that the inhabitants enjoy a
+moderate temperature, without extremes of heat or cold. 'It was given to
+me,' proceeds Swedenborg, 'to tell them that it was so provided by the
+Lord, that they might not be exposed to excessive heat from their
+greater proximity to the sun, since heat does not arise from the sun's
+nearness, but from the height and density of the atmosphere, as appears
+from the cold on high mountains even in hot climates; also that heat is
+varied according to the direct or oblique incidence of the sun's rays,
+as is plain from the seasons of winter and summer in every region.' It
+is curious to find thus advanced, in a sort of lecture addressed to
+visionary Mercurials, a theory which crops up repeatedly in the present
+day, because the difficulty which suggests it is dealt with so
+unsatisfactorily for the most part in our text-books of science.
+Continually we hear of some new paradoxist who propounds as a novel
+doctrine the teaching that the atmosphere, and not the sun, is the cause
+of heat. The mistake was excusable in Swedenborg's time. In fact it so
+chanced that, apart from the obvious fact on which the mistake is
+usually based--the continued presence, namely, of snow on the summits of
+high mountains even in the torrid zone--it had been shown shortly before
+by Newton, that the light fleecy clouds seen sometimes even in the
+hottest weather above the wool-pack or cumulus clouds are composed of
+minute crystals of ice. Seeing that these tiny crystals can exist under
+the direct rays of the sun in hot summer weather, many find it difficult
+to understand how those rays can of themselves have any heating power.
+Yet in reality the reasoning addressed by Swedenborg to his Mercurial
+friends was entirely erroneous. If he could have adventured as far forth
+into time as he did into space, and could have attended in the spirit
+the lectures of one John Tyndall, a spirit of our earth, he would have
+had this matter rightly explained to him. In reality the sun's heat is
+as effective directly at the summit of the highest mountain as at the
+sea-level. A thermometer exposed to the sun in the former position
+indicates indeed a slightly higher temperature than one similarly
+exposed to the sun (when at the same altitude) at the sea-level. But the
+air does not get warmed to the same degree, simply because, owing to
+its rarity and relative dryness, it fails to retain any portion of the
+heat which passes through it.
+
+It is interesting to notice how Swedenborg's scientific conceptions of
+the result of the (relatively) airless condition of our moon suggested
+peculiar fancies respecting the lunar inhabitants. Interesting, I mean,
+psychologically: for it is curious to see scientific and fanciful
+conceptions thus unconsciously intermingled. Of the conscious
+intermingling of such conceptions instances are common enough. The
+effects of the moon's airless condition have been often made the subject
+of fanciful speculations. The reader will remember how Scheherazade, in
+'The Poet at the Breakfast Table,' runs on about the moon. 'Her delight
+was unbounded, and her curiosity insatiable. If there were any living
+creatures there, what odd things they must be. They couldn't have any
+lungs nor any hearts. What a pity! Did they ever die? How could they
+expire if they didn't breathe? Burn up? No air to burn in. Tumble into
+some of those horrid pits, perhaps, and break all to bits. She wondered
+how the young people there liked it, or whether there were any young
+people there. Perhaps nobody was young and nobody was old, but they were
+like mummies all of them--what an idea!--two mummies making love to each
+other! So she went on in a rattling, giddy kind of way, for she was
+excited by the strange scene in which she found herself, and quite
+astonished the young astronomer with her vivacity.' But Swedenborg's
+firm belief that the fancies engendered in his mind were scientific
+realities is very different from the conscious play of fancy in the
+passage just quoted. It must be remembered that Swedenborg regarded his
+visions with as much confidence as though they were revelations made by
+means of scientific instruments; nay, with even more confidence, for he
+knew that scientific observations may be misunderstood, whereas he was
+fully persuaded that his visions were miraculously provided for his
+enlightenment, and that therefore he would not be allowed to
+misunderstand aught that was thus revealed to him.
+
+'It is well known to spirits and angels,' he says, 'that there are
+inhabitants in the moon, and in the moons or satellites which revolve
+about Jupiter and Saturn. Even those who have not seen and conversed
+with spirits who are from them entertain no doubt of their being
+inhabited, for they, too, are earths, and where there is an earth there
+is man; man being the end for which every earth exists, and without an
+end nothing was made by the Great Creator. Every one who thinks from
+reason in any degree enlightened, must see that the human race is the
+final cause of creation.'
+
+The moon being inhabited then by human beings, but being very
+insufficiently supplied with air, it necessarily follows that these
+human beings must be provided in some way with the means of existing in
+that rare and tenuous atmosphere. Tremendous powers of inspiration and
+expiration would be required to make that air support the life of the
+human body. Although Swedenborg could have had no knowledge of the exact
+way in which breathing supports life (for Priestley was his junior by
+nearly half a century), yet he must clearly have perceived that the
+quantity of air inspired has much to do with the vitalising power of the
+indraught. No ordinary human lungs could draw in an adequate supply of
+air from such an atmosphere as the moon's; but by some great increase of
+breathing power it might be possible to live there: at least, in
+Swedenborg's time there was no reason for supposing otherwise. Reason,
+then, having convinced him that the lunar inhabitants must possess
+extraordinary breathing apparatus, and presumably most powerful voices,
+imagination presented them to him accordingly. 'Some spirits appeared
+overhead,' he says, 'and thence were heard voices like thunder; for
+their voices sounded precisely like thunder from the clouds after
+lightning. I supposed it was a great multitude of spirits who had the
+art of giving voices with such a sound. The more simple spirits who were
+with me derided them, which greatly surprised me. But the cause of their
+derision was soon discovered, which was, that the spirits who thundered
+were not many, but few, and were as little as children, and that on
+former occasions they (the thunderers) had terrified them by such
+sounds, and yet were unable to do them the least harm. That I might know
+their character, some of them descended from on high, where they
+thundered; and, what surprised me, one carried another on his back, and
+the two thus approached me. Their faces appeared not unhandsome, but
+longer than those of other spirits. In stature they were like children
+of seven years old, but the frame was more robust, so that they were
+like men. It was told me by the angels that they were from the moon. He
+who was carried by the other came to me, applying himself to my left
+side under the elbow, and thence spoke. He said, that when they utter
+their voices they thunder in this way,'--and it seems likely enough that
+if there are any living speaking beings in the moon, their voice, could
+they visit the earth, would be found to differ very markedly from the
+ordinary human voice. 'In the spiritual world their thunderous voices
+have their use. For by their thundering the spirits from the moon
+terrify spirits who are inclined to injure them, so that the lunar
+spirits go in safety where they will. To convince me the sound they make
+was of this kind, he (the spirit who was carried by the other) retired,
+but not out of sight, and thundered in like manner. They showed,
+moreover, that the voice was thundered by being uttered from the abdomen
+like an eructation. It was perceived that this arose from the
+circumstance that the inhabitants of the moon do not, like the
+inhabitants of other earths, speak from the lungs, but from the abdomen,
+and thus from air collected there, the reason of which is that the
+atmosphere with which the moon is surrounded is not like that of other
+earths.'
+
+In his intercourse with spirits from Jupiter, Swedenborg heard of
+animals larger than those that live on the earth. It has been a
+favourite idea of many believers in other worlds than ours, that though
+in each world the same races of animals exist, they would be differently
+proportioned; and there has been much speculation as to the probable
+size of men and other animals in worlds much larger or much smaller than
+the earth. When as yet ideas about other worlds were crude, the idea
+prevailed that giants exist in the larger orbs, and pygmies in the
+smaller. Whether this idea had its origin in conceptions as to the
+eternal fitness of things or not, does not clearly appear. It seems
+certainly at first view natural enough to suppose that the larger beings
+would want more room and so inhabit the larger dwelling-places. It was a
+pleasing thought that, if we could visit Jupiter or Saturn, we should
+find the human inhabitants there
+
+  In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons;
+
+but that if we could visit our moon or Mercury, or whatever smaller
+worlds there are, we should find men
+
+  Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room
+  Throng numberless, like that pygmaean race
+  Beyond the Indian mount; or fairy elves,
+  Whose midnight revels, by a forest side
+  Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
+  Or dreams he sees.
+
+Later the theory was started that the size of beings in various worlds
+depends on the amount of light received from the central sun. Thus
+Wolfius asserted that the inhabitants of Jupiter are nearly fourteen
+feet high, which he proved by comparing the quantity of sunlight which
+reaches the Jovians with that which we Terrenes receive. Recently,
+however, it has been noted that the larger the planet, the smaller in
+all probability must be the inhabitants, if any. For if there are two
+planets of the same density but unequal size, gravity must be greater at
+the surface of the larger planet, and where gravity is great large
+animals are cumbered by their weight. It is easy to see this by
+comparing the muscular strength of two men similarly proportioned, but
+unequal in height. Suppose one man five feet in height, the other six;
+then the cross section of any given muscle will be less for the former
+than for the latter in the proportion of twenty-five (five times five)
+to thirty-six (six times six). Roughly, the muscular strength of the
+bigger man will be half as great again as that of the smaller. But the
+weights of the men will be proportioned as 125 (five times five times
+five) to 216 (six times six times six), so that the weight of the bigger
+man exceeds that of the smaller nearly as seven exceeds four, or by
+three-fourths. The taller man exceeds the smaller, then, much more in
+weight than he does in strength; he is accordingly less active in
+proportion to his size. Within certain limits, of course, size increases
+a man's effective as well as his real strength. For instance, our tall
+man in the preceding illustration cannot lift his own weight as readily
+as the small man can lift his; but he can lift a weight of three hundred
+pounds as easily as the small man can lift a weight of two hundred
+pounds. When we get beyond certain limits of height, however, we get
+absolute weakness as the result of the increase of weight. Swift's
+Brobdingnags, for instance, would have been unable to stand upright; for
+they were six times as tall as men, and therefore each Brobdingnag
+would have weighed 216 times as much as a man, but would have possessed
+only thirty-six times the muscular power. Their weight would have been
+greater, then, in a sixfold greater degree than their strength, and, so
+far as their mere weight was concerned, their condition would have
+resembled that of an ordinary man under a load five times exceeding his
+own weight. As no man could walk or stand upright under such a load, so
+the Brobdingnags would have been powerless to move, despite, or rather
+because of, their enormous stature. Applying the general considerations
+here enunciated to the question of the probable size of creatures like
+ourselves in other planets, we see that men in Jupiter should be much
+smaller, men in Mercury much larger, than men on the earth. So also with
+other animals.
+
+But Swedenborg's spirit visitors from these planets taught differently.
+'The horses of our earth,' he says, 'when seen by the spirits of
+Jupiter, appeared to me smaller than usual, though rather robust; which
+arose from the idea those spirits had respecting them. They informed me
+that among them there are animals similar, though much larger; but that
+they are wild, and in the woods, and that when they come in sight they
+cause terror though they are harmless; they added that their terror of
+them is natural or innate.'[28] On the other hand the inhabitants of
+Mercury, who might be thirteen feet high yet as active as our men,
+appeared slenderer than Terrene men. 'I was desirous to know,' says
+Swedenborg, 'what kind of face and person the people in Mercury have,
+compared with those of the people on our earth. There therefore stood
+before me a female exactly resembling the women on that earth. Her face
+was beautiful, but it was smaller than that of a woman of our earth; she
+was more slender, but of equal height; she wore a linen head-dress, not
+artfully yet gracefully disposed. A man also was presented. He, too, was
+more slender than the men of our earth; he wore a garment of deep blue,
+closely fitted to his body without folds or flowing skirts. Such, I
+learn, were the personal form and costume of the humans of that earth.
+Afterwards there was shown me a species of the oxen and cows, which did
+not indeed differ much from those on our earth, except that they were
+smaller, and made some approach to the stag and hind species.' We have
+seen, too, that the lunar spirits were no larger than children seven
+years old.
+
+One passage of Swedenborg's description of Jupiter is curious. 'Although
+on that earth,' he says, 'spirits speak with men' (_i.e._ with Jovian
+men) 'man in his turn does not speak with spirits, except to say, when
+instructed, _that he will do so no more_,'--which we should regard as a
+bull if it were not news from the Jovian spirit world. 'Nor is man
+allowed to tell anyone that a spirit has spoken to him; if he does so,
+he is punished. Those spirits of Jupiter when they were with me, at
+first supposed they were with a man of their own earth; but when in my
+turn I spoke with them, and thought of publishing what passed between us
+and so relating it to others, then, because they were not allowed to
+chastise me, they discovered they were with a stranger.'
+
+It has been a favourite idea with those who delight in the argument from
+design, that the moons of the remoter planets have been provided for the
+express purpose of making up for the small amount of sunlight which
+reaches those planets. Jupiter receives only about one twenty-seventh
+part of the light which we receive from the sun; but then, has he not
+four moons to make his nights glorious? Saturn is yet farther away from
+the sun, and receives only the ninetieth part of the light we get from
+the sun; but then he has eight moons and his rings, and the nocturnal
+glory of his skies must go far to compensate the Saturnians for the
+small quantity of sunlight they receive. The Saturnian spirits who
+visited Swedenborg were manifestly indoctrinated with these ideas. For
+they informed him that the nocturnal light of Saturn is so great that
+some Saturnians worship it, calling it the Lord. These wicked spirits
+are separated from the rest, and are not tolerated by them. 'The
+nocturnal light,' say the spirits, 'comes from the immense ring which at
+a distance encircles that earth, and from the moons which are called the
+satellites of Saturn.' And again, being questioned further 'concerning
+the great ring which appears from our earth to rise above the horizon of
+that planet, and to vary its situations, they said that it does not
+appear to them as a ring, but only as a snow-white substance in heaven
+in various directions.' Unfortunately for our faith in the veracity of
+these spirits, it is certain that the moons of Saturn cannot give nearly
+so much light as ours, while the rings are much more effective as
+darkeners than as illuminators. One can readily calculate the apparent
+size of each of the moons as seen from Saturn, and thence show that the
+eight discs of the moons together are larger than our moon's disc in
+about the proportion of forty-five to eight. So that if they were all
+shining as brightly as our full moon and all full at the same time,
+their combined light would exceed hers in that degree. But they are not
+illuminated as our moon is. They are illuminated by the same remote sun
+which illuminates Saturn, while our moon is illuminated by a sun giving
+her as much light as we ourselves receive. Our moon then is illuminated
+ninety times more brightly than the moons of Saturn, and as her disc is
+less than all theirs together, not as one to ninety, but as sixteen to
+ninety, it follows that all the Saturnian moons, if full at the same
+time, would reflect to Saturn one-sixteenth part of the light which we
+receive from the full moon.[29] As regards the rings of Saturn, nothing
+can be more certain than that they tend much more to deprive Saturn of
+light then to make up by reflection for the small amount of light which
+Saturn receives directly from the sun. The part of the ring which lies
+between the planet and the sun casts a black shadow upon Saturn, this
+shadow sometimes covering an extent of surface many times exceeding the
+entire surface of our earth. The shadow thus thrown upon the planet
+creeps slowly, first one way, then another, northwards and southwards
+over the illuminated hemisphere of the planet (as pictured in the 13th
+plate of my treatise on Saturn), requiring for its passage from the
+arctic to the antarctic regions and back again to the arctic regions of
+the planet, a period nearly equal to that of a generation of terrestrial
+men. Nearly thirty of our years the process lasts, during half of which
+time the northern hemisphere suffers, and during the other half the
+southern. The shadow band, which be it remembered stretches right
+athwart the planet from the extreme eastern to the extreme western side
+of the illuminated hemisphere, is so broad during the greater part of
+the time that in some regions (those corresponding to our temperate
+zones) the shadow takes two years in passing, during which time the sun
+cannot be seen at all, unless for a few moments through some chinks in
+the rings, which are known to be not solid bodies, but made up of
+closely crowded small moons. And the slow passage of this fearful
+shadow, which advances at the average rate of some twenty miles a day,
+but yet hangs for years over the regions athwart which it sweeps, occurs
+in the very season when the sun's small direct supply of heat would
+require to be most freely compensated by nocturnal light--in the winter
+season, namely, of the planet. Moreover, not only during the time of the
+shadow's passage, but during the entire winter half of the Saturnian
+year, the ring reflects no light during the night time, the sun being on
+the other or summer side of the ring's plane.[30] The only nocturnal
+effect which would be observable would be the obliteration of the stars
+covered by the ring system. It is strange that, this being so, the
+spirits from Saturn should have made no mention of the circumstance;
+and even more strange that these spirits and others should have asserted
+that the moons and rings of Saturn compensate for the small amount of
+light directly received from the sun. Most certainly a Swedenborg of our
+own time would find the spirits from Saturn more veracious and more
+communicative about these matters, though even what _he_ would hear from
+the spirits would doubtless appear to sceptics of the twenty-first
+century to be no more than he could have inferred from the known facts
+of the science of his day.
+
+But Swedenborg was not content merely to receive visits from the
+inhabitants of other planets in the solar system. He was visited also by
+the spirits of earths in the starry heaven; nay, he was enabled to visit
+those earths himself. For man, even while living in the world, 'is a
+spirit as to his interiors, the body which he carries about in the world
+only serving him for performing functions in this natural or terrestrial
+sphere, which is the lowest.' And to certain men it is granted not only
+to converse as a spirit with angels and spirits, but to traverse in a
+spiritual way the vast distances which separate world from world and
+system from system, all the while remaining in the body. Swedenborg was
+one of these. 'The interiors of my spirit,' he says, 'are opened by the
+Lord, so that while I am in the body I can at the same time be with
+angels in heaven, and not only converse with them, but behold the
+wonderful things which are there and describe them, that henceforth it
+may no more be said, "Who ever came from heaven to assure us it exists
+and tell us what is there?" He who is unacquainted with the arcana of
+heaven cannot believe that man can see earths so remote, and give any
+account of them from sensible experience. But let him know that spaces
+and distances, and consequently progressions, existing in the natural
+world, in their origin and first causes are changes of the state of the
+interiors; that with angels and spirits progressions appear according to
+changes of state; and that by changes of state they may be apparently
+translated from one place to another, and from one earth to another,
+even to earths at the boundaries of the universe; so likewise may man as
+to his spirit, his body still remaining in its place. This has been the
+case with me.'
+
+Before describing his visits to earths in the starry heavens, Swedenborg
+is careful to indicate the probability that such earths exist. 'It is
+well known to the learned world,' he says, 'that every star is a sun in
+its place, remaining fixed like the sun of our earth.' The proper
+motions of the stars had, alas! not been discovered in Swedenborg's day,
+nor does he seem to have been aware what a wild chase he was really
+entering upon in his spiritual progressions. Conceive the pursuit of
+Sirius or Vega as either sun rushed through space with a velocity of
+thirty or forty miles in every second of time! To resume, however, the
+account which Swedenborg gives of the ideas of the learned world of his
+day. 'It is the distance which makes a star appear in a small form;
+consequently' (the logical necessity is not manifest, however) 'each
+star, like the sun of our system, has around it planets which are
+earths; and the reason these are not visible to us is because of their
+immense distance and their having no light but from their own star,
+which light cannot be reflected so far as to reach us.' 'To what other
+end,' proceeds this most convincing reasoning, 'can be so immense a
+heaven with such a multitude of stars? For man is the end for which the
+universe was created. It has been ascertained by calculation that
+supposing there were in the universe a million earths, and on every
+earth three hundred millions of men and two hundred generations within
+six thousand years, and that to every man or spirit was allotted a space
+of three cubic ells, the collective number of men or spirits could not
+occupy a space equal to a thousandth part of this earth, thus not more
+than that occupied by one of the satellites of Jupiter or Saturn; a
+space on the universe almost undiscernible, for a satellite is hardly
+visible to the naked eye. What would this be for the Creator of the
+universe, to whom the whole universe filled with earths could not be
+enough' (for what?), 'seeing that he is infinite.' However, it is not on
+this reasoning alone that Swedenborg relies. He tells us, honestly
+beyond all doubt, that he knows the truth of what he relates. 'The
+information I am about to give,' he says, 'respecting the earths in the
+starry heaven is from experimental testimony; from which it will
+likewise appear how I was translated thither as to my spirit, the body
+remaining in its place.'
+
+His progress in his first star-hunt was to the right, and continued for
+about two hours. He found the boundary of our solar system marked first
+by a white but thick cloud, next by a fiery smoke ascending from a great
+chasm. Here some guards appeared, who stopped some of the company,
+because these had not, like Swedenborg and the rest, received permission
+to pass. They not only stopped those unfortunates, but tortured them,
+conduct for which terrestrial analogues might possibly be discovered.
+
+Having reached another system, he asked the spirits of one of the earths
+there how large their sun was and how it appeared. They said it was less
+than the sun of our earth, and has a flaming appearance. Our sun, in
+fact, is larger than other suns in space, for from that earth starry
+heavens are seen, and a star larger than the rest appears, which, say
+those spirits, 'was declared from heaven' to be the sun of Swedenborg's
+earthly home.
+
+What Swedenborg saw upon that earth has no special interest. The men
+there, though haughty, are loved by their respective wives because they,
+the men, are good. But their goodness does not appear very manifest from
+anything in the narrative. The only man seen by Swedenborg took from his
+wife 'the garment which she wore, and threw it over his own shoulders;
+loosening the lower part, which flowed down to his feet like a robe
+(much as a man of our earth might be expected to loosen the tie-back of
+the period, if he borrowed it in like manner) he thus walked about
+clad.'
+
+He next visited an earth circling round a star, which he learned was one
+of the smaller sort, not far from the equator. Its greater distance was
+plain from the circumstance that Swedenborg was two days in reaching it.
+In this earth he very nearly fell into a quarrel with the spirits. For
+hearing that they possess remarkable keenness of vision, he 'compared
+them with eagles which fly aloft, and enjoy a clear and extensive view
+of objects beneath.' At this they were indignant, supposing, poor
+spirits, 'that he compared them to eagles as to their rapacity, and
+consequently thought them wicked.' He hastened to explain, however, that
+he 'did not liken them to eagles as to their rapacity, but as to
+sharpsightedness.'
+
+Swedenborg's account of a third earth in the star-depths contains a very
+pretty idea for temples and churches. The temples in that earth 'are
+constructed,' he says, of trees, not cut down, but growing in the place
+where they were first planted. On that earth, it seems, there are trees
+of an extraordinary size and height; these they set in rows when young,
+and arrange in such an order that they may serve when they grow up to
+form porticoes and colonnades. In the meanwhile, by cutting and pruning,
+they fit and prepare the tender shoots to entwine one with another, and
+join together so as to form the groundwork and floor of the temple to be
+constructed, and to rise at the sides as walls, and above to bend into
+arches to form the roof. In this manner they construct the temple with
+admirable art, elevating it high above the ground. They prepare also an
+ascent into it, by continuous branches of the trees, extended from the
+trunk and firmly connected together. Moreover, they adorn the temple
+without and within in various ways, by disposing the foliage into
+particular forms; thus they build entire groves. But it was not
+permitted me to see the nature of these temples, only I was informed
+that the light of their sun is let in by apertures amongst the branches,
+and is everywhere transmitted through crystals; whereby the light
+falling on the walls is refracted in colours like those of the rainbow,
+particularly blue and orange, of which they are fondest. Such is their
+architecture, which they prefer to the most magnificent palaces of our
+earth.'
+
+Other earths in the starry heavens were visited by Swedenborg, but the
+above will serve sufficiently to illustrate the nature of his
+observations. One statement, by the way, was made to him which must have
+seemed unlikely ever to be contravened, but which has been shown in our
+time to be altogether erroneous. In the fourth star-world he visited, he
+was told that that earth, which travels round its sun in 200 days of
+fifteen hours each, is one of the least in the universe, being scarcely
+500 German miles, say 2000 English miles, in circumference. This would
+make its diameter about 640 English miles. But there is not one of the
+whole family of planetoids which has a diameter so great as this, and
+many of these earths must be less than fifty miles in diameter. Now
+Swedenborg remarks that he had his information from the angels, 'who
+made a comparison in all these particulars with things of a like nature
+on our earth, according to what they saw in me or in my memory. Their
+conclusions were formed by angelic ideas, whereby are instantly known
+the measure of space and time in a just proportion with respect to space
+and time elsewhere. Angelic ideas, which are spiritual, in such
+calculations infinitely excel human ideas, which are natural.' He must
+therefore have met, unfortunately, with untruthful angels.
+
+The real source of Swedenborg's inspirations will be tolerably
+obvious--to all, at least, who are not Swedenborgians. But our account
+of his visions would not be complete in a psychological sense without a
+brief reference to the personal allusions which the spirits and angels
+made during their visits or his wanderings. His distinguished rival,
+Christian Wolf, was encountered as a spirit by spirits from Mercury, who
+'perceived that what he said did not rise above the sensual things of
+the natural man, because in speaking he thought of honour, and was
+desirous, as in the world (for in the other world every one is like his
+former self), to connect various things into series, and from these
+again continually to deduce others, and so form several chains of such,
+which they did not see or acknowledge to be true, and which, therefore,
+they declared to be chains which neither cohered in themselves nor with
+the conclusions, calling them the obscurity of authority;' so they
+ceased to question him further, and presently left him. Similarly, a
+spirit who in this world had been a 'prelate and a preacher,' and 'very
+pathetic, so that he could deeply move his hearers,' got no hearing
+among the spirits of a certain earth in the starry heavens; for they
+said they could tell 'from the tone of the voice whether a discourse
+came from the heart or not;' and as his discourse came not from the
+heart, 'he was unable to teach them, whereupon he was silent.'
+Convenient thus to have spirits and angels to confirm our impressions of
+other men, living or dead.
+
+Apart from the psychological interest attaching to Swedenborg's strange
+vision, one cannot but be strongly impressed by the idea pervading them,
+that to beings suitably constituted all that takes place in other worlds
+might be known. Modern science recognises a truth here; for in that
+mysterious ether which occupies all space, messages are at all times
+travelling by which the history of every orb is constantly recorded. No
+world, however remote or insignificant; no period, however distant--but
+has its history thus continually proclaimed in ever widening waves. Nay,
+by these waves also (to beings who could read their teachings aright)
+the future is constantly indicated. For, as the waves which permeate the
+ether could only be situated as they actually are, at any moment,
+through past processes, each one of which is consequently indicated by
+those ethereal waves, so also there can be but one series of events in
+the future, as the sequel of the relations actually indicated by the
+ethereal undulations. These, therefore, speak as definitely and
+distinctly of the future as of the past. Could we but rid us of the
+gross habiliments of flesh, and by some new senses be enabled to feel
+each order of ethereal undulations, even of those only which reach our
+earth, all knowledge of the past and future would be within our power.
+The consciousness of this underlies the fancies of Swedenborg, just as
+it underlies the thought of him who sang--
+
+  There's not an orb which thou behold'st
+  But in his motion like an angel sings,
+  Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.
+  But while this muddy vesture of decay
+  Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+_OTHER WORLDS AND OTHER UNIVERSES._
+
+     If any one shall gravely tell me that I have spent my time idly in
+     a vain and fruitless inquiry after what I can never become sure of,
+     the answer is that at this rate he would put down all natural
+     philosophy, as far as it concerns itself in searching into the
+     nature of such things. In such noble and sublime studies as these,
+     'tis a glory to arrive at probability, and the search itself
+     rewards the pains. But there are many degrees of probable, some
+     nearer to the truth than others, in the determining of which lies
+     the chief exercise of our judgment. And besides the nobleness and
+     pleasure of the studies, may we not be so bold as to say that they
+     are no small help to the advancement of wisdom and
+     morality?--HUYGHENS, _Conjectures concerning the Planetary Worlds_.
+
+
+The interest with which astronomy is studied by many who care little or
+nothing for other sciences is due chiefly to the thoughts which the
+celestial bodies suggest respecting life in other worlds than ours.
+There is no feeling more deeply seated in the human heart--not the
+belief in higher than human powers, not the hope of immortality, not
+even the fear of death--than the faith in realms of life where other
+conditions are experienced than those we are acquainted with here. It is
+not vulgar curiosity or idle fancy that suggests the possibilities of
+life in other worlds. It has been the conviction of the profoundest
+thinkers, of men of highest imagination. The mystery of the star-depths
+has had its charm for the mathematician as well as for the poet; for
+the exact observer as for the most fruitful theoriser; nay, for the man
+of business as for him whose life is passed in communing with nature. If
+we analyse the interest with which the generality of men inquire into
+astronomical matters apparently not connected with the question of life
+in other worlds, we find in every case that it has been out of this
+question alone or chiefly that that interest has sprung. The great
+discoveries made during the last few years respecting the sun for
+example, might seem remote from the subject of life in other worlds. It
+is true that Sir William Herschel thought the sun might be the abode of
+living creatures; and Sir John Herschel even suggested the possibility
+that the vast streaks of light called the solar willow-leaves, objects
+varying from two hundred to a thousand miles in length, might be living
+creatures whose intense lustre was the measure of their intense
+vitality. But modern discoveries had rendered all such theories
+untenable. The sun is presented to us as a mighty furnace, in whose
+fires the most stubborn elements are not merely melted but vaporised.
+The material of the sun has been analysed, the motions and changes
+taking place on his surface examined, the laws of his being determined.
+How, it might be asked, is the question of life in other worlds involved
+in these researches? The faith of Sir David Brewster in the sun as the
+abode of life being dispelled, how could discoveries respecting the sun
+interest those who care about the subject of the plurality of worlds?
+The answer to these questions is easily found. The real interest which
+solar researches have possessed for those who are not astronomers has
+resided in the evidence afforded respecting the sun's position as the
+fire, light, and life of the system of worlds whereof our world is one.
+The mere facts discovered respecting the sun would be regarded as so
+much dry detail were they not brought directly into relation with our
+earth and its wants, and therefore with the wants of the other earths
+which circle round the sun; but when thus dealt with they immediately
+excite attention and interest. I do not speak at random in asserting
+this, but describe the result of widely ranging observation. I have
+addressed hundreds of audiences in Great Britain and America on the
+subject of recent solar discoveries, and I have conversed with many
+hundreds of persons of various capacity and education, from men almost
+uncultured to men of the highest intellectual power; and my invariable
+experience has been that solar research derives its chief interest when
+viewed in relation to the sun's position as the mighty ruler, the
+steadfast sustainer, the beneficent almoner of the system of worlds to
+which our earth belongs. It is the same with other astronomical
+subjects. Few care for the record of lunar observations, save in
+relation to the question whether the moon is or has been the abode of
+living creatures. The movements of comets and meteors, and the
+discoveries recently made respecting their condition, have no interest
+except in relation to the position of these bodies in the economy of
+solar systems, or to the possible part which they may at one time have
+performed in building up worlds and suns. None save astronomers, and few
+only of these, care for researches into the star-depths, except in
+connection with the thought that every star is a sun and therefore
+probably the light and fire of a system of worlds like those which
+circle around our own sun.
+
+It is singular how variously this question of life in other worlds has
+been viewed at various stages of astronomical progress. From the time of
+Pythagoras, who first, so far as is known, propounded the general theory
+of the plurality of worlds, down to our own time, when Brewster and
+Chalmers on the one hand, and Whewell on the other, have advocated
+rival theories probably to be both set aside for a theory at once
+intermediate to and more widely ranging in time and space than either,
+the aspect of the subject has constantly varied, as new lights have been
+thrown upon it from different directions. It may be interesting briefly
+to consider what has been thought in the past on this strangely
+attractive question, and then to indicate the view towards which modern
+discoveries seem manifestly to point--a view not likely to undergo other
+change than that resulting from clearer vision and closer approach. In
+other words, I shall endeavour to show that the theory to which we are
+now led by all the known facts is correct in general, though, as fresh
+knowledge is obtained, it may undergo modification in details. We now
+see the subject from the right point of view, though as science
+progresses we may come to see it more clearly and definedly.
+
+When men believed the earth to be a flat surface above which the heavens
+were arched as a tent or canopy, they were not likely to entertain the
+belief in other worlds than ours. During the earlier ages of mankind
+ideas such as these prevailed. The earth had been fashioned into its
+present form and condition, the heavens had been spread over it, the
+sun, and moon, and stars had been set in the heavens for its use and
+adornment, and there was no thought of any other world.
+
+But while this was the general belief, there was already a school of
+philosophy where another doctrine had been taught. Pythagoras had
+adopted the belief of Apollonius Pergaeus that the sun is the centre of
+the planetary paths, the earth one among the planets--a belief
+inseparable from the doctrine of the plurality of worlds. Much argument
+has been advanced to show that this belief never was adopted before the
+time of Copernicus, and unquestionably it must be admitted that the
+theory was not presented in the clear and simple form to which we have
+become accustomed. But it is not necessary to weigh the conflicting
+arguments for and against the opinion that Pythagoras and others
+regarded the earth as not the fixed centre of the universe. The certain
+fact that the doctrine of the plurality of worlds was entertained (I do
+not say adopted) by them, proves sufficiently that they cannot have
+believed the earth to be fixed and central. The idea of other worlds
+like our earth is manifestly inconsistent with the belief that the earth
+is the central body around which the whole universe revolves.
+
+That this is so is well illustrated by the fate of the unfortunate
+Giordano Bruno. He was one of the first disciples of Copernicus, and,
+having accepted the doctrine that the earth travels round the sun as one
+among his family of planets, was led very naturally to the belief that
+the other planets are inhabited. He went farther, and maintained that as
+the earth is not the only inhabited world in the solar system, so the
+sun is not the only centre of a system of inhabited worlds, but each
+star a sun like him, about which many planets revolve. This was one of
+the many heresies for which Bruno was burned at the stake. It is easy,
+also, to recognise in the doctrine of many worlds as the natural sequel
+of the Copernican theory, rather than in the features of this theory
+itself, the cause of the hostility with which theologians regarded it,
+until, finding it proved, they discovered that it is directly taught in
+the books which they interpret for us so variously. The Copernican
+theory was not rejected--nay, it was even countenanced--until this
+particular consequence of the theory was recognised. But within a few
+years from the persecution of Bruno, Galileo was imprisoned, and the
+last years of his life made miserable, because it had become clear that
+in setting the earth adrift from its position as centre of the
+universe, he and his brother Copernicans were sanctioning the belief in
+other worlds than ours. Again and again, in the attacks made by
+clericals and theologians upon the Copernican theory, this lamentable
+consequence was insisted upon. Unconscious that they were advancing the
+most damaging argument which could be conceived for the cause they had
+at heart, they maintained, honestly but unfortunately, that with the new
+theory came the manifest inference that our earth is not the only and by
+no means the most important world in the universe--a doctrine manifestly
+inconsistent (so they said) with the teachings of the Scriptures.
+
+It was naturally only by a slow progression that men were able to
+advance into the domain spread before them by the Copernican theory, and
+to recognise the real minuteness of the earth both in space and time.
+They more quickly recognised the earth's insignificance in space,
+because the new theory absolutely forced this fact upon them. If the
+earth, whose globe they knew to be minute compared with her distance
+from the sun, is really circling around the sun in a mighty orbit many
+millions of miles in diameter, it follows of necessity that the fixed
+stars must lie so far away that even the span of the earth's orbit is
+reduced to nothing by comparison with the vast depths beyond which lie
+even the nearest of those suns. This was Tycho Brahe's famous and
+perfectly sound argument against the Copernican theory. 'The stars
+remain fixed in apparent position all the time, yet the Copernicans tell
+us that the earth from which we view the stars is circling once a year
+in an orbit many millions of miles in diameter; how is it that from so
+widely ranging a point of view we do not see widely different celestial
+scenery? Who can believe that the stars are so remote that by comparison
+the span of the earth's path is a mere point?' Tycho's argument was of
+course valid.[31] Of two things one. Either the earth does not travel
+round the sun, or the stars are much farther away than men had conceived
+possible in Tycho's time. His mistake lay in rejecting the correct
+conclusion because simply it made the visible universe seem many
+millions of times vaster than he had supposed. Yet the universe, even as
+thus enlarged, was but a point to the universe visible in our day, which
+in turn will dwindle to a point compared with the universe as men will
+see it a few centuries hence; while that or the utmost range of space
+over which men can ever extend their survey is doubtless as nothing to
+the real universe of occupied space.
+
+Such has been the progression of our ideas as to the position of the
+earth in space. Forced by the discoveries of Copernicus to regard our
+earth as a mere point compared with the distances of the nearest fixed
+stars, men gradually learned to recognise those distances which at first
+had seemed infinite as in their turn evanescent even by comparison with
+that mere point of space over which man is able by instrumental means to
+extend his survey.
+
+Though there has been a similar progression in men's ideas as to the
+earth's position in time, that progression has not been carried to a
+corresponding extent. Men have not been so bold in widening their
+conceptions of time as in widening their conceptions of space. It is
+here and thus that, in my judgment, the subject of life in other worlds
+has been hitherto incorrectly dealt with. Men have given up as utterly
+idle the idea that the existence of worlds is to be limited to the
+special domain of space to which our earth belongs; but they are content
+to retain the conception that the domain of time to which our earth's
+history belongs, 'this bank and shoal of time' on which the life of the
+earth is cast, is the period to which the existence of other worlds than
+ours should be referred.
+
+This, which is to be noticed in nearly all our ordinary treatises on
+astronomy, appears as a characteristic peculiarity of works advocating
+the theory of the plurality of worlds. Brewster and Dick and Chalmers,
+all in fact who have taken that doctrine under their special protection,
+reason respecting other worlds as though, if they failed to prove that
+other orbs are inhabited _now_, or are at least _now_ supporting life in
+some way or other, they failed of their purpose altogether. The idea
+does not seem to have occurred to them that there is room and verge
+enough in eternity of time not only for activity but for rest. They must
+have all the orbs of space busy at once in the one work which they seem
+able to conceive as the possible purpose of those bodies--the support of
+life. The argument from analogy, which they had found effective in
+establishing the general theory of the plurality of worlds, is forgotten
+when its application to details would suggest that not _all_ orbs are
+_at all times_ either the abode of life or in some way subserving the
+purposes of life.
+
+We find, in all the forms of life with which we are acquainted, three
+characteristic periods--first the time of preparation for the purposes
+of life; next, the time of fitness for those purposes; and thirdly, the
+time of decadence tending gradually to death. We see among all objects
+which exist in numbers, examples of all these stages existing at the
+same time. In every race of living creatures there are the young as yet
+unfit for work, the workers, and those past work; in every forest there
+are saplings, seed-bearing trees, and trees long past the seed-bearing
+period. We know that planets, or rather, speaking more generally, the
+orbs which people space, pass through various stages of development,
+during some only of which they can reasonably be regarded as the abode
+of life or supporting life; yet the eager champion of the theory of many
+worlds will have them all in these life-bearing or life-supporting
+stages, none in any of the stages of preparation, none in any of the
+stages of decrepitude or death.
+
+This has probably had its origin in no small degree from the disfavour
+with which in former years the theory of the growth and development of
+planets and systems of planets was regarded. Until the evidence became
+too strong to be resisted, the doctrine that our earth was once a baby
+world, with many millions of years to pass through before it could be
+the abode of life, was one which only the professed atheist (so said too
+many divines) could for a moment entertain; while the doctrine that not
+the earth alone, but the whole of the solar system, had developed from a
+condition utterly unlike that through which it is now passing, could
+have had its origin only in the suggestions of the Evil One. Both
+doctrines were pronounced to be so manifestly opposed to the teachings
+of Moses, and not only so, but so manifestly inconsistent with the
+belief in a Supreme Being, that--that further argument was unnecessary,
+and denunciation only was required. So confident were divines on these
+points, that it would not have been very wonderful if some few students
+of science had mistaken assertion for proof, and so concluded that the
+doctrines towards which science was unmistakably leading them really
+were inconsistent with what they had been taught to regard as the Word
+of God. Whether multiplied experiences taught men of science to wait
+before thus deciding, or however matters fell out, it certainly befell
+before very long that the terrible doctrine of cosmical development was
+supported by such powerful evidence, astronomical and terrestrial, as to
+appear wholly irresistible. Then, not only was the doctrine accepted by
+divines, but shown to be manifestly implied in the sacred narrative of
+the formation of the earth and heavens, sun, and moon, and stars; while
+upon those unfortunate students of science who had not changed front in
+good time, and were found still arguing on the mistaken assumption that
+the development of our system was not accordant with that ancient
+narrative, freshly forged bolts were flung from the Olympus of
+orthodoxy.
+
+So far as the other argument--from the inconsistency of the development
+theory with belief in a Supreme Being--was concerned, the student of
+science was independent of the interpretations which divines claim the
+sole right of assigning to the ancient books. Science has done so much
+more than divinity (which in fact has done nothing) to widen our
+conceptions of space and time, that she may justly claim full right to
+deal with any difficulties arising from such enlargement of our ideas.
+With the theological difficulty science would not care to deal at all,
+were she not urged to do so by the denunciations of divines; and when,
+so urged, she touches that difficulty, she is quickly told that the
+difficulty is insuperable, and not long after that it has no existence,
+and (on both accounts) that it should have been left alone. But with the
+difficulty arising from the widening of our ideas respecting space and
+time, science may claim good, almost sole, right to deal. The path to a
+solution of the problem is not difficult to find. At a first view, it
+does seem to those whose vision had been limited to a contracted field,
+that the wide domain of time and space in which processes of development
+are found to take place is the universe itself, that to deny the
+formation of our earth by a special creative act is to deny the
+existence of a Creator, that to regard the beginning of our earth as a
+process of development is to assert that development has been in
+operation from the beginning of all things. But when we recognise
+clearly that vastness and minuteness, prolonged and brief duration, are
+merely relative, we perceive that in considering our earth's history we
+have to deal only with small parts of space and brief periods of time,
+by comparison with all space and all time. Our earth is very large
+compared with a tree or an animal, but very small compared with the
+solar system, a mere point compared with the system of stars to which
+the sun belongs, and absolutely as nothing compared with the universe of
+space; and in like manner, while the periods of her growth and
+development occupy periods very long-lasting compared with those
+required for the growth and development of a tree or an animal, they are
+doubtless but brief compared with the eras of the development of our
+solar system, a mere instant compared with the eras of the development
+of star-systems, and absolutely evanescent compared with eternity. We
+have no more reason for rejecting the belief in a Creator because our
+earth or the solar system is found to have developed to its present
+condition from an embryonic primordial state, than we have had ever
+since men first found that animals and trees are developed from the
+germ. The region of development is larger, the period of development
+lasts longer, but neither the one nor the other is infinite; and being
+finite, both one and the other are simply nothing by comparison with
+infinity. It is a startling thought, doubtless, that periods of time
+compared with which the life of a man, the existence of a nation, nay,
+the duration of the human race itself, sink into insignificance, should
+themselves in turn be dwarfed into nothingness by comparison with
+periods of a still higher order. But the thought is not more startling
+than that other thought which we have been compelled to admit--the
+thought that the earth on which we live, and the solar system to which
+it belongs, though each so vast that all known material objects are as
+nothing by comparison, are in turn as nothing compared with the depths
+of space separating us from even the nearest among the fixed stars. One
+thought, as I have said, we have been compelled to admit, the other has
+not as yet been absolutely forced upon us. Though men have long since
+given up the idea that the earth and heavens have endured but a few
+thousand years, it is still possible to believe that the birth of our
+solar system, whether by creative act or by the beginning of processes
+of development, belongs to the beginning of all time. But this view
+cannot be regarded as even probable. Although it has never been proved
+that any definite relation must subsist between time (occupied by
+events) and space (occupied by matter), the mind naturally accepts the
+belief that such a relation exists. As we find the universe enlarging
+under the survey of science, our conceptions of the duration of the
+universe enlarge also. When the earth was supposed to be the most
+important object in creation, men might reasonably assign to time itself
+(regarded as the interval between the beginning of the earth and the
+consummation of all things when the earth should perish) a moderate
+duration; but it is equally reasonable that, as the insignificance of
+the earth's domain in space is recognised, men should recognise also the
+presumable insignificance of the earth's existence in time.
+
+In this respect, although we have nothing like the direct evidence
+afforded by the measurement of space, we yet have evidence which can
+scarcely be called in question. We find in the structure of our earth
+the signs of its former condition. We see clearly that it was once
+intensely hot! and we know from experimental researches on the cooling
+of various earths that many millions of years must have been required by
+the earth in cooling down from its former igneous condition. We may
+doubt whether Bischoff's researches can be relied upon in details, and
+so be unwilling to assign with him a period of 350 millions of years to
+a single stage of the process of cooling. But that the entire process
+lasted tens of millions and probably hundreds of millions of years
+cannot be doubted. Recognising such enormous periods as these in the
+development of one of the smallest fruits of the great solar tree of
+life, we cannot but admit at least the reasonableness of believing that
+the larger fruits (Jupiter, for instance, with 340 times as much matter,
+and Saturn with 100 times) must require periods still vaster, probably
+many times larger. Indeed, science shows not only that this view is
+reasonable, but that no other view is possible. For the mighty root of
+the tree of life, the great orb of the sun, containing 340 _thousand_
+times as much matter as the earth, yet mightier periods would be needed.
+The growth and development of these, the parts of the great system, must
+of necessity require much shorter time-intervals than the growth and
+development of the system regarded as a whole. The enormous period when
+the germs only of the sun and planets existed as yet, when the chaotic
+substance of the system had not yet blossomed into worlds, the mighty
+period which is to follow the death of the last surviving member of the
+system, when the whole scheme will remain as the dead trunk of a tree
+remains after the last leaf has fallen, after the last movement of sap
+within the trunk--these periods must be infinite compared with those
+which measure the duration of even the mightiest separate members of the
+system.
+
+But all this has been left unnoticed by those who have argued in support
+of the Brewsterian doctrine of a plurality of worlds. They argue as if
+it had never been shown that every member of the solar system, as of
+all other such systems in space, has to pass through an enormously long
+period of preparation before becoming fit to be the abode of life, and
+that after being fit for life (for a period very long to our
+conceptions, but by comparison with the other exceedingly short) it must
+for countless ages remain as an extinct world. Or else they reason as
+though it had been proved that the relatively short life-bearing periods
+in the existence of the several planets must of necessity synchronise,
+instead of all the probabilities lying overwhelmingly the other way.
+
+While this has been (in my judgment) a defect in what may be called the
+Brewsterian theory of other worlds, a defect not altogether dissimilar
+has characterised the opposite or Whewellite theory. Very useful service
+was rendered to astronomy by Whewell's treatise upon, or rather against,
+the plurality of worlds, calling attention as it did to the utter
+feebleness of the arguments on which men had been content to accept the
+belief that other planets and other systems are inhabited. But some
+among the most powerfully urged arguments against that belief tacitly
+relied on the assumption of a similarity of general condition among the
+members of the solar system. For instance, the small mean density of
+Jupiter and Saturn had, on the Brewsterian theory, been explained as
+probably due to vast hollow spaces in those planets' interiors--an
+explanation which (if it could be admitted) would leave us free to
+believe that Jupiter and Saturn may be made of the same materials as our
+own earth. With this was pleasantly intermixed the conception that the
+inhabitant of these planets may have his 'home in subterranean cities
+warmed by central fires, or in crystal caves cooled by ocean tides, or
+may float with the Nereids upon the deep, or mount upon wings as eagles,
+or rise upon the pinions of the dove, that he may flee away and be at
+rest,' with much more in the same fanciful vein. We now know that there
+can be no cavities more than a few miles below the crust of a planet,
+simply because, under the enormous pressures which would exist, the most
+solid matter would be perfectly plastic. But while Whewell's general
+objection to the theory that Jupiter or Saturn is in the same condition
+as our earth thus acquires new force, the particular explanation which
+he gave of the planet's small density is open to precisely the same
+general objection. For he assumes that, because the planet's mean
+density is little greater than that of water, the planet is probably a
+world of water and ice with a cindery nucleus, or in fact just such a
+world as would be formed if a sufficient quantity of water in the same
+condition as the water of our seas were placed at Jupiter's greater
+distance from the sun, around a nucleus of earthy or cindery matter
+large enough to make the density of the entire planet thus formed equal
+to that of Jupiter, or about one-third greater than the density of
+water. In this argument there are in reality two assumptions, of
+precisely the same nature as those which Whewell set himself to combat.
+It is first assumed that some material existing on a large scale in our
+earth, and nearly of the same density as Jupiter, must constitute the
+chief bulk of that planet, and secondly that the temperature of
+Jupiter's globe must be that which a globe of such material would have
+if placed where Jupiter is. The possibility that Jupiter may be in an
+entirely different stage of planetary life--or, in other words, that the
+youth, middle life, and old age of that planet may belong to quite
+different eras from the corresponding periods of our earth's life--is
+entirely overlooked. Rather, indeed, it may be said that the extreme
+probability of this, on any hypothesis respecting the origin of the
+solar system, and its absolute certainty on the hypothesis of the
+development of that system, are entirely overlooked.
+
+A fair illustration of the erroneous nature of the arguments which have
+been used, not only in advocating rival theories respecting the
+plurality of worlds, but also in dealing with subordinate points, may be
+presented as follows:
+
+Imagine a wide extent of country covered with scattered trees of various
+size, and with plants and shrubs, flowers and herbs, down to the
+minutest known. Let us suppose a race of tiny creatures to subsist on
+one of the fruits of a tree of moderate size, their existence as a race
+depending entirely on the existence of the fruit on which they subsist,
+while the existence of the individuals of their race lasts but for a few
+minutes. Furthermore, let there be no regular fruit season either on
+their tree or in their region of vegetable life, but fruits forming,
+growing, and decaying all the time.
+
+Let us next conceive these creatures to be possessed of a power of
+reasoning respecting themselves, their fruit world, the tree on which it
+hangs, and to some degree even respecting such other trees, plants,
+flowers, and so forth, as the limited range of their vision might be
+supposed to include. It would be a natural thought with them, when first
+they began to exercise this power of reasoning, that their fruit home
+was the most important object in existence, and themselves the chief and
+noblest of living beings. It would also be very natural that they should
+suppose the formation of their world to correspond with the beginning of
+time, and the formation of their race to have followed the formation of
+their world by but a few seconds. They would conclude that a Supreme
+Being had fashioned their world and themselves by special creative acts,
+and that what they saw outside their fruit world had been also specially
+created, doubtless to subserve their wants.
+
+Let us now imagine that gradually, by becoming more closely observant
+than they had been, by combining together to make more complete
+observations, and above all by preserving the records of observations
+made by successive generations, these creatures began to obtain clearer
+ideas respecting their world and the surrounding regions of space. They
+would find evidence that the fruit on which they lived had not been
+formed precisely as they knew it, but had undergone processes of
+development. The distressing discovery would be made that this
+development could not possibly have taken place in a few seconds, but
+must have required many hours, nay, even several of those enormous
+periods called by us days.
+
+This, however, would only be the beginning of their troubles. Gradually
+the more advanced thinkers and the closest observers would perceive that
+not only had their world undergone processes of development, but that
+its entire mass had been formed by such processes--that in fact it had
+not been created at all, in the sense in which they had understood the
+word, but had _grown_. This would be very dreadful to these creatures,
+because they would not readily be able to dispossess their minds of the
+notion that they were the most important beings in the universe, their
+domain of space coextensive with the universe, the duration of their
+world coextensive with time.
+
+But passing over the difficulties thus arising, and the persecution and
+abuse to which those would be subjected who maintained the dangerous
+doctrine that their fruit home had been developed, not created, let us
+consider how these creatures would regard the question of other worlds
+than their own. At first they would naturally be unwilling to admit the
+possibility that other worlds as important as their own could exist. But
+if after a time they found reason to believe that their world was only
+one of several belonging to a certain tree system, the idea would occur
+to them, and would gradually come to be regarded as something more than
+probable, that those other fruit worlds, like their own, might be the
+abode of living creatures. And probably at first, while as yet the
+development of their own world was little understood, they would
+conceive the notion that all the fruits, large or small, upon their tree
+system were in the same condition as their own, and either inhabited by
+similar races or at least in the same full vigour of life-bearing
+existence. But so soon as they recognised the law of development of
+their own world, and the relation between such development and their own
+requirements, they would form a different opinion, if they found that
+only during certain stages of their world's existence life could exist
+upon it. If, for instance, they perceived that their fruit world must
+once have been so bitter and harsh in texture that no creatures in the
+least degree like themselves could have lived upon it, and that it was
+passing slowly but surely through processes by which it would become one
+day dry and shrivelled and unable to support living creatures, they
+would be apt, if their reasoning powers were fairly developed, to
+inquire whether other fruits which they saw around them on their tree
+system were either in the former or in the latter condition. If they
+found reason to believe certain fruits were in one or other of these
+stages, they would regard such fruits as not yet the abode of life or as
+past the life-supporting era. It seems probable even that another idea
+would suggest itself to some among their bolder thinkers. Recognising in
+their own world in several instances what to their ideas resembled
+absolute waste of material or of force, it might appear to them quite
+possible that some, perhaps even a large proportion, of the fruits upon
+their tree were not only not supporting life at the particular epoch of
+observation, but never had supported life and never would--that, through
+some cause or other, life would never appear upon such fruits even when
+they were excellently fitted for the support of life. They might even
+conceive that some among the fruits of their tree had failed or would
+fail to come to the full perfection of fruit life.
+
+Looking beyond their own tree--that is, the tree to which their own
+fruit world belonged--they would perceive other trees, though their
+visual powers might not enable them to know whether such trees bore
+fruit, whether they were in other respects like their own, whether those
+which seemed larger or smaller were really so, or owed their apparent
+largeness to nearness, or their apparent smallness to great distance.
+They would be apt perhaps to generalise a little too daringly respecting
+these remote tree systems, concluding too confidently that a shrub or a
+flower was a tree system like their own, or that a great tree, every
+branch of which was far larger than their entire tree system, belonged
+to the same order and bore similar fruit. They might mistake, also, in
+forgetting the probable fact that as every fruit in their own tree
+system had its own period of life, very brief compared with the entire
+existence of the fruit, so every tree might have its own fruit-bearing
+season. Thus, contemplating a tree which they supposed to be like their
+own in its nature, they might say, 'Yonder is a tree system crowded with
+fruits, each the abode of many myriads of creatures like ourselves:'
+whereas in reality the tree might be utterly unlike their own, might not
+yet have reached or might long since have passed the fruit-bearing
+stage, might when in that stage bear fruit utterly unlike any they could
+even imagine, and each such fruit during its brief life-bearing
+condition might be inhabited by living beings utterly unlike any
+creatures they could conceive.
+
+Yet again, we can very well imagine that the inhabitants of our fruit
+world, though they might daringly overleap the narrow limits of space
+and time within which their actual life or the life of their race was
+cast, though they might learn to recognise the development of their own
+world and of others like it, even from the very blossom, would be
+utterly unable to conceive the possibility that the tree itself to which
+their world belonged had developed by slow processes of growth from a
+time when it was less even than their own relatively minute home.
+
+Still less would it seem credible to them, or even conceivable, that the
+whole forest region to which they belonged, containing many orders of
+trees differing altogether from their own tree system, besides plants
+and shrubs, and flowers and herbs (forms of vegetation of whose use they
+could form no just conception whatever), had itself grown; that once the
+entire forest domain had been under vast masses of water--the substance
+which occasionally visited their world in the form of small drops; that
+such changes were but minute local phenomena of a world infinitely
+higher in order than their own; that that world in turn was but one of
+the least of the worlds forming a yet higher system; and so on _ad
+infinitum_. Such ideas would seem to them not merely inconceivable, but
+many degrees beyond the widest conceptions of space and time which they
+could regard as admissible.
+
+Our position differs only in degree, not in kind, from that of these
+imagined creatures, and the reasoning which we perceive (though they
+could not) to be just for such creatures is just for us also. It was
+perfectly natural that before men recognised the evidences of
+development in the structure of our earth they should regard the earth
+and all things upon the earth and visible from the earth as formed by
+special creative acts precisely as we see them now. But so soon as they
+perceived that the earth is undergoing processes of development and has
+undergone such processes in the past, it was reasonable, though at
+first painful, to conclude that on this point they had been mistaken.
+Yet as we recognise the absurdity of the supposition that, because
+fruits and trees grow, and were not made in a single instant as we know
+them, therefore there is no Supreme Being, so may we justly reject as
+absurd the same argument, enlarged in scale, employed to induce the
+conclusion that because planets and solar systems have been developed to
+their present condition, and were not created in their present form,
+therefore there is no Creator, no God. I do not know that the argument
+ever has been used in this form; but it has been used to show that those
+who believe in the development of worlds and systems must of necessity
+be atheists, an even more mischievous conclusion than the other; for
+none who had not examined the subject would be likely to adopt the
+former conclusion, but many might be willing to believe that a number of
+their fellow-men hold obnoxious tenets, without inquiring closely or at
+all into the reasoning on which the assertion had been based.
+
+But it is more important to notice how our views respecting other worlds
+should be affected by those circumstances in the evidence _we_ have,
+which correspond with the features of the evidence on which the imagined
+inhabitants of the fruit world would form their opinion. It was natural
+that when men first began to reason about themselves and their home they
+should reject the idea of other worlds like ours, and perhaps it was
+equally natural that when first the idea was entertained that the
+planets may be worlds like ours, men should conceive that all those
+worlds are in the same condition as ours. But it would be, or rather it
+_is_, as unreasonable for men to maintain such an opinion now, when the
+laws of planetary development are understood, when the various
+dimensions of the planets are known, and when the shortness of the
+life-supporting period of a planet's existence compared with the entire
+duration of the planet has been clearly recognised, as it would be for
+the imagined inhabitants of a small fruit on a tree to suppose that all
+the other fruits on the tree, though some manifestly far less advanced
+in development and others far more advanced than their own, were the
+abode of the same forms of life, though these forms were seen to require
+those conditions, and no other, corresponding to the stage of
+development through which their own world was passing.
+
+Viewing the universe of suns and worlds in the manner here suggested, we
+should adopt a theory of other worlds which would hold a position
+intermediate between the Brewsterian and the Whewellite theories. (It is
+not on this account that I advocate it, let me remark in passing, but
+simply because it accords with the evidence, which is not the case with
+the others.) Rejecting on the one hand the theory of the plurality of
+worlds in the sense implying that all existing worlds are inhabited, and
+on the other hand the theory of but one world, we should accept a theory
+which might be entitled the Paucity of Worlds, only that relative not
+absolute paucity must be understood. It is absolutely certain that this
+theory is the correct one, if we admit two postulates, neither of which
+can be reasonably questioned--viz., first, that the life-bearing era of
+any world is short compared with the entire duration of that world; and
+secondly, that there can have been no cause which set all the worlds in
+existence, not simultaneously, which would be amazing enough, but (which
+would be infinitely more surprising) in such a way that after passing
+each through its time of preparation, longer for the large worlds and
+shorter for the small worlds, they all reached at the same time the
+life-bearing era. But quite apart from this antecedent probability,
+amounting as it does to absolute certainty if these two highly probably
+postulates are admitted, we have the actual evidence of the planets we
+can examine--that evidence proving incontestably, as I have shown
+elsewhere, that such planets as Jupiter and Saturn are still in the
+state of preparation, still so intensely hot that no form of life could
+possibly exist upon them, and that such bodies as our moon have long
+since passed the life-bearing stage, and are to all intents and purposes
+defunct.
+
+But may we not go farther? Recognising in our own world, in many
+instances, what to our ideas resembles waste--waste seeds, waste lives,
+waste races, waste regions, waste forces--recognising superfluity and
+superabundance in all the processes and in all the works of nature,
+should it not appear at least possible that some, perhaps even a large
+proportion, of the worlds in the multitudinous systems peopling space,
+are not only not now supporting life, but never have supported life and
+never will? Does this idea differ in kind, however largely to our feeble
+conceptions it may seem to differ in degree, from the idea of the
+imagined creatures on a fruit, that some or even many fruits excellently
+fitted for the support of life might not subserve that purpose? And as
+those creatures might conceive (as we _know_) that some fruits, even
+many, fail to come to the full perfection of fruit life, may not we
+without irreverence conceive (as higher beings than ourselves may
+_know_) that a planet or a sun may fail in the making? We cannot say
+that in such a case there would be a waste or loss of material, though
+we may be unable to conceive how the lost sun or planet could be
+utilised. Our imagined insect reasoners would be unable to imagine that
+fruits plucked from their tree system were otherwise than wasted, for
+they would conceive that their idea of the purpose of fruits was the
+only true one; yet they would be altogether mistaken, as we may be in
+supposing the main purpose of planetary existence is the support of
+life.
+
+In like manner, when we pass in imagination beyond the limits of our
+own system, we may learn a useful lesson from the imagined creatures'
+reasoning about other tree systems than that to which their world
+belonged. Astronomers have been apt to generalise too daringly
+respecting remote stars and star systems, as though our solar system
+were a true picture of all solar systems, the system of stars to which
+our sun belongs a true picture of all star systems. They have been apt
+to forget that, as every world in our own system has its period of life,
+short by comparison with the entire duration of the world, so each solar
+system, each system of such systems, may have its own life-bearing
+season, infinitely long according to our conceptions, but very short
+indeed compared with the entire duration of which the life-bearing
+season would be only a single era.
+
+Lastly, though men may daringly overleap the limits of time and space
+within which their lives are cast, though they may learn to recognise
+the development of their own world and of others like it even from the
+blossom of nebulosity, they seem unable to rise to the conception that
+the mighty tree which during remote aeons bore those nebulous blossoms
+sprang itself from cosmical germs. We are unable to conceive the nature
+of such germs; the processes of development affecting them belong to
+other orders than any processes we know of, and required periods
+compared with which the inconceivable, nay, the inexpressible periods
+required for the development of the parts of our universe, are as mere
+instants. Yet have we every reason which analogy can afford to believe
+that even the development of a whole universe such as ours should be
+regarded as but a minute local phenomenon of a universe infinitely
+higher in order, that universe in turn but a single member of a system
+of such universes, and so on, even _ad infinitum_. To reject the belief
+that this is possible is to share the folly of beings such as we have
+conceived regarding their tiny world as a fit centre whence to measure
+the universe, while yet, from such a stand-point, this little earth on
+which we live would be many degrees beyond the limits where for them the
+inconceivable would begin. To reject the belief that this is not only
+possible, but real, is to regard the few short steps by which man has
+advanced towards the unknown as a measurable approach towards limits of
+space, towards the beginning and the end of all things. Until it can be
+shown that space is bounded by limits beyond which neither matter nor
+void exists, that time had a beginning before which it was not and tends
+to an end after which it will exist no more, we may confidently accept
+the belief that the history of our earth is as evanescent in time as the
+earth itself is evanescent in space, and that nothing we can possibly
+learn about our earth, or about the system it belongs to, or about
+systems of such systems, can either prove or disprove aught respecting
+the scheme and mode of government of the universe itself. It is true now
+as it was in days of yore, and it will remain true as long as the earth
+and those who dwell on it endure, that what men know is nothing, the
+unknown infinite.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+_SUNS IN FLAMES._
+
+
+In November 1876 news arrived of a catastrophe the effects of which must
+in all probability have been disastrous, not to a district, or a
+country, or a continent, or even a world, but to a whole system of
+worlds. The catastrophe happened many years ago--probably at least a
+hundred--yet the messenger who brought the news has not been idle on his
+way, but has sped along at a rate which would suffice to circle this
+earth eight times in the course of a second. That messenger has had,
+however, to traverse millions of millions of miles, and only reached our
+earth November 1876. The news he brought was that a sun like our own was
+in conflagration; and on a closer study of his message something was
+learned as to the nature of the conflagration, and a few facts tending
+to throw light on the question (somewhat interesting to ourselves)
+whether our own sun is likely to undergo a similar mishap at any time.
+What would happen if he did, we know already. The sun which has just met
+with this disaster--that is, which so suffered a few generations
+ago--blazed out for a time with several hundred times its former lustre.
+If our sun were to increase as greatly in light and heat, the creatures
+on the side of our earth turned towards him at the time would be
+destroyed in an instant. Those on the dark or night hemisphere would not
+have to wait for their turn till the earth, by rotating, carried them
+into view of the destroying sun. In much briefer space the effect of his
+new fires would be felt all over the earth's surface. The heavens would
+be dissolved and the elements would melt with fervent heat. In fact no
+description of such a catastrophe, as affecting the night half of the
+earth, could possibly be more effective and poetical than St. Peter's
+account of the day of the Lord, coming 'as a thief in the night; in the
+which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
+shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are
+therein being burned up;' though I imagine the apostle would have been
+scarce prepared to admit that the earth was in danger from a solar
+conflagration. Indeed, according to another account, the sun was to be
+turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before that great and
+notable day of the Lord came--a description corresponding well with
+solar and lunar eclipses, the most noteworthy 'signs in the heavens,'
+but agreeing very ill with the outburst of a great solar conflagration.
+
+Before proceeding to inquire into the singular and significant
+circumstances of the recent outburst, it may be found interesting to
+examine briefly the records which astronomy has preserved of similar
+catastrophes in former years. These may be compared to the records of
+accidents on the various railway lines in a country or continent. Those
+other suns which we can stars are engines working the mighty mechanism
+of planetary systems, as our sun maintains the energies of our own
+system; and it is a matter of some interest to us to inquire in how many
+cases, among the many suns within the range of vision, destructive
+explosions occur. We may take the opportunity, later, to inquire into
+the number of cases in which the machinery of solar systems appears to
+have broken down.
+
+The first case of a solar conflagration on record is that of the new
+star observed by Hipparchus some 2000 years ago. In his time, and indeed
+until quite recently, an object of this kind was called a new star, or a
+temporary star. But we now know that when a star makes its appearance
+where none had before been visible, what has really happened has been
+that a star too remote to be seen has become visible through some rapid
+increase of splendour. When the new splendour dies out again, it is not
+that a star has ceased to exist; but simply that a faint star which had
+increased greatly in lustre has resumed its original condition.
+Hipparchus's star must have been a remarkable object, for it was visible
+in full daylight, whence we may infer that it was many times brighter
+than the blazing Dog-star. It is interesting in the history of science,
+as having led Hipparchus to draw up a catalogue of stars, the first on
+record. Some moderns, being sceptical, rejected this story as a fiction;
+but Biot examining Chinese Chronicles[32] relating to the times of
+Hipparchus, finds that in 134 B.C. (about nine years before the date of
+Hipparchus's catalogue) a new star was recorded as having appeared in
+the constellation Scorpio.
+
+The next new star (that is, stellar conflagration) on record is still
+more interesting, as there appears some reason for believing that before
+long we may see another outburst of the same star. In the years 945,
+1264, and 1572, brilliant stars appeared in the region of the heavens
+between Cepheus and Cassiopeia. Sir J. Herschel remarks, that, 'from the
+imperfect account we have of the places of the two earlier, as compared
+with that of the last, which was well determined, as well as from the
+tolerably near coincidence of the intervals of their appearance, we may
+suspect them, with Goodricke, to be one and the same star, with a period
+of 312 or perhaps of 156 years.' The latter period may very reasonably
+be rejected, as one can perceive no reason why the intermediate returns
+of the star to visibility should have been overlooked, the star having
+appeared in a region which never sets. It is to be noted that, the
+period from 945 to 1264 being 319 years, and that from 1264 to 1572 only
+308 years, the period of this star (if Goodricke is correct in supposing
+the three outbursts to have occurred in the same star) would seem to be
+diminishing. At any time, then, this star might now blaze out in the
+region between Cassiopeia and Cepheus, for more than 304 years have
+already passed since its last outburst.
+
+As the appearance of a new star led Hipparchus to undertake the
+formation of his famous catalogue, so did the appearance of the star in
+Cassiopeia, in 1572, lead the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe to construct
+a new and enlarged catalogue. (This, be it remembered, was before the
+invention of the telescope.) Returning one evening (November 11, 1572,
+old style) from his laboratory to his dwelling-house, he found, says Sir
+J. Herschel, 'a group of country people gazing at a star, which he was
+sure did not exist an hour before. This was the star in question.'
+
+The description of the star and its various changes is more interesting
+at the present time, when the true nature of these phenomena is
+understood, than it was even in the time when the star was blazing in
+the firmament. It will be gathered from that description and from what I
+shall have to say farther on about the results of recent observations on
+less splendid new stars, that, if this star should reappear in the next
+few years, our observers will probably be able to obtain very important
+information from it. The message from it will be much fuller and more
+distinct than any we have yet received from such stars, though we have
+learned quite enough to remain in no sort of doubt as to their general
+nature.
+
+The star remained visible, we learn, about sixteen months, during which
+time it kept its place in the heavens without the least variation. 'It
+had all the radiance of the fixed stars, and twinkled like them; and was
+in all respects like Sirius, except that it surpassed Sirius in
+brightness and magnitude.' It appeared larger than Jupiter, which was at
+that time at his brightest, and was scarcely inferior to Venus. _It did
+not acquire this lustre gradually_, but shone forth at once of its full
+size and brightness, 'as if,' said the chroniclers of the time, 'it had
+been of instantaneous creation.' For three weeks it shone with full
+splendour, during which time it could be seen at noonday 'by those who
+had good eyes, and knew where to look for it.' But before it had been
+seen a month, it became visibly smaller, and from the middle of December
+1572 till March 1574, when it entirely disappeared, it continually
+diminished in magnitude. 'As it decreased in size, it varied in colour:
+at first its light was white and extremely bright; it then became
+yellowish; afterwards of a ruddy colour like Mars; and finished with a
+pale livid white resembling the colour of Saturn.' All the details of
+this account should be very carefully noted. It will presently be seen
+that they are highly characteristic.
+
+Those who care to look occasionally at the heavens to know whether this
+star has returned to view may be interested to learn whereabouts it
+should be looked for. The place may be described as close to the back of
+the star-gemmed chair in which Cassiopeia is supposed to sit--a little
+to the left of the seat of the chair, supposing the chair to be looked
+at in its normal position. But as Cassiopeia's chair is always inverted
+when the constellation is most conveniently placed for observation, and
+indeed as nine-tenths of those who know the constellation suppose the
+chair's legs to be the back, and _vice versa_, it may be useful to
+mention that the star was placed somewhat thus with respect to the
+straggling W formed by the five chief stars of Cassiopeia. There is a
+star not very far from the place here indicated, but rather nearer to
+the middle angle of the W. This, however, is not a bright star; and
+cannot possibly be mistaken for the expected visitant. (The place of
+Tycho's star is indicated in my School Star-Atlas and also in my larger
+Library Atlas. The same remark applies to both the new stars in the
+Serpent-Bearer, presently to be described.)
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In August 1596 the astronomer Fabricius observed a new star in the neck
+of the Whale, which also after a time disappeared. It was not noticed
+again till the year 1637, when an observer rejoicing in the name of
+Phocyllides Holwarda observed it, and, keeping a watch, after it had
+vanished, upon the place where it had appeared, saw it again come into
+view nine months after its disappearance. Since then it has been known
+as a variable star with a period of about 331 days 8 hours. When
+brightest this star is of the second magnitude. It indicates a somewhat
+singular remissness on the part of the astronomers of former days, that
+a star shining so conspicuously for a fortnight, once in each period of
+331-1/3 days, should for so many years have remained undetected. It
+may, perhaps, be thought that, noting this, I should withdraw the
+objection raised above against Sir J. Herschel's idea that the star in
+Cassiopeia may return to view once in 156 years, instead of once in 312
+years. But there is a great difference between a star which at its
+brightest shines only as a second-magnitude star, so that it has twenty
+or thirty companions of equal or greater lustre above the horizon along
+with it, and a star which surpasses three-fold the splendid Sirius. We
+have seen that even in Tycho Brahe's day, when probably the stars were
+not nearly so well known by the community at large, the new star in
+Cassiopeia had not shone an hour before the country people were gazing
+at it with wonder. Besides, Cassiopeia and the Whale are constellations
+very different in position. The familiar stars of Cassiopeia are visible
+on every clear night, for they never set. The stars of the Whale, at
+least of the part to which the wonderful variable star belongs, are
+below the horizon during rather more than half the twenty-four hours;
+and a new star there would only be noticed, probably (unless of
+exceeding splendour), if it chanced to appear during that part of the
+year when the Whale is high above the horizon between eventide and
+midnight, or in the autumn and early winter.
+
+It is a noteworthy circumstance about the variable star in the Whale,
+deservedly called Mira, or The Wonderful, that it does not always return
+to the same degree of brightness. Sometimes it has been a very bright
+second-magnitude star when at its brightest, at others it has barely
+exceeded the third magnitude. Hevelius relates that during the four
+years between October 1672 and December 1676, Mira did not show herself
+at all! As this star fades out, it changes in colour from white to red.
+
+Towards the end of September 1604, a new star made its appearance in
+the constellation Ophiuchus, or the Serpent-Bearer. Its place was near
+the heel of the right foot of 'Ophiuchus huge.' Kepler tells us that it
+had no hair or tail, and was certainly not a comet. Moreover, like the
+other fixed stars, it kept its place unchanged, showing unmistakably
+that it belonged to the star-depths, not to nearer regions. 'It was
+exactly like one of the stars, except that in the vividness of its
+lustre, and the quickness of its sparkling, it exceeded anything that he
+had ever seen before. It was every moment changing into some of the
+colours of the rainbow, as yellow, orange, purple, and red; though it
+was generally white when it was at some distance from the vapours of the
+horizon.' In fact, these changes of colour must not be regarded as
+indicating aught but the star's superior brightness. Every very bright
+star, when close to the horizon, shows these colours, and so much the
+more distinctly as the star is the brighter. Sirius, which surpasses the
+brightest stars of the northern hemisphere full four times in lustre,
+shows these changes of colour so conspicuously that they were regarded
+as specially characteristic of this star, insomuch that Homer speaks of
+Sirius (not by name, but as the 'star of autumn') shining most
+beautifully 'when laved of ocean's wave'--that is, when close to the
+horizon. And our own poet, Tennyson, following the older poet, sings how
+
+          the fiery Sirius alters hue,
+  And bickers into red and emerald.
+
+The new star was brighter than Sirius, and was about five degrees lower
+down, when at its highest above the horizon, than Sirius when _he_
+culminates. Five degrees being equal to nearly ten times the apparent
+diameter of the moon, it will be seen how much more favourable the
+conditions were in the case of Kepler's star for those coloured
+scintillations which characterised that orb. Sirius never rises very
+high above the horizon. In fact, at his highest (near midnight in
+winter, and, of course, near midday in summer) he is about as high above
+the horizon as the sun at midday in the first week in February. Kepler's
+star's greatest height above the horizon was little more than
+three-fourths of this, or equal to about the sun's elevation at midday
+on January 13 or 14 in any year.
+
+Like Tycho Brahe's star, Kepler's was brighter even than Jupiter, and
+only fell short of Venus in splendour. It preserved its lustre for about
+three weeks, after which time it gradually grew fainter and fainter
+until some time between October 1605 and February 1606, when it
+disappeared. The exact day is unknown, as during that interval the
+constellation of the Serpent-Bearer is above the horizon in the day-time
+only. But in February 1606, when it again became possible to look for
+the new star in the night-time, it had vanished. It probably continued
+to glow with sufficient lustre to have remained visible, but for the
+veil of light under which the sun concealed it, for about sixteen months
+altogether. In fact, it seems very closely to have resembled Tycho's
+star, not only in appearance and in the degree of its greatest
+brightness, but in the duration of its visibility.
+
+In the year 1670 a new star appeared in the constellation Cygnus,
+attaining the third magnitude. It remained visible, but not with this
+lustre, for nearly two years. After it had faded almost out of view, it
+flickered up again for awhile, but soon after it died out, so as to be
+entirely invisible. Whether a powerful telescope would still have shown
+it is uncertain, but it seems extremely probable. It may be, indeed,
+that this new star in the Swan is the same which has made its appearance
+within the last few weeks; but on this point the evidence is uncertain.
+
+On April 20, 1848, Mr. Hind (Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac,
+and discoverer of ten new members of the solar system) noticed a new
+star of the fifth magnitude in the Serpent-Bearer, but in quite another
+part of that large constellation than had been occupied by Kepler's
+star. A few weeks later, it rose to the fourth magnitude. But afterwards
+its light diminished until it became invisible to ordinary eyesight. It
+did not vanish utterly, however. It is still visible with telescopic
+power, shining as a star of the eleventh magnitude, that is five
+magnitudes below the faintest star discernible with the unaided eye.
+
+This is the first new star which has been kept in view since its
+apparent creation. But we are now approaching the time when it was found
+that as so-called new stars continue in existence long after they have
+disappeared from view, so also they are not in reality new, but were in
+existence long before they became visible to the naked eye.
+
+On May 12, 1866, shortly before midnight, Mr. Birmingham, of Tuam,
+noticed a star of the second magnitude in the Northern Crown, where
+hitherto no star visible to the naked eye had been known. Dr. Schmidt,
+of Athens, who had been observing that region of the heavens the same
+night, was certain that up to 11 P.M., Athens local time, there was no
+star above the fourth magnitude in the place occupied by the new star.
+So that, if this negative evidence can be implicitly relied on, the new
+star must have sprung at least from the fourth, and probably from a much
+lower magnitude, to the second, in less than three hours--eleven o'clock
+at Athens corresponding to about nine o'clock by Irish railway time. A
+Mr. Barker, of London, Canada, put forward a claim to having seen the
+new star as early as May 4--a claim not in the least worth
+investigating, so far as the credit of first seeing the new star is
+concerned, but exceedingly important in its bearing on the nature of the
+outburst affecting the star in Corona. It is unpleasant to have to throw
+discredit on any definite assertion of facts; unfortunately, however,
+Mr. Barker, when his claim was challenged, laid before Mr. Stone, of the
+Greenwich Observatory, such very definite records of observations made
+on May 4, 8, 9, and 10, that we have no choice but either to admit these
+observations, or to infer that he experienced the delusive effects of a
+very singular trick of memory. He mentions in his letter to Mr. Stone
+that he had sent full particulars of his observations on those early
+dates to Professor Watson, of Ann Arbor University, on May 17; but
+(again unfortunately) instead of leaving that letter to tell its own
+story in Professor Watson's hands, he asked Professor Watson to return
+it to him: so that when Mr. Stone very naturally asked Professor Watson
+to furnish a copy of this important letter, Professor Watson had to
+reply, 'About a month ago, Mr. Barker applied to me for this letter, and
+I returned it to him, as requested, without preserving a copy. I can,
+however,' he proceeded, 'state positively that he did not mention any
+actual observation earlier than May 14. He said he thought he had
+noticed a strange star in the Crown about two weeks before the date of
+his first observation--May 14--but not particularly, and that he did not
+recognise it until the 14th. He did not give any date, and did not even
+seem positive as to identity.... When I returned the letter of May 17, I
+made an endorsement across the first page, in regard to its genuineness,
+and attached my signature. I regret that I did not preserve a copy of
+the letter in question; but if the original is produced, it will appear
+that my recollection of its contents is correct.' I think no one can
+blame Mr. Stone, if, on the receipt of this letter, he stated that he
+had not the 'slightest hesitation' in regarding Mr. Barker's earlier
+observations as 'not entitled to the slightest credit.'[33]
+
+It may be fairly taken for granted that the new star leapt very quickly,
+if not quite suddenly, to its full splendour. Birmingham, as we have
+seen, was the first to notice it, on May 12. On the evening of May 13,
+Schmidt of Athens discovered it independently, and a few hours later it
+was noticed by a French engineer named Courbebaisse. Afterwards,
+Baxendell of Manchester, and others independently saw the star. Schmidt,
+examining Argelander's charts of 324,000 stars (charts which I have had
+the pleasure of mapping in a single sheet), found that the star was not
+a new one, but had been set down by Argelander as between the ninth and
+tenth magnitudes. Referring to Argelander's list, we find that the star
+had been twice observed--viz., on May 18, 1855, and on March 31, 1856.
+
+Birmingham wrote at once to Mr. Huggins, who, in conjunction with the
+late Dr. Miller, had been for some time engaged in observing stars and
+other celestial objects with the spectroscope. These two observers at
+once directed their telescope armed with spectroscopic adjuncts--the
+telespectroscope is the pleasing name of the compound instrument--to the
+new-comer. The result was rather startling. It may be well, however,
+before describing it, to indicate in a few words the meaning of various
+kinds of spectroscopic evidence.
+
+The light of the sun, sifted out by the spectroscope, shows all the
+colours but not all the tints of the rainbow. It is spread out into a
+large rainbow-tinted streak, but at various places (a few thousand)
+along the streak there are missing tints; so that in fact the streak is
+crossed by a multitude of dark lines. We know that these lines are due
+to the absorptive action of vapours existing in the atmosphere of the
+sun, and from the position of the lines we can tell what the vapours
+are. Thus, hydrogen by its absorptive action produces four of the bright
+lines. The vapour of iron is there, the vapour of sodium, magnesium, and
+so on. Again, we know that these same vapours, which, by their
+absorptive action, cut off rays of certain tints, emit light of just
+those tints. In fact, if the glowing mass of the sun could be suddenly
+extinguished, leaving his atmosphere in its present intensely heated
+condition, the light of the faint sun which would thus be left us would
+give (under spectroscopic scrutiny) those very rays which now seem
+wanting. There would be a spectrum of multitudinous bright lines,
+instead of a rainbow-tinted spectrum crossed by multitudinous dark
+lines. It is, indeed, only by contrast that the dark lines appear dark,
+just as it is only by contrast that the solar spots seem dark. Not only
+the penumbra but the umbra of a sun-spot, not only the umbra but the
+nucleus, not only the nucleus but the deeper black which seems to lie at
+the core of the nucleus, shine really with a lustre far exceeding that
+of the electric light, though by contrast with the rest of the sun's
+surface the penumbra looks dark, the umbra darker still, the nucleus
+deep black, and the core of the nucleus jet black. So the dark lines
+across the solar spectrum mark where certain rays are relatively faint,
+though in reality intensely lustrous. Conceive another change than that
+just imagined. Conceive the sun's globe to remain as at present, but the
+atmosphere to be excited to many times its present degree of light and
+splendour: then would all these dark lines become bright, and the
+rainbow-tinted background would be dull or even quite dark by contrast.
+This is not a mere fancy. At times, local disturbances take place in the
+sun which produce just such a change in certain constituents of the
+sun's atmosphere, causing the hydrogen, for example, to glow with so
+intense a heat that, instead of its lines appearing dark, they stand out
+as bright lines. Occasionally, too, the magnesium in the solar
+atmosphere (over certain limited regions only, be it remembered) has
+been known to behave in this manner. It was so during the intensely hot
+summer of 1872, insomuch that the Italian observer Tacchini, who noticed
+the phenomenon, attributed to such local overheating of the sun's
+magnesium vapour the remarkable heat from which we then for a time
+suffered.
+
+Now, the stars are suns, and the spectrum of a star is simply a
+miniature of the solar spectrum. Of course, there are characteristic
+differences. One star has more hydrogen, at least more hydrogen at work
+absorbing its rays, and thus has the hydrogen lines more strongly
+marked than they are in the solar spectrum. Another star shows the lines
+of various metals more conspicuously, indicating that the glowing
+vapours of such elements, iron, copper, mercury, tin, and so forth,
+either hang more densely in the star's atmosphere than in our sun's, or,
+being cooler, absorb their special tints more effectively. But speaking
+generally, a stellar spectrum is like the solar spectrum. There is the
+rainbow-tinted streak, which implies that the source of light is glowing
+solid, liquid, or highly compressed vaporous matter, and athwart the
+streak there are the multitudinous dark lines which imply that around
+the glowing heart of the star there are envelopes of relatively cool
+vapours.
+
+We can understand, then, the meaning of the evidence obtained from the
+new star in the Northern Crown.
+
+In the first place, the new star showed the rainbow-tinted streak
+crossed by dark lines, which indicated its sun-like nature. _But,
+standing out on that rainbow-tinted streak as on a dark background, were
+four exceedingly bright lines--lines so bright, though fine, that
+clearly most of the star's light came from the glowing vapours to which
+these lines belonged._ Three of the lines belonged to hydrogen, the
+fourth was not identified with any known line.
+
+Let us distinguish between what can certainly be concluded from this
+remarkable observation, and what can only be inferred with a greater or
+less degree of probability.
+
+It is absolutely certain that when Messrs. Huggins and Miller made their
+observation (by which time the new star had faded from the second to the
+third magnitude), enormous masses of hydrogen around the star were
+glowing with a heat far more intense than that of the star itself within
+the hydrogen envelope. It is certain that the increase in the star's
+light, rendering the star visible which before had been far beyond the
+range of ordinary eyesight, was due to the abnormal heat of the
+hydrogen surrounding that remote sun.
+
+But it is not so clear whether the intense glow of the hydrogen was
+caused by combustion or by intense heat without combustion. The
+difference between the two causes of increased light is important;
+because on the opinion we form on this point must depend our opinion as
+to the probability that our sun may one day experience a similar
+catastrophe, and also our opinion as to the state of the sun in the
+Northern Crown after the outburst. To illustrate the distinction in
+question, let us take two familiar cases of the emission of light. A
+burning coal glows with red light, and so does a piece of iron placed in
+a coal fire. But the coal and the iron are undergoing very different
+processes. The coal is burning, and will presently be consumed; the iron
+is not burning (except in the sense that it is burning hot, which means
+only that it will make any combustible substance burn which is brought
+into contact with it), and it will not be consumed though the coal fire
+be maintained around it for days and weeks and months. So with the
+hydrogen flames which play at all times over the surface of our own sun.
+They are not burning like the hydrogen flames which are used for the
+oxy-hydrogen lantern. Were the solar hydrogen so burning, the sun would
+quickly be extinguished. They are simply aglow with intensity of heat,
+as a mass of red-hot iron is aglow; and, so long as the sun's energies
+are maintained, the hydrogen around him will glow in this way without
+being consumed. As the new fires of the star in the Crown died out
+rapidly, it is possible that in their case there was actual combustion.
+On the other hand, it is also possible, and perhaps on the whole more
+probable, that the hydrogen surrounding the star was simply set glowing
+with increased lustre owing to some cause not as yet ascertained.
+
+Let us see how these two theories have been actually worded by the
+students of science themselves who have maintained them.
+
+'The sudden blazing forth of this star,' says Mr. Huggins, 'and then the
+rapid fading away of its light, suggest the rather bold speculation that
+in consequence of some great internal convulsion, a large volume of
+hydrogen and other gases was evolved from it, the hydrogen, by its
+combination with some other element,' in other words, by _burning_,
+'giving out the light represented by the bright lines, and at the same
+time heating to the point of vivid incandescence the solid matter of the
+star's surface.' 'As the liberated hydrogen gas became exhausted' (I now
+quote not Huggins's own words, but words describing his theory in a book
+which he has edited) 'the flame gradually abated, and, with the
+consequent cooling, the star's surface became less vivid, and the star
+returned to its original condition.'
+
+On the other hand, the German physicists, Meyer and Klein, consider the
+sudden development of hydrogen, in quantities sufficient to explain such
+an outburst, exceedingly unlikely. They have therefore adopted the
+opinion, that the sudden blazing out of the star was occasioned by the
+violent precipitation of some mighty mass, perhaps a planet, upon the
+globe of that remote sun, 'by which the momentum of the falling mass
+would be changed into molecular motion, or in other words into heat and
+light.' It might even be supposed, they urge, that the star in the
+Crown, by its swift motion, may have come in contact with one of the
+star clouds which exist in large numbers in the realms of space. 'Such a
+collision would necessarily set the star in a blaze and occasion the
+most vehement ignition of its hydrogen.'
+
+Fortunately, our sun is safe for many millions of years to come from
+contact from any one of its planets. The reader must not, however, run
+away with the idea that the danger consists only in the gradual
+contraction of planetary orbits sometimes spoken of. That contraction,
+if it is taking place at all, of which we have not a particle of
+evidence, would not draw Mercury to the sun's surface for at least ten
+million millions of years. The real danger would be in the effects which
+the perturbing action of the larger planets might produce on the orbit
+of Mercury. That orbit is even now very eccentric, and must at times
+become still more so. It might, but for the actual adjustment of the
+planetary system, become so eccentric that Mercury could not keep clear
+of the sun; and a blow from even small Mercury (only weighing, in fact,
+390 millions of millions of millions of tons), with a velocity of some
+300 miles per second, would warm our sun considerably. But there is no
+risk of this happening in Mercury's case--though the unseen and much
+more shifty Vulcan (in which planet I beg to express here my utter
+disbelief) might, perchance, work mischief if he really existed.
+
+As for star clouds lying in the sun's course, we may feel equally
+confident. The telescope assures us that there are none immediately on
+the track, and we know, also, that, swiftly though the sun is carrying
+us onwards through space,[34] many millions of years must pass before he
+is among the star families towards which he is rushing.
+
+Of the danger from combustion, or from other causes of ignition than
+those considered by Meyer and Klein, it still remains to speak. But
+first, let us consider what new evidence has been thrown upon the
+subject by the observations made on the star which flamed out last
+November.
+
+The new star was first seen by Professor Schmidt, who has had the good
+fortune of announcing to astronomers more than one remarkable
+phenomenon. It was he who discovered in November 1866 that a lunar
+crater had disappeared, an announcement quite in accordance with the
+facts of the case. We have seen that he was one of the independent
+discoverers of the outburst in the Northern Crown. On November 24, at
+the early hour of 5.41 in the evening (showing that Schmidt takes time
+by the forelock at his observatory), he noticed a star of the third
+magnitude in the constellation of the Swan, not far from the tail of
+that southward-flying celestial bird. He is quite sure that on November
+20, the last preceding clear evening, the star was not there. At
+midnight its light was very yellow, and it was somewhat brighter than
+the neighbouring star Eta Pegasi, on the Flying Horse's southernmost
+knee (if anatomists will excuse my following the ordinary usage which
+calls the wrist of the horse's fore-arm the knee). He sent news of the
+discovery forthwith to Leverrier, the chief of the Paris observatory;
+and the observers there set to work to analyse the light of the
+stranger. Unfortunately the star's suddenly acquired brilliancy rapidly
+faded. M. Paul Henry estimated the star's brightness on December 2 as
+equal only to that of a fifth-magnitude star. Moreover, the colour,
+which had been very yellow on November 24, was by this time 'greenish,
+almost blue.' On December 2, M. Cornu, observing during a short time
+when the star was visible through a break between clouds, found that the
+star's spectrum consisted almost entirely of bright lines. On December
+5, he was able to determine the position of these lines, though still
+much interrupted by clouds. He found three bright lines of hydrogen, the
+strong (really double) line of sodium, the (really triple) line of
+magnesium, and two other lines. One of these last seemed to agree
+exactly in position with a bright line belonging to the corona seen
+around the sun during total eclipse.[35]
+
+The star has since faded gradually in lustre until, at present, it is
+quite invisible to the naked eye.
+
+We cannot doubt that the catastrophe which befell this star is of the
+same general nature as is that which befell the star in the Northern
+Crown. It is extremely significant that all the elements which
+manifested signs of intense heat in the case of the star in the Swan,
+are characteristic of our sun's outer appendages. We know that the
+coloured flames seen around the sun during total solar eclipse consist
+of glowing hydrogen, and of glowing matter giving a line so near the
+sodium line that in the case of a stellar spectrum it would, probably,
+not be possible to distinguish one from the other. Into the prominences
+there are thrown from time to time masses of glowing sodium, magnesium,
+and (in less degree) iron and other metallic vapours. Lastly, in that
+glorious appendage, the solar corona, which extends for hundreds of
+thousands of miles from the sun's surface, there are enormous quantities
+of some element, whose nature is as yet unknown, showing under
+spectroscopic analysis the bright line which seems to have appeared in
+the spectrum of the flaming sun in the Swan.
+
+This evidence seems to me to suggest that the intense heat which
+suddenly affected this star had its origin from without. At the same
+time, I cannot agree with Meyer and Klein in considering that the cause
+of the heat was either the downfall of a planetary mass on the star, or
+the collision of the star with a star-cloudlet, or nebula, traversing
+space in one direction while the star swept onwards in another. A planet
+could not very well come into final conflict with its sun at one fell
+swoop. It would gradually draw nearer and nearer, not by the narrowing
+of its path, but by the change of the path's shape. The path would, in
+fact, become more and more eccentric; until, at length, at its point of
+nearest approach, the planet would graze its primary, exciting an
+intense heat where it struck, but escaping actual destruction that time.
+The planet would make another circuit, and again graze its sun, at or
+near the same part of the planet's path. For several circuits this would
+continue, the grazes not becoming more effective each time, but rather
+less. The interval between them, however, would grow continually less
+and less. At last the time would come when the planet's path would be
+reduced to the circular form, its globe touching its sun's all the way
+round, and then the planet would very quickly be reduced to vapour, and
+partly burned up, its substance being absorbed by its sun. But all the
+successive grazes would be indicated to us by accessions in the star's
+lustre, the period between each seeming outburst being only a few months
+at first, and becoming gradually less and less (during a long course of
+years, perhaps even of centuries), until the planet was finally
+destroyed. Nothing of this sort has happened in the case of any
+so-called new star.
+
+As for the rush of a star through a nebulous mass, that is a theory
+which would scarcely be entertained by any one acquainted with the
+enormous distances separating the gaseous star-clouds properly called
+nebulae. There may be small clouds of the same sort scattered much more
+densely through space; but we have not a particle of evidence that this
+actually is the case. All we certainly _know_ about star-cloudlets
+suggest that the distances separating them from each other are
+comparable with those which separate star from star, in which case the
+idea of a star coming into collision with a star-cloudlet, and still
+more the idea of this occurring several times in a century, is wild in
+the extreme.
+
+On the whole, the theory seems more probable than any of these, that
+enormous flights of large meteoric masses travel around those stars
+which thus occasionally break forth in conflagration, such flights
+travelling on exceedingly eccentric paths, and requiring enormously long
+periods to complete each circuit of their vast orbits. In conceiving
+this, we are not imagining anything new. Such a meteoric flight would
+differ only in degree not kind from meteoric flights which are known to
+circle around our own sun. I am not sure, indeed, that it can be
+definitely asserted that our sun has no meteoric appendages of the same
+nature as those which, if this theory be true, excite to intense
+periodic activity the sun round which they circle. We know that comets
+and meteors are closely connected, every comet being probably (many
+certainly) attended by flights of meteoric masses. The meteors which
+produce the celebrated November showers of falling stars follow in the
+track of a comet invisible to the naked eye. May we not reasonably
+suppose, then, that those glorious comets which have not only been
+visible but conspicuous, shining even in the day-time, and brandishing
+round tails which, like that of the 'wonder in heaven, the great
+dragon,' seemed to 'draw the third part of the stars of heaven,' are
+followed by much denser flights of much more massive meteors? Now some
+among these giant comets have paths which carry them very close to our
+sun. Newton's comet, with its tail a hundred millions of miles in
+length, all but grazed the sun's globe. The comet of 1843, whose tail,
+says Sir J. Herschel, 'stretched half-way across the sky,' must actually
+have grazed the sun, though but lightly, for its nucleus was within
+80,000 miles of his surface, and its head was more than 160,000 miles in
+diameter. And these are only two among the few comets whose paths are
+known. At any time we might be visited by a comet mightier than either,
+travelling on an orbit intersecting the sun's surface, followed by
+flights of meteoric masses enormous in size and many in number, which,
+falling on the sun's globe with the enormous velocity corresponding to
+their vast orbital range and their near approach to the sun--a velocity
+of some 360 miles per second--would, beyond all doubt, excite his whole
+frame, and especially his surface regions, to a degree of heat far
+exceeding what he now emits.
+
+We have had evidence of the tremendous heat to which the sun's surface
+would be excited by the downfall of a shower of large meteoric masses.
+Carrington and Hodgson, on September 1, 1859, observed (independently)
+the passage of two intensely bright bodies across a small part of the
+sun's surface--the bodies first increasing in brightness, then
+diminishing, then fading away. It is generally believed that these were
+meteoric masses raised to fierce heat by frictional resistance. Now so
+much brighter did they appear, or rather did that part of the sun's
+surface appear through which they had rushed, that Carrington supposed
+the dark glass screen used to protect the eye had broken, and Hodgson
+described the brightness of this part of the sun as such that the part
+shone like a brilliant star on the background of the glowing solar
+surface. Mark, also, the consequences of the downfall of those two
+bodies only. A magnetic disturbance affected the whole frame of the
+earth at the very time when the sun had been thus disturbed. Vivid
+auroras were seen not only in both hemispheres, but in latitudes where
+auroras are very seldom witnessed. 'By degrees,' says Sir J. Herschel,
+'accounts began to pour in of great auroras seen not only in these
+latitudes, but at Rome, in the West Indies, in the tropics within
+eighteen degrees of the equator (where they hardly ever appear); nay,
+what is still more striking, in South America and in Australia--where,
+at Melbourne, on the night of September 2, the greatest aurora ever seen
+there made its appearance. These auroras were accompanied with unusually
+great electro-magnetic disturbances in every part of the world. In many
+places the telegraph wires struck work. They had too many private
+messages of their own to convey. At Washington and Philadelphia, in
+America, the electric signal-men received severe electric shocks. At a
+station in Norway the telegraphic apparatus was set fire to; and at
+Boston, in North America, a flame of fire followed the pen of Bain's
+electric telegraph, which writes down the message upon chemically
+prepared paper.' Seeing that where the two meteors fell the sun's
+surface glowed thus intensely, and that the effect of this accession of
+energy upon our earth was thus well marked, can it be doubted that a
+comet, bearing in its train a flight of many millions of meteoric
+masses, and falling directly upon the sun, would produce an accession of
+light and heat whose consequences would be disastrous? When the earth
+has passed through the richer portions (not the actual nuclei, be it
+remembered) of meteor systems, the meteors visible from even a single
+station have been counted by tens of thousands, and it has been computed
+that millions must have fallen upon the whole earth. These were meteors
+following in the train of very small comets. If a very large comet
+followed by no denser a flight of meteors, but each meteoric mass much
+larger, fell directly upon the sun, it would not be the outskirts but
+the nucleus of the meteoric train which would impinge upon him. They
+would number thousands of millions. The velocity of downfall of each
+mass would be more than 360 miles per second. And they would continue to
+pour in upon him for several days in succession, millions falling every
+hour. It seems not improbable that, under this tremendous and
+long-continued meteoric hail, his whole surface would be caused to glow
+as intensely as that small part whose brilliancy was so surprising in
+the observation made by Carrington and Hodgson. In that case, our sun,
+seen from some remote star whence ordinarily he is invisible, would
+shine out as a new sun, for a few days, while all things living on our
+earth, and whatever other members of the solar system are the abode of
+life, would inevitably be destroyed.
+
+The reader must not suppose that this idea has been suggested merely in
+the attempt to explain outbursts of stars. The following passage from a
+paper of considerable scientific interest by Professor Kirkwood, of
+Bloomington, Indiana, a well-known American astronomer, shows that the
+idea had occurred to him for a very different reason. He speaks here of
+a probable connection between the comet of 1843 and the great sun-spot
+which appeared in June 1843. I am not sure, however, but that we may
+regard the very meteors which seem to have fallen on the sun on
+September 1, 1859, as bodies travelling in the track of the comet of
+1843--just as the November meteors seen in 1867-8, 9, etc., until 1872,
+were bodies certainly following in the track of the telescopic comet of
+1866. 'The opinion has been expressed by more than one astronomer,' he
+says, speaking of Carrington's observation, 'that this phenomenon was
+produced by the fall of meteoric matter upon the sun's surface. Now, the
+fact may be worthy of note that the comet of 1843 actually grazed the
+sun's atmosphere about three months before the appearance of the great
+sun-spot of the same year. Had it approached but little nearer, the
+resistance of the atmosphere would probably have brought its entire mass
+to the solar surface. Even at its actual distance it must have produced
+considerable atmospheric disturbance. But the recent discovery that a
+number of comets are associated with meteoric matter, travelling in
+nearly the same orbits, suggests the inquiry whether an enormous
+meteorite following in the comet's train, and having a somewhat less
+perihelion distance, may not have been precipitated upon the sun, thus
+producing the great disturbance observed so shortly after the comet's
+perihelion passage.'
+
+There are those, myself among the number, who consider the periodicity
+of the solar spots, that tide of spots which flows to its maximum and
+then ebbs to its minimum in a little more than eleven years, as only
+explicable on the theory that a small comet having this period, and
+followed by a meteor train, has a path intersecting the sun's surface.
+In an article entitled 'The Sun a Bubble,' which appeared in the
+'Cornhill Magazine' for October 1874, I remarked that from the observed
+phenomena of sun-spots we might be led to suspect the existence of some
+as yet undetected comet with a train of exceptionally large meteoric
+masses, travelling in a period of about eleven years round the sun, and
+having its place of nearest approach to that orb so close to the solar
+surface that, when the main flight is passing, the stragglers fall upon
+the sun's surface. In this case, we could readily understand that, as
+this small comet unquestionably causes our sun to be variable to some
+slight degree in brilliancy, in a period of about eleven years, so some
+much larger comet circling around Mira, in a period of about 331 days,
+may occasion those alternations of brightness which have been described
+above. It may be noticed in passing, that it is by no means certain that
+the time when the sun is most spotted is the time when he gives out
+least light. Though at such times his surface is dark where the spots
+are, yet elsewhere it is probably brighter than usual; at any rate, all
+the evidence we have tends to show that when the sun is most spotted,
+his energies are most active. It is then that the coloured flames leap
+to their greatest height and show their greatest brilliancy, then also
+that they show the most rapid and remarkable changes of shape.
+
+Supposing there really is, I will not say danger, but a possibility,
+that our sun may one day, through the arrival of some very large comet
+travelling directly towards him, share the fate of the suns whose
+outbursts I have described above, we might be destroyed unawares, or we
+might be aware for several weeks of the approach of the destroying
+comet. Suppose, for example, the comet, which might arrive from any part
+of the heavens, came from out that part of the star-depths which is
+occupied by the constellation Taurus--then, if the arrival were so timed
+that the comet, which might reach the sun at any time, fell upon him in
+May or June, we should know nothing of that comet's approach: for it
+would approach in that part of the heavens which was occupied by the
+sun, and his splendour would hide as with a veil the destroying enemy.
+On the other hand, if the comet, arriving from the same region of the
+heavens, so approached as to fall upon the sun in November or December,
+we should see it for several weeks. For it would then approach from the
+part of the heavens high above the southern horizon at midnight.
+Astronomers would be able in a few days after it was discovered to
+determine its path and predict its downfall upon the sun, precisely as
+Newton calculated the path of _his_ comet and predicted its near
+approach to the sun. It would be known for weeks then that the event
+which Newton contemplated as likely to cause a tremendous outburst of
+solar heat, competent to destroy all life upon the surface of our earth,
+was about to take place; and, doubtless, the minds of many students of
+science would be exercised during that interval in determining whether
+Newton was right or wrong. For my own part, I have very little doubt
+that, though the change in the sun's condition in consequence of the
+direct downfall upon his surface of a very large comet would be but
+temporary, and in that sense slight--for what are a few weeks in the
+history of an orb which has already existed during thousands of millions
+of years?--yet the effect upon the inhabitants of the earth would be by
+no means slight. I do not think, however, that any students of science
+would remain, after the catastrophe, to estimate or to record its
+effects.
+
+Fortunately, all that we have learned hitherto from the stars favours
+the belief that, while a catastrophe of this sort may be possible, it is
+exceedingly unlikely. We may estimate the probabilities precisely in the
+same way that an insurance company estimates the chance of a railway
+accident. Such a company considers the number of accidents which occur
+among a given number of railway journeys, and from the smallness of the
+number of accidents compared with the largeness of the number of
+journeys estimates the safety of railway travelling. Our sun is one
+among many millions of suns, any one of which (though all but a few
+thousands are actually invisible) would become visible to the naked eye,
+if exposed to the same conditions as have affected the suns in flames
+described in the preceding pages. Seeing, then, that during the last
+two thousand years or thereabouts, only a few instances of the kind,
+certainly not so many as twenty, have been recorded, while there is
+reason to believe that some of these relate to the same star which has
+blazed out more than once, we may fairly consider the chance exceedingly
+small that during the next two thousand, or even the next twenty
+thousand years, our sun will be exposed to a catastrophe of the kind.
+
+We might arrive at this conclusion independently of any considerations
+tending to show that our sun belongs to a safe class of system-rulers,
+and that all, or nearly all, the great solar catastrophes have occurred
+among suns of a particular class. There are, however, several
+considerations of the kind which are worth noting.
+
+In the first place, we may dismiss as altogether unlikely the visit of a
+comet from the star-depths to our sun, on a course carrying the comet
+directly upon the sun's surface. But if, among the comets travelling in
+regular attendance upon the sun, there be one whose orbit intersects the
+sun's globe, then that comet must several times ere this have struck the
+sun, raising him temporarily to a destructive degree of heat. Now, such
+a comet must have a period of enormous length, for the races of animals
+now existing upon the earth must all have been formed since that comet's
+last visit--on the assumption, be it remembered, that the fall of a
+large comet upon the sun, or rather the direct passage of the sun
+through the meteoric nucleus of a large comet, would excite the sun to
+destructive heat. If all living creatures on the earth are to be
+destroyed when some comet belonging to the solar system makes its next
+return to the sun, that same comet at its last visit must have raised
+the sun to an equal, or even greater intensity of heat, so that either
+no such races as at present exist had then come into being, or, if any
+such existed, they must at that time have been utterly destroyed. We
+may fairly believe that all comets of the destructive sort have been
+eliminated. Judging from the evidence we have on the subject, the
+process of the formation of the solar system was one which involved the
+utilisation of cometic and meteoric matter; and it fortunately so
+chanced that the comets likely otherwise to have been most
+mischievous--those, namely, which crossed the track of planets, and
+still more those whose paths intersected the globe of the sun--were
+precisely those which would be earliest and most thoroughly used up in
+this way.
+
+Secondly, it is noteworthy that all the stars which have blazed out
+suddenly, except one, have appeared in a particular region of the
+heavens--the zone of the Milky Way (all, too, on one half of that zone).
+The single exception is the star in the Northern Crown, and that star
+appeared in a region which I have found to be connected with the Milky
+Way by a well-marked stream of stars, not a stream of a few stars
+scattered here and there, but a stream where thousands of stars are
+closely aggregated together, though not quite so closely as to form a
+visible extension of the Milky Way. In my map of 324,000 stars this
+stream can be quite clearly recognised; but, indeed, the brighter stars
+scattered along it form a stream recognisable with the naked eye, and
+have long since been regarded by astronomers as such, forming the stars
+of the Serpent and the Crown, or a serpentine streak followed by a loop
+of stars shaped like a coronet. Now the Milky Way, and the outlying
+streams of stars connected with it, seem to form a region of the stellar
+universe where fashioning processes are still at work. As Sir W.
+Herschel long since pointed out, we can recognise in various parts of
+the heavens various stages of development, and chief among the regions
+where as yet Nature's work seems incomplete, is the Galactic
+zone--especially that half of it where the Milky Way consists of
+irregular streams and clouds of stellar light. As there is no reason for
+believing that our sun belongs to this part of the galaxy, but on the
+contrary good ground for considering that he belongs to the class of
+insulated stars, few of which have shown signs of irregular variation,
+while none have ever blazed suddenly out with many hundred times their
+former lustre, we may fairly infer a very high degree of probability in
+favour of the belief that, for many ages still to come, the sun will
+continue steadily to discharge his duties as fire, light, and life of
+the solar system.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+_THE RINGS OF SATURN._
+
+
+The rings of Saturn, always among the most interesting objects of
+astronomical research, have recently been subjected to close scrutiny
+under high telescopic powers by Mr. Trouvelot, of the Harvard
+Observatory, Cambridge, U.S. The results which he has obtained afford
+very significant evidence respecting these strange appendages, and even
+throw some degree of light on the subject of cosmical evolution. The
+present time, when Saturn is the ruling planet of the night, seems
+favourable for giving a brief account of recent speculations respecting
+the Saturnian ring-system, especially as the observations of Mr.
+Trouvelot appear to remove all doubt as to the true nature of the rings,
+if indeed any doubt could reasonably be entertained after the
+investigations made by European and American astronomers when the dark
+inner ring had but recently been recognised.
+
+It may be well to give a brief account of the progress of observation
+from the time when the rings were first discovered.
+
+In passing, I may remark that the failure of Galileo to ascertain the
+real shape of these appendages has always seemed to me to afford
+striking evidence of the importance of careful reasoning upon all
+observations whose actual significance is not at once apparent. If
+Galileo had been thus careful to analyse his observations of Saturn, he
+could not have failed to ascertain their real meaning. He had seen the
+planet apparently attended by two large satellites, one on either side,
+'as though supporting the aged Saturn upon his slow course around the
+sun.' Night after night he had seen these attendants, always similarly
+placed, one on either side of the planet, and at equal distances from
+it. Then in 1612 he had again examined the planet, and lo, the
+attendants had vanished, 'as though Saturn had been at his old tricks,
+and had devoured his children.' But after a while the attendant orbs had
+reappeared in their former positions, had seemed slowly to grow larger,
+until at length they had presented the appearance of two pairs of mighty
+arms encompassing the planet. If Galileo had reasoned upon these changes
+of appearance, he could not have failed, as it seems to me, to interpret
+their true meaning. The three forms under which the rings had been seen
+by him sufficed to indicate the true shape of the appendage. Because
+Saturn was seen with two attendants of apparently equal size and always
+equi-distant from him, it was certain that there must be some appendage
+surrounding him, and extending to that distance from his globe. Because
+this appendage disappeared, it was certain that it must be thin and
+flat. Because it appeared at another time with a dark space between the
+arms and the planet, it was certain that the appendage is separated by a
+wide gap from the body of the planet. So that Galileo might have
+concluded--not doubtfully, but with assured confidence--that the
+appendage is a thin flat ring nowhere attached to the planet, or, as
+Huyghens said some forty years later, Saturn '_annulo cingitur tenui,
+plano, nusquam cohaerente_.' Whether such reasoning would have been
+accepted by the contemporaries of Galileo may be doubtful. The
+generality of men are not content with reasoning which is logically
+sound, but require evidence which they can easily understand. Very
+likely Huyghens' proof from direct observation, though in reality not a
+whit more complete and far rougher, would have been regarded as the
+first true proof of the existence of Saturn's ring, just as Sir W.
+Herschel's observation of one star actually moving round another was
+regarded as the first true proof of the physical association of certain
+stars, a fact which Michell had proved as completely and far more neatly
+half a century earlier, by a method, however, which was 'caviare to the
+general.'
+
+However, as matters chanced, the scientific world was not called upon to
+decide between the merits of a discovery made by direct observation and
+one effected by means of abstract reasoning. It was not until Saturn had
+been examined with much higher telescopic power than Galileo could
+employ, that the appendage which had so perplexed the Florentine
+astronomer was seen to be a thin flat ring, nowhere touching the planet,
+and considerably inclined to the plane in which Saturn travels. We
+cannot wonder that the discovery was regarded as a most interesting one.
+Astronomers had heretofore had to deal with solid masses, either known
+to be spheroidal, like the earth, the sun, the moon, Jupiter, and Venus,
+or presumed to be so, like the stars. The comets might be judged to be
+vaporous masses of various forms; but even these were supposed to
+surround or to attend upon globe-shaped nuclear masses. Here, however,
+in the case of Saturn's ring, was a quoit-shaped body travelling around
+the sun in continual attendance upon Saturn, whose motions, no matter
+how they varied in velocity or direction, were so closely followed by
+this strange attendant that the planet remained always centrally poised
+within the span of its ring-girdle. To appreciate the interest with
+which this strange phenomenon was regarded, we must remember that as yet
+the law of gravity had not been recognised. Huyghens discovered the
+ring (or rather perceived its nature) in 1659, but it was not till 1666
+that Newton first entertained the idea that the moon is retained in its
+orbit about the earth by the attractive energy which causes unsupported
+bodies to fall earthwards; and he was unable to demonstrate the law of
+gravity before 1684. Now, in a general sense, we can readily understand
+in these days how a ring around a planet continues to travel along with
+the planet despite all changes of velocity or direction of motion. For
+the law of gravity teaches that the same causes which tend to change the
+direction and velocity of the planet's motion tend in precisely the same
+degree to change the direction and velocity of the ring's motion. But
+when Huyghens made his discovery it must have appeared a most mysterious
+circumstance that a ring and planet should be thus constantly
+associated--that during thousands of years no collision should have
+occurred whereby the relatively delicate structure of the ring had been
+destroyed.
+
+Only six years later a discovery was made by two English observers,
+William and Thomas Ball, which enhanced the mystery. Observing the
+northern face of the ring, which was at that time turned earthwards,
+they perceived a black stripe of considerable breadth dividing the ring
+into two concentric portions. The discovery did not attract so much
+attention as it deserved, insomuch that when Cassini, ten years later,
+announced the discovery of a corresponding dark division on the southern
+surface, none recalled the observation made by the brothers Ball.
+Cassini expressed the opinion that the ring is really divided into two,
+not merely marked by a dark stripe on its southern face. This conclusion
+would, of course, have been an assured one, had the previous observation
+of a dark division on the northern face been remembered. With the
+knowledge which we now possess, indeed, the darkness of the seeming
+stripe would be sufficient evidence that there must be a real division
+there between the rings; for we know that no mere darkness of the ring's
+substance could account for the apparent darkness of the stripe. It has
+been well remarked by Professor Tyndall, that if the moon's whole
+surface could be covered with black velvet, she would yet appear white
+when seen on the dark background of the sky. And it may be doubted
+whether a circular strip of black velvet 2000 miles wide, placed where
+we see the dark division between the rings, would appear nearly as dark
+as that division. Since we could only admit the possibility of some
+substance resembling our darker rocks occupying this position (for we
+know of nothing to justify the supposition that a substance as dark as
+lampblack or black velvet could be there), we are manifestly precluded
+from supposing that the dark space is other than a division between two
+distinct rings.
+
+Yet Sir W. Herschel, in examining the rings of Saturn with his powerful
+telescopes, for a long time favoured the theory that there is no real
+division. He called it the 'broad black mark,' and argued that it can
+neither indicate the existence of a zone of hills upon the ring, nor of
+a vast cavernous groove, for in either case it would present changes of
+appearance (according to the ring's changes of position) such as he was
+unable to detect. It was not until the year 1790, eleven years after his
+observations had commenced, that, perceiving a corresponding broad black
+mark upon the ring's southern face, Herschel expressed a 'suspicion'
+that the ring is divided into two concentric portions by a circular gap
+nearly 2000 miles in width. He expressed at the same time, very
+strongly, his belief that this division was the only one in Saturn's
+ring-system.
+
+A special interest attached at that time to the question whether the
+ring is divided or not, for Laplace had then recently published the
+results of his mathematical inquiry into the movements of such a ring as
+Saturn's, and, having _proved_ that a single solid ring of such enormous
+width could not continue to move around the planet, had expressed the
+_opinion_ that Saturn's ring consists in reality of many concentric
+rings, each turning, with its own proper rotation rate, around the
+central planet. It is singular that Herschel, who, though not versed in
+the methods of the higher mathematics, had considerable native power as
+a mathematician, was unable to perceive the force of Laplace's
+reasoning. Indeed, this is one of those cases where clearness of
+perception rather than profundity of mathematical insight was required.
+Laplace's equations of motion did not express all the relations
+involved, nor was it possible to judge, from the results he deduced, how
+far the stability of the Saturnian rings depended on the real structure
+of these appendages. One who was well acquainted with mechanical
+matters, and sufficiently versed in mathematics to understand how to
+estimate generally the forces acting upon the ring-system, could have
+perceived as readily the general conditions of the problem as the most
+profound mathematician. One may compare the case to the problem of
+determining whether the action of the moon in causing the tidal wave
+modifies in any manner the earth's motion of rotation. We know that as a
+mathematical question this is a very difficult one. The Astronomer
+Royal, for example, not long ago dealt with it analytically, and deduced
+the conclusion that there is no effect on the earth's rotation,
+presently however, discovering by a lucky chance a term in the result
+which indicates an effect of that kind. But if we look at the matter in
+its mechanical aspect, we perceive at once, without any profound
+mathematical research, that the retardation so hard to detect
+mathematically must necessarily take place. As Sir E. Beckett says in
+his masterly work, _Astronomy without Mathematics_, 'the conclusion is
+as evident without mathematics as with them, when once it has been
+suggested.' So when we consider the case of a wide flat ring surrounding
+a mighty planet like Saturn, we perceive that nothing could possibly
+save such a ring from destruction if it were really one solid structure.
+
+To recognise this the more clearly, let us first notice the dimensions
+of the planet and rings.
+
+We have in Saturn a globe about 70,000 miles in mean diameter, an
+equatorial diameter being about 73,000 miles, the polar diameter 66,000
+miles. The attractive force of this mighty mass upon bodies placed on
+its surface is equal to about one-fifth more than terrestrial gravity if
+the body is near the pole of Saturn, and is almost exactly the same as
+terrestrial gravity if the body is at the planet's equator. Its action
+on the matter of the ring is, of course, very much less, because of the
+increased distance, but still a force is exerted on every part of the
+ring which is comparable with the familiar force of terrestrial gravity.
+The outer edge of the outer ring lies about 83,500 miles from the
+planet's centre, the inner edge of the inner ring (I speak throughout of
+the ring-system as known to Sir W. Herschel and Laplace) about 54,500
+miles from the centre, the breadth of the system of bright rings being
+about 29,000 miles. Between the planet's equator and the inner edge of
+the innermost bright ring there intervenes a space of about 20,000
+miles. Roughly speaking, it may be said that the attraction of the
+planet on the substance of the ring's inner edge is less than gravity at
+Saturn's equator (or, which is almost exactly the same thing, is less
+than terrestrial gravity) in about the proportion of 9 to 20; or, still
+more roughly, the inner edge of Saturn's inner bright ring is drawn
+inwards by about half the force of gravity at the earth's surface. The
+outer edge is drawn towards Saturn by a force less than terrestrial
+gravity in the proportion of about 3 to 16--say roughly that the force
+thus exerted by Saturn on the matter of the outer edge of the
+ring-system is equivalent to about one-fifth of the force of gravity at
+the earth's surface.
+
+It is clear, first, that if the ring-system did not rotate, the forces
+thus acting on the material of the rings would immediately break them
+into fragments, and, dragging these down to the planet's equator, would
+leave them scattered in heaps upon that portion of Saturn's surface. The
+ring would in fact be in that case like a mighty arch, each portion of
+which would be drawn towards Saturn's centre by its own weight. This
+weight would be enormous if Bessel's estimate of the mass of the
+ring-system is correct. He made the mass of the ring rather greater than
+the mass of the earth--an estimate which I believe to be greatly in
+excess of the truth. Probably the rings do not amount in mass to more
+than a fourth part of the earth's mass. But even that is enormous, and
+subjected as is the material of the rings to forces varying from
+one-half to a fifth of terrestrial gravity, the strains and pressures
+upon the various parts of the system would exceed thousands of times
+those which even the strongest material built up into their shape could
+resist. The system would no more be able to resist such strains and
+pressures than an arch of iron spanning the Atlantic would be able to
+sustain its own weight against the earth's attraction.
+
+It would be necessary then that the ring-system should rotate around the
+planet. But it is clear that the proper rate of rotation for the outer
+portion would be very different from the rate suited for the inner
+portion. In order that the inner portion should travel around Saturn
+entirely relieved of its weight, it should complete a revolution in
+about seven hours twenty-three minutes. The outer portion, however,
+should revolve in about thirteen hours fifty-eight minutes, or nearly
+fourteen hours. Thus the inner part should rotate in little more than
+half the time required by the outer part. The result would necessarily
+be that the ring-system would be affected by tremendous strains, which
+it would be quite unable to resist. The existence of the great division
+would manifestly go far to diminish the strains. It is easily shown that
+the rate of turning where the division is, would be once in about eleven
+hours and twenty-five minutes, not differing greatly from the mean
+between the rotation-periods for the outside and for the inside edges of
+the system. Even then, however, the strains would be hundreds of times
+greater than the material of the ring could resist. A mass comparable in
+weight to our earth, compelled to rotate in (say) nine hours when it
+ought to rotate in eleven or in seven, would be subjected to strains
+exceeding many times the resistances which the cohesive power of its
+substance could afford. That would be the condition of the inner ring.
+And in like manner the outer ring, if it rotated in about twelve hours
+and three-quarters, would have its outer portions rotating too fast and
+its inner portions too slowly, because their proper periods would be
+fourteen hours and eleven hours and a half respectively. Nothing but the
+division of the ring into a number of narrow hoops could possibly save
+it from destruction through the internal strains and pressures to which
+its material would be subjected.
+
+Even this complicated arrangement, however, would not save the
+ring-system. If we suppose a fine hoop to turn around a central
+attracting body as the rings of Saturn rotate around the planet, it may
+be shown that unless the hoop is so weighted that its centre of gravity
+is far from the planet, there will be no stability in the resulting
+motions; the hoop will before long be made to rotate eccentrically, and
+eventually be brought into destructive collision with the central
+planet.
+
+It was here that Laplace left the problem. Nothing could have been more
+unsatisfactory than his result, though it was accepted for nearly half a
+century unquestioned. He had shown that a weighted fine hoop may
+possibly turn around a central attracting mass without destructive
+changes of position, but he had not proved more than the bare
+possibility of this, while nothing in the appearance of Saturn's rings
+suggests that any such arrangement exists. Again, manifestly a multitude
+of narrow hoops, so combined as to form a broad flat system of rings,
+would be constantly in collision _inter se_. Besides, each one of them
+would be subjected to destructive strains. For though a fine uniform
+hoop set rotating at a proper rate around an attracting mass at its
+centre would be freed from all strains, the case is very different with
+a hoop so weighted as to have its centre of gravity greatly displaced.
+Laplace had saved the theoretical stability of the motions of a fine
+ring at the expense of the ring's power of resisting the strains to
+which it would be exposed. It seems incredible that such a result
+(expressed, too, very doubtingly by the distinguished mathematician who
+had obtained it) should have been accepted so long almost without
+question. There is nothing in nature in the remotest degree resembling
+the arrangement imagined by Laplace, which indeed appears on _a priori_
+grounds impossible. It was not claimed for it that it removed the
+original difficulties of the problem; and it introduced others fully as
+serious. So strong, however, is authority in the scientific world that
+none ventured to express any doubts except Sir W. Herschel, who simply
+denied that the two rings were divided into many, as Laplace's theory
+required. As time went on and the signs of many divisions were at times
+recognised, it was supposed that Laplace's reasoning had been justified;
+and despite the utter impossibility of the arrangement he had suggested,
+that arrangement was ordinarily described as probably existing.
+
+At length, however, a discovery was made which caused the whole question
+to be reopened.
+
+On November 10, 1850, W. Bond, observing the planet with the telescope
+of the Harvard Observatory, perceived within the inner bright ring a
+feeble illumination which he was at a loss to understand. On the next
+night the faint light was better seen. On the 15th, Tuttle, who was
+observing with Bond, suggested the idea that the light within the inner
+bright ring was due to a dusky ring inside the system of bright rings.
+On November 25, Mr. Dawes in England perceived this dusky ring, and
+announced the discovery before the news had reached England that Bond
+had already seen the dark ring. The credit of the discovery is usually
+shared between Bond and Dawes, though the usual rule in such matters
+would assign the discovery to Bond alone. It was found that the dark
+ring had already been seen at Rome so far back as 1828, and again by
+Galle at Berlin in May 1838. The Roman observations were not
+satisfactory. Those by Galle, however, were sufficient to have
+established the fact of the ring's existence; indeed, in 1839 Galle
+measured the dark ring. But very little attention was attracted to this
+interesting discovery, insomuch that when Bond and Dawes announced their
+observation of the dark ring in 1850, the news was received by
+astronomers with all the interest attaching to the detection of before
+unnoted phenomena.
+
+It may be well to notice under what conditions the dark ring was
+detected in 1850. In September 1848 the ring had been turned edgewise
+towards the sun, and as rather more than seven years are occupied in
+the apparent gradual opening out of the ring from that edge view to its
+most open appearance (when the outline of the ring-system is an eclipse
+whose lesser axis is nearly equal to half the greater), it will be seen
+that in November 1850 the rings were but slightly opened. Thus the
+recognition of the dark ring within the bright system was made under
+unfavourable conditions. For four preceding years--that is, from the
+year 1846--the rings had been as little or less opened; and again for
+several years preceding 1846, though the rings had been more open, the
+planet had been unfavourably placed for observation in northern
+latitudes, crossing the meridian at low altitudes. Still, in 1838 and
+1839, when the rings were most open, although the planet was never seen
+under favourable conditions, the opening of the rings, then nearly at
+its greatest, made the recognition of the dark ring possible; and we
+have seen that Galle then made the discovery. When Bond rediscovered the
+dark ring, everything promised that before long the appendage would be
+visible with telescopes far inferior in power to the great Harvard
+refractor. Year after year the planet was becoming more favourably
+placed for observation, while all the time the rings were opening out.
+Accordingly it need not surprise us to learn that in 1853 the dark ring
+was seen with a telescope less than three inches and a half in aperture.
+Even so early as 1851, Mr. Hartnup, observing the planet with a
+telescope eight inches and a half in aperture, found that 'the dark ring
+could not be overlooked for an instant.'
+
+But while this increase in the distinctness of the dark ring was to be
+expected, from the mere fact that the ring was discovered under
+relatively unfavourable conditions, yet the fact that Saturn was thus
+found to have an appendage of a remarkable character, perfectly obvious
+even with moderate telescopic power, was manifestly most surprising.
+The planet had been studied for nearly two centuries with telescopes
+exceeding in power those with which the dark ring was now perceived.
+Some among these telescopes were not only of great power, but employed
+by observers of the utmost skill. The elder Herschel had for a quarter
+of a century studied Saturn with his great reflectors eighteen inches in
+aperture, and had at times turned on the planet his monstrous (though
+not mighty) four-feet mirror. Schroeter had examined the dark space
+within the inner bright ring for the special purpose of determining
+whether the ring-system is really disconnected from the globe. He had
+used a mirror nineteen inches in aperture, and he had observed that the
+dark space seen on either side of Saturn inside the ring-system not only
+appeared dark, but actually darker than the surrounding sky. This was
+presumably (though not quite certainly) an effect of contrast only, the
+dark space being bounded all round by bright surfaces. If real, the
+phenomenon signified that whereas the space outside the ring, where the
+satellites of the planet travel, was occupied by some sort of cosmical
+dust, the space within the ring-system was, as it were, swept and
+garnished, as though all the scattered matter which might otherwise have
+occupied that region had been either attracted to the body of the planet
+or to the rings.[36] But manifestly the observation was entirely
+inconsistent with the supposition that there existed in Schroeter's time
+a dark or dusky ring within the bright system. Again, the elder Struve
+made the most careful measurement of the whole of the ring-system in
+1826, when the system was as well placed for observation as in 1856
+(or, in other words, as well placed as it can possibly be); but though
+he used a telescope nine inches and a half in aperture, and though his
+attention was specially attracted to the inner edge of the inner bright
+ring (_which seemed to him indistinct_), he did not detect the dark
+ring. Yet we have seen that in 1851, under much less favourable
+conditions, a less practised observer, using a telescope of less
+aperture, found that the dark ring could not be overlooked for an
+instant. It is manifest that all these considerations point to the
+conclusion that the dark ring is a new formation, or, at the least, that
+it has changed notably in condition during the present century.
+
+I have hitherto only considered the appearance of the dusky ring as seen
+on either side of the planet's globe within the bright rings. The most
+remarkable feature of the appendage remains still to be mentioned--the
+fact, namely, that the bright body of the planet can be seen through
+this dusky ring. Where the dark ring crosses the planet, it appears as a
+rather dark belt, which might readily be mistaken for a belt upon the
+planet's surface; for the outline of the planet can be seen through the
+ring as through a film of smoke or a crape veil.
+
+Now it is worthy of notice that whereas the dark ring was not detected
+outside the planet's body until 1838, nor generally recognised by
+astronomers until 1850, the dark belt across the planet, really caused
+by the dusky ring, was observed more than a century earlier. In 1715 the
+younger Cassini saw it, and perceived that it was not curved enough for
+a belt really belonging to the planet. Hadley again observed that the
+belt attended the ring as this opened out and closed, or, in other
+words, that the dark belt belonged to the ring, not to the body of the
+planet. And in many pictures of Saturn's system a dark band is shown
+along the inner edge of the inner bright ring where it crosses the body
+of the planet. It seems to me that we have here a most important piece
+of evidence respecting the rings. It is clear that the inner part of the
+inner bright ring has for more than a century and a half (how much more
+we do not know) been partially transparent, and it is probable that
+within its inner edge there has been all the time a ring of matter; but
+this ring has only within the last half-century gathered consistency
+enough to be discernible. It is manifest that the existence of the dark
+belt shown in the older pictures would have led directly to the
+detection of the dark ring, had not this appendage been exceedingly
+faint. Thus, while the observation of the dark belt across the planet's
+face proves the dusky ring to have existed in some form long before it
+was perceived, the same fact only helps to render us certain that the
+dark ring has changed notably in condition during the present century.
+
+The discovery of this singular appendage, an object unique in the solar
+system, naturally attracted fresh attention to the question of the
+stability of the rings. The idea was thrown out by the elder Bond that
+the new ring may be fluid, or even that the whole ring-system may be
+fluid, and the dark ring simply thinner than the rest. It was thought
+possible that the ring-system is of the nature of a vast ocean, whose
+waves are steadily advancing upon the planet's globe. The mathematical
+investigation of the subject was also resumed by Professor Benjamin
+Pierce, of Harvard, and it was satisfactorily demonstrated that the
+stability of a system of actual rings of solid matter required so nice
+an adjustment of so many narrow rings as to render the system far more
+complex than even Laplace had supposed. 'A stable formation can,' he
+said, 'be nothing other than a very great number of separate narrow
+rigid rings, each revolving with its proper relative velocity.' As was
+well remarked by the late Professor Nichol, 'If this arrangement or
+anything like it were real, how many new conditions of instability do we
+introduce. Observation tells us that the division between such rings
+must be extremely narrow, so that the slightest disturbance by external
+or internal causes would cause one ring to impinge upon another; and we
+should thus have the seed of perpetual catastrophes.' Nor would such a
+constitution protect the system against dissolution. 'There is no escape
+from the difficulties, therefore, but through the final rejection of the
+idea that Saturn's rings are rigid or in any sense a solid formation.'
+
+The idea that the ring-system may be fluid came naturally next under
+mathematical scrutiny. Strangely enough, the physical objections to the
+theory of fluidity appear to have been entirely overlooked. Before we
+could accept such a theory, we must admit the existence of elements
+differing entirely from those with which we are familiar. No fluid known
+to us could retain the form of the rings of Saturn under the conditions
+to which they are exposed. But the mathematical examination of the
+subject disposed so thoroughly of the theory that the rings can consist
+of continuous fluid masses, that we need not now discuss the physical
+objections to the theory.
+
+There remains only the theory that the Saturnian ring-system consists of
+discrete masses analogous to the streams of meteors known to exist in
+great numbers within the solar system. The masses may be solid or fluid,
+may be strewn in relatively vacant space, or may be surrounded by
+vaporous envelopes; but that they are discrete, each free to travel on
+its own course, seemed as completely demonstrated by Pierce's
+calculations as anything not actually admitting of direct observation
+could possibly be. The matter was placed beyond dispute by the
+independent analysis to which Clerk Maxwell subjected the mathematical
+problem. It had been selected in 1855 as the subject for the Adams Prize
+Essay at Cambridge, and Clerk Maxwell's essay, which obtained the prize,
+showed conclusively that only a system of many small bodies, each free
+to travel upon its course under the varying attractions to which it was
+subjected by Saturn itself, and by the Saturnian satellites, could
+possibly continue to girdle a planet as the rings of Saturn girdle him.
+
+It is clear that all the peculiarities hitherto observed in the
+Saturnian ring-system are explicable so soon as we regard that system as
+made up of multitudes of small bodies. Varieties of brightness simply
+indicate various degrees of condensation of these small satellites. Thus
+the outer ring had long been observed to be less bright than the inner.
+Of course it did not seem impossible that the outer ring might be made
+of different materials; yet there was something bizarre in the
+supposition that two rings forming the same system were thus different
+in substance. It would not have been at all noteworthy if different
+parts of the same ring differed in luminosity--in fact, it was much more
+remarkable that each zone of the system seemed uniformly bright all
+round. But that one zone should be of one tint, another of an entirely
+different tint, was a strange circumstance so long as the only available
+interpretation seemed to be that one zone was made (throughout) of one
+substance, the other of another. If this was strange when the difference
+between the inner and outer bright rings was alone considered, how much
+stranger did it seem when the multitudinous divisions in the rings were
+taken into account! Why should the ring-system, 30,000 miles in width,
+be thus divided into zones of different material? An arrangement so
+artificial is quite unlike all that is elsewhere seen among the
+subjects of the astronomer's researches. But when the rings are regarded
+as made up of multitudes of small bodies, we can quite readily
+understand how the nearly circular movements of all of these, at
+different rates, should result in the formation of rings of aggregation
+and rings of segregation, appearing at the earth's distance as bright
+rings and faint rings. The dark ring clearly corresponds in appearance
+with a ring of thinly scattered satellites. Indeed, it seems impossible
+otherwise to account for the appearance of a dusky belt across the globe
+of the planet where the dark ring crosses the disc. If the material of
+the dark ring were some partly transparent solid or fluid substance, the
+light of the planet received through the dark ring added to the light
+reflected by the dark ring itself, would be so nearly equivalent to the
+light received from the rest of the planet's disc, that either no dark
+belt would be seen, or the darkening would be barely discernible. In
+some positions a bright belt would be seen, not a dark one. But a ring
+of scattered satellites would cast as its shadow a multitude of black
+spots, which would give to the belt in shadow a dark grey aspect. A
+considerable proportion of these spots would be hidden by the satellites
+forming the dark ring, and in every case where a spot was wholly or
+partially hidden by a satellite, the effect (at our distant station
+where the separate satellites of the dark ring are not discernible)
+would simply be to reduce _pro tanto_ the darkness of the grey belt of
+shadow. But certainly more than half the shadows of the satellites would
+remain in sight; for the darkness of the ring at the time of its
+discovery showed that the satellites were very sparsely strewn. And
+these shadows would be sufficient to give to the belt a dusky hue, such
+as it presented when first discovered.[37]
+
+The observations which have recently been made by Mr. Trouvelot
+indicate changes in the ring-system, and especially in the dark ring,
+which place every other theory save that to which we have thus been led
+entirely out of the question. It should be noted that Mr. Trouvelot has
+employed telescopes of unquestionable excellence and varying in aperture
+from six inches to twenty-six inches, the latter aperture being that of
+the great telescope of the Washington Observatory (the largest refractor
+in the world).
+
+He has noted in the first place that the interior edge of the outer
+bright ring, which marks the outer limit of the great division, is
+irregular, but whether the irregularity is permanent or not he does not
+know. The great division itself is found not to be actually black, but,
+as was long since noted by Captain Jacob, of the Madras Observatory, a
+very dark brown, as though a few scattered satellites travelled along
+this relatively vacant zone of the system. Mr. Trouvelot has further
+noticed that the shadow of the planet upon the rings, and especially
+upon the outer ring, changes continually in shape, a circumstance which
+he attributes to irregularities in the surface of the rings. For my own
+part, I should be disposed to attribute these changes in the shape of
+the planet's shadow (noted by other observers also) to rapid changes in
+the deep cloud-laden atmosphere of the planet. Passing on, however, to
+less doubtful observations, we find that the whole system of rings has
+presented a clouded and spotted aspect during the last four years. Mr.
+Trouvelot specially describes this appearance as observed on the parts
+of the ring outside the disc, called by astronomers the _ansae_ (because
+of their resemblance to handles), and it would seem, therefore, that the
+spotted and cloudy portions are seen only where the background on which
+the rings are projected is black. This circumstance clearly suggests
+that the darkness of these parts is due to the background, or, in other
+words, that the sky is in reality seen through those parts of the
+ring-system, just as the darkness of the slate-coloured interior ring is
+attributed, on the satellite theory, to the background of sky visible
+through the scattered flight of satellites forming the dark ring. The
+matter composing the dark ring has been observed by Mr. Trouvelot to be
+gathered in places into compact masses, which prevent the light of the
+planet from being seen through those portions of the dark ring where the
+matter is thus massed together. It is clear that such peculiarities
+could not possibly present themselves in the case of a continuous solid
+or fluid ring-system, whereas they would naturally occur in a ring
+formed of multitudes of minute bodies travelling freely around the
+planet.
+
+The point next to be mentioned is still more decisive. When the dark
+ring was carefully examined with powerful telescopes during the ten
+years following its discovery by Bond, at which time it was most
+favourably placed for observation, it was observed that the outline of
+the planet could be seen across the entire breadth of the dark ring. All
+the observations agreed in this respect. It was, indeed, noticed by
+Dawes that outside the planet's disc the dark ring showed varieties of
+tint, its inner half being darker than its outer portion. Lassell,
+observing the planet under most favourable conditions with his two-feet
+mirror at Malta, could not perceive these varieties of tint, which
+therefore we may judge to have been either not permanent or very
+slightly marked. But, as I have said, all observers agreed that the
+outline of the planet could be seen athwart the entire width of the
+dark ring. Mr. Trouvelot, however, has found that during the last four
+years the planet has not been visible through the whole width of the
+dark ring, but only through the inner half of the ring's breadth. It
+appears, then, that either the inner portion is getting continually
+thinner and thinner--that is, the satellites composing it are becoming
+continually more sparsely strewn--or that the outer portion is becoming
+more compact, doubtless by receiving stray satellites from the interior
+of the inner bright ring.
+
+It is clear that in Saturn's ring-system, if not in the planet itself,
+mighty changes are still taking place. It may be that the rings are
+being so fashioned under the forces to which they are subjected as to be
+on their way to becoming changed into separate satellites, inner members
+of that system which at present consists of eight secondary planets.
+But, whatever may be the end towards which these changes are tending, we
+see processes of evolution taking place which may be regarded as
+typifying the more extensive and probably more energetic processes
+whereby the solar system itself reached its present condition. I
+ventured more than ten years ago, in the preface to my treatise upon the
+planet Saturn, to suggest the possibility 'that in the variations
+perceptibly proceeding in the Saturnian ring-system a key may one day be
+found to the law of development under which the solar system has reached
+its present condition.' This suggestion seems to me strikingly confirmed
+by the recent discoveries. The planet Saturn and its appendages, always
+interesting to astronomers, are found more than ever worthy of close
+investigation and scrutiny. We may here, as it were, seize nature in the
+act, and trace out the actual progress of developments which at present
+are matters rather of theory than of observation.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+_COMETS AS PORTENTS_
+
+                                The blazing star,
+  Threat'ning the world with famine, plague, and war;
+  To princes death; to kingdoms many curses;
+  To all estates inevitable losses;
+  To herdsmen rot; to ploughmen hapless seasons;
+  To sailors storms; to cities civil treasons.
+
+
+Although comets are no longer regarded with superstitious awe as in old
+times, mystery still clings to them. Astronomers can tell what path a
+comet is travelling upon, and say whence it has come and whither it will
+go, can even in many cases predict the periodic returns of a comet, can
+analyse the substance of these strange wanderers, and have recently
+discovered a singular bond of relationship between comets and those
+other strange visitants from the celestial depths, the shooting stars.
+But astronomy has hitherto proved unable to determine the origin of
+comets, the part they perform in the economy of the universe, their real
+structure, the causes of the marvellous changes of shape which they
+undergo as they approach the sun, rush round him, and then retreat. As
+Sir John Herschel has remarked: 'No one, hitherto, has been able to
+assign any single point in which we should be a bit better or worse off,
+materially speaking, if there were no such thing as a comet. Persons,
+even thinking persons, have busied themselves with conjectures; such as
+that they may serve for fuel for the sun (into which, however, they
+never fall), or that they may cause warm summers, which is a mere fancy,
+or that they may give rise to epidemics, or potato-blights, and so
+forth.' And though, as he justly says, 'this is all wild talking,' yet
+it will probably continue until astronomers have been able to master the
+problems respecting comets which hitherto have foiled their best
+efforts. The unexplained has ever been and will ever be marvellous to
+the general mind. Just as unexplored regions of the earth have been
+tenanted in imagination by
+
+    anthropophagi and men whose heads
+Do grow beneath their shoulders,
+
+so do wondrous possibilities exist in the unknown and the ill-understood
+phenomena of nature.
+
+In old times, when the appearance and movements of comets were supposed
+to be altogether uncontrolled by physical laws, it was natural that
+comets should be regarded as signs from heaven, tokens of Divine wrath
+towards some, and of the interposition of Divine providence in favour of
+others. As Seneca well remarked: 'There is no man so dull, so obtuse, so
+turned to earthly things, who does not direct all the powers of his mind
+towards things Divine when some novel phenomenon appears in the heavens.
+While all follows its usual course up yonder, familiarity robs the
+spectacle of its grandeur. For so is man made. However wonderful may be
+what he sees day after day, he looks on it with indifference; while
+matters of very little importance attract and interest him if they
+depart from the accustomed order. The host of heavenly constellations
+beneath the vault of heaven, whose beauty they adorn, attract no
+attention; but if any unusual appearance be noticed among them, at once
+all eyes are turned heavenwards. The sun is only looked on with
+interest when he is undergoing eclipse. Men observe the moon only under
+like conditions.... So thoroughly is it a part of our nature to admire
+the new rather than the great. The same is true of comets. When one of
+these fiery bodies of unusual form appears, every one is eager to know
+what it means; men forget other objects to inquire about the new
+arrival; they know not whether to wonder or to tremble; for many spread
+fear on all sides, drawing from the phenomenon most grave prognostics.'
+
+There is no direct reference to comets in the Bible, either in the Old
+Testament or the New. It is possible that some of the signs from heaven
+recorded in the Bible pages were either comets or meteors, and that even
+where in some places an angel or messenger from God is said to have
+appeared and delivered a message, what really happened was that some
+remarkable phenomenon in the heavens was interpreted in a particular
+manner by the priests, and the interpretation afterwards described as
+the message of an angel. The image of the 'flaming sword which turned
+every way' may have been derived from a comet; but we can form no safe
+conclusion about this, any more than we can upon the question whether
+the 'horror of great darkness' which fell upon Abraham (Genesis xv. 12)
+when the sun was going down, was caused by an eclipse;[38] or whether
+the going back of the shadow upon the dial of Ahaz was caused by a mock
+sun. The star seen by the wise men from the east may have been a comet,
+since the word translated 'star' signifies any bright object seen in the
+heavens, and is in fact the same word which Homer, in a passage
+frequently referred to, uses to signify either a comet or a meteor. The
+way in which it appeared to go before them, when (directed by Herod, be
+it noticed) they went to Bethlehem, almost due south of Jerusalem, would
+correspond to a meridian culmination low down--for the star had
+manifestly not been visible in the earlier evening, since we are told
+that they rejoiced when they saw the star again. It was probably a comet
+travelling southwards; and, as the wise men had travelled from the east,
+it had very likely been first seen in the west as an evening star,
+wherefore its course was retrograde--that is, supposing it _was_ a
+comet.[39] It may possibly have been an apparition of Halley's comet,
+following a course somewhat similar to that which it followed in the
+year 1835, when the perihelion passage was made on November 15, and the
+comet running southwards disappeared from northern astronomers, though
+in January it was '_received_' by Sir J. Herschel, to use his own
+expression, 'in the southern hemisphere.' There was an apparition of
+Halley's comet in the year 66, or seventy years after the Nativity; and
+the period of the comet varies, according to the perturbing influences
+affecting the comet's motion, from sixty-nine to eighty years.
+
+Homer does not, to the best of my recollection, refer anywhere directly
+to comets. Pope, indeed, who made very free with Homer's references to
+the heavenly bodies,[40] introduces a comet--and a red one, too!--into
+the simile of the heavenly portent in Book IV.:--
+
+  As the red comet from Saturnius sent
+  To fright the nations with a dire portent
+  (A fatal sign to armies in the plain,
+  Or trembling sailors on the wintry main),
+  With sweeping glories glides along in air,
+  And shakes the sparkles from its blazing hair:
+  Between two armies thus, in open sight,
+  Shot the bright goddess in a trail of light.
+
+But Homer says nothing of this comet. If Homer had introduced a comet,
+we may be sure it would not have shaken sparkles from its blazing tail.
+Homer said simply that 'Pallas rushed from the peaks of heaven, like the
+bright star sent by the son of crafty-counselled Kronus (as a sign
+either to sailors, or the broad array of the nations), from which many
+sparks proceed.' Strangely enough, Pingre and Lalande, the former noted
+for his researches into ancient comets, the latter a skilful astronomer,
+agree in considering that Homer really referred to a comet, and they
+even regard this comet as an apparition of the comet of 1680. They cite
+in support of this opinion the portent which followed the prayer of
+Anchises, 'AEneid,' Book II. 692, etc.: 'Scarce had the old man ceased
+from praying, when a peal of thunder was heard on the left, and a star,
+gliding from the heavens amid the darkness, rushed through space
+followed by a long train of light; we saw the star,' says AEneas,
+'suspended for a moment above the roof, brighten our home with its
+fires, then, tracing out a brilliant course, disappear in the forests of
+Ida; then a long train of flame illuminated us, and the place around
+reeked with the smell of sulphur. Overcome by these startling portents,
+my father arose, invoked the gods, and worshipped the holy star.' It is
+impossible to recognise here the description of a comet. The noise, the
+trail of light, the visible motion, the smell of sulphur, all correspond
+with the fall of a meteorite close by; and doubtless Virgil simply
+introduced into the narrative the circumstances of some such phenomenon
+which had been witnessed in his own time. To base on such a point the
+theory that the comet of 1680 was visible at the time of the fall of
+Troy, the date of which is unknown, is venturesome in the extreme. True,
+the period calculated for the comet of 1680, when Pingre and Lalande
+agreed in this unhappy guess, was 575 years; and if we multiply this
+period by five we obtain 2875 years, taking 1680 from which leaves 1195
+years B.C., near enough to the supposed date of the capture of Troy.
+Unfortunately, Encke (the eminent astronomer to whom we owe that
+determination of the sun's distance which for nearly half a century held
+its place in our books, but has within the last twenty years been
+replaced by a distance three millions of miles less) went over afresh
+the calculations of the motions of that famous comet, and found that,
+instead of 575 years, the most probable period is about 8814 years. The
+difference amounts only to 8239 years; but even this small difference
+rather impairs the theory of Lalande and Pingre.[41]
+
+Three hundred and seventy-one years before the Christian era, a comet
+appeared which Aristotle (who was a boy at the time) has described.
+Diodorus Siculus writes thus respecting it: 'In the first year of the
+102d Olympiad, Alcisthenes being Archon of Athens, several prodigies
+announced the approaching humiliation of the Lacedaemonians; a blazing
+torch of extraordinary size, which was compared to a flaming beam, was
+seen during several nights.' Guillemin, from whose interesting work on
+Comets I have translated the above passage, remarks that this same comet
+was regarded by the ancients as having not merely presaged but produced
+the earthquakes which caused the towns of Helice and Bura to be
+submerged. This was clearly in the thoughts of Seneca when he said of
+this comet that as soon as it appeared it brought about the submergence
+of Bura and Helice.
+
+In those times, however, comets were not regarded solely as signs of
+disaster. As the misfortunes of one nation were commonly held to be of
+advantage to other nations, so the same comet might be regarded very
+differently by different nations or different rulers. Thus the comet of
+the year 344 B.C. was regarded by Timoleon of Corinth as presaging the
+success of his expedition against Corinth. 'The gods announced,' said
+Diodorus Siculus, 'by a remarkable portent, his success and future
+greatness; a blazing torch appeared in the heavens at night, and went
+before the fleet of Timoleon until he arrived in Sicily.' The comets of
+the years 134 B.C. and 118 B.C. were not regarded as portents of death,
+but as signalising, the former the birth, the latter the accession, of
+Mithridates. The comet of 43 B.C. was held by some to be the soul of
+Julius Caesar on its way to the abode of the gods. Bodin, a French lawyer
+of the sixteenth century, regarded this as the usual significance of
+comets. He was, indeed, sufficiently modest to attribute the opinion to
+Democritus, but the whole credit of the discovery belonged to himself.
+He maintained that comets only indicate approaching misfortunes because
+they are the spirits or souls of illustrious men, who for many years
+have acted the part of guardian angels, and, being at last ready to die,
+celebrate their last triumph by voyaging to the firmament as flaming
+stars. 'Naturally,' he says, 'the appearance of a comet is followed by
+plague, pestilence, and civil war; for the nations are deprived of the
+guidance of their worthy rulers, who, while they were alive, gave all
+their efforts to prevent intestine disorders.' Pingre comments justly on
+this, saying that 'it must be classed among base and shameful
+flatteries, not among philosophic opinions.'
+
+Usually, however, it must be admitted that the ancients, like the men of
+the Middle Ages, regarded comets as harbingers of evil. 'A fearful star
+is the comet,' says Pliny, 'and not easily appeased, as appeared in the
+late civil troubles when Octavius was consul; a second time by the
+intestine war of Pompey and Caesar; and, in our own time, when, Claudius
+Caesar having been poisoned, the empire was left to Domitian, in whose
+reign there appeared a blazing comet.' Lucan tells us of the second
+event here referred to, that during the war 'the darkest nights were lit
+up by unknown stars' (a rather singular way of saying that there were no
+dark nights); 'the heavens appeared on fire, flaming torches traversed
+in all directions the depths of space; a comet, that fearful star which
+overthrows the powers of the earth, showed its horrid hair.' Seneca also
+expressed the opinion that some comets portend mischief: 'Some comets,'
+he said, 'are very cruel and portend the worst misfortunes; they bring
+with them and leave behind them the seeds of blood and slaughter.'
+
+It was held, indeed, by many in those times a subject for reproach that
+some were too hard of heart to believe when these signs were sent. It
+was a point of religious faith that 'God worketh' these 'signs and
+wonders in heaven.' When troubles were about to befall men, 'nation
+rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, with great
+earthquakes in divers places, and famines, and pestilences, and fearful
+sights,' then 'great signs shall there be from heaven.' Says Josephus,
+commenting on the obstinacy of the Jews in such matters, 'when they were
+at any time premonished from the lips of truth itself, by prodigies and
+other premonitory signs of their approaching ruin, they had neither eyes
+nor ears nor understanding to make a right use of them, but passed them
+over without heeding or so much as thinking of them; as, for example,
+what shall we say of the comet in the form of a sword that hung over
+Jerusalem for a whole year together?' This was probably the comet
+described by Dion Cassius (_Hist. Roman._ lxv. 8) as having been visible
+between the months of April and December in the year 69 A.D. This or the
+comet of 66 A.D. might have been Halley's comet. The account of Josephus
+as to the time during which it was visible would not apply to Halley's,
+or, indeed, to any known comet whatever; doubtless he exaggerated. He
+says: 'The comet was of the kind called _Xiphias_, because their tail
+resembles the blade of a sword,' and this would apply fairly well to
+Halley's comet as seen in 1682, 1759, and 1835; though it is to be
+remembered that comets vary very much even at successive apparitions,
+and it would be quite unsafe to judge from the appearance of a comet
+seen eighteen centuries ago that it either was or was not the same as
+some comet now known to be periodic.
+
+The comet of 79 A.D. is interesting as having given rise to a happy
+retort from Vespasian, whose death the comet was held to portend. Seeing
+some of his courtiers whispering about the comet, 'That hairy star,' he
+said, 'does not portend evil to me. It menaces rather the king of the
+Parthians. He is a hairy man, but I am bald.'
+
+Anna Comnena goes even beyond Josephus. He only rebuked other men for
+not believing so strongly as he did himself in the significance of
+comets--a rebuke little needed, indeed, if we can judge from what
+history tells us of the terrors excited by comets. But the judicious
+daughter of Alexius was good enough to approve of the wisdom which
+provided these portents. Speaking of a remarkable comet which appeared
+before the irruption of the Gauls into the Roman empire, she says: 'This
+happened by the usual administration of Providence in such cases; for it
+is not fit that so great and strange an alteration of things as was
+brought to pass by that irruption of theirs should be without some
+previous denunciation and admonishment from heaven.'
+
+Socrates, the historian (b. 6, c. 6), says that when Gainas besieged
+Constantinople, 'so great was the danger which hung over the city, that
+it was presignified and portended by a huge blazing comet which reached
+from heaven to the earth, the like whereof no man had ever seen before.'
+And Cedrenus, in his 'Compendium of History,' states that a comet
+appeared before the death of Johannes Tzimicas, the emperor of the East,
+which foreshadowed not alone his death, but the great calamities which
+were to befall the Roman empire by reason of their civil wars. In like
+manner, the comet of 451 announced the death of Attila, that of 455 the
+death of Valentinian. The death of Merovingius was announced by the
+comet of 577, of Chilperic by that of 584, of the Emperor Maurice by
+that of 602, of Mahomet by that of 632, of Louis the Debonair by that of
+837, and of the Emperor Louis II. by that of 875. Nay, so confidently
+did men believe that comets indicated the approaching death of great
+men, that they did not believe a very great man _could_ die without a
+comet. So they inferred that the death of a very great man indicated the
+arrival of a comet; and if the comet chanced not to be visible, so much
+the worse--not for the theory, but--for the comet. 'A comet of this
+kind,' says Pingre, 'was that of the year 814, presaging the death of
+Charlemagne.' So Guillemin quotes Pingre; but he should rather have
+said, such was the comet whose arrival was announced by Charlemagne's
+death--and in no other way, for it was not seen by mortal man.
+
+The reader who chances to be strong as to his dates may have observed
+that some of the dates above mentioned for comets do not accord exactly
+with the dates of the events associated with those comets. Thus Louis
+the Debonair did not die in 837, but in 840. This, however, is a matter
+of very little importance. If some men, after their comet has called for
+them, are 'an unconscionable time in dying,' as Charles II. said of
+himself, it surely must not be considered the fault of the comet. Louis
+himself regarded the comet of 837 as his death-warrant; the astrologers
+admitted as much: what more could be desired? The account of the matter
+given in a chronicle of the time, by a writer who called himself 'The
+Astronomer,' is curious enough: 'During the holy season of Easter, a
+phenomenon, ever fatal and of gloomy foreboding, appeared in the
+heavens. As soon as the emperor, who paid attention to such phenomena,
+received the first announcement of it, he gave himself no rest until he
+had called a certain learned man and myself before him. As soon as I
+arrived, he anxiously asked me what I thought of such a sign. I asked
+time of him, in order to consider the aspect of the stars, and to
+discover the truth by their means, promising to acquaint him on the
+morrow; but the emperor, persuaded that I wished to gain time, which was
+true, in order not to be obliged to announce anything fatal to him, said
+to me: "Go on the terrace of the palace, and return at once to tell me
+what you have seen, for I did not see this star last evening, and you
+did not point it out to me; but I know that it is a comet; tell me what
+you think it announces to me." Then, scarcely allowing me time to say a
+word, he added: "There is still another thing you keep back: it is that
+a change of reign and the death of a prince are announced by this sign."
+And as I advanced the testimony of the prophet, who said: "Fear not the
+signs of the heavens as the nations fear them," the prince, with his
+grand nature and the wisdom which never forsook him, said: "We must only
+fear Him who has created both us and this star. But, as this phenomenon
+may refer to us, let us acknowledge it as a warning from heaven."'
+Accordingly, Louis himself and all his court fasted and prayed, and he
+built churches and monasteries. But all was of no avail. In little more
+than three years he died; showing, as the historian Raoul Glaber
+remarked, that 'these phenomena of the universe are never presented to
+man without surely announcing some wonderful and terrible event.' With a
+range of three years in advance, and so many kings and princes as there
+were about in those days, and are still, it would be rather difficult
+for a comet to appear without announcing some such wonderful and
+terrible event as a royal death.
+
+The year 1000 A.D. was by all but common consent regarded as the date
+assigned for the end of the world. For a thousand years Satan had been
+chained, and now he was to be loosened for a while. So that when a comet
+made its appearance, and, terrible to relate, continued visible for nine
+days, the phenomenon was regarded as something more than a nine days'
+wonder. Besides the comet, a very wonderful meteor was seen. 'The
+heavens opened, and a kind of flaming torch fell upon the earth, leaving
+behind a long track of light like the path of a flash of lightning. Its
+brightness was so great that it frightened not only those who were in
+the fields, but even those who were in their houses. As this opening in
+the sky slowly closed men saw with horror the figure of a dragon, whose
+feet were blue, and whose head' [like that of Dickens's dwarf] 'seemed
+to grow larger and larger.' A picture of this dreadful meteor
+accompanies the account given by the old chronicler. For fear the exact
+likeness of the dragon might not be recognised (and, indeed, to see it
+one must 'make believe a good deal'), there is placed beside it a
+picture of a dragon to correspond, which picture is in turn labelled
+'Serpens cum ceruleis pedibus.' It was considered very wicked in the
+year 1000 to doubt that the end of all things was at hand. But somehow
+the world escaped that time.
+
+In the year 1066 Halley's comet appeared to announce to the Saxons the
+approaching conquest of England by William the Norman. A contemporary
+poet made a singular remark, which may have some profound poetical
+meaning, but certainly seems a little indistinct on the surface. He said
+that 'the comet had been more favourable to William than nature had been
+to Caesar; the latter had no hair, but William had received some from the
+comet.' This is the only instance, so far as I know, in which a comet
+has been regarded as a perruquier. A monk of Malmesbury spoke more to
+the purpose, according to then received ideas, in thus apostrophising
+the comet: 'Here art thou again, cause of tears to many mothers! It is
+long since I saw thee last, but I see thee now more terrible than ever;
+thou threatenest my country with complete ruin.'
+
+Halley's comet, with its inconveniently short period of about
+seventy-seven years, has repeatedly troubled the nations and been
+regarded as a sign sent from Heaven:
+
+  Ten million cubic miles of head,
+    Ten billion leagues of tail,
+
+all provided for the sole purpose of warning one petty race of
+earth-folks against the evils likely to be brought against them by
+another. This comet has appeared twenty-four times since the date of its
+first recorded appearance, which some consider to have been 12 B.C., and
+others refer to a few years later. It may be interesting to quote here
+Babinet's description of the effects ascribed in 1455 to this comet,
+often the terror of nations, but the triumph of mathematicians, as the
+first whose motions were brought into recognisable obedience to the laws
+of gravity.[42]
+
+'The Mussulmans, with Mahomet II. at their head, were besieging
+Belgrade, which was defended by Huniade, surnamed the Exterminator of
+the Turks. Halley's comet appeared and the two armies were seized with
+equal fear. Pope Calixtus III., himself seized by the general terror,
+ordered public prayers and timidly anathematised the comet and the
+enemies of Christianity. He established the prayer called the noon
+_Angelus_, the use of which is continued in all Catholic churches. The
+Franciscans (_Freres Mineurs_) brought 40,000 defenders to Belgrade,
+besieged by the conqueror of Constantinople, the destroyer of the
+Eastern Empire. At last the battle began; it continued two days without
+ceasing. A contest of two days caused 40,000 combatants to bite the
+dust. The Franciscans, unarmed, crucifix in hand, were in the front
+rank, invoking the papal exorcism against the comet, and turning upon
+the enemy that heavenly wrath of which none in those times dared doubt.'
+
+The great comet of 1556 has been regarded as the occasion of the Emperor
+Charles V.'s abdication of the imperial throne; a circumstance which
+seems rendered a little doubtful by the fact that he had already
+abdicated when the comet appeared--a mere detail, perhaps, but
+suggesting the possibility that cause and effect may have been
+interchanged by mistake, and that it was Charles's abdication which
+occasioned the appearance of the comet. According to Gemma's account the
+comet was conspicuous rather from its great light than from the length
+of its tail or the strangeness of its appearance. 'Its head equalled
+Jupiter in brightness, and was equal in diameter to nearly half the
+apparent diameter of the moon.' It appeared about the end of February,
+and in March presented a terrible appearance, according to Ripamonte.
+'Terrific indeed,' says Sir J. Herschel, 'it might well have been to the
+mind of a prince prepared by the most abject superstition to receive
+its appearance as a warning of approaching death, and as specially sent,
+whether in anger or in mercy, to detach his thoughts from earthly
+things, and fix them on his eternal interests. Such was its effect on
+the Emperor Charles V., whose abdication is distinctly ascribed by many
+historians to this cause, and whose words on the occasion of his first
+beholding it have even been recorded--
+
+  "His ergo indiciis me mea fata vocant"--
+
+the language and the metrical form of which exclamation afford no ground
+for disputing its authenticity, when the habits and education of those
+times are fairly considered.' It is quite likely that, having already
+abdicated the throne, Charles regarded the comet as signalling his
+retirement from power--an event which he doubtless considered a great
+deal too important to be left without some celestial record. But the
+words attributed to him are in all probability apocryphal.
+
+The comet of 1577 was remarkable for the strangeness of its aspect,
+which in some respects resembled that of the comet of 1858, called
+Donati's. It required only the terror with which such portentous objects
+were witnessed in the Middle Ages to transform the various streamers,
+curved and straight, extending from such an object, into swords and
+spears, and other signs of war and trouble. Doubtless, we owe to the
+fears of the Middle Ages the strange pictures claiming to present the
+actual aspect of some of the larger comets. Halley's comet did not
+escape. It was compared to a straight sword at one visit, to a curved
+scimitar in 1456, and even at its last return in 1835 there were some
+who recognised in the comet a resemblance to a misty head. Other comets
+have been compared to swords of fire, bloody crosses, flaming daggers,
+spears, serpents, fiery dragons, fish, and so forth. But in this
+respect no comet would seem to have been comparable with that of 1528,
+of which Andrew Pare writes as follows: 'This comet was so horrible and
+dreadful, and engendered such terror in the minds of men, that they
+died, some from fear alone, others from illness engendered by fear. It
+was of immense length and blood-red colour; at its head was seen the
+figure of a curved arm, holding a large sword in the hand as if
+preparing to strike. At the point of this sword were three stars; and on
+either side a number of axes, knives, and swords covered with blood,
+amongst which were many hideous human faces with bristling beards and
+hair.'
+
+Such peculiarities of shape, and also those affecting the position and
+movements of comets, were held to be full of meaning. As Bayle pointed
+out in his 'Thoughts about the Comet of 1680,' these fancies are of
+great antiquity. Pliny tells us that in his time astrologers claimed to
+interpret the meaning of a comet's position and appearance, and that
+also of the direction towards which its rays pointed. They could,
+moreover, explain the effects produced by the fixed stars whose rays
+were conjoined with the comet's. If a comet resembles a flute, then
+musicians are aimed at; when comets are in the less dignified parts of
+the constellations, they presage evil to immodest persons; if the head
+of a comet forms an equilateral triangle or a square with fixed stars,
+then it is time for mathematicians and men of science to tremble. When
+they are in the sign of the Ram, they portend great wars and widespread
+mortality, the abasement of the great and the elevation of the small,
+besides fearful droughts in regions over which that sign predominates;
+in the Virgin, they imply many grievous ills to the female portion of
+the population; in the Scorpion, they portend a plague of reptiles,
+especially locusts; in the Fishes, they indicate great troubles from
+religious differences, besides war and pestilence. When, like the one
+described by Milton, they 'fire the length of Ophiuchus huge,' they show
+that there will be much mortality caused by poisoning.
+
+The comet of 1680, which led Bayle to write the treatise to which
+reference has just been made, was one well calculated to inspire terror.
+Indeed, if the truth were known, that comet probably brought greater
+danger to the inhabitants of the earth than any other except the comet
+of 1843--the danger not, however, being that derived from possible
+collision between the earth and a comet, but that arising from the
+possible downfall of a large comet upon the sun, and the consequent
+enormous increase of the sun's heat. That, according to Newton, is the
+great danger men have to fear from comets; and the comet of 1680 was one
+which in that sense was a very dangerous one. There is no reason why a
+comet from outer space should not fall straight towards the sun, as at
+one time the comet of 1680 was supposed to be doing. All the comfort
+that science can give the world on that point is that such a course for
+a comet is only one out of many millions of possible courses, all fully
+as likely; and that, therefore, the chance of a comet falling upon the
+sun is only as one in many millions. Still, the comet of 1680 made a
+very fair shot at the sun, and a very slight modification of its course
+by Jupiter or Saturn might have brought about the catastrophe which
+Newton feared. Whether, if a comet actually fell upon the sun, anything
+very dreadful would happen, is not so clear. Newton's ideas respecting
+comets were formed in ignorance of many physical facts and laws which in
+our day render reasoning upon the subject comparatively easy. Yet, even
+in our time, it is not possible to assert confidently that such fears
+are idle. During the solar outburst witnessed by Carrington and Hodgson
+in September 1859, it is supposed that the sun swallowed a large
+meteoric mass; and, as great cornets are probably followed by many such
+masses, it seems reasonable to infer that if such a comet fell upon the
+sun, his surface being pelted with such exceptionally large masses,
+stoned with these mighty meteoric balls, would glow all over (or nearly
+so) as brightly as a small spot of that surface glowed upon that
+occasion. Now that portion was so bright that Carrington thought 'that
+by some chance a ray of light had penetrated a hole in the screen
+attached to the object-glass by which the general image is thrown in
+shade, for the brilliancy was fully equal to that of direct sunlight.'
+Manifestly, if the whole surface of the sun, or any large portion of the
+surface, were caused to glow with that exceeding brilliancy, surpassing
+ordinary sunlight in the same degree that ordinary sunlight surpassed
+the shaded solar image in Carrington's observations, the result would be
+disastrous in the extreme for the inhabitants of that half of the earth
+which chanced to be in sunlight at the time; and if (as could scarcely
+fail to happen) the duration of that abnormal splendour were more than
+half a day, then the whole earth would probably be depopulated by the
+intense heat. The danger, as I have said, is slight--partly because
+there is small chance of a collision between the sun and a comet, partly
+because we have no certain reasons for assuming that a collision would
+be followed by the heating of the sun for a while to a very high
+temperature. Looking around at the suns which people space, and
+considering their history, so far as it has been made known to us, for
+the last two thousand years, we find small occasion for fear. Those suns
+seem to have been for the most part safe from any sudden or rapid
+accessions of heat; and if they travel thus safely in their mighty
+journeys through space, we may well believe that our sun also is safe.
+Nevertheless, there _have_ been catastrophes here and there. Now one sun
+and now another has blazed out with a hundred times its usual lustre,
+gradually losing its new fires and returning to its customary
+brightness; but after what destruction among those peopling its system
+of worlds who shall say? Spectroscopic analysis, that powerful help to
+the modern astronomical inquirer, has shown in one of these cases that
+just such changes had taken place as we might fairly expect would follow
+if a mighty comet fell into the sun. If this interpretation be correct,
+then we are not wholly safe. Any day might bring us news of a comet
+sailing full upon our sun from out the depths of space. Then astronomers
+would perhaps have the opportunity of ascertaining the harmlessness of a
+collision between the ruler of our system and one of the long-tailed
+visitors from the celestial spaces. Or possibly, astronomers and the
+earth's inhabitants generally might find out the reverse, though the
+knowledge would not avail them much, seeing that the messenger who would
+bring it would be the King of Terrors himself.
+
+It was well, perhaps, that Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation,
+and the application of this law to the comets of 1680 and 1682 (the
+latter our old friend Halley's comet, then properly so called as studied
+by him), came in time to aid in removing to some slight degree the old
+superstitions respecting comets. For in England many remembered the
+comets of the Great Plague and of the Great Fire of London. These comets
+came so closely upon the time of the Plague and the Fire respectively,
+that it was not wonderful if even the wiser sort were struck by the
+coincidence and could scarcely regard it as accidental. It is not easy
+for the student of science in our own times, when the movements of
+comets are as well understood as those of the most orderly planets, to
+place himself in the position of men in the times when no one knew on
+what paths comets came, or whither they retreated after they had visited
+our sun. Taught as men were, on the one hand, that it was wicked to
+question what seemed to be the teaching of the Scriptures, that changes
+or new appearances in the heavens were sent to warn mankind of
+approaching troubles, and perplexed as they were, on the other, by the
+absence of any real knowledge respecting comets and meteors, it was not
+so easy as we might imagine from our own way of viewing these matters,
+to shake off a superstition which had ruled over men's minds for
+thousands of years.
+
+No sect had been free from this superstition. Popes and priests had
+taught their followers to pray against the evil influences of comets and
+other celestial portents; Luther and Melanchthon had condemned in no
+measured terms the rashness and impiety of those who had striven to show
+that the heavenly bodies and the earth move in concordance with
+law--those 'fools who wish to reverse the entire science of astronomy.'
+A long interval had elapsed between the time when the Copernican theory
+was struggling for existence--when, but that more serious heresies
+engaged men's attention and kept religious folk by the ears, that
+astronomical heresy would probably have been quenched in blood--and the
+forging by Newton of the final link of the chain of reasoning on which
+modern astronomy is based; but in those times the minds of men moved
+more slowly than in ours. The masses still held to the old beliefs about
+the heavenly bodies. Defoe, indeed, speaking of the terror of men at the
+time of the Great Plague, says that they 'were more addicted to
+prophecies and astrological conjurations, dreams, and old wives' tales,
+than ever they were before or since.' But in reality, it was only
+because of the great misery then prevailing that men seemed more
+superstitious than usual; for misery brings out the superstitions--the
+fetishisms, if we may so speak--which are inherent in many minds, but
+concealed from others in prosperous times, out of shame, or perhaps a
+worthier feeling. Even in our own times great national calamities would
+show that many superstitions exist which had been thought extinct, and
+we should see excited among the ill-educated that particular form of
+persecution which arises, not from zeal for religion and not from
+intolerance, but from the belief that the troubles have been sent
+because of unbelief and the fear that unless some expiation be made the
+evil will not pass away from the midst of the people. It is at such
+times of general affliction that minds of the meaner sort have proved
+'zealous even to slaying.'
+
+The influence of strange appearances in the heavens on even thoughtful
+and reasoning minds, at such times of universal calamity, is well shown
+by Defoe's remarks on the comets of the years 1664 and 1666. 'The old
+women,' he says, 'and the phlegmatic, hypochondriacal part of the other
+sex, whom I could almost call old women too, remarked that those two
+comets passed directly over the city' [though that appearance must have
+depended on the position whence these old women, male and female,
+observed the comet], 'and that so very near the houses, that it was
+plain they imported something peculiar to the city alone; and that the
+comet before the Pestilence was of a faint, dull, languid colour, and
+its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow; but that the comet before the
+Fire was bright and sparkling, or, as others said, flaming, and its
+motion swift and furious: and that accordingly one foretold a heavy
+judgment, slow but severe, terrible and frightful, as was the Plague;
+but the other foretold a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery, as was the
+Conflagration. Nay, so particular some people were, that, as they looked
+upon that comet preceding the Fire, they fancied that they not only saw
+it pass swiftly and fiercely, and could perceive the motion with their
+eye, but even that they heard it; that it made a mighty rushing noise,
+fierce and terrible, though at a distance and but just perceivable. I
+saw both these stars, and must confess had I had so much the common
+notion of such things in my head, that I was apt to look upon them as
+the forerunners and warnings of God's judgments, and especially when,
+the Plague having followed the first, I yet saw another of the same
+kind, I could not but say, God had not yet sufficiently scourged the
+city' [London].
+
+The comets of 1680 and 1682, though they did not bring plagues or
+conflagrations immediately, yet were not supposed to have been
+altogether without influence. The convenient fiction, indeed, that some
+comets operate quickly and others slowly, made it very difficult for a
+comet to appear to which some evil effects could not be ascribed. If any
+one can find a single date, since the records of history have been
+carefully kept, which was so fortunately placed that, during no time
+following it within five years, no prince, king, emperor, or pope died,
+no war was begun, or ended disastrously for one side or the other
+engaged in it, no revolution was effected, neither plague nor pestilence
+occurred, neither droughts nor floods afflicted any nation, no great
+hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic outbursts, or other trouble was
+recorded, he will then have shown the bare possibility that a comet
+might have appeared which seemed to presage neither abrupt nor
+slow-moving calamities. But it is not possible to name such a date, nor
+even a date which was not followed within two years at the utmost by a
+calamity such as superstition might assign to a comet. And so closely
+have such calamities usually followed, that scarce a comet could appear
+which might not be regarded as the precursor of very quickly approaching
+calamity. Even if a comet had come which seemed to bring no trouble,
+nay, if many such comets had come, men would still have overlooked the
+absence of any apparent fulfilment of the predicted troubles. Henry IV.
+well remarked, when he was told that astrologers predicted his death
+because a certain comet had been observed: 'One of these days they will
+predict it truly, and people will remember better the single occasion
+when the prediction will be fulfilled than the many other occasions when
+it has been falsified by the event.'
+
+The troubles connected with the comets of 1680 and 1682 were removed
+farther from the dates of the events themselves than usual, at least so
+far as the English interpretation of the comets was concerned. 'The
+great comet in 1680,' says one, 'followed by a lesser comet in 1682, was
+evidently the forerunner of all those remarkable and disastrous events
+that ended in the revolution of 1688. It also evidently presaged the
+revocation of the edict of Nantes, and the cruel persecution of the
+Protestants, by the French king Louis XIV., afterwards followed by those
+terrible wars which, with little intermission, continued to ravage the
+finest parts of Europe for nearly twenty-four years.'
+
+If in some respects the fears inspired by comets have been reduced by
+modern scientific discoveries respecting these bodies, yet in other
+respects the very confidence engendered by the exactness of modern
+astronomical computations has proved a source of terror. There is
+nothing more remarkable, for instance, in the whole history of cometary
+superstition, than the panic which spread over France in the year 1773,
+in consequence of a rumour that the mathematician Lalande had predicted
+the occurrence of a collision between a comet and the earth, and that
+disastrous effects would inevitably follow. The foundation of the rumour
+was slight enough in all conscience. It had simply been announced that
+Lalande would read before the Academy of Sciences a paper entitled
+'Reflections on those Comets which can approach the Earth.' That was
+absolutely all; yet, from that one fact, not only were vague rumours of
+approaching cometic troubles spread abroad, but the statement was
+definitely made that on May 20 or 21, 1773, 'a comet would encounter the
+earth.'[43] So great was the fear thus excited, that, in order to calm
+it, Lalande inserted in the 'Gazette de France' of May 7, 1773, the
+following advertisement:--'M. Lalande had not time to read his memoir
+upon comets which may approach the earth and cause changes in her
+motions; but he would observe that it is impossible to assign the epochs
+of such events. The next comet whose return is expected is the one which
+should return in eighteen years; but it is not one of those which can
+hurt the earth.'
+
+This note had not the slightest effect in restoring peace to the minds
+of unscientific Frenchmen. M. Lalande's study was crowded with anxious
+persons who came to inquire about his memoir. Certain devout folk, 'as
+ignorant as they were imbecile,' says a contemporary journal, begged the
+Archbishop of Paris to appoint forty hours' prayer to avert the danger
+and prevent the terrible deluge. For this was the particular form most
+men agreed that the danger would take. That prelate was on the point,
+indeed, of complying with their request, and would have done so, but
+that some members of the Academy explained to him that by so doing he
+would excite ridicule.
+
+Far more effective, and, to say truth, far better judged, was the irony
+of Voltaire, in his deservedly celebrated 'Letter on the Pretended
+Comet.' It ran as follows:--
+
+  'Grenoble, May 17, 1773.
+
+'Certain Parisians who are not philosophers, and who, if we are to
+believe them, will not have time to become such, have informed me that
+the end of the world approaches, and will occur without fail on the 20th
+of this present month of May. They expect, that day, a comet, which is
+to take our little globe from behind and reduce it to impalpable powder,
+according to a certain prediction of the Academy of Sciences which has
+not yet been made.
+
+'Nothing is more likely than this event; for James Bernouilli, in his
+"Treatise upon the Comet" of 1680, predicted expressly that the famous
+comet of 1680 would return with terrible uproar (_fracas_) on May 19,
+1719; he assured us that in truth its perruque would signify nothing
+mischievous, but that its tail would be an infallible sign of the wrath
+of heaven. If James Bernouilli mistook, it is, after all, but a matter
+of fifty-four years and three days.
+
+'Now, so small an error as this being regarded by all geometricians as
+of little moment in the immensity of ages, it is manifest that nothing
+can be more reasonable than to hope (_sic, esperer_) for the end of the
+world on the 20th of this present month of May 1773, or in some other
+year. If the thing should not come to pass, "omittance is no quittance"
+(_ce qui est differe, n'est pas perdu_).
+
+'There is certainly no reason for laughing at M. Trissotin, triple
+idiot though he is (_tout Trissotin qu'il est_), when he says to Madame
+Philaminte (Moliere's "Femmes Savantes," acte iv. scene 3),
+
+'Nous l'avons en dormant, madame, echappe belle;
+Un monde pres de nous a passe tout du long,
+Est chu tout au travers de notre tourbillon;
+Et, s'il eut en chemin rencontre notre terre,
+Elle eut ete brisee en morceaux comme verre.
+
+'A comet coursing along its parabolic orbit may come full tilt against
+our earth. But then, what will happen? Either that comet will have a
+force equal to that of our earth, or greater, or less. If equal, we
+shall do the comet as much harm as it will do us, action and reaction
+being equal; if greater, the comet will bear us away with it; if less,
+we shall bear away the comet.
+
+'This great event may occur in a thousand ways, and no one can affirm
+that our earth and the other planets have not experienced more than one
+revolution, through the mischance of encountering a comet on their path.
+
+'The Parisians will not desert their city on the 20th inst.; they will
+sing songs, and the play of "The Comet and the World's End" will be
+performed at the Opera Comique.'
+
+The last touch is as fine in its way as Sydney Smith's remark that, if
+London were destroyed by an earthquake, the surviving citizens would
+celebrate the event by a public dinner among the ruins. Voltaire's
+prediction was not fulfilled exactly to the letter, but what actually
+happened was even funnier than what his lively imagination had
+suggested. It was stated by a Parisian Professor in 1832 (as a reason
+why the Academy of Sciences should refute an assertion then rife to the
+effect that Biela's comet would encounter the earth that year) that
+during the cometic panic of 1773 'there were not wanting people who
+knew too well the art of turning to their advantage the alarm inspired
+by the approaching comet, and _places in Paradise were sold at a very
+high rate_.[44] The announcement of the comet of 1832 may produce
+similar effects,' he said, 'unless the authority of the Academy apply a
+prompt remedy; and this salutary intervention is at this moment implored
+by many benevolent persons.'
+
+In recent years the effects produced on the minds of men by comets have
+been less marked than of yore, and appear to have depended a good deal
+on circumstances. The comet of the year 1858 (called Donati's), for
+example, occasioned no special fears, at least until Napoleon III. made
+his famous New-Year's day speech, after which many began to think the
+comet had meant mischief. But the comet of 1861, though less
+conspicuous, occasioned more serious fears. It was held by many in Italy
+to presage a very great misfortune indeed, viz. the restoration of
+Francis II. to the throne of the Two Sicilies. Others thought that the
+downfall of the temporal power of the Papacy and the death of Pope Pius
+IX. were signified. I have not heard that any very serious consequences
+were expected to follow the appearance of Coggia's comet in 1874. The
+great heat which prevailed during parts of the summer of 1876 was held
+by many to be connected in some way with a comet which some very
+unskilful telescopist constructed in his imagination out of the glare of
+Jupiter in the object-glass of his telescope. Another benighted person,
+seeing the Pleiades low down through a fog, turned them into a comet,
+about the same time. Possibly the idea was, that since comets are
+supposed to cause great heats, great heats may be supposed to indicate a
+comet somewhere; and with minds thus prepared, it was not wonderful,
+perhaps, that telescopic glare, or an imperfect view of our old friends
+the Pleiades, should have been mistaken for a vision of the
+heat-producing comet.
+
+It should be a noteworthy circumstance to those who still continue to
+look on comets as signs of great catastrophes, that a war more
+remarkable in many respects than any which has ever yet been waged
+between two great nations--a war swift in its operations and decisive in
+its effects--a war in which three armies, each larger than all the
+forces commanded by Napoleon I. during the campaign of 1813, were
+captured bodily--should have been begun and carried on to its
+termination without the appearance of any great comet. The civil war in
+America, a still more terrible calamity to that great nation than the
+success of Moltke's operations to the French, may be regarded by
+believers as presignified by the great comet of 1861. But it so chances
+that the war between France and Germany occurred near the middle of one
+of the longest intervals recorded in astronomical annals as unmarked by
+a single conspicuous comet--the interval between the years 1862 and
+1874.
+
+If the progress of just ideas respecting comets has been slow, it must
+nevertheless be regarded as on the whole satisfactory. When we remember
+that it was not a mere idle fancy which had to be opposed, not mere
+terrors which had to be calmed, but that the idea of the significance of
+changes in the heavens had come to be regarded by mankind as a part of
+their religion, it cannot but be thought a hopeful sign that all
+reasoning men in our time have abandoned the idea that comets are sent
+to warn the inhabitants of this small earth. Obeying in their movements
+the same law of gravitation which guides the planets in their courses,
+the comets are tracked by the skilful mathematician along those remote
+parts of their course where even the telescope fails to keep them in
+view. Not only are they no longer regarded as presaging the fortunes of
+men on this earth, but men on this earth are able to predict the
+fortunes of comets. Not only is it seen that they cannot influence the
+fates of the earth or other planets, but we perceive that the earth and
+planets by their attractive energies influence, and in no unimportant
+degree, the fates of these visitants from outer space. Encouraging,
+truly, is the lesson taught us by the success of earnest study and
+careful inquiry in determining some at least among the laws which govern
+bodies once thought the wildest and most erratic creatures in the whole
+of God's universe.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+_THE LUNAR HOAX._
+
+     Then he gave them an account of the famous moon hoax, which came
+     out in 1835. It was full of the most barefaced absurdities, yet
+     people swallowed it all; and even Arago is said to have treated it
+     seriously as a thing that could not well be true, for Mr. Herschel
+     would have certainly notified him of these marvellous discoveries.
+     The writer of it had not troubled himself to invent probabilities,
+     but had borrowed his scenery from the 'Arabian Nights' and his
+     lunar inhabitants from 'Peter Wilkins.'--OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (in
+     _The Poet at the Breakfast-Table_).
+
+
+In one of the earliest numbers of 'Macmillan's Magazine, the late
+Professor De Morgan, in an article on Scientific Hoaxing, gave a brief
+account of the so-called 'lunar hoax'--an instance of scientific
+trickery frequently mentioned, though probably few are familiar with the
+real facts. De Morgan himself possessed a copy of the second English
+edition of the pamphlet, published in London in 1836. But the original
+pamphlet edition, published in America in September 1835, is not easily
+to be obtained. The proprietors of the New York 'Sun,' in which the
+fictitious narrative first appeared, published an edition of 60,000
+copies, and every copy was sold in less than a month. Lately a single
+copy of that edition was sold for three dollars seventy-five cents.[45]
+
+The pamphlet is interesting in many respects, and I propose to give
+here a brief account of it. But first it may be well to describe briefly
+the origin of the hoax.
+
+It is said that after the French revolution of 1830 Nicollet, a French
+astronomer of some repute, especially for certain lunar observations of
+a very delicate and difficult kind, left France in debt and also in bad
+odour with the republican party. According to this story, Arago the
+astronomer was especially obnoxious to Nicollet, and it was as much with
+the view of revenging himself on his foe as from a wish to raise a
+little money that Nicollet wrote the moon-fable. It is said further that
+Arago was entrapped, as Nicollet desired, and circulated all over Paris
+the wonders related in the pamphlet, until Nicollet wrote to his friend
+Bouvard explaining the trick. So runs the story, but the story cannot be
+altogether true. Nicollet may have prepared the narrative and partly
+written it, but there are passages in the pamphlet as published in
+America which no astronomer could have written. Possibly there is some
+truth in De Morgan's supposition that the original work was French. This
+may have been Nicollet's: and the American edition was probably enlarged
+by the translator, who, according to this account, was Richard Alton
+Locke,[46] to whom in America the whole credit, or discredit, of the
+hoax is commonly attributed. There can be no doubt that either the
+French version was much more carefully designed than the American, or
+there was no truth in the story that Arago was deceived by the
+narrative; for in its present form the story, though clever, could not
+for an instant have deceived any one acquainted with the most elementary
+laws of optics. The whole story turns on optical rather than on
+astronomical considerations; but every astronomer of the least skill is
+acquainted with the principles on which the construction of optical
+instruments depends. Though the success of the deception recently
+practised on M. Chasles by the forger of the Pascal papers has been
+regarded as showing how easily mathematicians may be entrapped, yet even
+M. Chasles would not have been deceived by bad mathematics; and Arago, a
+master of the science of optics, could not but have detected optical
+blunders which would be glaring to the average Cambridge undergraduate.
+
+But let us turn to the story itself.
+
+The account opens with a passage unmistakably from an American hand,
+though purporting, be it remembered, to be quoted from the 'Supplement
+to the Edinburgh Journal of Science.' 'In this unusual addition to our
+journal, we have the happiness of making known to the British public,
+and thence to the whole civilised world, recent discoveries in astronomy
+which will build an imperishable monument to the age in which we live,
+and confer upon the present generation of the human race a proud
+distinction through all future time. It has been poetically said' [where
+and by whom?] 'that the stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of
+man, as the intellectual sovereign of the animal creation. He may now
+fold the zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of his mental
+supremacy.' To the American mind enwrapment in the star-jewelled zodiac
+may appear as natural as their ordinary oratorical references to the
+star-spangled banner; but the idea is essentially transatlantic, and not
+even the most poetical European astronomer could have risen to such a
+height of imagery.
+
+Passing over several pages of introductory matter, we come to the
+description of the method by which a telescope of sufficient magnifying
+power to show living creatures in the moon was constructed by Sir John
+Herschel. It had occurred, it would seem, to the elder Herschel to
+construct an improved series of parabolic and spherical reflectors
+'uniting all the meritorious points in the Gregorian and Newtonian
+instruments, with the highly interesting achromatic discovery of
+Dolland'(_sic_). [This is much as though one should say that a clever
+engineer had conceived the idea of constructing an improved series of
+railway engines, combining all the meritorious points in stationary and
+locomotive engines, with _Isaac_ Watts' highly ingenious discovery of
+screw propulsion. For the Gregorian and Newtonian instruments simply
+differ in sending the rays received from the great mirror in different
+directions, and Dolland's discovery relates to the ordinary forms of
+telescopes with large lens, not with large mirror.] However,
+accumulating infirmities and eventually death prevented Sir William
+Herschel from applying his plan, which 'evinced the most profound
+research in optical science, and the most dexterous ingenuity in
+mechanical contrivance. But his son, Sir John Herschel, nursed and
+cradled in the observatory, and a practical astronomer from his boyhood,
+determined upon testing it at whatever cost. Within two years of his
+father's death he completed his new apparatus, and adapted it to the old
+telescope with nearly perfect success.' A short account of the
+observations made with this instrument, now magnifying six thousand
+times, follows, in which most of the astronomical statements are very
+correctly and justly worded, being, in fact, borrowed from a paper by
+Sir W. Herschel on observation of the moon with precisely that power.
+
+But this great improvement upon all former telescopes still left the
+observer at a distance of forty miles from the moon; and at that
+distance no object less than about twenty yards in diameter could be
+distinguished, and even objects of that size 'would appear only as
+feeble, shapeless points.' Sir John 'had the satisfaction to know that
+if he could leap astride a cannon-ball, and travel upon its wings of
+fury for the respectable period of several millions of years, he would
+not obtain a more enlarged view of the more distant stars than he could
+now possess in a few minutes of time; and that it would require an
+ultra-railroad speed of fifty miles an hour for nearly the livelong
+year, to secure him a more favourable inspection of the gentle luminary
+of the night;' but 'the exciting question whether this "observed" of all
+the sons of men, from the days of Eden to those of Edinburgh, be
+inhabited by beings, like ourselves, of consciousness and curiosity, was
+left to the benevolent index of natural analogy, or to the severe
+tradition that the moon is tenanted only by the hoary _solitaire_, whom
+the criminal code of the nursery had banished thither for collecting
+fuel on the Sabbath-day.'[47] But the time had arrived when the great
+discovery was to be made, by which at length the moon could be brought
+near enough, by telescopic power, for living creatures on her surface to
+be seen if any exist.
+
+The account of the sudden discovery of the new method, during a
+conversation between Sir John Herschel and Sir David Brewster, is one of
+the most cleverly conceived (though also one of the absurdest) passages
+in the pamphlet. 'About three years ago, in the course of a
+conversational discussion with Sir David Brewster upon the merits of
+some ingenious suggestions by the latter, in his article on Optics in
+the "Edinburgh Encyclopaedia," p. 644, for improvements in Newtonian
+reflectors, Sir John Herschel adverted to the convenient simplicity of
+the old astronomical telescopes that were without tubes, and the
+object-glass of which, placed upon a high pole, threw the focal image to
+a distance of 150 and even 200 feet. Dr. Brewster readily admitted that
+a tube was not necessary, provided the focal image were conveyed into a
+dark apartment and there properly received by reflectors.... The
+conversation then became directed to that all-invincible enemy, the
+paucity of light in powerful magnifiers. After a few moments' silent
+thought, Sir John diffidently enquired whether it would not be possible
+to effect _a transfusion of artificial light through the focal object of
+vision_! Sir David, somewhat startled at the originality of the idea,
+paused awhile, and then hesitatingly referred to the refrangibility of
+rays, and the angle of incidence. Sir John, grown more confident,
+adduced the example of the Newtonian reflector, in which the
+refrangibility was corrected by the second speculum, and the angle of
+incidence restored by the third.'
+
+All this part of the narrative is simply splendid in absurdity.
+Hesitating references to refrangibility and the angle of incidence would
+have been sheerly idiotic under the supposed circumstances; and in the
+Newtonian reflector (which has only two specula or mirrors) there is no
+refrangibility to be corrected; apart from which, 'correcting
+refrangibility' has no more meaning than 'restoring the angle of
+incidence.'
+
+'"And," continued Sir John, "why cannot the illuminating microscope, say
+the hydro-oxygen, be applied to render distinct, and, if necessary, even
+to magnify, the focal object?" Sir David sprung from his chair' [and
+well he might, though not] 'in an ecstasy of conviction, and, leaping
+half-way to the ceiling, exclaimed, "Thou art the man!" Each philosopher
+anticipated the other in presenting the prompt illustration that if the
+rays of the hydro-oxygen microscope, passed through a drop of water
+containing the larvae of a gnat and other objects invisible to the naked
+eye, rendered them not only keenly but firmly magnified to dimensions of
+many feet; so could the same artificial light, passed through the
+faintest focal object of a telescope, both distinctify (to coin a new
+word for an extraordinary occasion) and magnify its feeblest component
+members. The only apparent desideratum was a recipient for the focal
+image which should transfer it, without refranging it, to the surface on
+which it was to be viewed under the revivifying light of the microscopic
+reflectors.'
+
+Singularly enough, the idea here mentioned does not appear to many so
+absurd as it is in reality. It is known that the image formed by the
+large lens of an ordinary telescope or the large mirror of a reflecting
+telescope is a real image; not a merely virtual image like that which is
+seen in a looking-glass. It can be received on a sheet of paper or other
+white surface just as the image of surrounding objects can be thrown
+upon the white table of the camera obscura. It is this real image, in
+fact, which we look at in using a telescope of any sort, the portion of
+such a telescope nearest to the eye being in reality a microscope for
+viewing the image formed by the great lens or mirror, as the case may
+be. And it does not seem to some altogether absurd to speak of
+illuminating this image by transfused light, or of casting by means of
+an illuminating microscope a vastly enlarged picture of this image upon
+a screen. But of course the image being simply formed by the passage of
+rays (which originally came from the object whose image they form)
+through a certain small space, to send _other_ rays (coming from some
+other luminous object) through the same small space, is not to improve,
+but, so far as any effect is produced at all, to impair, the
+distinctness of the image. In fact, if these illuminating rays reached
+the eye, they would seriously impair the distinctness of the image.
+Their effect may be compared exactly with the effect of rays of light
+cast upon the image in a camera obscura; and, to see what the effect of
+such rays would be, we need only consider why it is that the camera _is_
+made 'obscura,' or dark. The effect of the transfusion of light through
+a telescopic image may be easily tried by any one who cares to make the
+experiment. He has only to do away with the tube of his telescope
+(substituting two or three straight rods to hold the glass in its
+place), and then in the blaze of a strong sun to direct the telescope on
+some object lying nearly towards the sun. Or if he prefer artificial
+light for the experiment, then at night let him direct the telescope so
+prepared upon the moon, while a strong electric light is directed upon
+the place where the focal image is formed (close in front of the eye).
+The experiment will not suggest very sanguine hopes of good result from
+the transfusion of artificial light. Yet, to my own knowledge, not a few
+who were perfectly well aware that the lunar hoax was not based on
+facts, have gravely reasoned that the principle suggested might be
+sound, and, in fact, that they could see no reason why astronomers
+should not try it, even though it had been first suggested as a joke.
+
+To return, however, to the narrative. 'The co-operative philosophers,
+having hit upon their method, determined to test it practically. They
+decided that a medium of the purest plate-glass (which it is said they
+obtained, by consent, be it observed, from the shop-window of M.
+Desanges, the jeweller to his ex-majesty Charles X., in High Street) was
+the most eligible they could discover. It answered perfectly with a
+telescope which magnified a hundred times, and a microscope of about
+thrice that power.' Thus fortified by experiment, and 'fully sanctioned
+by the high optical authority of Sir David Brewster, Sir John laid his
+plan before the Royal Society, and particularly directed to it the
+attention of his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, the ever munificent
+patron of science and the arts. It was immediately and enthusiastically
+approved by the committee chosen to investigate it, and the chairman,
+who was the Royal President' (this continual reference to royalty is
+manifestly intended to give a British tone to the narrative),
+'subscribed his name for a contribution of L10,000, with a promise that
+he would zealously submit the proposed instrument as a fit object for
+the patronage of the privy purse. He did so without delay; and his
+Majesty, on being informed that the estimated expense was L70,000,
+naively enquired if the costly instrument would conduce to any
+improvement in _navigation_. On being informed that it undoubtly would,
+the sailor king promised a _carte blanche_ for any amount which might be
+required.'
+
+All this is very clever. The 'sailor king' comes in as effectively to
+give _vraisemblance_ to the narrative as 'Crabtree's little bronze
+Shakspeare that stood over the fireplace,' and the 'postman just come to
+the door with a double letter from Northamptonshire.'
+
+Then comes a description of the construction of the object-glass,
+twenty-four feet in diameter, 'just six times the size of the elder
+Herschel's;' who, by the way, never made a telescope with an
+object-glass. The account of Sir John Herschel's journey from England,
+and even some details of the construction of the observatory, were based
+on facts, indeed, so many persons in America as well as in England were
+acquainted with some of these circumstances, that it was essential to
+follow the facts as closely as possible. Of course, also, some
+explanation had to be given of the circumstance that nothing had before
+been heard respecting the gigantic instrument taken out by Sir John
+Herschel. 'Whether,' says the story, 'the British Government were
+sceptical concerning the promised splendour of the discoveries, or
+wished them to be scrupulously veiled until they had accumulated a
+full-orbed glory for the nation and reign in which they originated, is a
+question which we can only conjecturally solve. But certain it is that
+the astronomer's royal patrons enjoined a masonic taciturnity upon him
+and his friends until he should have officially communicated the results
+of his great experiment.'
+
+It was not till the night of January 10, 1835, that the mighty telescope
+was at length directed towards our satellite. The part of the moon
+selected was on the eastern part of her disc. 'The whole immense power
+of the telescope was applied, and to its focal image about one half of
+the power of the microscope. On removing the screen of the latter, the
+field of view was covered throughout its entire area with a beautifully
+distinct and even vivid representation of _basaltic rock_. Its colour
+was a greenish brown; and the width of the columns, as defined by their
+interstices on the canvas, was invariably twenty-eight inches. No
+fracture whatever appeared in the mass first presented; but in a few
+seconds a shelving pile appeared, of five or six columns' width, which
+showed their figure to be hexagonal, and their articulations similar to
+those of the basaltic formation at Staffa. This precipitous cliff was
+profusely covered with a dark red flower, precisely similar, says Dr.
+Grant, to the Papaver Rhoeus, or Rose Poppy, of our sublunary
+cornfields; and this was the first organic production of nature in a
+foreign world ever revealed to the eyes of men.'
+
+It would be wearisome to go through the whole series of observations
+thus fabled, and only a few of the more striking features need be
+indicated. The discoveries are carefully graduated in interest. Thus we
+have seen how, after recognising basaltic formations, the observers
+discovered flowers: they next see a lunar forest, whose 'trees were of
+one unvaried kind, and unlike any on earth except the largest kind of
+yews in the English churchyards.' (There is an American ring in this
+sentence, by the way, as there is in one, a few lines farther on, where
+the narrator having stated that by mistake the observers had the Sea of
+Clouds instead of a more easterly spot in the field of view, proceeds to
+say: 'However, the moon was a free country, and we not as yet attached
+to any particular province.') Next a lunar ocean is described, 'the
+water nearly as blue as that of the deep sea, and breaking in large
+white billows upon the strand, while the action of very high tides was
+quite manifest upon the face of the cliffs for more than a hundred
+miles.' After a description of several valleys, hills, mountains and
+forests, we come to the discovery of animal life. An oval valley
+surrounded by hills, red as the purest vermilion, is selected as the
+scene. 'Small collections of trees, of every imaginable kind, were
+scattered about the whole of this luxuriant area; and here our
+magnifiers blessed our panting hopes with specimens of conscious
+existence. In the shade of the woods we beheld brown quadrupeds having
+all the external characteristics of the bison, but more diminutive than
+any species of the bos genus in our natural history.' Then herds of
+agile creatures like antelopes are described, 'abounding on the
+acclivitous glades of the woods.' In the contemplation of these
+sprightly animals the narrator becomes quite lively. 'This beautiful
+creature,' says he, 'afforded us the most exquisite amusement. The
+mimicry of its movements upon our white painted canvas was as faithful
+and luminous as that of animals within a few yards of the camera
+obscura. Frequently, when attempting to put our fingers upon its beard,
+it would suddenly bound away as if conscious of our earthly
+impertinence; but then others would appear, whom we could not prevent
+nibbling the herbage, say or do to them what we would.'
+
+A strange amphibious creature, of a spherical form, rolling with great
+velocity along a pebbly beach, is the next object of interest, but is
+presently lost sight of in a strong current setting off from the angle
+of an island. After this there are three or four pages descriptive of
+various lunar scenes and animals, the latter showing a tendency,
+singular considering the circumstances, though very convenient for the
+narrator, to become higher and higher in type as the discoveries
+proceed, until an animal somewhat of the nature of the missing link is
+discovered. It is found in the Endymion (a circular walled plain) in
+company with a small kind of reindeer, the elk, the moose, and the
+horned bear, and is described as the biped beaver. It 'resembles the
+beaver of the earth in every other respect than in its destitution of a
+tail, and its invariable habit of walking upon only two feet. It carries
+its young in its arms like a human being, and moves with an easy gliding
+motion. Its huts are constructed better and higher than those of many
+tribes of human savages, and, from the appearance of smoke in nearly all
+of them, there is no doubt of its being acquainted with the use of fire.
+Still, its head and body differ only in the points stated from that of
+the beaver; and it was never seen except on the borders of lakes and
+rivers, in which it has been observed to immerse for a period of several
+seconds.'
+
+The next step towards the climax brings us to domestic animals, 'good
+large sheep, which would not have disgraced the farms of Leicestershire
+or the shambles of Leadenhall Market; we fairly laughed at the
+recognition of so familiar an acquaintance in so distant a land.
+Presently they appeared in great numbers, and, on reducing the lenses,
+we found them in flocks over a great part of the valley. I need not say
+how desirous we were of finding shepherds to these flocks, and even a
+man with blue apron and rolled-up sleeves would have been a welcome
+sight to us, if not to the sheep; but they fed in peace, lords of their
+own pastures, without either protector or destroyer in human shape.'
+
+In the meantime, discussion had arisen as to the lunar locality where
+men, or creatures resembling them, would most likely be found. Herschel
+had a theory on the subject--viz., that just where the balancing or
+libratory swing of the moon brings into view the greatest extent beyond
+the eastern or western parts of that hemisphere which is turned
+earthwards in the moon's mean or average position, lunar inhabitants
+would probably be found, and nowhere else. This, by the way (speaking
+seriously), is a rather curious anticipation of a view long subsequently
+advanced by Hansen, and for a time adopted by Sir J. Herschel, that
+possibly the remote hemisphere of the moon may be a fit abode for living
+creatures, the oceans and atmosphere which are wanting on the nearer
+hemisphere having been (on this hypothesis) drawn over to the remoter
+because of a displacement of the moon's centre of gravity. I ventured in
+one of my first books on astronomy to indicate objections to this
+theory, the force of which Sir J. Herschel admitted in a letter
+addressed to me on the subject.
+
+Taking, then, an opportunity when the moon had just swung to the extreme
+limit of her balancing, or, to use technical terms, when she had
+attained her maximum libration in longitude, the observers approached
+the level opening to Lake Langrenus, as the narrator calls this fine
+walled plain, which, by the way, is fully thirty degrees of lunar
+longitude within the average western limit of the moon's visible
+hemisphere. 'Here the valley narrows to a mile in width, and displays
+scenery on both sides picturesque and romantic beyond the powers of a
+prose description. Imagination, borne on the wings of poetry, could
+alone gather similes to portray the wild sublimity of this landscape,
+where dark behemoth crags stood over the brows of lofty precipices, as
+if a rampart in the sky; and forests seemed suspended in mid-air. On the
+eastern side there was one soaring crag, crested with trees, which hung
+over in a curve like three-fourths of a Gothic arch, and being of a rich
+crimson colour, its effect was most strange upon minds unaccustomed to
+the association of such grandeur with such beauty. But, whilst gazing
+upon them in a perspective of about half a mile, we were thrilled with
+astonishment to perceive four successive flocks of large winged
+creatures, wholly unlike any kind of birds, descend with a slow even
+motion from the cliffs on the western side and alight upon the plain.
+They were first noticed by Dr. Herschel, who exclaimed: "Now, gentlemen,
+my theories against your proofs, which you have often found a pretty
+even bet, we have here something worth looking at. I was confident that
+if ever we found beings in human shape it would be in this longitude,
+and that they would be provided by their Creator with some extraordinary
+powers of locomotion." ... We counted three parties of these creatures,
+of twelve, nine, and fifteen in each, walking erect towards a small wood
+near the base of the eastern precipices. Certainly they _were_ like
+human beings, for their wings had now disappeared, and their attitude in
+walking was both erect and dignified.... They averaged four feet in
+height, were covered, except on the face, with short and glossy
+copper-coloured hair, lying snugly upon their backs, from the top of the
+shoulders to the calves of the legs. The face, which was of a yellowish
+flesh colour, was a slight improvement upon that of the large orang
+outang, being more open and intelligent in its expression, and having a
+much greater expansion of forehead. The mouth, however, was very
+prominent, though somewhat relieved by a thick beard upon the lower jaw,
+and by lips far more human than those of any species of the simia genus.
+In general symmetry of body and limbs they were infinitely superior to
+the orang outang; so much so, that, but for their long wings, Lieutenant
+Drummond said they would look as well on a parade ground as some of the
+old Cockney militia.... These creatures were evidently engaged in
+conversation; their gesticulation, more particularly the varied action
+of their hands and arms, appeared impassioned and emphatic. We hence
+inferred that they were rational beings, and, although not perhaps of so
+high an order as others which we discovered the next month on the shores
+of the Bay of Rainbows, that they were capable of producing works of art
+and contrivance.... They possessed wings of great expansion, similar in
+construction to those of the bat, being a semi-transparent membrane
+united in curvilinear divisions by means of straight radii, united at
+the back by the dorsal integuments. But what astonished us very much
+was the circumstance of this membrane being continued from the shoulders
+to the legs, united all the way down, though gradually decreasing in
+width' (very much as Fuseli depicted the wings of his Satanic Majesty,
+though H.S.M. would seem to have the advantage of the lunar Bat-men in
+not being influenced by gravity[48]). 'The wings seemed completely under
+the command of volition, for those of the creatures whom we saw bathing
+in the water spread them instantly to their full width, waved them as
+ducks do theirs to shake off the water, and then as instantly closed
+them again in a compact form. Our further observation of the habits of
+these creatures, who were of both sexes, led to results so very
+remarkable, that I prefer they should be first laid before the public in
+Dr. Herschel's own work, where I have reason to know they are fully and
+faithfully stated, however incredulously they may be received.... We
+scientifically denominated them the Vespertilio-homo or Bat-man; and
+they are doubtless innocent and happy creatures, notwithstanding that
+some of their amusements would but ill comport with our terrestrial
+notions of decorum.' The omitted passages were suppressed in obedience
+to Dr. Grant's private injunction. 'These, however, and other prohibited
+passages,' were to be presently 'published by Dr. Herschel, with the
+certificates of the civil and military authorities of the colony, and of
+several Episcopal, Wesleyan, and other ministers, who in the month of
+March last were permitted, under stipulation of temporary secrecy, to
+visit the observatory, and become eye-witnesses of the wonders which
+they were requested to attest. We are confident that his forthcoming
+volumes will be at once the most sublime in science, and the most
+intense in general interest, that ever issued from the press.'
+
+The actual climax of the narrative, however, is not yet reached. The
+inhabitants of Langrenus, though rational, do not belong to the highest
+orders of intelligent Lunarians. Herschel, ever ready with theories, had
+pointed out that probably the most cultivated races would be found
+residing on the slopes of some active volcano, and, in particular, that
+the proximity of the flaming mountain Bullialdus (about twenty degrees
+south and ten east of the vast crater Tycho, the centre whence extend
+those great radiations which give to the moon something of the
+appearance of a peeled orange) 'must be so great a local convenience to
+dwellers in this valley during the long periodical absence of solar
+light, as to render it a place of popular resort for the inhabitants of
+all the adjacent regions, more especially as its bulwark of hills
+afforded an infallible security against any volcanic eruption that could
+occur.' Our observers therefore applied their full power to explore it.
+'Rich, indeed, was our reward. The very first object in this valley that
+appeared upon our canvas was a magnificent work of art. It was a
+temple--a fane of devotion or of science, which, when consecrated to the
+Creator, is devotion of the loftiest order, for it exhibits His
+attributes purely, free from the masquerade attire and blasphemous
+caricature of controversial creeds, and has the seal and signature of
+His own hand to sanction its aspirations. It was an equi-angular temple,
+built of polished sapphire, or of some resplendent blue stone, which,
+like it, displayed a myriad point of golden light twinkling and
+scintillating in the sunbeams.... The roof was composed of yellow metal,
+and divided into three compartments, which were not triangular planes
+inclining to the centre, but subdivided, curved, and separated so as to
+present a mass of violently agitated flames rising from a common source
+of conflagration, and terminating in wildly waving points. This design
+was too manifest and too skilfully executed to be mistaken for a single
+moment. Through a few openings in these metallic flames we perceived a
+large sphere of a darker kind of metal nearly of a clouded copper
+colour, which they enclosed and seemingly raged around, as if
+hieroglyphically consuming it.... What did the ingenious builders mean
+by the globe surrounded by flames? Did they, by this, record any past
+calamity of _their_ world, or predict any future one of _ours_?' (Why,
+by the way, should the past theory be assigned to the moon and the
+future one to our earth?) 'I by no means despair of ultimately solving
+not only these but a thousand other questions which present themselves
+respecting the objects in this planet; for not the millionth part of her
+surface has yet been explored, and we have been more desirous of
+collecting the greatest possible number of new facts than of indulging
+in speculative theories, however seductive to the imagination.'
+
+After this we have an account of the behaviour of the Vespertilio-homo
+at meals. 'They seemed eminently happy, and even polite; for individuals
+would select large and bright specimens of fruit, and throw them
+archwise across to some friend who had extracted the nutriment from
+those scattered around him.' However, the lunar men are not on the whole
+particularly interesting beings according to this account. 'So far as we
+could judge, they spent their happy hours in collecting various fruits
+in the woods, in eating, flying, bathing, and loitering about the
+summits of precipices.' One may say of them what Huxley is reported to
+have said of the spirits as described by spiritualists, that no student
+of science would care to waste his time inquiring about such a stupid
+set of people.
+
+Such are the more interesting and characteristic portions of a
+narrative, running in the original to forty or fifty large octavo pages.
+In its day the story attracted a good deal of notice, and, even when
+every one had learned the trick, many were still interested in a
+_brochure_ which was so cleverly conceived and had deceived so many. To
+this day the lunar hoax is talked of in America, where originally it had
+its chief--or, one may rather say, its only real--success as a hoax. It
+reached England too late to deceive any but those who were unacquainted
+with Herschel's real doings, and no editors of public journals, I
+believe, gave countenance to it at all. In America, on the contrary,
+many editors gave the narrative a distinguished place in their columns.
+Some indeed expressed doubts, and others followed the safe course of the
+'Philadelphia Inquirer,' which informed its readers that 'after an
+attentive perusal of the whole story they could decide for themselves;'
+adding that, 'whether true or false, the narrative is written with
+consummate ability and possesses intense interest.' But others were more
+credulous. According to the 'Mercantile Advertiser' the story carried
+'intrinsic evidence of being an authentic document.' The 'Albany Daily
+Advertiser' had read the article 'with unspeakable emotions of pleasure
+and astonishment.' The 'New York Times' announced that 'the writer (Dr.
+Andrew Grant) displays the most extensive and accurate knowledge of
+astronomy; and the description of Sir John's recently improved
+instruments, the principle on which the inestimable improvements were
+founded, the account of the wonderful discoveries in the moon, etc., all
+are probable and plausible, and have an air of intense verisimilitude.'
+The 'New Yorker' considered the discoveries 'of astounding interest,
+creating a new era in astronomy and science generally.'[49]
+
+In our time a trick of the kind could hardly be expected to succeed so
+well, even if as cleverly devised and as well executed. The facts of
+popular astronomy and of general popular science have been more widely
+disseminated. America, too, more than any other great nation, has
+advanced in the interval. It was about two years after this pamphlet had
+appeared, that J. Quincy Adams used the following significant language
+in advocating the erection of an astronomical observatory at Washington:
+'It is with no feeling of pride as an American that the remark may be
+made, that on the comparatively small territorial surface of Europe
+there are existing more than 130 of these lighthouses of the skies;
+while throughout the whole American hemisphere there is but one.' At
+present, some of the finest observatories in the world belong to
+American cities, or are attached to American colleges; and much of the
+most interesting astronomical work of this country has been achieved by
+American observers.
+
+Yet we still hear from time to time of the attempted publication of
+hoaxes of greater or less ingenuity. It is singular (and I think
+significant) how often these relate to the moon. There would seem to be
+some charm about our satellite for the minds of paradoxists and hoaxers
+generally. Nor are these tricks invariably detected at once by the
+general public, or even by persons of some culture. I remember being
+gravely asked (in January 1874) whether an account given in the 'New
+York World,' purporting to describe how the moon's frame was gradually
+cracking, threatening eventually to fall into several separate
+fragments, was in reality based on fact. In the far West, at Lincoln,
+Nebraska, a lawyer asked me, not long since, why I had not described the
+great discoveries recently made by means of a powerful reflector erected
+near Paris. According to the 'Chicago Times,' this powerful instrument
+had shown buildings in the moon, and bands of workers could be seen with
+it who manifestly were undergoing some kind of penal servitude, for they
+were chained together. It was clear, from the presence of these and the
+absence of other inhabitants, that the side of the moon turned
+earthwards is a dreary and unpleasant place of abode, the real 'happy
+hunting grounds' of the moon lying on her remote and unseen hemisphere.
+
+As gauges of general knowledge, scientific hoaxes have their uses, just
+as paradoxical works have. No one, certainly no student of science, can
+thoroughly understand how little some persons know about science, until
+he has observed how much will be believed, if only published with the
+apparent authority of a few known names, and announced with a sufficient
+parade of technical verbiage; nor is it so easy as might be thought,
+even for those who are acquainted with the facts, to disprove either a
+hoax or a paradox. Nothing, indeed, can much more thoroughly perplex and
+confound a student of science than to be asked to prove, for example,
+that the earth is not flat, or the moon not inhabited by creatures like
+ourselves; for the circumstance that such a question is asked implies
+ignorance so thorough of the very facts on which the proof must be
+based, as to render argument all but hopeless from the outset. I have
+had a somewhat wide experience of paradoxists, and have noted the
+experience of De Morgan and others who, like him, have tried to convince
+them of their folly. The conclusion at which I have arrived is, that to
+make a rope of sand were an easy task compared with the attempt to
+instil the simpler facts of science into paradoxical heads.
+
+I would make some remarks, in conclusion, upon scientific or
+quasi-scientific papers not intended to deceive, but yet presenting
+imaginary scenes, events, and so forth, described more or less in
+accordance with scientific facts. Imaginary journeys to the sun, moon,
+planets, and stars; travels over regions on the earth as yet unexplored;
+voyages under the sea, through the bowels of the earth, and other such
+narratives, may, perhaps, be sometimes usefully written and read, so
+long as certain conditions are fulfilled by the narrator. In the first
+place, while adopting, to preserve the unities, the tone of one relating
+facts which actually occurred, he should not suffer even the simplest
+among his readers to lie under the least misapprehension as to the true
+nature of the narrative. Again, since of necessity established facts
+must in such a narrative appear in company with the results of more or
+less probable surmise, the reader should have some means of
+distinguishing where fact ends and surmise begins. For example, in a
+paper I once wrote, entitled 'A Journey to Saturn,' I was not
+sufficiently careful to note that while the appearances described in the
+approach towards the planet were in reality based on the observed
+appearances as higher and higher telescopic powers are applied to the
+planet, others supposed to have been seen by the visitors to Saturn when
+actually within his system, were only such as might possibly or probably
+be seen, but for which we have no real evidence. In consequence of this
+omission, I received several inquiries about these matters. 'Is it
+true,' some wrote, 'that the small satellite Hyperion' (scarce
+discernible in powerful telescopes, while Titan and Japetus on either
+side are large) 'is only one of a ring of small satellites travelling
+between the orbits of the larger moons?'--as the same planets travel
+between the paths of Mars and Jupiter. Others asked on what grounds it
+was said that the voyagers found small moons circling about Titan, the
+giant moon of the Saturnian system, as the moons of Jupiter and Saturn
+circle around those giant members of the solar system. In each case, I
+was reduced to the abject necessity of explaining that there was no
+evidence for the alleged state of things, which, however, might
+nevertheless exist. Scientific fiction which has to be interpreted in
+that way is as bad as a joke that has to be explained. In my 'Journey to
+the Sun' I was more successful (it was the earlier essay, however);
+insomuch that Professor Young, of Dartmouth College (Hanover, N.H.), one
+of the most skilful solar observers living, assured me that, with
+scarcely a single exception, the various phenomena described
+corresponded exactly with the ideas he had formed respecting the
+probable condition of our luminary.[50]
+
+But I must confess that my own experience has not been, on the whole,
+favourable to that kind of popular science writing. It appears to me
+that the more thoroughly the writer of such an essay has studied any
+particular scientific subject, the less able must he be to write a
+fictitious narrative respecting it. Just as those ignorant of any
+subject are often the readiest to theorise about it, because least
+hampered by exact knowledge, so I think that the careful avoidance of
+any exact study of the details of a scientific subject must greatly
+facilitate the writing of a fictitious narrative respecting it. But
+unfortunately a narrative written under such conditions, however
+interesting to the general reader, can scarcely forward the propagation
+of scientific knowledge, one of the qualities claimed for fables of the
+kind. As an instance in point, I may cite Jules Verne's 'Voyage to the
+Moon,' where (apart, of course, from the inherent and intentional
+absurdity of the scheme itself), the circumstances which are described
+are calculated to give entirely erroneous ideas about the laws of
+motion. Nothing could be more amusing, but at the same time nothing more
+scientifically absurd, than the story of the dead dog Satellite, which,
+flung out of the travelling projectile, becomes a veritable satellite,
+moving always beside the voyagers; for, with whatever velocity the dog
+had been expelled by them, with that same velocity would he have
+retreated continually from their projectile abode, whose own attraction
+on the dog would have had no appreciable effect in checking his
+departure. Again, the scene when the projectile reaches the neutral
+point between the earth and moon, so that there is no longer any gravity
+to keep the travellers on the floor of their travelling car, is well
+conceived (though, in part, somewhat profane); but in reality the state
+of things described as occurring there would have prevailed throughout
+the journey. The travellers would no more be drawn earthwards (as
+compared with the projectile itself) than we travellers on the earth are
+drawn sunwards with reference to the earth. The earth's attracting force
+on the projectile and on the travellers would be equal all through the
+journey, not solely when the projectile reached the neutral point; and
+being equal on both, would not draw them together. It may be argued that
+the attractions were equal before the projectile set out on its journey,
+and therefore, if the reasoning just given were correct, the travellers
+ought not to have had any weight keeping them on the floor of the
+projectile before it started, 'which is absurd.' But the pressure upon
+the floor of the projectile at rest is caused by the floor being kept
+from moving; let it be free to obey gravity, and there will no longer be
+any pressure: and throughout the journey to the moon, the projectile,
+like the travellers it contains, is obeying the action of gravity.
+Unfortunately, those who are able to follow the correct reasoning in
+such matters are not those to whom Jules Verne's account would suggest
+wrong ideas about matters dynamical; the young learner who _is_ misled
+by such narratives is neither able to reason out the matter for himself,
+nor to understand the true reasoning respecting it. He is, therefore,
+apt to be set quite at sea by stories of the kind, and especially by the
+specious reasoning introduced to explain the events described. In fine,
+it would seem that such narratives must be valued for their intrinsic
+interest, just like other novels or romances, not for the quality
+sometimes claimed for them of combining instruction with amusement.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+_ON SOME ASTRONOMICAL PARADOXES._
+
+
+For many years the late Professor De Morgan contributed to the columns
+of the 'Athenaeum' a series of papers in which he dealt with the strange
+treatises in which the earth is flattened, the circle squared, the angle
+divided into three, the cube doubled (the famous problem which the
+Delphic oracle set astronomers), and the whole of modern astronomy shown
+to be a delusion and a snare. He treated these works in a quaint
+fashion: not unkindly, for his was a kindly nature; not even earnestly,
+though he was thoroughly in earnest; yet in such sort as to rouse the
+indignation of the unfortunate paradoxists. He was abused roundly for
+what he said, but much more roundly when he declined further
+controversy. Paradoxists of the ignorant sort (for it must be remembered
+that not all are ignorant) are, indeed, well practised in abuse, and
+have long learned to call mathematicians and astronomers cheats and
+charlatans. They freely used their vocabulary for the benefit of De
+Morgan, whom they denounced as a scurrilous scribbler, a defamatory,
+dishonest, abusive, ungentlemanly, and libellous trickster.
+
+He bore this shower of abuse with exceeding patience and good nature. He
+had not been wholly unprepared for it, in fact; and, as he had a purpose
+in dealing with the paradoxists, he was satisfied to continue that quiet
+analysis of their work which so roused their indignation. He found in
+them a curious subject of study; and he found an equally curious subject
+of study in their disciples. The simpler--not to say more
+foolish--paradoxists, whose wonderful discoveries are merely amazing
+misapprehensions, were even more interesting to De Morgan than the
+craftier sort who make a living, or try to make a living, out of their
+pretended theories. Indeed, these last he treated, as they deserved,
+with a scathing satire quite different from his humorous and not
+ungenial comments on the wonderful theories of the honest paradoxists.
+
+There is one special use to which the study of paradox-literature may be
+applied, which--so far as I know--has not hitherto been much attended
+to. It may be questioned whether half the strange notions into which
+paradoxists fall must not be ascribed to the vagueness of too many of
+our scientific treatises. A half-understood explanation, or a carelessly
+worded account of some natural phenomenon, leads the paradoxist, whose
+nature is compounded of conceit and simplicity, to originate a theory of
+his own on the subject. Once such a theory has been devised, it takes
+complete possession of the paradoxist's mind. All the facts of which he
+thenceforward hears, which bear in the least on his favourite craze,
+appear to give evidence in its favour, even though in reality they are
+most obviously opposed to it. He learns to look upon himself as an
+unappreciated Newton, and to see the bitterest malevolence in those who
+venture to question his preposterous notions. He is fortunate if he do
+not suffer his theories to withdraw him from his means of earning a
+livelihood, or if he do not waste his substance in propounding and
+defending them.
+
+One of the favourite subjects for paradox-forming is the accepted theory
+of the solar system. Our books on astronomy too often present this
+theory in such sort that it seems only a _successor_ of Ptolemy's; and
+the impression is conveyed that, like Ptolemy's, it may be one day
+superseded by some other theory. This is quite enough for the
+paradoxist. If a new theory is to replace the one now accepted, why
+should not _he_ be the new Copernicus? He starts upon the road without a
+tithe of the knowledge that old Ptolemy possessed, unaware of the
+difficulties which Ptolemy met and dealt with--free, therefore, because
+of his perfect ignorance, to form theories at which Ptolemy would have
+smiled. He has probably heard of the
+
+      centrics and eccentrics scribbled o'er
+  Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb,
+
+which disfigured the theories of the ancients; but he is quite
+unconscious that every one of those scribblings had a real meaning, each
+being intended to account for some observed peculiarity of planetary
+motion, which _must_ be accounted for by any theory which is to claim
+acceptance. In this happy unconsciousness that there are any
+peculiarities requiring explanation, knowing nothing of the strange
+paths which the planets are seen to follow on the heavenly vault,
+
+  Their wand'ring course now high, now low, then hid,
+  Progressive, retrograde, or standing still,
+
+he placidly puts forward--and presently very vehemently urges--a theory
+which accounts for none of these things.
+
+It has often seemed to me that a large part of the mischief--for let it
+be remembered that the published errors of the paradoxist are indicative
+of much unpublished misapprehension--arises from the undeserved contempt
+with which our books of astronomy too often treat the labours of
+Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, and others who advocated erroneous theories. If
+the simple truth were told, that the theory of Ptolemy was a masterpiece
+of ingenuity and that it was worked out by his followers in a way which
+merits the highest possible praise, while the theory of Tycho Brahe was
+placed in reality on a sounder basis than that of Copernicus, and
+accounted as well and as simply for observed appearances, the student
+would begin to realise the noble nature of the problem which those great
+astronomers dealt with. And again, if stress were laid upon the fact
+that Tycho Brahe devoted years upon years of his life to secure such
+observations of the planets as might settle the questions at issue, the
+student would learn something of the spirit in which the true lover of
+science proceeds.
+
+It seems to me, also, that far too little is said about the kind of work
+by which Kepler and Newton finally established the accepted theories.
+There is a strange charm in the history of those twenty years of
+Kepler's life during which he was analysing the observations made by
+Tycho Brahe. Surrounded with domestic trials and anxieties, which might
+well have claimed his whole attention, tried grievously by ill-health
+and bodily anguish, he laboured all those years upon erroneous theories.
+The very worst of these had infinitely more evidence in its favour than
+the best which the paradoxists have brought forth. There was not one of
+those theories which nine out of ten of his scientific contemporaries
+would not have accepted ungrudgingly. Yet he wrought these theories one
+after another to their own disproof. _Nineteen_ of them he tried and
+rejected--the twentieth was the true theory of the solar system. Perhaps
+nothing in the whole history of astronomy affords a nobler lesson to the
+student of science--unless, indeed, it be the calm philosophy with which
+Newton for eighteen years suffered the theory of the universe to remain
+in abeyance, because faulty measurements of the earth prevented his
+calculations from agreeing with observed facts. But, as Professor
+Tyndall has well remarked--and the paradoxist should lay the lesson
+well to heart--'Newton's action in this matter was the normal action of
+the scientific mind. If it were otherwise--if scientific men were not
+accustomed to demand verification, if they were satisfied with the
+imperfect while the perfect is attainable--their science, instead of
+being, as it is, a fortress of adamant, would be a house of clay, ill
+fitted to bear the buffetings of the theologic storms to which it has
+been from time to time, and is at present, exposed.'
+
+The fame of Newton has proved to many paradoxists an irresistible
+attraction; it has been to these unfortunates as the candle to the
+fluttering moth. Circle-squaring, as we shall presently see, has had its
+attractions, nor have earth-fixing and earth-flattening been neglected;
+but attacking the law of gravitation has been the favourite work of
+paradoxists. Newton has been praised as surpassing the whole human race
+in genius; mathematicians and astronomers have agreed to laud him as
+unequalled; why should not Paradoxus displace him and be praised in like
+manner? It would be unfair, perhaps, to say that the paradoxist
+consciously argues thus. He doubtless in most instances convinces
+himself that he has really detected some flaw in the theory of
+gravitation. Yet it is impossible not to recognise, as the real motive
+of every paradox-monger, the desire to have that said of him which has
+been said of Newton: '_Genus humanum ingenio superavit._'
+
+I remember a curious instance of this which occurred soon after the
+appearance of the comet of 1858. It chanced that, while that object was
+under discussion, reference was made to the action of a repulsive force
+exerted by the sun upon the matter of the comet's tail. On this, some
+one addressed a long letter to a Glasgow newspaper, announcing that he
+had long ago proved that the sun's attraction alone is insufficient to
+account for the planetary motions. His reasoning was amazingly simple.
+If the sun's attraction is powerful enough to keep the outer planets in
+their course, it must be too powerful for Venus and Mercury close by the
+sun; if it only just suffices to keep these in their course, it cannot
+possibly be powerful enough to restrain the outer planets. The writer of
+this letter said that he had been very badly treated by scientific
+bodies. He had announced his discovery to the Royal Astronomical
+Society, the Royal Society, the Imperial Academy at Paris, and other
+scientific bodies; but they had one and all refused to listen to him. He
+had forsaken or neglected his trade for several years in order to give
+attention to the new and (as he thought) the true theory of the
+universe. He complained in a specially bitter manner of the unfavourable
+comments which men of science had made upon his views in private letters
+addressed to him in reply to his communications.
+
+There is something melancholy even in what is most ridiculous in cases
+of this sort. The simplicity which supposes that considerations so
+obvious as those adduced could escape the scrutiny, not of Newton only,
+but of all who have followed in the same track during two centuries, is
+certainly stupendous; nor can one fail to smile at seeing a difficulty,
+such as might naturally suggest itself to a beginner, and such as
+half-a-dozen words from an expert would clear up, regarded gravely as a
+discovery calculated to make its author famous for all time. Yet, when
+one considers the probable consequences of the blunder to the unhappy
+enthusiast, and perchance to his family, it is difficult not to feel a
+sense of pity, quite apart from that pity allied to contempt which is
+excited by his mistake. A few words added to the account of Newton's
+theory, which the paradoxist had probably read in some astronomical
+treatise, would have prevented all this mischief. Indeed, this
+difficulty, which, as we have said, is a natural one, should be dealt
+with and removed in any account of the planetary system intended for
+beginners. The simple statement that the outer planets move more slowly
+than the inner, and so _require_ a smaller force to keep them in their
+course, would have sufficed, not, perhaps, altogether to remove the
+difficulty, but to show the beginner where the explanation was to be
+looked for.
+
+It was in connection with this subject of gravitation that one of the
+most well-meaning of the paradoxists--the late Mr. James Reddie--came
+under Professor De Morgan's criticism. Mr. Reddie was something more
+than well-meaning. He was earnestly desirous of advancing the interests
+of science, as well as of defending religion from what he mistakenly
+supposed to be the dangerous teachings of the Newtonians. He founded for
+these purposes the Victoria Institute, of which society he was the
+secretary from the time of its institution until his decease, some years
+since; and, probably, many who declined to join that society because of
+the Anti-Newtonian proclivities of its secretary, were unaware that to
+that secretary the institute owed its existence.
+
+It so chanced that I had myself a good deal of correspondence with Mr.
+Reddie (who was, however, personally unknown to me). This correspondence
+served to throw quite a new light on the mental habitudes and ways of
+thinking of the honest paradoxist. I believe that Professor De Morgan
+hardly gave Mr. Reddie credit for the perfect honesty which he really
+possessed. It may have been that a clear reasoner like De Morgan could
+hardly (despite his wide experience) appreciate the confusion of mind
+which is the normal characteristic of the paradoxist. But certainly the
+very candid way in which Mr. Reddie admitted, in the correspondence
+above named, that he had not known some facts and had misunderstood
+others, afforded to my mind the most satisfactory proofs of his
+straightforwardness.
+
+It may be instructive to consider a few of those paradoxes of Mr.
+Reddie's which Professor De Morgan found chief occasion to pulverise.
+
+In a letter to the Astronomer-Royal Mr. Reddie announced that he was
+about to write 'a paper intended to be hereafter published, elaborating
+more minutely and discussing more rigidly than before the glaring
+fallacies, dating from the time of Newton, relating to the motion of the
+moon.' He proceeded to 'indicate the nature of the issues he intended to
+raise.' He had discovered that the moon does not, as a matter of fact,
+go round the earth at the rate of 2288 miles an hour, as astronomers
+say, but follows an undulatory path round the sun at a rate varying
+between 65,000 and 70,000 miles an hour; because, while the moon seems
+to go round the earth, the latter is travelling onwards at the rate of
+67,500 miles an hour round the sun. Of course he was quite right in his
+facts, and quite wrong in his inferences; as the Astronomer-Royal
+pointed out in a brief letter, closing with the remark that, 'as a very
+closely occupied man,' Mr. Airy could 'not enter further into the
+matter.' But further Mr. Reddie persisted in going, though he received
+no more letters from Greenwich. His reply to Sir G. Airy contained, in
+fact, matter enough for a small pamphlet.
+
+Now here was certainly an amazing fact. A well-known astronomical
+relation, which astronomers have over and over again described and
+explained, is treated as though it were something which had throughout
+all ages escaped attention. It is not here the failure to comprehend the
+_rationale_ of a simple explanation which is startling, but the notion
+that an obvious fact had been wholly overlooked.
+
+Of like nature was the mistake which brought Mr. Reddie more especially
+under Professor De Morgan's notice. It is known that the sun, carrying
+with him his family of planets, is speeding swiftly through space--his
+velocity being estimated as probably not falling short of 20,000 miles
+per hour. It follows, of course, that the real paths of the planets in
+space are not closed curves, but spirals of different orders. How, then,
+can the theory of Copernicus be right, according to which the planets
+circle in closed orbits round the sun? Here was Mr. Reddie's difficulty;
+and like the other, it appeared to his mind as a great discovery. He was
+no whit concerned by the thought that astronomers ought surely to have
+noticed the difficulty before. It did not seem in the least wonderful
+that he, lightly reading a book or two of popular astronomy, should
+discover that which Laplace, the Herschels, Leverrier, Airy, Adams, and
+a host of others, who have given their whole lives to astronomy, had
+failed to notice. Accordingly, Mr. Reddie forwarded to the British
+Association (in session at Newcastle) a paper controverting the theory
+of the sun's motion. The paper was declined with thanks by that bigoted
+body 'as opposed to Newtonian astronomy.' 'That paper I published,' says
+Mr. Reddie, 'in September 1863, with an appendix, in both thoroughly
+exhibiting the illogical reasoning and absurdities involved in the
+theory; and with what result? The members of Section A of the British
+Association, and Fellows of the Royal Society and of the Royal
+Astronomical Society, to whom I sent copies of my paper, were, without
+exception, _dumb_.' Professor De Morgan, however, having occasion to
+examine Mr. Reddie's publications some time after, was in no sort dumb,
+but in very plain and definite terms exhibited their absurdity. After
+all, however, the real absurdity consisted, not in the statements which
+Mr. Reddie made, nor even in the conclusions which he drew from them,
+but in the astounding simplicity which could suppose that astronomers
+were unaware of the facts which their own labours had revealed.
+
+In my correspondence with Mr. Reddie I recognised the real source of the
+amazing self-complacency displayed by the true paradoxist. The very
+insufficiency of the knowledge which a paradoxist possesses of his
+subject, affords the measure of his estimate of the care with which
+other men have studied that subject. Because the paradoxist is ready to
+pronounce an opinion about matters he has not studied, it does not seem
+strange to him that Newton and his followers should be equally ready to
+discuss subjects they had not inquired into.
+
+Another very remarkable instance was afforded by Mr. Reddie's treatment
+of the subject of comets. And here, by the way, I shall quote a remark
+made by Sir John Herschel soon after the appearance of the comet of
+1861. 'I have received letters,' he said, 'about the comets of the last
+few years, enough to make one's hair stand on end at the absurdity of
+the theories they propose, and at the ignorance of the commonest laws of
+optics, of motion, of heat, and of general physics, they betray in their
+writers.' In the present instance, the correspondence showed that the
+paradoxist supposed the parabolic paths of some comets to be regarded by
+astronomers as analogous to the parabolic paths traversed by
+projectiles. He expressed considerable astonishment when I informed him
+that, in the first place, projectiles do not travel on truly parabolic
+paths; and secondly, that in all respects their motion differs
+essentially from that which astronomers ascribe to comets. These last
+move more and more quickly until they reach what is called the vertex of
+the parabola (the point of such a path which lies nearest to the sun):
+projectiles, on the contrary, move more and more slowly as they approach
+the corresponding point of their path; and further, the comet first
+approaches and then recedes from the centre of attraction--the
+projectile first recedes from and then approaches the attracting centre.
+
+The earth-flatteners form a considerable section of the paradoxical
+family. They experienced a practical rebuff, a few years since, which
+should to some degree have shaken their faith in the present chief of
+their order. To do this chief justice, he is probably far less confident
+about the flatness of the earth than any of his disciples. Under the
+assumed name of Parallax he visited most of the chief towns of England,
+propounding what he calls his system of zetetic astronomy. Why he should
+call himself Parallax it would be hard to say; unless it be that the
+verb from which the word is derived signifies primarily to shift about
+or dodge, and secondarily to alter a little, especially for the worse.
+His employment of the word zetetic is less doubtful, as he claims for
+his system that it alone is founded on the true seeking out of Nature's
+secrets.
+
+The experimental basis of the theory of Parallax is mainly this: Having
+betaken himself to a part of the Bedford Canal, where there is an
+uninterrupted water-line of about six miles, he tested the water surface
+for signs of curvature, and (as he said) found none.
+
+It chanced, unfortunately, that a disciple--Mr. John Hampden, of
+Swindon--accepted the narrative of this observation in an unquestioning
+spirit; and was so confident that the Bedford Canal has a truly plane
+surface, that he wagered five hundred pounds on his opinion, challenging
+the believers in the earth's rotundity to repeat the experiment. The
+challenge was accepted by Mr. Wallace, the eminent naturalist; and the
+result may be anticipated. Three boats were to be moored in a line,
+three miles or so between each. Each carried a mast of given length. If,
+when the summits of the first and last masts were seen in a line
+through a telescope, the summit of the middle mast was not found to be
+above the line, then Mr. Hampden was to receive five hundred pounds from
+Mr. Wallace. If, on the contrary, the top of the middle mast was found,
+as the accepted theory said it should be, to be several feet above the
+line joining the tops of the two outer masts, then Mr. Hampden was to
+lose the five hundred pounds he had so rashly ventured. Everything was
+conducted in accordance with the arrangements agreed upon. The editor of
+a well-known sporting paper acted as stakeholder, and unprejudiced
+umpires were to decide as to what actually was seen through the
+telescope. It need scarcely be said that the accepted theory held its
+own, and that Mr. Hampden lost his money. He scarcely bore the loss with
+so good a grace as was to have been expected from a philosopher merely
+desirous of ascertaining the truth. His wrath was not expended on
+Parallax, whom he might have suspected of having led him astray; nor
+does he seem to have been angry with himself, as would have seemed
+natural. All his anger was reserved for those who still continued to
+believe in the earth's rotundity. Whether he believed that the Bedford
+water had risen under the middle boat to oblige Mr. Wallace, or how it
+came to pass that his own chosen experiment had failed him, does not
+appear.
+
+The subsequent history of this matter has been unpleasant. It
+illustrates, unfortunately but too well, the mischief which may ensue
+from the tricks of those who make a trade of paradox--tricks which would
+be scarce possible, however, if text-books of science were more
+carefully written, and by those only who are really acquainted with the
+subject of which they treat.
+
+The book which originally led to Mr. Hampden's misfortunes, and has
+misled not a few, ought to have deceived none. I have already mentioned
+the statement on which Parallax (whose true name is Rowbotham) rested
+his theory. Of course, if that statement had been true--if he had, with
+his eye a few inches from the surface of the water of the Bedford Canal,
+seen an object close to the surface six miles from him--there manifestly
+would have been something wrong in the accepted theory about the earth's
+rotundity. So, also, if a writer were to announce a new theory of
+gravity, stating as the basis of his theory that a heavy missile which
+he had thrown into the air had gone upwards on a serpentine course to
+the moon, any one who accepted the statement would be logically bound to
+admit at least that the fact described was inconsistent with the
+accepted theory. But no one would accept such a statement; and no one
+should have accepted Mr. Rowbotham's statement.
+
+His statement was believed, however, and perhaps is still believed by
+many. Twenty years ago De Morgan wrote that 'the founder of the zetetic
+astronomy gained great praise from provincial newspapers for his
+ingenuity in proving that the earth is a flat, surrounded by ice,' with
+the north polar ice in the middle. 'Some of the journals rather incline
+to this view; but the "Leicester Advertiser" thinks that the statement
+"would seem to invalidate some of the most important conclusions of
+modern astronomy;" while the "Norfolk Herald" is clear that "there must
+be great error on one side or the other." ... The fact is worth noting
+that from 1849-1857 arguments on the roundness or flatness of the earth
+did itinerate. I have no doubt they did much good, for very few persons
+have any distinct idea of the evidence for the rotundity of the earth.
+The "Blackburn Standard" and "Preston Guardian" (December 12 and 16,
+1849) unite in stating that the lecturer ran away from his second
+lecture at Burnley, having been rather too hard pressed, at the end of
+his first lecture, to explain why the large hull of a ship disappeared
+before the masts. The persons present and waiting for the second
+lecture assuaged their disappointment by concluding that the lecturer
+had slipped off the ice edge of his flat disc, and that he would not be
+seen again till he peeped up on the opposite side.' ... 'The zetetic
+system,' proceeds De Morgan, 'still lives in lectures and books; as it
+ought to do, for there is no way of teaching a truth comparable to
+opposition. The last I heard of it was in lectures at Plymouth, in
+October 1864. Since this time a prospectus has been issued of a work
+entitled "The Earth not a Globe;" but whether it has been published I do
+not know.'
+
+The book was published soon after the above was written, and De Morgan
+gives the following quaint account of it: 'August 28, 1865. The zetetic
+astronomy has come into my hands. When in 1851 I went to see the Great
+Exhibition I heard an organ played by a performer who seemed very
+desirous of exhibiting one particular stop. "What do you think of that
+stop?" I was asked. "That depends on the name of it," said I "Oh! what
+can the name of it have to do with the sound? 'that which we call a
+rose,' etc." "The name has everything to do with it: if it be a flute
+stop I think it very harsh; but if it be a railway-whistle stop, I think
+it very sweet." So as to this book: if it be childish, it is clever; if
+it be mannish, it is unusually foolish. The flat earth floating
+tremulously on the sea; the sun moving always over the flat, giving day
+when near enough, and night when too far off; the self-luminous moon,
+with a semi-transparent invisible moon created to give her an eclipse
+now and then; the new law of perspective, by which the vanishing of the
+hull before the masts, usually thought to prove the earth globular,
+really proves it flat;--all these and other things are well fitted to
+form exercises for a person who is learning the elements of astronomy.
+The manner in which the sun dips into the sea, especially in tropical
+climates, upsets the whole. Mungo Park, I think, gives an African
+hypothesis which explains phenomena better than this. The sun dips into
+the Western ocean, and the people there cut him in pieces, fry him in a
+pan, and then join him together again; take him round the under way, and
+set him up in the East. I hope this book will be read, and that many
+will be puzzled by it; for there are many whose notions of astronomy
+deserve no better fate. There is no subject on which there is so little
+accurate conception as on that of the motions of the heavenly
+bodies.[51] The author, though confident in the extreme, neither
+impeaches the honesty of those whose opinion he assails, nor allots them
+any future inconvenience: in these points he is worthy to live on a
+globe and to rotate in twenty-four hours.'
+
+I chanced to reside near Plymouth when Mr. Rowbotham lectured there in
+October 1864. It will readily be understood that, in a town where there
+are so many naval men, his lectures were not altogether so successful as
+they have sometimes been in small inland towns. Numbers of naval
+officers, however, who were thoroughly well assured of the fact that the
+earth is a globe, were not able to demolish the crafty arguments of
+Parallax publicly, during the discussions which he challenged at the
+close of each lecture. He was too skilled in that sort of evasion which
+his assumed name (as interpreted by Liddell and Scott) suggests, to be
+readily cornered. When an argument was used which he could not easily
+meet, or seem to meet, he would say simply: 'Well, sir, you have now had
+your fair share of the discussion; let some one else have his turn.' It
+was stated in the newspapers that one of his audience was so wrathful
+with the lecturer on account of these evasions, that he endeavoured to
+strike Parallax with a knobbed stick at the close of the second lecture;
+but probably there was no real foundation for the story.
+
+Mr. Rowbotham did a very bold thing, however, at Plymouth. He undertook
+to prove, by observations made with a telescope upon the Eddystone
+Lighthouse from the Hoe and from the beach, that the surface of the
+water is flat. From the beach usually only the lantern can be seen. From
+the Hoe the whole of the lighthouse is visible under favourable
+conditions. Duly on the morning appointed, Mr. Rowbotham appeared. From
+the Hoe a telescope was directed towards the lighthouse, which was well
+seen, the morning being calm and still, and tolerably clear. On
+descending to the beach it was found that, instead of the whole lantern
+being visible as usual, only half could be seen--a circumstance
+doubtless due to the fact that the air's refractive power, which usually
+diminishes the dip due to the earth's curvature by about one-sixth part,
+was less efficient that morning than usual. The effect of the
+peculiarity was manifestly unfavourable to Mr. Rowbotham's theory. The
+curvature of the earth produced a greater difference than usual between
+the appearance of a distant object as seen from a certain high station
+and from a certain low station (though still the difference fell short
+of that which would be shown if there were no air). But Parallax claimed
+the peculiarity observable that morning as an argument in favour of his
+flat earth. It is manifest, he said, that there is something wrong about
+the accepted theory; for it tells us that so much less of the lighthouse
+should be seen from the beach than from the Hoe, whereas less still was
+seen. And many of the Plymouth folk went away from the Hoe that morning,
+and from the second lecture, in which Parallax triumphantly quoted the
+results of the observation, with the feeling which had been expressed
+seven years before in the 'Leicester Advertiser,' that 'some of the most
+important conclusions of modern astronomy had been seriously
+invalidated.' If our books of astronomy, in referring to the effects of
+the earth's curvature, had only been careful to point out how surveyors
+and sailors and those who build lighthouses take into account the
+modifying effects of atmospheric refraction, and how these effects have
+long been known to vary with the temperature and pressure of the air,
+this mischief would have been avoided. It would not be fair to say of
+the persons misled on that occasion by Parallax that they deserved no
+better; since the fault is not theirs as readers, but that of careless
+or ill-informed writers.
+
+Another experiment conducted by Parallax the same morning was creditable
+to his ingenuity. Nothing better, perhaps, was ever devised to deceive
+people, apparently by ocular evidence, into the belief that the earth is
+flat--nor is there any clearer evidence of the largeness of the earth's
+globe compared with our ordinary measures. On the Hoe, some ninety or a
+hundred feet above the sea-level, he had a mirror suspended in a
+vertical position facing the sea, and invited the bystanders to look in
+that mirror at the sea-horizon. To all appearance the line of the
+horizon corresponded exactly with the level of the eye-pupils of the
+observer. Now, of course, when we look into a mirror whose surface is
+exactly vertical, the line of sight to the eye-pupils of our image in
+the mirror is exactly horizontal; whereas the line of sight from the
+eyes to the image of the sea-horizon is depressed exactly as much as the
+line from the eyes to the real sea-horizon. Here, then, seemed to be
+proof positive that there is no depression of the sea-horizon; for the
+horizontal line to the image of the eye-pupil seemed to coincide exactly
+with the line to the image of the sea-horizon. It is not necessary to
+suppose here that the mirror was wrongly adjusted, though the slightest
+error of adjustment would affect the result either favourably or
+unfavourably for Parallax's flat-earth theory. It is a matter of fact
+that, if the mirror were perfectly vertical, only very acute vision
+could detect the depression of the image of the sea-horizon below the
+image of the eye-pupil. The depression can easily be calculated for any
+given circumstances. Parallax encouraged observers to note very closely
+the position of the eye-pupil in the image, so that most of them
+approached the image within about ten inches, or the glass within about
+five. Now, in such a case, for a height of one hundred feet above the
+sea-level the image of the sea-horizon would be depressed below the
+image of the eye-pupil by less than three hundredths of an inch--an
+amount which could not be detected by one eye in a hundred. The average
+diameter of the pupil itself is one-fifth of an inch, or about seven
+times as great as the depression of the sea-horizon in the case
+supposed. It would require very close observation and a good eye to
+determine whether a horizontal line seen on either side of the head were
+on the level of the centres of the eye-pupils, or lower by about
+one-seventh of the breadth of either pupil.
+
+The experiment is a pretty one, however, and well worth trying by any
+one who lives near to the sea-shore and sea-cliffs. But there is a much
+more effective experiment which can be much more easily tried--only it
+is open to the disadvantage that it at once demolishes the argument of
+our friend Parallax. It occurred to me while I was writing the above
+paragraph. Let a very small mirror (it need not be larger than a
+sixpence) be so suspended to a small support and so weighted that when
+left to itself it hangs with its face perfectly vertical--an arrangement
+which any competent optician will easily secure--and let a fine
+horizontal line or several horizontal lines be marked on the mirror;
+which, by the way, should be a metallic one, as its indications will
+then be altogether more trustworthy. This mirror can be put into the
+waistcoat pocket and conveniently carried to much greater height than
+the mirror used by Parallax. Now, at some considerable height--say five
+or six hundred feet above the sea-level, but a hundred or even fifty
+will suffice--look into this small mirror while _facing_ the sea. The
+true horizon will then be seen to be visibly below the centre of the
+eye-pupil--visibly in this case because the horizontal line traced on
+the mirror can be made to coincide with the sea-horizon exactly, and
+will then be found _not_ to coincide with the centre of the eye-pupil.
+Such an instrument could be readily made to show the distance of the
+sea-horizon, which at once determines the height of the observer above
+the sea-level. For this purpose all that would be necessary would be a
+means of placing the eye at some definite distance from the small
+mirror, and a fine vertical scale on the mirror to show the exact
+depression of the sea-horizon. For balloonists such an instrument would
+sometimes be useful, as showing the elevation independently of the
+barometer, whenever any portion of the sea-horizon was in view.
+
+The mention of balloon experiences leads me to another delusive argument
+of the earth-flatteners.[52] It has been the experience of all
+aeronauts that, as the balloon rises, the appearance of the earth is by
+no means what would be expected from the familiar teachings in our books
+of astronomy. There is a picture in most of these books representing the
+effect of ascent above the sea-level in depressing the line of sight to
+the horizon, and bringing more and more into view the convexity of the
+earth's globe. One would suppose, from the picture, that when an
+observer is at a great height the earth would appear to rise under him,
+like some great round and well-curved shield whose convexity was towards
+him. Instead of this, the aeronaut finds the earth presenting the
+appearance of a great hollow basin, or of the concave side of a
+well-curved shield. The horizon seems to rise as he rises, while the
+earth beneath him sinks lower and lower. A somewhat similar phenomenon
+may be noted when, after ascending the landward side of a high cliff, we
+come suddenly upon a view of the sea--invariably the sea-horizon is
+higher than we expected to find it. _Only_, in this case, the surface of
+the sea seems to rise from the beach below towards the distant horizon
+convexly not concavely; the reason of which I take to be this, that the
+waves, and especially long rollers or uniform large ripples, teach the
+eye to form true conceptions of the shape of the sea-surface even when
+the eye is deceived as to the position of the sea-horizon. Indeed, I
+should much like to know what would be the appearance of the sea from a
+balloon when no land was in sight (though I do not particularly wish to
+make the observation myself): the convexity discernible, for the reason
+just named, would contend strangely with the concavity imagined, for the
+reason now to be indicated.
+
+The deception arises from the circumstance that the scene displayed
+below and around the balloon is judged by the eye from the experience of
+more familiar scenes. The horizon is depressed, but so little that the
+eye cannot detect the depression, especially where the boundary of the
+horizon is irregular. It is here that the text-book pictures mislead;
+for they show the depression as far too great to be overlooked, setting
+the observer sometimes about two thousand miles above the sea-level. The
+eye, then, judges the horizon to be where it usually is--on the same
+level as the observer; but looking downwards, the eye perceives, and at
+once appreciates if it does not even exaggerate, the great depth at
+which the earth lies below the balloon. The appearance, then, as judged
+by the eye, is that of a mighty basin whose edge rises up all round to
+the level of the balloon, while its bottom lies two or three miles or
+more below the balloon.
+
+The zetetic faithful reason about this matter as though the impressions
+of the senses were trustworthy under all conditions, familiar or
+otherwise; whereas, in point of fact, we know that the senses often
+deceive, even under familiar conditions, and almost always deceive under
+conditions, which are not familiar. A person, for example, accustomed to
+the mist and haze of our British air, is told by the sense of sight,
+when he is travelling where a clearer atmosphere prevails, that a
+mountain forty miles from him is a hill a few miles away. On the other
+hand, an Italian travelling through the Highlands is impressed with the
+belief that all the features of the scenery are much larger (because he
+supposes them much more remote) than they really are. A hundred such
+instances of deception might easily be cited. The conditions under which
+the aeronaut observes the earth are certainly less familiar than those
+under which the Briton views the Alps and Apennines, or the Italian
+views Ben Lomond or Ben Lawers. It would be rash, therefore, even if no
+other evidence were available, to reject the faith that the earth is a
+globe because, as seen from a balloon, it looks like a basin. Indeed, to
+be strictly logical, the followers of Parallax ought on this account to
+adopt the faith that the earth is not flat, but basin-shaped, which
+hitherto they have not been ready to do.
+
+We have seen that Parallax describes a certain experiment on the Bedford
+Level, which, if made as he states, would have shown certainly that
+something was wrong in the accepted system--for a six-mile straight-edge
+along water would be as severe a blow to the belief in a round earth, as
+a straight line on the sea-surface from Queenstown to New York. Another
+curious experiment adorns his little book, which, if it could be
+repeated successfully before a dozen trustworthy witnesses, would rather
+astonish men of science. Having, he says, by certain
+reasoning--altogether erroneous, but that is a detail--convinced himself
+that, on the accepted theory, a bullet fired vertically upwards ought to
+fall far to the west of the place whence it was fired, he carefully
+fixed an air-gun in a vertical position, and fired forty bullets
+vertically upwards. All these fell close to the gun--which is not
+surprising, though it must have made such an experiment rather
+dangerous; but two fell back into the barrel itself--which certainly was
+very surprising indeed. One might fairly challenge the most experienced
+gunner in the world to achieve one such vertical shot in a thousand
+trials; two in forty bordered on the miraculous.
+
+The earth-flatteners I have been speaking of claim, as one of their
+objects, the defence of Scripture. But some of the earth-flatteners of
+the last generation (or a little farther back) took quite another view
+of the matter. For instance, Sir Richard Phillips, a more vehement
+earth-flattener than Parallax, was so little interested in defending
+the Scriptures, that in 1793 he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment
+for selling a book regarded as atheistic. In 1836 he attempted the
+conversion of Professor De Morgan, opening the correspondence with the
+remark that he had 'an inveterate abhorrence of all the pretended wisdom
+of philosophy derived from the monks and doctors of the Middle Ages, and
+not less those of higher name who merely sought to make the monkish
+philosophy more plausible, or so to disguise it as to mystify the mob of
+small thinkers.' He seems himself to have succeeded in mystifying many
+of those whom he intended to convert. Admiral Smyth gives the following
+account of an interview he had with Phillips: 'This pseudo-mathematical
+knight once called upon me at Bedford, without any previous
+acquaintance, to discuss "those errors of Newton, which he almost
+blushed to name," and which were inserted in the "Principia" to "puzzle
+the vulgar." He sneered with sovereign contempt at the "Trinity of
+Gravitating Force, Projectile Force, and Void Space," and proved that
+all change of place is accounted for by motion.' [Startling hypothesis!]
+'He then exemplified the conditions by placing some pieces of paper on a
+table, and slapping his hand down close to them, thus making them fly
+off, which he termed applying the momentum. All motion, he said, is in
+the direction of the forces; and atoms seek the centre by "terrestrial
+centripetation"--a property which causes universal pressure; but in what
+these attributes of pushing and pulling differ from gravitation and
+attraction was not expounded. Many of his "truths" were as mystified as
+the conundrums of Rabelais; so nothing was made of the motion.'
+
+A favourite subject of paradoxical ideas has been the moon's motion of
+rotation. Strangely enough, De Morgan, who knew more about past
+paradoxists than any man of his time, seems not to have heard of the
+dispute between Keill and Bentley over this matter in 1690. He says,
+'there was a dispute on the subject, in 1748, between James Ferguson and
+an anonymous opponent; and I think there have been others;' but the
+older and more interesting dispute he does not mention. Bentley, who was
+no mathematician, pointed out in a lecture certain reasons for believing
+that the moon does not turn on her axis, or has no axis on which she
+turns. Keill, then only nineteen years old, pointed out that the
+arguments used by Bentley proved that the moon does rotate instead of
+showing that she does not. (Twenty years later Keill was appointed
+Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford. He was the first holder of
+that office to teach the Newtonian astronomy.)
+
+In recent times, as most of my readers know, the paradox that the moon
+does not rotate has been revived more than once. In 1855 it was
+sustained by Mr. Jellinger Symons, one of whose staunchest supporters,
+Mr. H. Perigal, had commenced the attack a few years earlier. Of course,
+the gist of the argument against the moon's rotation lies in the fact
+that the moon always keeps the same face turned towards the earth, or
+very nearly so. If she did so exactly, and if her distance from the
+earth were constantly the same, then her motion would be exactly the
+same as though she were rigidly connected with the earth, and turned
+round an axis at the earth. The case may be thus illustrated: Through
+the middle of a large orange thrust one short rod vertically, and
+another long rod horizontally; thrust the further end of the latter
+through a small apple, and now turn the whole affair round the short
+vertical rod as an axis. Then the apple will move with respect to the
+orange as the moon would move with respect to the earth on the
+suppositions just made. No one in this case would say that the apple was
+turning round on its axis, since its motion would be one of rotation
+round the upright axis through the orange. Therefore, say the opponents
+of the moon's rotation, no one should say that the moon turns round on
+her axis.
+
+Of course, the answer would be obvious even if the moon's motions were
+as supposed. The moon is not connected with the earth as the apple is
+with the orange in the illustrative case. If the apple, without rigid
+connection with the orange, were carried round the orange so as to move
+precisely as if it were so connected, it would unquestionably have to
+rotate on its axis, as any one will find who may try the experiment.
+Thus for the straight rod thrust through the apple substitute a straight
+horizontal bar carrying a small basin of water in which the apple
+floats. Sway the bar steadily and slowly round, and it will be found (if
+a mark is placed on the apple) that the apple no longer keeps the same
+face towards the centre of motion; but that, to cause it to do so, a
+slow motion of rotation must be communicated to the apple in the same
+direction and at the same rate (neglecting the effects of the friction
+of the water against the sides of the basin) as the bar is rotating. In
+my 'Treatise on the Moon' I have described and pictured a simple
+apparatus by which this experiment may easily be made.
+
+But, of course, such experiments are not essential to the argument by
+which the paradox is overthrown. This argument simply is, that the moon
+as she travels on her orbit round the sun--the real centre of her
+motion--turns every part of her equator in succession towards him once
+in a lunar month. At the time of new moon the sun illuminates the face
+of the moon turned from us; at the time of full moon he illuminates the
+face which has been gradually brought round to him as the moon has
+passed through her first two quarters. As she passes onwards to new
+moon again, the face we see is gradually turned from him until he
+shines full upon the other face. And so on during successive lunations.
+This could not happen unless the moon rotated. Again, if we lived on the
+moon we should find the heaven of the fixed stars turning round from
+east to west once in rather more than twenty-seven days; and unless we
+supposed, as we should probably do for a long time, that our small world
+was the centre of the universe, and that the stars turned round it, we
+should be compelled to admit that it was turning on its own axis from
+west to east once in the time just named. There would be no escape. The
+mere fact that all the time the stars thus seemed to be turning round
+the moon, the earth would not so seem to move, but would lie always in
+the same direction, would in no sort help to remove the difficulty.
+Lunarian paradoxists would probably argue that she was in some way
+rigidly connected with the moon; but even they would never think of
+arguing that their world did not turn on its axis, _unless_ they
+maintained that it was the centre of the universe. This, I think, they
+would very probably do; but as yet terrestrial paradoxists have not, I
+believe, maintained this hypothesis. I once asked Mr. Perigal whether
+that was the true theory of the universe--the moon central, the earth,
+sun, and heavens carried round her. He admitted that his objections to
+accepted views were by no means limited to the moon's rotation; and, if
+I remember rightly, he said that the idea I had thrown out in jest was
+nearer the truth than I thought, or used words to that effect. But as
+yet the theory has not been definitely enunciated that the moon is the
+boss of the universe.
+
+Comets, as already mentioned, have been the subjects of paradoxes
+innumerable; but as yet comets have been so little understood, even by
+astronomers, that paradoxes respecting them cannot be so readily dealt
+with as those relating to well-established facts. Among thoroughly
+paradoxical ideas respecting comets, however, may be mentioned one whose
+author is a mathematician of well-deserved repute--Professor Tait's
+'Sea-Bird Theory' of Comets' Tails. According to this theory, the rapid
+formation of long tails and the rapid changes of their position may be
+explained on the same principle that we explain the rapid change of
+appearance of a flight of sea-birds, when, from having been in a
+position where the eye looks athwart it, the flight assumes a position
+where the eye looks at it edgewise. In the former position it is
+scarcely visible (when at a distance), in the latter it is seen as a
+well-defined streak; and as a very slight change of position of each
+bird may often suffice to render an extensive flight thus visible
+throughout its entire length, which but a few moments before had been
+invisible, so the entire length of a comet's tail may be brought into
+view, and apparently be formed in a few hours, through some
+comparatively slight displacement of the individual meteorites composing
+it.
+
+This paradox--for paradox it unquestionably is--affords a curious
+illustration of the influence which mathematical power has on the minds
+of men. Every one knows that Professor Tait has potential mathematical
+energy competent to dispose, in a very short time, of all the
+difficulties involved in his theory; therefore few seem to inquire
+whether this potential energy has ever been called into action. It is
+singular, too, that other mathematicians of great eminence have been
+content to take the theory on trust. Thus Sir W. Thomson, at the meeting
+of the British Association at Edinburgh, described the theory as
+disposing easily of the difficulties presented by Newton's comet in
+1680. Glashier, in his translation of Guillemin's 'Les Cometes,' speaks
+of the theory as one not improbably correct, though only to be
+established by rigid investigation of the mathematical problems
+involved.
+
+In reality, not five minutes' inquiry is needed to show any one
+acquainted with the history of long-tailed comets that Tait's theory is
+quite untenable. Take Newton's comet. It had a tail ninety millions of
+miles long, extending directly from the sun as the comet approached him,
+and seen, four days later, extending to the same distance, and still
+directly from the sun, as the comet receded from him in an entirely
+different direction. According to Tait's sea-bird theory, the earth was
+at both these epochs in the plane of a sheet of meteorites forming the
+tail; but on each occasion the sun also was in the same plane, for the
+edge of the sheet of meteorites was seen to be directly in a line with
+the sun. The comet's head, of course, was in the same plane; but three
+points, not in a straight line, determine a plane. Hence we have, as the
+definite result of the sea-bird theory, that the layer or stratum of
+meteorites, forming the tail of Newton's comet, lay in the same plane
+which contained the sun, the earth, and the comet. But the comet crossed
+the ecliptic (the plane in which the earth travels round the sun)
+between the epochs named, crossing it at a great angle. When crossing
+it, then, the great layer of meteorites was in the plane of the
+ecliptic; before crossing it the layer was greatly inclined to that
+plane one way, and after crossing it the layer was greatly inclined to
+that plane another way. So that we have in no way escaped the difficulty
+which the sea-bird theory was intended to remove. If it was a startling
+and, indeed, incredible thing that the particles along a comet's tail
+should have got round in four days from the first to the second position
+of the tail considered above, it is as startling and incredible that a
+mighty layer of meteorites should have shifted bodily in the way
+required by the sea-bird theory. Nay, there is an element in our result
+which is still more startling than any of the difficulties yet
+mentioned; and that is, the singular care which the great layer of
+meteorites would seem to have shown to keep its plane always passing
+through the earth, with which it was in no way connected. Why should
+this preference have been shown by the meteor flock for our earth above
+all the other members of the solar system?--seeing that the sea-bird
+theory _requires_ that this comet, and not Newton's comet alone but all
+others having tails, should not only be thus complaisant with respect to
+our little earth, but should behave in a totally different way with
+respect to every other member of the sun's family.
+
+We can understand that, while several have been found who have applauded
+the sea-bird paradox for what it _might_ do in explaining comets' tails,
+its advocates have as yet not done much to reconcile it with cometic
+observation.
+
+The latest astronomical paradox published is perhaps still more
+startling. It relates to the planet Venus, and is intended to explain
+the appearance presented by this planet when crossing the sun's face,
+or, technically, when in transit. At this time she is surrounded by a
+ring of light, which appears somewhat brighter than the disc of the sun
+itself. Before fully entering on the sun's face, also, the part of
+Venus's globe as yet outside the sun's disc is seen to be girt round by
+a ring of exceedingly bright light--so bright, indeed, that it has left
+its record in photographs where the exposure was only for the small
+fraction of a second allowable in the case of so intensely brilliant a
+body as the sun. Astronomers have not found it difficult to explain
+either peculiarity. It has been proved clearly in other ways that Venus
+has an atmosphere like our own, but probably denser. As the sun is
+raised into view above the horizon (after he has really passed below
+the horizon plane) by the bending power of our air upon his rays, so the
+bending power of Venus's air brings the sun into our view round the dark
+body of the planet. But the new paradox advances a much bolder theory.
+Instead of an atmosphere such as ours, Venus has a glass envelope; and
+instead of a surface of earth and water, in some cases covered with
+clouds, Venus has a surface shining with metallic lustre.[53]
+
+The author of this theory, Mr. Jos. Brett, startled astronomers by
+announcing, a few years ago, that with an ordinary telescope he could
+see the light of the sun's corona without the aid of an eclipse, though
+astronomers had observed that the delicate light of the corona fades out
+of view with the first returning rays of the sun after total eclipse.
+
+The latest paradoxist, misled by the incorrect term 'centrifugal force,'
+proposes to 'modify, if not banish,' the old-fashioned astronomy. What
+is called centrifugal force is in truth only inertia. In the familiar
+instance of a body whirled round by a string, the breaking of the string
+no more implies that an active force has pulled away the body, than the
+breaking of a rope by which a weight is pulled implies that the weight
+has exerted an active resistance. Of course, here again the text-books
+are chiefly in fault.
+
+Such are a few among the paradoxes of various orders by which
+astronomers, like the students of other sciences, have been from time to
+time amused. It is not altogether, as it may seem at first sight, 'a sin
+against the twenty-four hours' to consider such matters; for much may be
+learned not only from the study of the right road in science, but from
+observing where and how men may go astray. I know, indeed, few more
+useful exercises for the learner than to examine a few paradoxes, when
+leisure serves, and to consider how, if left to his own guidance, he
+would confute them.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+_ON SOME ASTRONOMICAL MYTHS._
+
+
+The expression 'astronomical myth' has recently been used, on the
+title-page of a translation from the French, as synonymous with false
+systems of astronomy. It is not, however, in that sense that I here use
+it. The history of astronomy presents the records of some rather
+perplexing observations, not confirmed by later researches, but yet not
+easily to be explained away or accounted for. Such observations Humboldt
+described as belonging to the myths of an uncritical period; and it is
+in that sense that I employ the term 'astronomical myth' in this essay.
+I propose briefly to describe and comment on some of the more
+interesting of these observations, which, in whatever sense they are to
+be interpreted, will be found to afford a useful lesson.
+
+It is hardly necessary, perhaps, to point out that the cases which I
+include here I regard as really cases in which astronomers have been
+deceived by illusory observations. Other students of astronomy may
+differ from me as respects some of these instances. I do not wish to
+dogmatise, but simply to describe the facts as I see them, and the
+impressions which I draw from them. Those who view the facts differently
+will not, I think, have to complain that I have incorrectly described
+them.
+
+At the outset, let me point out that some observations which were for a
+long time regarded as mythical have proved to be exact. For instance,
+when as yet very few telescopes existed, and those very feeble,
+Galileo's discovery of moons travelling round Jupiter was rejected as an
+illusion for which Satan received the chief share of credit. There is an
+amusing and yet in one aspect almost pathetic reference to this in his
+account of his earlier observations of Saturn. He had seen the planet
+apparently attended on either side by two smaller planets, as if helping
+old Saturn along. But on December 4, 1612,[54] turning his telescope on
+the planet, he found to his infinite amazement not a trace of the
+companion planets could be seen; there in the field of view of his
+telescope was the golden-tinted disc of the planet as smoothly rounded
+as the disc of Mars or Jupiter. 'What,' he wrote, 'is to be said
+concerning so strange a metamorphosis? Are the two lesser stars consumed
+after the manner of the solar spots? Have they vanished or suddenly
+fled? Has Saturn, perhaps, devoured his children? Or were the
+appearances, indeed, illusion or fraud with which the glasses have so
+long deceived me as well as many others to whom I have shown them? Now,
+perhaps, is the time come to revive the well-nigh withered hopes of
+those who, guided by more profound contemplations, have discovered the
+fallacy of the new observations, and demonstrated the utter
+impossibility of the existence of those things which the telescope
+appears to show. I do not know what to say in a case so surprising, so
+unlooked for, and so novel. The shortness of the time, the unexpected
+nature of the event, the weakness of my understanding, and the fear of
+being mistaken, have greatly confounded me.' We now know that these
+observations, as well as those made soon after by Hevelius, though
+wrongly interpreted, were correct enough. Nay, we know that if either
+Galileo or Hevelius had been at the pains to reason out the meaning of
+the alternate visibility and disappearance of objects looking like
+attendant planets, they must have anticipated the discovery made in 1656
+by Huyghens, that Saturn's globe is girdled about by a thin flat ring so
+vast that, if a score of globes like our earth were set side by side,
+the range of that row of worlds would be less than the span of the
+Saturnian ring system.
+
+There is a reference in Galileo's letter to the solar spots; 'Are the
+two lesser stars,' he says, 'consumed after the manner of the solar
+spots?' When he thus wrote the spots were among the myths or fables of
+astronomy, and an explanation was offered, by those who did not reject
+them utterly, which has taken its place among forsaken doctrines, those
+broken toys of astronomers. It is said that when Scheiner, himself a
+Jesuit, communicated to the Provincial of the Jesuits his discovery of
+the spots on the sun, the latter, a staunch Aristotelian, cautioned him
+not to see these things. 'I have read Aristotle's writings from
+beginning to end many times,' he said, 'and I can assure you I have
+nowhere found in them anything similar to what you mention' [amazing
+circumstances!] 'Go, therefore, my son, tranquillise yourself; be
+assured that what you take for spots on the sun are the faults of your
+glasses or your eyes.' As the idea was obviously inadmissible that a
+celestial body could be marked by spots, the theory was started that the
+dark objects apparently seen on the sun's body were in reality small
+planets revolving round the sun, and a contest arose for the possession
+of these mythical planets. Tarde maintained that they should be called
+_Astra Borbonia_, in honour of the royal family of France; but C.
+Malapert insisted that they should be called _Sidera Austriaca_.
+Meantime the outside world laughed at the spots, and their names, and
+the astronomers who were thought to have invented both. 'Fabritius puts
+only three spots,' wrote Burton in his 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' 'and
+those in the sun; Apelles 15, and those without the sun, floating like
+the Cyanean Isles in the Euxine Sea. Tarde the Frenchman hath observed
+33, and those neither spots nor clouds as Galileus supposed, but planets
+concentric with the sun, and not far from him, with regular motions.
+Christopher Schemer' [a significant way of spelling Scheiner's name], 'a
+German Suisser Jesuit, divides them _in maculas et faculas_, and will
+have them to be fixed _in solis superficie_ and to absolve their
+periodical and regular motions in 27 or 28 dayes; holding withall the
+rotation of the sun upon his centre, and are all so confident that they
+have made schemes and tables of their motions. The Hollander censures
+all; and thus they disagree among themselves, old and new,
+irreconcilable in their opinions; thus Aristarchus, thus Hipparchus,
+thus Ptolomaeus, thus Albategnius, etc., with their followers, vary and
+determine of these celestial orbs and bodies; and so whilst these men
+contend about the sun and moon, like the philosophers in Lucian, it is
+to be feared the sun and moon will hide themselves, and be as much
+offended as she was with those, and send another message to Jupiter, by
+some new-fangled Icaromenippus, to make an end of all these curious
+controversies, and scatter them abroad.'
+
+It is well to notice how in this, as in many other instances, the very
+circumstance which makes scientific research trustworthy caused the
+unscientific to entertain doubt. If men of science were to arrange
+beforehand with each other what observations they should publish, how
+their accounts should be ended, what theories they would endeavour to
+establish, their results would seem far more trustworthy, their theories
+far more probable, than according to the method actually adopted.
+Science, which should be exact, seems altogether inexact, because one
+observer seems to obtain one result, another a different result.
+Scientific theories seem unworthy of reliance because scientific men
+entertain for a long time rival doctrines. But in another and a worthier
+sense than as the words are used in the 'Critic,' when men of science do
+agree their agreement is wonderful. It _is_ wonderful, worthy of all
+admiration, because before it has been attained errors long entertained
+have had to be honestly admitted; because the taunt of inconsistency is
+not more pleasant to the student of science than to others, and the man
+who having a long time held one doctrine adopts and enforces another
+(one perhaps which he had long resisted), is sure to be accused by the
+many of inconsistency, the truly scientific nature of his procedure
+being only recognised by the few. The agreement of men of science ought
+to be regarded also as most significant in another sense. So long as
+there is room for refusing to admit an important theory advanced by a
+student of science, it is natural that other students of science should
+refuse to do so; for in admitting the new theory they are awarding the
+palm to a rival. In strict principle, of course, this consideration
+ought to have no influence whatever; as a matter of fact, however, men
+of science, being always men and not necessarily strengthened by
+scientific labours against the faults of humanity, the consideration has
+and must always have influence. Therefore, when the fellow-writers and
+rivals of Newton or of his followers gave in their adhesion to the
+Newtonian theory; when in our own time--but let us leave our own time
+alone, in this respect--when, speaking generally, a novel doctrine, or
+some new generalisation, or some great and startling discovery, is
+admitted by rival students of the branch of astronomy to which it
+belongs, the probability is great that the weight of evidence has been
+found altogether overwhelming.
+
+Let us now, however, turn to cases in which, while many observations
+seem to point to some result, it has appeared that, after all, those
+observations must have been illusory.
+
+A striking instance in point is found in the perplexing history of the
+supposed satellite of Venus.
+
+On January 25, 1672, the celebrated astronomer, J.D. Cassini saw a
+crescent shaped and posited like Venus, but smaller, on the western side
+of the planet. More than fourteen years later, he saw a crescent east of
+the planet. The object continued visible in the latter case for half an
+hour, when the approach of daylight obliterated the planet and this
+phantom moon from view. The apparent distance of the moon from Venus was
+in both cases small, viz., only one diameter of the planet in the former
+case, and only three-fifths of that diameter in the latter.
+
+Next, on October 23, 1740, old style, the optician Short, who had had
+considerable experience in observation, saw a small star perfectly
+defined but less luminous than Venus, at a distance from the planet
+equal to about one-third of the apparent diameter of our moon. This is a
+long distance, and would correspond to a distance from Venus certainly
+not less than the moon's distance from the earth. Short was aware of the
+risk of optical illusion in such matters, and therefore observed Venus
+with a second telescope; he also used four eye-pieces of different
+magnifying power. He says that Venus was very distinct, the air very
+pure, insomuch that he was able to use a power of 240. The seeming moon
+had a diameter less than a third of Venus's, and showed the same phase
+as the planet. Its disc was exceedingly well defined. He observed it
+several times during a period of about one hour.
+
+Still more convincing, to all appearance, is the account of the
+observations made by M. Montaigne, as presented to the Academy of
+Sciences at Paris by M. Baudouin in 1761. The transit of Venus which was
+to take place on June 6 in that year led to some inquiry as to the
+satellite supposed to have been seen by Cassini and Short, for of course
+a transit would be a favourable occasion for observing the satellite. M.
+Montaigne, who had no faith in the existence of such an attendant, was
+persuaded to look for it early in 1761. On May 3 he saw a little
+crescent moon about twenty minutes of arc (nearly two-thirds the
+apparent diameter of our moon) from the planet. He repeated his
+observation several times that night, always seeing the small body, but
+not quite certain, despite its crescent shape, whether it might not be a
+small star. On the next evening, and again on May 7 and 10, he saw the
+small companion apparently somewhat farther from Venus and in a
+different position. He found that it could be seen when Venus was not in
+the field of view. The following remarks were made respecting these
+observations in a French work, 'Dictionnaire de Physique,' published in
+1789:--'The year 1761 will be celebrated in astronomy in consequence of
+the discovery that was made on May 3 of a satellite circulating round
+Venus. We owe it to M. Montaigne, member of the Society of Limoges. M.
+Baudouin read before the Academy of Sciences at Paris a very interesting
+memoir, in which he gave a determination of the revolution and distance
+of the satellite. From the calculations of this expert astronomer we
+learn that the new star has a diameter about one-fourth that of Venus,
+is distant from Venus almost as far as the moon from our earth, has a
+period of nine days seven hours' [much too short, by the way, to be
+true, expert though M. Baudouin is said to have been], 'and its
+ascending node'--but we need not trouble ourselves about its ascending
+node.
+
+Three years later Roedkier, at Copenhagen, March 3 and 4, 1764, saw the
+satellite of Venus with a refracting telescope 38 feet long, which
+should have been effective if longitude has any virtue. He could not see
+the satellite with another telescope which he tried. But several of his
+friends saw it with the long telescope. Amongst others, Horrebow,
+Professor of Astronomy, saw the satellite on March 10 and 11, after
+taking several precautions to prevent optical illusion. A few days later
+Montbaron, at Auxerre, who had heard nothing of these observations, saw
+a satellite, and again on March 28 and 29 it appeared, always in a
+different position.
+
+It should be added that Scheuten asserted that during the transit of
+1761 Venus was accompanied by a small satellite in her motion across the
+sun's face.
+
+So confidently did many believe in this satellite of Venus that
+Frederick the Great, who for some reason imagined that he was entitled
+to dispose as he pleased of the newly discovered body, proposed to
+assign it away to the mathematician D'Alembert, who excused himself from
+accepting the questionable honour in the following terms:--
+
+'Your Majesty does me too much honour in wishing to baptize this new
+planet with my name. I am neither great enough to become the satellite
+of Venus in the heavens, nor well enough (_assez bien portant_) to be so
+on the earth, and I am too well content with the small place I occupy in
+this lower world to be ambitious of a place in the firmament.'
+
+It is not at all easy to explain how this phantom satellite came to be
+seen. Father Hell, of Vienna--the same astronomer whom Sir G. Airy
+suspects of falling asleep during the progress of the transit of Venus
+in 1769--made some experiments showing how a false image of the planet
+might be seen beside the true one, the false image being smaller and
+fainter, like the moons seen by Schort (as Hell called Short), Cassini,
+and the rest. And more recently Sir David Brewster stated that Wargentin
+'had in his possession a good achromatic telescope, which always showed
+Venus with such a satellite.' But Hell admitted that the falsehood of
+the unreal Venus was easily detected, and Brewster adds to his account
+of Wargentin's phantom moon, that 'the deception was discovered by
+turning the telescope about its axis.' As Admiral Smyth well remarks, to
+endeavour to explain away in this manner the observations made by
+Cassini and Short 'must be a mere pleasantry, for it is impossible such
+accurate observers could have been deceived by so gross a neglect.'
+Smyth, by the way, was a believer in the moon of Venus. 'The contested
+satellite is perhaps extremely minute,' he says, 'while some parts of
+its body may be less capable of reflecting light than others; and when
+the splendour of its primary and our inconvenient station for watching
+it are considered, it must be conceded that, however slight the hope may
+be, search ought not to be relinquished.'
+
+Setting aside Scheuten's asserted recognition of a dark body near Venus
+during the transit of 1761, Venus has always appeared without any
+attendant when in transit. As no one else claimed to have seen what
+Scheuten saw in 1761, though the transit was observed by hundreds, of
+whom many used far finer telescopes than he, we must consider that he
+allowed his imagination to deceive him. During the transit of 1769, and
+again on December 8-9, 1874, Venus certainly had no companion during her
+transit.
+
+What, then, was it that Cassini, Short, Montaigne, and the rest supposed
+they saw? The idea has been thrown out by Mr. Webb that mirage caused
+the illusion. But he appears to have overlooked the fact that though an
+image of Venus formed by mirage would be fainter than the planet, it
+would not be smaller. It might, according to the circumstances, be above
+Venus or below, or even somewhat towards either side, and it might be
+either a direct or an inverted image, but it could not possibly be a
+diminished image.
+
+Single observations like Cassini's or Short's might be explained as
+subjective phenomena, but this explanation will not avail in the case of
+the Copenhagen observations.
+
+I reject, as every student of astronomy will reject, the idea of wilful
+deception. Occasionally an observer may pretend to see what he has not
+seen, though I believe this very seldom happens. But even if Cassini and
+the rest had been notoriously untrustworthy persons instead of being
+some of them distinguished for the care and accuracy with which their
+observations were made and recorded, these occasional views of a phantom
+satellite are by no means such observations as they would have invented.
+No distinction was to be gained by observations which could not be
+confirmed by astronomers possessing more powerful telescopes. Cassini,
+for example, knew well that nothing but his well-earned reputation could
+have saved him from suspicion or ridicule when he announced that he had
+seen Venus attended by a satellite.
+
+It seems to me probable that the false satellite was an optical illusion
+brought about in a different way from those referred to by Hell and
+Brewster, though among the various circumstances which in an imperfect
+instrument might cause such a result I do not undertake to make a
+selection. It is certain that Venus's satellite has vanished with the
+improvement of telescopes, while it is equally certain that even with
+the best modern instruments illusions occasionally appear which deceive
+even the scientific elect. Three years have passed since I heard the
+eminent observer Otto Struve, of Pulkowa, give an elaborate account of a
+companion to the star Procyon, describing the apparent brightness,
+distance, and motions of this companion body, for the edification of the
+Astronomer-Royal and many other observers. I had visited but a few
+months before the Observatory at Washington, where, with a much more
+powerful telescope, that companion to Procyon had been systematically
+but fruitlessly sought for, and I entertained a very strong opinion,
+notwithstanding the circumstantial nature of Struve's account and his
+confidence (shared in unquestioningly by the observers present), that he
+had been in some way deceived. But I could not then see, nor has any one
+yet explained, how this could be. The fact, however, that he had been
+deceived is now undoubted. Subsequent research has shown that the
+Pulkowa telescope, though a very fine instrument, possesses the
+undesirable quality of making a companion orb for all first-class stars
+in the position where O. Struve and his assistant Lindenau saw the
+supposed companion of Procyon.
+
+I may as well point out, however, that theories so wild have recently
+been broached respecting Venus, that far more interesting explanations
+of the enigma than this optical one may be looked for presently. It has
+been gravely suggested by Mr. Jos. Brett, the artist, that Venus has a
+surface of metallic brilliancy, with a vitreous atmosphere,--which can
+only be understood to signify a glass case. This stupendous theory has
+had its origin in an observation of considerable interest which
+astronomers (it is perhaps hardly necessary to say) explain somewhat
+differently. When Venus has made her entry in part upon the sun's face
+at the beginning of transit, there is seen all round the portion of her
+disc which still remains outside the sun an arc of light so brilliant
+that it records its photographic trace during the instantaneous exposure
+required in solar photography. It is mathematically demonstrable that
+this arc of light is precisely what _should_ be seen if Venus has an
+atmosphere like our earth's. But mathematical demonstration is not
+sufficient (or perhaps we may say it is too much) for some minds.
+Therefore, to simplify matters, Venus has been provided with a mirror
+surface and a glass case. (See preceding essay, on Astronomical
+Paradoxes, for further details.)
+
+The enigma next to be considered is of a more doubtful character than
+the myth relating to the satellite of Venus. Astronomers are pretty well
+agreed that Venus has no moon, but many, including some deservedly
+eminent, retain full belief in the story of the planet Vulcan.
+
+More than seventeen years ago the astronomical world was startled by the
+announcement that a new planet had been discovered, under circumstances
+unlike any which had heretofore attended the discovery of fresh members
+of the solar system. At that time astronomers had already become
+accustomed to the discovery, year after year, of several asteroids,
+which are in reality planets, though small ones. In fact, no less than
+fifty-six of these bodies were then known, whereof fifty-one had been
+discovered during the years 1847-1858 inclusive, not one of these years
+having passed without the detection of an asteroid. But all these
+planets belonged to one family, and as there was every reason to believe
+that thousands more travel in the same region of the solar system, the
+detection of a few more among the number had no longer any special
+interest for astronomers. The discovery of the first known member of the
+family had indeed been full of interest, and had worthily inaugurated
+the present century, on the first day of which it was made. For it had
+been effected in pursuance of a set scheme, and astronomers had almost
+given up all hopes of success in that scheme when Piazzi announced his
+detection of little Ceres. Again the discovery of the next few members
+of the family had been interesting as revealing the existence of a new
+order of bodies in the solar system. No one had suspected the
+possibility that besides the large bodies which travel round the sun,
+either singly or attended by subordinate families of moons, there might
+be a ring of many planets. This was what the discovery of Ceres, Pallas,
+Juno, and Vesta seemed to suggest, unless--still stranger thought--these
+were but fragments of a mighty planet which had been shattered in
+long-past ages by some tremendous explosion. Since then, however, this
+startling theory has been (itself) exploded. Year after year new members
+of the ring of multitudinous planets are discovered, and that, not as
+was recently predicted, in numbers gradually decreasing, but so rapidly
+that more have been discovered during the last ten years than during the
+preceding twenty.
+
+The discovery of the giant planet Uranus, an orb exceeding our earth
+twelve and a half times in mass and seventy-four times in volume, was a
+matter of much greater importance, so far as the dignity of the
+planetary system was concerned, for it is known that the whole ring of
+asteroids together does not equal one-tenth part of the earth in mass,
+while Uranus exceeds many times in volume the entire family of
+terrestrial planets--Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars. The detection
+of Uranus, unlike that of Ceres, was effected by accident. Sir W.
+Herschel was looking for double stars of a particular kind in the
+constellation Gemini when by good fortune the stranger was observed.
+
+The interest with which astronomers received the announcement of the
+discovery of Uranus, though great, was not to be compared with that with
+which they deservedly welcomed the discovery of Neptune, a larger and
+more massive planet, revolving at a distance one-half greater even than
+the mighty space which separates Uranus from the sun, a space so great
+that by comparison with it the range of 184,000,000 of miles, which
+forms the diameter of our earth's orbit, seems quite insignificant. It
+was not, however, the vastness of Neptune's mass or volume, or the awful
+remoteness of the path along which he pursues his gloomy course, which
+attracted the interest of astronomers, but the strangeness of the
+circumstances under which the planet had been detected. His influence
+had been felt for many years before astronomers thought of looking for
+him, and even when the idea had occurred to one or two, it was
+considered, and that, too, by an astronomer as deservedly eminent as Sir
+G. Airy, too chimerical to be reasonably entertained. All the world now
+knows how Leverrier, the greatest living master of physical astronomy,
+and Adams, then scarce known outside Cambridge, both conceived the idea
+of finding the planet, not by the simple method of looking for it with a
+telescope, but by the mathematical analysis of the planet's disturbing
+influence upon known members of the solar system. All know, too, that
+these mathematicians succeeded in their calculations, and that the
+planet was found in the very region and close to the very point
+indicated first by Adams, and later, but independently, and (fortunately
+for him more publicly) by Leverrier.
+
+None of these instances of the discovery of members of the solar system
+resembled in method or details the discovery announced early in the year
+1859. It was not amid the star-depths and in the darkness of night that
+the new planet was looked for, but in broad day, and on the face of the
+sun himself. It was not on the outskirts of the solar system that the
+planet was supposed to be travelling, but within the orbit of Mercury,
+hitherto regarded as of all planets the nearest to the sun. It was not
+hoped that any calculation of the perturbations of other planets would
+show the place of the stranger, though certain changes in the orbit of
+Mercury seemed clearly enough to indicate the stranger's existence.
+
+Early in 1860 Leverrier had announced that the position of Mercury's
+path was not precisely in agreement with calculations based on the
+adopted estimates of the masses of those planets which chiefly disturb
+the motions of Mercury. The part of the path where Mercury is nearest to
+the sun, and where, therefore, he travels fastest, had slightly shifted
+from its calculated place. This part of the path was expected to move,
+but it had moved more than was expected; and of course Mercury having
+his region of swiftest motion somewhat differently placed than was
+anticipated, himself moved somewhat differently.
+
+Leverrier found that to explain this feature of Mercury's motion either
+the mass of Venus must be regarded as one-tenth greater than had been
+supposed, or some unknown cause must be regarded as affecting the motion
+of Mercury. A planet as large as Mercury, about midway between Mercury
+and the sun, would account for the observed disturbance; but Leverrier
+rejected the belief that such a planet exists, simply because he could
+not 'believe that it would be invisible during total eclipses of the
+sun.' 'All difficulties disappear,' he added, 'if we admit, in place of
+a single planet, small bodies circulating between Mercury and the sun.'
+Considering their existence as not at all improbable, he advised
+astronomers to watch for them.
+
+It was on January 2, 1860, that Leverrier thus wrote. On December 22,
+1859, a letter had been addressed by a M. Lescarbault of Orgeres to
+Leverrier, through M. Vallee, hon. inspector-general of roads and
+bridges, announcing that on March 26, 1859, about four in the afternoon,
+Lescarbault had seen a round black spot on the face of the sun, and had
+watched it as it passed across like a planet in transit--not with the
+slow motion of an ordinary sun-spot. The actual time during which the
+round spot was visible was one hour, seventeen minutes, nine seconds,
+the rate of motion being such that, had the spot crossed the middle of
+the sun's disc, at the same rate, the transit would have lasted more
+than four hours. The spot thus merely skirted the sun's disc, being at
+no time more than about one forty-sixth part of the sun's apparent
+diameter from the edge of the sun. Lescarbault expressed his conviction
+that on a future day, a black spot, perfectly round and very small, will
+be seen passing over the sun, and 'this point will very probably be the
+planet whose path I observed on March 26, 1859.' 'I am persuaded,' he
+added, 'that this body is the planet, or one of the planets, whose
+existence in the vicinity of the sun M. Leverrier had made known a few
+months ago' (referring to the preliminary announcement of results which
+Leverrier published afterwards more definitely).
+
+Leverrier, when the news of Lescarbault's observation first reached him,
+was surprised that the observation should not have been announced
+earlier. He did not consider the delay sufficiently justified by
+Lescarbault's statement that he wished to see the spot again. He
+therefore set out for Orgeres, accompanied by M. Vallee. 'The
+predominant feeling in Leverrier's mind,' says Abbe Moigno, 'was the
+wish to unmask an attempt to impose upon him, as the person more likely
+than any other astronomer to listen to the allegation that his prophecy
+had been fulfilled.'
+
+'One should have seen M. Lescarbault,' says Moigno, 'so small, so
+simple, so modest, and so timid, in order to understand the emotion with
+which he was seized, when Leverrier, from his great height, and with
+that blunt intonation which he can command, thus addressed him: "It is
+then you, sir, who pretend to have observed the intra-mercurial planet,
+and who have committed the grave offence of keeping your observation
+secret for nine months. I warn you that I have come here with the
+intention of doing justice to your pretensions, and of demonstrating
+either that you have been dishonest or deceived. Tell me, then,
+unequivocally, what you have seen."' This singular address did not bring
+the interview, as one might have expected, to an abrupt end. The lamb,
+as the Abbe calls the doctor, trembling, stammered out an account of
+what he had seen. He explained how he had timed the passage of the black
+spot. 'Where is your chronometer?' asked Leverrier. 'It is this watch,
+the faithful companion of my professional journeys.' 'What! with that
+old watch, showing only minutes, dare you talk of estimating seconds. My
+suspicions are already too well confirmed.' 'Pardon me, I have a
+pendulum which beats seconds.' 'Show it me.' The doctor brings down a
+silk thread to which an ivory ball is attached. Fixing the upper end to
+a nail, he draws the ball a little from the vertical, counts the number
+of oscillations, and shows that his pendulum beats seconds; he explains
+also how his profession, requiring him to feel pulses and count
+pulsations, he has no difficulty in mentally keeping record of
+successive seconds.
+
+Having been shown the telescope with which the observation was made, the
+record of the observation (on a piece of paper covered with grease and
+laudanum, and doing service as a marker in the 'Connaissance des Temps,'
+or French Nautical Almanac), Leverrier presently inquired if Lescarbault
+had attempted to deduce the planet's distance from the sun from the
+period of its transit. The doctor admitted that he had attempted this,
+but, being no mathematician, had failed to achieve success with the
+problem. He showed the rough draughts of his futile attempts at
+calculation on a board in his workshop, 'for,' said he naively, 'I am a
+joiner as well as an astronomer.'
+
+The interview satisfied Leverrier that a new planet, travelling within
+the orbit of Mercury, had really been discovered. 'With a grace and
+dignity full of kindness,' says a contemporary narrative of these
+events,[55] 'he congratulated Lescarbault on the important discovery
+which he had made.' Anxious to obtain some mark of respect for the
+discoverer of Vulcan, Leverrier made inquiry concerning his private
+character, and learned from the village cure, the juge de paix, and
+other functionaries, that he was a skilful physician and a worthy man.
+With such high recommendations, M. Leverrier requested from M. Rouland,
+the Minister of Public Instruction, the decoration of the Legion of
+Honour for M. Lescarbault. The Minister, in a brief but interesting
+statement of his claim, communicated this request to the Emperor, who,
+by a decree dated January 25, conferred upon the village astronomer the
+honours so justly due to him. His professional brethren in Paris were
+equally solicitous to testify their regard; and MM. Felix Roubaud,
+Legrande, and Caffe, as delegates of the scientific press, proposed to
+the medical body, and to the scientific world in Paris, to invite
+Lescarbault to a banquet in the Hotel du Louvre on January 18.
+
+The announcement of the supposed discovery caused astronomers to
+re-examine records of former observations of black spots moving across
+the sun. Several such records existed, but they had gradually come to be
+regarded as of no real importance. Wolff of Zurich published a list of
+no fewer than twenty such observations made since 1762. Carrington added
+many other cases. Comparing together three of these observations, Wolff
+found that they would be satisfied by a planet having a period of
+revolution of 19 days, agreeing fairly with the period of rather more
+than 19-1/3 days inferred by Leverrier for Lescarbault's planet. But
+the entire set of observations of black spots require that there should
+be at least three new planets travelling between Mercury and the sun.
+Many observers also set themselves the task of searching for Vulcan, as
+the supposed new planet was called. They have continued fruitlessly to
+observe the sun for this purpose until the present time.
+
+While the excitement over Lescarbault's discovery was at its height,
+another observer impugned not only the discovery but the honesty of the
+discoverer.
+
+M. Liais, a French astronomer of considerable skill, formerly of the
+Paris Observatory, but at the time of Lescarbault's achievement in the
+service of the Brazilian Government, published a paper, 'Sur la Nouvelle
+Planete annoncee par M. Lescarbault,' in which he endeavoured to
+establish the four following points:--
+
+First, the observation of Lescarbault was never made.
+
+Secondly, Leverrier was mistaken in considering that a planet such as
+Vulcan might have escaped detection when off the sun's face.
+
+Thirdly, that Vulcan would certainly have been seen during total solar
+eclipses, if the planet had a real objective existence.
+
+Fourthly, M. Leverrier's reasons for believing that the planet exists
+are based on the supposition that astronomical observations are more
+precise than they really are.
+
+Probably, Liais's objections would have had more weight with Leverrier
+had the fourth point been omitted. It was rash in a former subordinate
+to impugn the verdict of the chief of the Paris Observatory on a matter
+belonging to that special department of astronomy which an observatory
+chief might be expected to understand thoroughly. It is thought daring
+in the extreme for one outside the circles of official astronomy (as
+Newton in Flamstead's time, Sir W. Herschel in Maskelyne's, and Sir J.
+Herschel in the present century), to advance or maintain an opinion
+adverse to that of some official chief, but for a subordinate (even
+though no longer so), to be guilty of such rash procedure 'is most
+tolerable and not to be endured,' as a typical official has said.
+Accordingly, very little attention was paid by Leverrier to Liais's
+objections.
+
+Yet, in some respects, what M. Liais had to say was very much to the
+point.
+
+At the very time when Lescarbault was watching the black spot on the
+sun's face, Liais was examining the sun with a telescope of much greater
+magnifying power, and saw no such spot. His attention was specially
+directed to the edge of the sun (where Lescarbault saw the spot) because
+he was engaged in determining the decrease of the sun's brightness near
+the edge. Moreover, he was examining the very part of the sun's edge
+where Lescarbault saw the planet enter, at a time when it must have been
+twelve minutes in time upon the face of the sun, and well within the
+margin of the solar disc. The negative evidence here is strong; though
+it must always be remembered that negative evidence requires to be
+overwhelmingly strong before it can be admitted as effective against
+positive evidence. It seems at a first view utterly impossible that
+Liais, examining with a more powerful telescope the region where
+Lescarbault saw the spot, could have failed to see it had it been there;
+but experience shows that it is not impossible for an observer engaged
+in examining phenomena of one class to overlook a phenomenon of another
+class, even when glaringly obvious. All we can say is that Liais was not
+likely to have overlooked Lescarbault's planet had it been there; and we
+must combine this probability against Vulcan's existence with arguments
+derived from other considerations. There is also the possibility of an
+error in time. As the writer in the 'North British Review' remarks,
+'twelve minutes is so short a time that it is just possible that the
+planet may not have entered upon the sun during the time that Liais
+observed it.'
+
+The second and third arguments are stronger. In fact, I do not see how
+they can be resisted.
+
+It is, in the first place, clear from Lescarbault's account that Vulcan
+must have a considerable diameter--certainly if Vulcan's diameter in
+miles were only half the diameter of Mercury, it would have been all but
+impossible for Lescarbault with his small telescope to see Vulcan at
+all, whereas he saw the black spot very distinctly. Say Vulcan has half
+the diameter of Mercury, and let us compare the brightness of these two
+planets when at their greatest apparent distances from the sun, that is,
+when each looks like a half-moon. The distance of Mercury exceeds the
+estimated distance of Vulcan from the sun as 27 exceeds 10, so that
+Vulcan is more strongly illuminated in the proportion of 27 times 27 to
+10 times 10, or 729 to 100--say at least 7 to 1. But having a diameter
+but half as large the disc of Vulcan could be but about a fourth of
+Mercury's at the same distance from us (and they would be at about the
+same distance from us when seen as half-moons). Hence Vulcan would be
+brighter than Mercury in the proportion of 7 to 4. Of course being so
+near the sun he would not be so easily seen; and we could never expect
+to see him at all, perhaps, with the naked eye--though even this is not
+certain. But Mercury, when at the same apparent distance from the sun,
+and giving less light than at his greatest seeming distance, is quite
+easily seen in the telescope. Much more easily, then, should Vulcan be
+seen, if a telescope were rightly directed at such a time, or when
+Vulcan was anywhere near his greatest seeming distance from the sun. Now
+it is true astronomers do not know precisely when or where to look for
+him. But he passes from his greatest distance on one side of the sun to
+his greatest distance on the other in less than ten days, according to
+the computed period, and certainly (that is, if the planet exists) in a
+very short time. The astronomer has then only to examine day after day a
+region of small extent on either side of the sun, for ten or twelve days
+in succession (an hour's observation each day would suffice), to be sure
+of seeing Vulcan. Yet many astronomers have made such search many times
+over, without seeing any trace of the planet. During total solar
+eclipses, again, the planet has been repeatedly looked for
+unsuccessfully--though it should at such a time be a very conspicuous
+object, when favourably placed, and could scarcely fail of being very
+distinctly seen wherever placed.
+
+The fourth argument of Lescarbault's is not so effective, and in fact he
+gets beyond his depth in dealing with it. But it is to be noticed that a
+considerable portion of the discrepancy between Mercury's observed and
+calculated motions has long since been accounted for by the changed
+estimate of the earth's mass as compared with the sun's, resulting from
+the new determination of the sun's distance. However, the arguments
+depending on this consideration would not be suited to these pages.
+
+There was one feature in Liais's paper which was a little unfortunate.
+He questioned Lescarbault's honesty. He said 'Lescarbault contradicts
+himself in having first asserted that he saw the planet enter upon the
+sun's disc, and having afterwards admitted to Leverrier that it had been
+on the disc some seconds before he saw it, and that he had merely
+inferred the time of its entry from the rate of its motion afterwards.
+If this one assertion be fabricated, the whole may be so.' 'He considers
+these arguments to be strengthened,' says the 'North British Review,'
+'by the assertion which, as we have seen, perplexed Leverrier himself,
+that if M. Lescarbault had actually seen a planet on the sun, he could
+not have kept it secret for nine months.'
+
+This charge of dishonesty, unfortunate in itself, had the unfortunate
+effect of preventing Lescarbault or the Abbe Moigno from replying. The
+latter simply remarked that the accusation was of such a nature as to
+dispense him from any obligation to refute it. This was an error of
+judgment, I cannot but think, if an effective reply was really
+available.
+
+The Remarks with which the North British Reviewer closes his account may
+be repeated now, so far as they relate to the force of the negative
+evidence, with tenfold effect. 'Since the first notice of the discovery
+in the beginning of January 1860 the sun has been anxiously observed by
+astronomers; and the limited area around him in which the planet _must
+be_, if he is not upon the sun, has doubtless been explored with equal
+care by telescopes of high power, and processes by which the sun's
+direct light has been excluded from the tube of the telescope as well as
+the eye of the observer, and yet no planet has been found. This fact
+would entitle us to conclude that no such planet exists if its existence
+had been merely conjectured, or if it had been deduced from any of the
+laws of planetary distance, or even if Leverrier or Adams had announced
+it as the probable result of planetary perturbations. If the finest
+telescopes cannot rediscover a planet which with the small power used by
+Lescarbault has a visible disc, within so limited an area of which the
+sun is the centre, or rather within a narrow belt of that circle, we
+should unhesitatingly declare that no such planet exists. But the
+question assumes a very different aspect when it involves moral
+considerations. If,' proceeds the Reviewer, writing in August 1860,
+'after the severe scrutiny which the sun and its vicinity will undergo
+before and after and during his total eclipse in July, no planet shall
+be seen; and if no round black spot distinctly separable from the usual
+solar spots shall be seen on the solar spots' (_sic_, presumably solar
+disc was intended), 'we will not dare to say that it does not exist. We
+cannot doubt the honesty of M. Lescarbault, and we can hardly believe
+that he was mistaken. No solar spot, no floating scoria, could maintain
+in its passage over the sun a circular and uniform shape, and we are
+confident that no other hypothesis but that of an intra-mercurial planet
+can explain the phenomena seen and measured by M. Lescarbault, a man of
+high character, possessing excellent instruments, and in every way
+competent to use them well, and to describe clearly and correctly the
+results of his observations. Time, however, tries facts as well as
+speculations. The phenomena observed by the French astronomer may never
+be again seen, and the disturbance of Mercury which rendered it probable
+may be otherwise explained. Should this be the case, we must refer the
+round spot on the sun to some of those illusions of the eye or of the
+brain which have sometimes disturbed the tranquillity of science.'
+
+The evidence which has accumulated against Vulcan in the interval since
+this was written is not negative only, but partly positive, as the
+following instance, which I take from my own narrative at the time in a
+weekly journal, serves to show:--After more than sixteen years of
+fruitless watching, astronomers learned last August (1876) that in the
+month of April Vulcan had been seen on the sun's disc in China. On April
+4, it appeared, Herr Weber, an observer of considerable skill, stationed
+at Pecheli, had seen a small round spot on the sun, looking very much as
+a small planet might be expected to look. A few hours later he turned
+his telescope upon the sun, and lo! the spot had vanished, precisely as
+though the planet had passed away after the manner of planets in
+transit. He forwarded the news of his observation to Europe. The
+astronomer Wolff, well known for his sun-spot studies, carefully
+calculated the interval which had passed since Lescarbault saw Vulcan on
+March 26, 1859, and to his intense satisfaction was enabled to announce
+that this interval contained the calculated period of the planet an
+exact number of times. Leverrier at Paris received the announcement
+still more joyfully; while the Abbe Moigno, who gave Vulcan its name,
+and has always staunchly believed in the planet's existence,
+congratulated Lescarbault warmly upon this new view of the shamefaced
+Vulcan. Not one of those who already believed in the planet had the
+least doubt as to the reality of Weber's observations, and of these only
+Lescarbault himself received the news without pleasure. He, it seems,
+has never forgiven the Germans for destroying his observatory and
+library during the invasion of France in 1870, and apparently would
+prefer that his planet should never be seen again rather than that a
+German astronomer should have seen it. But the joy of the rest and
+Lescarbault's sorrow were alike premature. It was found that the spot
+seen by Weber had not only been observed at the Madrid observatory,
+where careful watch is kept upon the sun, but had been photographed at
+Greenwich; and when the description of its appearance, as seen in a
+powerful telescope at one station, and its picture as photographed by a
+fine telescope at the other, came to be examined, it was proved
+unmistakably that the spot was an ordinary sun-spot (not even quite
+round), which had after a few hours disappeared, as even larger
+sun-spots have been known to do in even a shorter time.
+
+It is clear that had not Weber's spot been fortunately seen at Madrid
+and photographed at Greenwich, his observation would have been added to
+the list of recorded apparitions of Vulcan in transit, for it fitted in
+perfectly with the theory of Vulcan's real existence. I think, indeed,
+for my own part, that the good fortune was Weber's. Had it so chanced
+that thick weather in Madrid and at Greenwich had destroyed the evidence
+actually obtained to show that what Weber described he really saw,
+although it was not what he thought, some of the more suspicious would
+have questioned whether, in the euphonious language of the North British
+Reviewer, 'the round spot on the sun' was not due 'to one of those
+illusions of the eye or of the brain which have sometimes disturbed the
+tranquillity of science.' Of course no one acquainted with M. Weber's
+antecedents would imagine for a moment that he had invented the
+observation, even though the objective reality of his spot had not been
+established. But if a person who is entirely unknown, states that he has
+seen Vulcan, there is antecedently some degree of probability in favour
+of the belief that the observation is as much a myth as the planet
+itself. Some observations of Vulcan have certainly been invented. I have
+received several letters purporting to describe observations of bodies
+in transit over the sun's face, either the rate of transit, the size of
+the body, or the path along which it was said to move, being utterly
+inconsistent with the theory that it was an intra-mercurial planet,
+while yet (herein is the suspicious circumstance of such narratives) the
+epoch of transit accorded in the most remarkable manner with the period
+assigned to Vulcan. A paradoxist in America (of Louisville, Kentucky)
+who had invented a theory of the weather, in which the planets, by their
+influence on the sun, were supposed to produce all weather-changes, the
+nearer planets being the most effective, found his theory wanted Vulcan
+very much. Accordingly, he saw Vulcan crossing the sun's face in
+September, which, being half a year from March, is a month wherein,
+according to Lescarbault's observation, Vulcan may be seen in transit,
+and by a strange coincidence the interval between our paradoxist's
+observation and Lescarbault's exactly contained a certain number of
+times the period calculated by Leverrier for Vulcan. This was a noble
+achievement on the part of our paradoxist. At one stroke it established
+his theory of the weather, and promised to ensure him text-book
+immortality as one of the observers of Vulcan. But, unfortunately, a
+student of science residing in St. Louis, after leaving the Louisville
+paradoxist full time to parade his discovery, heartlessly pointed out
+that an exact number of revolutions of Vulcan after Lescarbault's March
+observation, must of necessity have brought the planet on that side of
+the sun on which the earth lies in March, so that to see Vulcan so
+placed on the sun's face in September was to see Vulcan through the sun,
+a very remarkable achievement indeed. The paradoxist was abashed, the
+reader perhaps imagines. Not in the least. The planet's period must have
+been wrongly calculated by Leverrier--that was all: the real period was
+less than half as long as Leverrier had supposed; and instead of having
+gone a certain number of times round since Lescarbault had seen it,
+Vulcan had gone twice as many times round and half once round again. The
+circumstance that if Vulcan's period had been thus short, the time of
+crossing the sun's face would have been much less than, according to
+Lescarbault's account, it actually was, had not occurred to the
+Louisville weather-prophet.[56]
+
+Leverrier's faith in Vulcan, however, has remained unshaken. He has used
+all the observations of spots which, like Weber's, have been seen only
+for a short time. At least he has used all which have not, like
+Weber's, been proved to be only transient sun-spots. Selecting those
+which fit in well with Lescarbault's observation, he has pointed out how
+remarkable it is that they show this accord. The possibility that some
+of them might be explicable as Weber's proved to be, and that some even
+may have been explicable as completely, but less satisfactorily, in
+another way, seems to have been thought scarcely worth considering.
+Using the imperfect materials available, but with exquisite skill--as a
+Phidias might model an exquisite figure of materials that would
+presently crumble into dust--Leverrier came to the conclusion that
+Vulcan would cross the sun's disc on or about March 22, 1876. 'He,
+therefore,' said Sir G. Airy, addressing the Astronomical Society,
+'circulated a despatch among his friends, asking them carefully to
+observe the sun on March 22.' Sir G. Airy, humouring his honoured
+friend, sent telegrams to India, Australia, and New Zealand, requesting
+that observations might be made every two hours or oftener. Leverrier
+himself wrote to Santiago de Chili and other places, so that, including
+American and European observations, the sun could be watched all through
+the twenty-four hours on March 21, 22, and 23. 'Without saying
+positively that he believed or disbelieved in the existence of the
+planet,' proceeds the report, 'Sir G. Airy thought, since M. Leverrier
+was so confident, that the opportunity ought not to be neglected by
+anybody who professed to take an interest in the progress of planetary
+astronomy.'
+
+It is perhaps unnecessary to add that observations were made as
+requested. Many photographs of the sun also were taken during the hours
+when Vulcan, if he exists at all, might be expected to cross the sun's
+face. But the 'planet of romance,' as Abbe Moigno has called Vulcan,
+failed to appear, and the opinion I had expressed last October
+('English Mechanic and World of Science,' for October 27, 1876, p. 160),
+that Vulcan might perhaps better be called the 'planet of fiction' was
+_pro tanto_ confirmed. Nevertheless, I would not be understood to mean
+by the word 'fiction' aught savouring of fraud so far as Lescarbault is
+concerned--I prefer the North Briton's view of Lescarbault's spot, that
+so to speak, it was
+
+  ... the blot upon his brain,
+  That _would_ show itself without.
+
+I have left small space to treat of other fancied discoveries among the
+orbs of heaven. Yet there are some which are not only interesting but
+instructive, as showing how even the most careful observers may be led
+astray. In this respect the mistakes into which observers of great and
+well deserved eminence have fallen are specially worthy of attention.
+With the description of three such mistakes, made by no less an
+astronomer than Sir W. Herschel, I shall bring this paper to a close.
+
+When Sir W. Herschel examined the planet Uranus with his most powerful
+telescope he saw the planet to all appearance girt about by two rings at
+right angles to one another. The illusion was so complete that Herschel
+for several years remained in the belief that the rings were real. They
+were, however, mere optical illusions, due to the imperfect defining
+qualities of the telescope with which he observed the planet. Later he
+wrote that 'the observations which tend to ascertain' (indicate?) 'the
+existence of rings not being satisfactorily supported, it will be proper
+that surmises of them should either be given up, as ill-founded, or at
+least reserved till superior instruments can be provided.'
+
+Sir W. Herschel was more completely misled by the false Uranian
+satellites. He had seen, as he supposed, no less than six of these
+bodies. As only two of these had been seen again, while two more were
+discovered by Lassell, the inference was that Uranus has eight
+satellites in all. These for a long time flourished in our text-books of
+astronomy; and many writers, confident in the care and skill of Sir W.
+Herschel, were unable for a long time to believe that he had been
+deceived. Thus Admiral Smyth, in his 'Celestial Cycle,' wrote of those
+who doubted the extra satellites:--'They must have but a meagre notion
+of Sir W. Herschel's powerful means, his skill in their application, and
+his method of deliberate procedure. So far from doubting there being six
+satellites' (this was before Lassell had discovered the other two) 'it
+is highly probable that there are still more.' Whewell, also, in his
+'Bridgewater Treatise,' says, 'that though it no longer appears probable
+that Uranus has a ring like Saturn, he has at least five satellites
+which are visible to us, and we believe that the astronomer will hardly
+deny that he' (Uranus, not the astronomer), 'may possibly have thousands
+of smaller ones circulating about him.' But in this case Sir W.
+Herschel, anxiously though he endeavoured to guard against the
+possibility of error, was certainly mistaken. Uranus may, for anything
+that is known to the contrary, have many small satellites circulating
+about him, but he certainly has not four satellites (besides those
+known) which could have been seen by Sir W. Herschel with the telescope
+he employed. For the neighbourhood of the planet has been carefully
+examined with telescopes of much greater power by observers who with
+those telescopes have seen objects far fainter than the satellites
+supposed to have been seen by the elder Herschel.
+
+The third of the Herschelian myths was the lunar volcano in eruption,
+which he supposed he had seen in progress in that part of the moon which
+was not at the time illuminated by the sun's rays. He saw a bright
+star-like point of light, which corresponded in position with the crater
+of the lunar mountain Aristarchus. He inferred that a volcano was in
+active eruption because the brightness of the point of light varied from
+time to time, and also because he did not remember to have seen it
+before under the same conditions. There is no doubt something very
+remarkable in the way in which this part of the moon's surface shines
+when not illumined by the sun. If it were always bright we should
+conclude at once that the earth-light shining upon it rendered it
+visible. For it must be remembered that the part of the moon which looks
+dark (or seems wanting to the full disc) is illuminated by our earth,
+shining in the sky of the moon as a disc thirteen times as large as that
+of the moon we see, and with the same proportion of its disc sunlit as
+is dark in the moon's disc. Thus when the moon is nearly new our earth
+is shining in the lunar skies as a nearly full moon thirteen times as
+large as ours. The light of this noble moon must illumine the moon's
+surface much more brightly than a terrestrial landscape is illumined by
+the full moon, and if any parts of her surface are very white they will
+shine out from the surface around, just as the snow-covered peak of a
+mountain shines out upon a moonlit night from among the darker hills and
+dales and rocks and forests of the landscape. But Herschel considered
+that the occasional brightness of the crater Aristarchus could not be
+thus explained. The spot had been seen before the time of Herschel's
+observations by Cassini and others. It has been seen since by Captain
+Kater, Francis Baily, and many others. Dr. Maskelyne tells us that in
+March 1794 it was seen by the naked eye by two persons.
+
+Baily thus describes the appearance presented by this lunar crater on
+December 22, 1835: 'Directed telescope to the moon, and pointing it to
+the dark part in the vicinity of Aristarchus, soon saw the outline of
+that mountain very distinctly, formed like an irregular nebula. Nearly
+in the centre was a light resembling that of a star of the ninth or
+tenth magnitude. It appeared by glimpses, but at times was brilliant,
+and visible for several seconds together.'
+
+There can be little doubt, however, that the apparent brightness of this
+lunar crater, or rather of its summit, is due to some peculiar quality
+in the surface, which may perhaps be covered by some crystalline or
+vitreous matter poured out in the far distant time when the crater was
+an active one. Prof. Shaler, who examined the crater when it was
+illuminated only by earthshine, with the fine 15-inch telescope of the
+Harvard Observatory (Cambridge U.S.), says that he has been able to
+recognise nearly all the craters over 15 miles in diameter in the dark
+part. 'There are several degrees of brightness,' he says, 'observable in
+the different objects which shine out by the earth-light. This fact
+probably explains the greater part of the perplexing statements
+concerning the illumination of certain craters. It certainly accounts
+for the volcanic activity which has so often been supposed to be
+manifested by Aristarchus. Under the illumination by the earth-light
+this is by far the brightest object on the dark part of the moon's face,
+and is visible much longer and with poorer glasses than any other object
+there.'
+
+Here my record of astronomical myths must be brought to a close. It will
+be noticed that in every instance either the illusion has affected the
+actual observations of eminent and skilful astronomers, or has caused
+such astronomers to put faith for a while in illusory observations. Had
+I cared to include the mistakes which have been made by or have misled
+observers of less experience, I could have filled many sheets for each
+page of the present article. But it has seemed to me more instructive
+to show how error may affect the observations even of the most careful
+and deservedly eminent astronomers, how even the most cautious may be
+for a time misled by the mistakes of inferior observers, especially when
+the fact supposed to have been observed accords with preconceived
+opinions.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+_THE ORIGIN OF THE CONSTELLATION-FIGURES._
+
+
+Although the strange figures which astronomers still allow to straggle
+over their star maps no longer have any real scientific interest, they
+still possess a certain charm, not only for the student of astronomy,
+but for many who care little or nothing about astronomy as a science.
+When I was giving a course of twelve lectures in Boston, America, a
+person of considerable culture said to me, 'I wish you would lecture
+about the constellations; I care little about the sun and moon and the
+planets, and not much more about comets; but I have always felt great
+interest in the Bears and Lions, the Chained and Chaired Ladies, King
+Cepheus and the Rescuer Perseus, Orion, Ophiuchus, Hercules, and the
+rest of the mythical and fanciful beings with which the old astronomers
+peopled the heavens. I say with Carlyle, "Why does not some one teach me
+the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are
+always overhead, and which I don't half know to this day."' We may
+notice, too, that the poets by almost unanimous consent have recognised
+the poetical aspect of the constellations, while they have found little
+to say about subjects which belong especially to astronomy as a science.
+Milton has indeed made an Archangel reason (not unskilfully for Milton's
+day) about the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, while Tennyson makes
+frequent reference to astronomical theories. 'There sinks the nebulous
+star we call the Sun, if that hypothesis of theirs be sound,' said Ida;
+but she said no more, save 'let us down and rest,' as though the subject
+were wearisome to her. Again, in the Palace of Art the soul of the poet
+having built herself that 'great house so royal, rich, and wide,'
+thither--
+
+  ... when all the deep unsounded skies
+    Shuddered with silent stars, she clomb,
+  And as with optic glasses her keen eyes
+    Pierced through the mystic dome,
+  Regions of lucid matter taking forms,
+    Brushes of fire, hazy gleams,
+  Clusters and beds of worlds and beelike swarms
+    Of suns, and starry streams:
+  She saw the snowy poles of moonless Mars,
+    That marvellous round of milky light
+  Below Orion, and those double stars
+    Whereof the one more bright
+    Is circled by the other.
+
+But the poet's soul so wearied of these astronomical researches that the
+beautiful lines I have quoted disappeared (more's the pity) from the
+second and all later editions. Such exceptions, indeed, prove the rule.
+Poets have been chary in referring to astronomical researches and
+results, full though these have been of unspeakable poetry; while from
+the days of Homer to those of Tennyson, the constellations which
+'garland the heavens' have always been favourite subjects of poetic
+imagery.
+
+It is not my present purpose, however, to discuss the poetic aspect of
+the constellations. I propose to inquire how these singular figures
+first found their way to the heavens, and, so far as facts are available
+for the purpose, to determine the history and antiquity of some of the
+more celebrated constellations.
+
+Long before astronomy had any existence as a science men watched the
+stars with wonder and reverence. Those orbs, seemingly countless--which
+bespangle the dark robe of night--have a charm and beauty of their own
+apart from the significance with which the science of astronomy has
+invested them. The least fanciful mind is led to recognise on the
+celestial concave the emblems of terrestrial objects, pictured with more
+or less distinctness among the mysterious star-groupings. We can imagine
+that long before the importance of the study of the stars was
+recognised, men had begun to associate with certain star-groups the
+names of familiar objects animate or inanimate. The flocks and herds
+which the earliest observers of the heavens tended would suggest names
+for certain sets of stars, and thus the Bull, the Ram, the Kids, would
+appear in the heavens. Other groups would remind those early observers
+of the animals from whom they had to guard their flocks, or of the
+animals to whose vigilance they trusted for protection, and thus the
+Bear, the Lion, and the Dogs would find their place among the stars. The
+figures of men and horses, and of birds and fishes, would naturally
+enough be recognised, nor would either the implements of husbandry, or
+the weapons by which the huntsman secured his prey, remain unrepresented
+among the star-groupings. And lastly, the altar on which the
+first-fruits of harvest and vintage were presented, or the flesh of
+lambs and goats consumed, would be figured among the innumerable
+combinations which a fanciful eye can recognise among the orbs of
+heaven.
+
+In thus suggesting that the first observers of the heavens were
+shepherds, huntsmen, and husbandmen, I am not advancing a theory on the
+difficult questions connected with the origin of exact astronomy. The
+first observations of the heavens were of necessity made by men who
+depended for their subsistence on a familiarity with the progress and
+vicissitudes of the seasons, and doubtless preceded by many ages the
+study of astronomy as a science. And yet the observations made by those
+early shepherds and hunters, unscientific though they must have been in
+themselves, are full of interest to the student of modern exact
+astronomy. The assertion may seem strange at first sight, but is
+nevertheless strictly true, that if we could but learn with certainty
+the names assigned to certain star-groups, before astronomy had any real
+existence, we could deduce lessons of extreme importance from the rough
+observations which suggested those old names. In these days, when
+observations of such marvellous exactness are daily and nightly made,
+when instruments capable of revealing the actual constitution of the
+stars are employed, and observers are so numerous, it may seem strange
+to attach any interest to the question whether half-savage races
+recognised in such and such a star-group the likeness of a bear, or in
+another group the semblance of a ship. But though we could learn more,
+of course, from exacter observations, yet even such rough and imperfect
+records would have their value. If we could be certain that in long-past
+ages a star-group really resembled some known object, we should have in
+the present resemblance of that group to the same object evidence of the
+general constancy of stellar lustre, or if no resemblance could be
+recognised we should have reason to doubt whether other suns (and
+therefore our own sun) may not be liable to great changes.
+
+The subject of the constellation-figures as first known is interesting
+in other ways. For instance, it is full of interest to the antiquarian
+(and most of us are to some degree antiquarians) as relating to the
+most ancient of all human sciences. The same mental quality which causes
+us to look with interest on the buildings raised in long-past ages, or
+on the implements and weapons of antiquity, renders the thought
+impressive that the stars which we see were gazed on perhaps not less
+wonderingly in the very infancy of the human race. It is, again, a
+subject full of interest to the chronologist to inquire in what era of
+the world's history exact astronomy began, the moon was assigned her
+twenty-eight zodiacal mansions, the sun his twelve zodiacal signs. It is
+well known, indeed, that Newton himself did not disdain to study the
+questions thus suggested; and the speculations of the ingenious Dupuis
+found favour with the great mathematician Laplace.
+
+Unfortunately, the evidence is not sufficiently exact to be very
+trustworthy. In considering, for instance, the chronological inquiries
+of Newton, one cannot but feel that the reliance placed by him on the
+statements made by different writers is not justified by the nature of
+those statements, which were for the most part vague in the extreme. We
+owe many of them to poets who, knowing little of astronomy, mixed up the
+phenomena of their own time with those which they found recorded in the
+writings of astronomers. Some of the statements left by ancient writers
+are indeed ludicrously incongruous; insomuch that Grotius not unjustly
+said of the account of the constellations given by the poet Aratus, that
+it could be assigned to no fixed epoch and to no fixed place. However,
+this would not be the place to discuss details such as are involved in
+exact inquiries. I have indicated some of these in an appendix to my
+treatise on 'Saturn,' and others in the preface to my 'Gnomonic Star
+Atlas'; but for the most part they do not admit very readily of familiar
+description. Let us turn to less technical considerations, which
+fortunately are in this case fully as much to the point as exact
+inquiries, seeing that there is no real foundation for such inquiries in
+any of the available evidence.
+
+The first obvious feature of the old constellations is one which somehow
+has not received the attention it deserves. It is as instructive as any
+of those which have been made the subject of profound research.
+
+There is a great space in the heavens over which none of the old
+constellations extend, except the River Eridanus as now pictured, but we
+do not know where this winding stream of stars was supposed by the old
+observers to come to an end. This great space surrounds the southern
+pole of the heavens, and thus shows that the first observers of the
+stars were not acquainted with the constellations which can be seen only
+from places far south of Chaldaea, Persia, Egypt, India, China, and
+indeed of all the regions to which the invention of astronomy has been
+assigned. Whatever the first astronomers were, however profound their
+knowledge of astronomy may have been (as some imagine), they had
+certainly not travelled far enough towards the south to know the
+constellations around the southern pole. If they had been as well
+acquainted with geography as some assert, if even any astronomer had
+travelled as far south as the equator, we should certainly have had
+pictured in the old star charts some constellations in that region of
+the heavens wherein modern astronomers have placed the Octant, the Bird
+of Paradise, the Sword-fish, the Flying-fish, Toucan, the Net, and other
+uncelestial objects.
+
+In passing I may note that this fact disposes most completely of a
+theory lately advanced that the constellations were invented in the
+southern hemisphere, and that thus is to be explained the ancient
+tradition that the sun and stars have changed their courses. For though
+all the northern constellations would have been more or less visible
+from parts of the southern hemisphere near the equator, it is absurd to
+suppose that a southern observer would leave untenanted a full fourth of
+the heavens round the southern or visible pole, while carefully filling
+up the space around the northern or unseen pole with incomplete
+constellations whose northern unknown portions would include that pole.
+Supposing it for a moment to be true, as a modern advocate of the
+southern theory remarks, that 'one of the race migrating from one side
+to the other of the equator would take his position from the sun, and
+fancy he was facing the same way when he looked at it at noon, and so
+would think the motion of the stars to have altered instead of his
+having turned round,' the theory that astronomy was brought to us from
+south of the equator cannot possibly be admitted in presence of that
+enormous vacant region around the southern pole. I think, however, that,
+apart from this, a race so profoundly ignorant as to suppose any such
+thing, to imagine they were looking north when in reality they were
+looking south, can hardly be regarded as the first founders of the
+science of astronomy.
+
+The great gap I have spoken of has long been recognised. But one
+remarkable feature in its position has not, to the best of my
+remembrance, been considered--the vacant space is eccentric with regard
+to the southern pole of the heavens. The old constellations, the Altar,
+the Centaur, and the ship Argo, extend within twenty degrees of the
+pole, while the Southern Fish and the great sea-monster Cetus, which are
+the southernmost constellations on the other side, do not reach within
+some sixty degrees of the pole.
+
+Of course, in saying that this peculiarity has not been considered, I am
+not suggesting that it has not been noticed, or that its cause is in any
+way doubtful or unknown. We know that the earth, besides whirling once a
+day on its axis, and rushing on its mighty orbit around the sun
+(spanning some 184,000,000 of miles) reels like a gigantic top, with a
+motion so slow that 25,868 years are required for a single circuit of
+the swaying axis around an imaginary line upright to the plane in which
+the earth travels. And we know that in consequence of this reeling
+motion the points of the heavens opposite the earth's poles necessarily
+change. So that the southern pole, now eccentrically placed amid the
+region where there were no constellations in old times, was once
+differently situated. But the circumstance which seems to have been
+overlooked is this, that by calculating backwards to the time when the
+southern pole was in the centre of that vacant region, we have a much
+better chance of finding the date (let us rather say the century) when
+the older constellations were formed, than by any other process. We may
+be sure not to be led very far astray; for we are not guided by one
+constellation but by several, whereas all the other indications which
+have been followed depend on the supposed ancient position of single
+constellations. And then most of the other indications are such as might
+very well have belonged to periods following long after the invention of
+the constellations themselves. An astronomer might have ascertained, for
+instance, that the sun in spring was in some particular part of the Ram
+or of the Fishes, and later a poet like Aratus might describe that
+relation (erroneously for his own epoch) as characteristic of one or
+other constellation; but who is to assure us that the astronomer who
+noted the relation correctly may not have made his observation many
+hundreds of years after those constellations were invented? Whereas,
+there was one period, and only one period, when the most southernmost of
+the old constellations could have marked the limits of the region of sky
+visible from some northern region. Thus, too, may we form some idea of
+the latitude in which the first observers lived. For in high latitudes
+the southernmost of the old constellations would not have been visible
+at all, and in latitudes much lower than a certain latitude, presently
+to be noted, these constellations would have ridden high above the
+southern horizon, other star-groups showing below them which were not
+included among the old constellations.
+
+I have before me as I write a picture of the southern heavens, drawn by
+myself, in which this vacant space--eccentric in position but circular
+in shape--is shown. The centre lies close by the Lesser Magellanic
+cloud--between the stars Kappa Toucani and Eta Hydri of our modern maps,
+but much nearer to the last named. Near this spot, then, we may be sure,
+lay the southern pole of the star-sphere when the old constellations, or
+at least the southern ones, were invented. (If there had been
+astronomers in the southern hemisphere Eta Hydri would certainly have
+been their pole-star.)
+
+Now it is a matter of no difficulty whatever to determine the epoch when
+the southern pole of the heavens was thus placed.[57] Between 2100 and
+2200 years before the Christian era the southern constellations had the
+position described, the invisible southern pole lying at the centre of
+the vacant space of the star-sphere--or rather of the space free from
+constellations. It is noteworthy that for other reasons this period, or
+rather a definite epoch within it, is indicated as that to which must be
+referred the beginning of exact astronomy. Amongst others must be
+mentioned this--that in the year 2170 B.C. _quam proxime_, the Pleiades
+rose to their highest above the horizon at noon (or technically made
+their noon culmination), at the spring equinox. We can readily
+understand that to minds possessed with full faith in the influence of
+the stars on the earth, this fact would have great significance. The
+changes which are brought about at that season of the year, in reality,
+of course, because of the gradual increase in the effect of the sun's
+rays as he rises higher and higher above the celestial equator, would be
+attributed, in part at least, to the remarkable star-cluster coming then
+close by the sun on the heavens, though unseen. Thus we can readily
+understand the reference in Job to the 'sweet influences of the
+Pleiades.' Again at that same time, 2170 B.C. when the sun and the
+Pleiades opened the year (with commencing spring) together, the star
+Alpha of the Dragon, which was the pole-star of the period, had that
+precise position with respect to the true pole of the heavens which is
+indicated by the slope of the long passage extending downwards aslant
+from the northern face of the Great Pyramid; that is to say, when due
+north below the pole (or at what is technically called its sub-polar
+meridional passage) the pole-star of the period shone directly down that
+long passage, and I doubt not could be seen not only when it came to
+that position during the night, but also when it came there during the
+day-time.
+
+But some other singular relations are to be noted in connection with the
+particular epoch I have indicated.
+
+It is tolerably clear that in imagining figures of certain objects in
+the heavens, the early observers would not be apt to picture these
+objects in unusual positions. A group of stars may form a figure so
+closely resembling that of a familiar object that even a wrong position
+would not prevent the resemblance from being noticed, as for instance
+the 'Chair,' the 'Plough,' and so forth. But such cases are not
+numerous; indeed, to say the truth, one must 'make believe a good deal'
+to see resemblance between the star-groups and _most_ of the
+constellation-figures, even under the most favourable conditions. When
+there is no very close resemblance, as is the case with all the large
+constellations, position must have counted for something in determining
+the association between a star-group and a known object.
+
+Now the constellations north of the equator assume so many and such
+various positions that this special consideration does not apply very
+forcibly to them. But those south of the equator are only seen above the
+southern horizon, and change little in position during their progress
+from east to west of the south point. The lower down they are the less
+they change in position. And the very lowest--such as those were, for
+instance, which I have been considering in determining the position of
+the southern pole--are only fully visible when due south. They must,
+then, in all probability, have stood upright or in their natural
+position when so placed, for if they were not rightly placed then they
+only were so when below the horizon and consequently invisible.
+
+Let us, then, inquire what was the position of the southernmost
+constellations when fully seen above the southern horizon at midnight.
+
+The Centaur stood then as he does now, upright; only--whereas now in
+Egypt, Chaldaea, India, Persia, and China, only the upper portions of his
+figure rise above the horizon, he then stood, the noblest save Orion of
+all the constellations, with his feet (marked by the bright Alpha and
+Beta still belonging to the constellation, and by the stars of the
+Southern Cross which have been taken from it) upon the horizon itself.
+In latitude twenty degrees or so north he may still be seen thus placed
+when due south.
+
+The Centaur was represented in old times as placing an offering upon the
+altar, which was pictured, says Manilius, as bearing a fire of incense
+represented by stars. This to a student of our modern charts seems
+altogether perplexing. The Centaur carries the wolf on the end of his
+spear; but instead of placing the wolf (not a very acceptable meat
+offering, one would suppose) upon the altar, he is directing this animal
+towards the base of the altar, whose top is downwards, the flames
+represented there tending (naturally) downwards also. It is quite
+certain the ancient observers did not imagine anything of this sort. As
+I have said, Aratus tells us the celestial Centaur was placing an
+offering _upon_ the altar, which was therefore upright, and Manilius
+describes the altar as
+
+  Ferens thuris, stellis imitantibus, ignem,
+
+so that the fire was where it should be, on the top of an upright altar,
+where also on the sky itself were stars looking like the smoke from
+incense fires. Now that was precisely the appearance presented by the
+stars forming the constellation at the time I have indicated, some 2170
+years B.C. Setting the altar upright above the southern horizon (that
+is, inverting the absurd picture at present given of it) we see it just
+where it should be placed to receive the Centaur's offering. A most
+remarkable portion of the Milky Way is then seen to be directly above
+the altar in such a way as to form a very good imitation of smoke
+ascending from it. This part of the Milky Way is described by Sir J.
+Herschel, who studied it carefully during his stay at the Cape of Good
+Hope, as forming a complicated system of interlaced streaks and masses
+which covers the tail of Scorpio (extending from the altar which lies
+immediately south of the Scorpion's Tail). The Milky Way divides, in
+fact, just above the altar as the constellation was seen 4000 years ago
+above the southern horizon, one branch being that just described, the
+other (like another stream of smoke) 'passing,' says Herschel, 'over
+the stars Iota of the Altar, Theta and Iota of the Scorpion, etc., to
+Gamma of the Archer, where it suddenly collects into a vivid oval mass,
+so very rich in stars that a very moderate calculation makes their
+number exceed 100,000.' Nothing could accord better with the
+descriptions of Aratus and Manilius.
+
+But there is another constellation which shows in a more marked way than
+either the Centaur or the Altar that the date when the constellations
+were invented must have been near that which I have named. Both Ara and
+Centaurus look now in suitable latitudes (about twenty degrees north) as
+they looked in higher latitudes (about forty degrees north) 4000 years
+ago. For, the reeling motion of our earth has changed the place of the
+celestial pole in such a way as only to depress these constellations
+southwards without much changing their _position_; they are nearly
+upright when due south now as they were 4000 years ago, only lower down.
+But the great ship Argo has suffered a much more serious displacement.
+One cannot now see this ship _like_ a ship at any time or from any place
+on the earth's surface. If we travel south till the whole constellation
+comes into visibility above the southern horizon at the proper season
+(January and February for the midnight hours) the keel of the ship is
+aslant, the stern being high above the waist (the fore part is wanting).
+If we travel still further south, we can indeed reach places where the
+course of the ship is so widened, and the changes of position so
+increased, that she appears along part of her journey on an even keel,
+but then she is high above the horizon. Now 4000 years ago she stood on
+the horizon itself at her southern culmination, with level keel and
+upright mast.
+
+In passing I may note that for my own part I imagine that this great
+ship represented the Ark, its fore part being originally the portion of
+the Centaur now forming the horse, so that the Centaur was represented
+as a man (not as a man-horse) offering a gift on the Altar. Thus in this
+group of constellations I recognise the Ark, and Noah going up from the
+Ark towards the altar 'which he builded unto the Lord; and took of every
+clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the
+altar.' I consider further that the constellation-figures of the Ship,
+the Man with an offering, and the Altar, painted or sculptured in some
+ancient astrological temple, came at a later time to be understood as
+picturing a certain series of events, interpreted and expanded by a
+poetical writer into a complete narrative. Without venturing to insist
+on so heterodox a notion, I may remark as an odd coincidence that
+probably such a picture or sculpture would have shown the smoke
+ascending from the Altar which I have already described, and in this
+smoke there would be shown the bow of Sagittarius; which, interpreted
+and expanded in the way I have mentioned, might have accounted for the
+'bow set in the clouds, for a token of a covenant.' It is noteworthy
+that all the remaining constellations forming the southern limit of the
+old star-domes or charts, were watery ones--the Southern Fish, over
+which Aquarius is pouring a quite unnecessary stream of water, the Great
+Sea Monster towards which in turn flow the streams of the River
+Eridanus. The equator, too, was then occupied along a great part of its
+length by the great sea serpent Hydra, which reared its head above the
+equator, very probably indicated then by a water horizon, for nearly all
+the signs below it were then watery. At any rate, as the length of Hydra
+then lay horizontally above the Ship, whose masts reached it, we may
+well believe that this part of the picture of the heavens showed a
+sea-horizon and a ship, the great sea serpent lying along the horizon.
+On the back of Hydra is the Raven, which again may be supposed by those
+who accept the theory mentioned above to have suggested the raven which
+went forth to and fro from the ark. He is close enough to the rigging of
+Argo to make an easy journey of it. The dove, however, must not be
+confounded with the modern constellation Columba, though this is placed
+(suitably enough) near the Ark. We must suppose the idea of the dove was
+suggested by a bird pictured in the rigging of the celestial ship. The
+sequence in which the constellations came above the horizon as the year
+went round corresponded very satisfactorily with the theory, fanciful
+though this seem to some. First Aquarius pouring streams of water, the
+three fishes (Pisces and Piscis australis), and the great sea monster
+Cetus, showing how the waters prevailed over the highest hills, then the
+Ark sailing on the waters, a little later the Raven (Corvus), the man
+descending from the ark and offering a gift on the Altar, and last the
+Bow set amid the clouds.
+
+The theory just described may not meet with much favour. But wilder
+theories of the story of the deluge have been adopted and advocated with
+considerable confidence. One of the wildest, I fear, is the
+Astronomer-Royal's, that the deluge was simply a great rising of the
+Nile; and Sir G. Airy is so confident respecting this that he says, 'I
+cannot entertain the smallest doubt that the flood of Noah was a flood
+of the Nile;' precisely as he might say, 'I cannot entertain the
+smallest doubt that the earth moves round the sun.' On one point we can
+entertain very little doubt indeed. If it ever rained before the flood,
+which seems probable, and if the sun ever shone on falling rain, which
+again seems likely, nothing short of a miracle could have prevented the
+rainbow from making its appearance before the flood. The wildest theory
+that can be invented to explain the story of the deluge cannot be
+wilder than the supposition that the rays of sunlight shining on falling
+raindrops could have ever failed to show the prismatic colours. The
+theory I have suggested above, without going so far as strongly to
+advocate it, far less insist upon it, is free at any rate from objection
+on this particular score, which cannot be said of the ordinary theory. I
+am not yet able, however, to say that 'I cannot entertain the smallest
+doubt' about my theory.
+
+We may feel tolerably sure that the period when the old southern
+constellations were formed must have been between 2400 and 2000 years
+before the present era, a period, by the way, including the date usually
+assigned to the deluge,--which, however, must really occupy our
+attention no further. In fact, let us leave the watery constellations
+lying below the equator of those remote times and seek at once the
+highest heavens above them.
+
+Here, at the northern pole of these days, we find the great Dragon,
+which in any astrological temple of the time must have formed the
+highest or crowning constellation, surrounding the very key-stone of the
+dome. He has fallen away from that proud position since. In fact, even
+4000 years ago he only held to the pole, so to speak, by his tail, and
+we have to travel back 2000 years or so to find the pole situate in a
+portion of the length of the Dragon which can be regarded as central.
+One might almost, if fancifully disposed, recognise the gradual
+displacement of the Dragon from his old place of honour, in certain
+traditions of the downfall of the great Dragon whose 'tail drew the
+third part of the stars of heaven.'
+
+The central position of the Dragon, for even when the pole-star had
+drawn near to the Dragon's tail the constellation was still central,
+will remind the classical reader of Homer's description of the Shield of
+Hercules--
+
+  The scaly horror of a dragon, coil'd
+  Full in the central field, unspeakable,
+  With eyes oblique retorted, that ascant
+  Shot gleaming fire. (_Elton's translation._)
+
+I say Homer's description, for I cannot understand how any one who
+compares together the description of the Shield of Achilles in the Iliad
+and that of the Shield of Hercules in the fragmentary form in which we
+have it, can doubt for a moment that both descriptions came from the
+same hand. (The theory that Hesiod composed the latter poem can scarcely
+be entertained by any scholar.) As I long since pointed out in my essay
+'A New Theory of Achilles' Shield' ('Light Science,' first series), no
+poet so inferior as actually to borrow Homer's words in part of the
+description of the Shield of Hercules could have written the other parts
+not found in the Shield of Achilles. 'I cannot for my own part entertain
+the slightest doubt'--that is to say, I think it altogether
+probable--that Homer composed the lines supposed to describe the Shield
+of Hercules long before he introduced the description, pruned and
+strengthened, into that particular part of the Iliad where it served his
+purpose best. And I have as little doubt that the original description,
+of which we only get fragments in either poem, related to something far
+more important than a shield. The constellations are not suitable
+adornments for the shield of fighting man, even though he was under the
+special care of a celestial mother and had armour made for him by a
+celestial smith. Yet we learn that Achilles' shield displayed--
+
+  The starry lights that heav'n's high convex crown'd
+  The Pleiads, Hyads, and the northern beam,
+  And great Orion's more refulgent beam,--
+  To which, around the cycle of the sky,
+  The bear revolving, points his golden eye,--
+  Still shines exalted.
+
+And so forth. The Shield of Hercules displayed at its centre the polar
+constellation the Dragon. We read also that--
+
+  There was the knight of fair-hair'd Danae born,
+  Perseus.
+
+Orion is not specially mentioned, but Orion, Lepus, and the Dogs seem
+referred to:--
+
+                                  Men of chase
+  Were taking the fleet hares; two keen-toothed dogs
+  Bounded beside.
+
+Homer would find no difficulty in pluralising the mighty Hunter and the
+hare into huntsmen and hares when utilising a description originally
+referring to the constellation.
+
+I conceive that the original description related to one of those zodiac
+temples whose remains are still found in Egypt, though the Egyptian
+temples of this kind were probably only copies of more ancient Chaldaean
+temples. We know from Assyrian sculptures that representations of the
+constellations (and especially the zodiacal constellations) were common
+among the Babylonians; and, as I point out in the essay above referred
+to, 'it seems probable that in a country where Sabaeanism or star-worship
+was the prevailing form of religion, yet more imposing proportions would
+be given to zodiac temples than in Egypt.' My theory, then, respecting
+the two famous 'Shields' is that Homer in his eastern travels visited
+imposing temples devoted to astronomical observation and star-worship,
+and that nearly every line in both descriptions is borrowed from a poem
+in which he described a temple of this sort, its domed zodiac, and those
+illustrations of the labours of different seasons and of military or
+judicial procedures which the astrological proclivities of
+star-worshippers led them to associate with the different
+constellations. For the arguments on which this theory is based I have
+not here space. They are dealt with in the essay from which I have
+quoted.
+
+One point only I need touch upon here, besides those I have mentioned
+already. It may be objected that the description of a zodiac temple has
+nothing to connect it with the subject of the Iliad. This is certainly
+true; but no one who is familiar with Homer's manner can doubt that he
+would work in, if he saw the opportunity, a poem on some subject outside
+that of the Iliad, so modifying the language that the description would
+correspond with the subject in hand. There are many passages, though
+none of such length, in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, which seem thus
+to have been brought into the poem; and other passages not exactly of
+this kind yet show that Homer was not insensible to the advantage of
+occasionally using memory instead of invention.
+
+Any one who considers attentively the aspect of the constellation Draco
+in the heavens, will perceive that the drawing of the head in the maps
+is not correct; the head is no longer pictured as it must have been
+conceived by those who first formed the constellation. The two bright
+stars Beta and Gamma are now placed on a head in profile. Formerly they
+marked the two eyes. I would not lay stress on the description of the
+Dragon in the Shield of Hercules, 'with eyes oblique retorted, that
+askant shot gleaming fire;' for all readers may not be prepared to
+accept my opinion that that description related to the constellation
+Draco. But the description of the constellation itself by Aratus
+suffices to show that the two bright stars I have named marked the eyes
+of the imagined monster--in fact, Aratus's account singularly resembles
+that given in the Shield of Hercules. 'Swol'n is his neck,' says Aratus
+of the Dragon--
+
+          ... Eyes charg'd with sparkling fire
+  His crested head illume. As if in ire,
+  To Helice he turns his foaming jaw,
+  And darts his tongue, barb'd with a blazing star.
+
+And the dragon's head with sparkling eyes can be recognised to this day,
+so soon as this change is made in its configuration, whereas no one can
+recognise the remotest resemblance to a dragon's head in profile. The
+star barbing the Dragon's tongue would be Xi of the Dragon according to
+Aratus's account, for so only would the eyes be turned towards Helice
+the Bear. But when Aratus wrote, the practice of separating the
+constellations from each other had been adopted; in fact, he derived his
+knowledge of them chiefly from Eudoxus, the astronomer and
+mathematician, who certainly would not have allowed the constellations
+to be intermixed. In the beginning, there are reasons for believing it
+was different, and if a group of stars resembled any known object it
+would be called after that object, even though some of the stars
+necessary to make up the figure belonged already to some other figure.
+This being remembered, we can have no difficulty in retorting the
+Dragon's head more naturally--not to the star Xi of the Dragon, but to
+the star Iota of Hercules. The four stars are situated thus,
+[Illustration] the larger ones representing the eyes; and so far as the
+head is concerned it is a matter of indifference whether the lower or
+the upper small star be taken to represent the tongue. But, as any one
+will see who looks at these stars when the Dragon is best placed for
+ordinary (non-telescopic) observation, the attitude of the animal is far
+more natural when the star Iota of Hercules marks the tongue, for then
+the creature is situated like a winged serpent hovering above the
+horizon and looking downwards, whereas when the star Xi marks the
+tongue, the hovering Dragon is looking upwards and is in an unnaturally
+constrained position. (I would not, indeed, claim to understand
+perfectly all the ways of dragons; still it may be assumed that a dragon
+hovering above the horizon would rather look downwards in a natural
+position than upwards in an awkward one.)
+
+The star Iota of Hercules marks the heel of this giant, called the
+Kneeler (Engonasin) from time immemorial. He must have been an important
+figure on the old zodiac temples, and not improbably his presence there
+as one of the largest and highest of the human figures may have caused a
+zodiac-dome to be named after Hercules. The Dome of Hercules would come
+near enough to the title, 'The Shield of Hercules,' borne by the
+fragmentary poem dealt with above. The foot of the kneeling man was
+represented on the head of the dragon, the dragon having hold of the
+heel. And here, again, some imagine that a sculptured representation of
+these imagined figures in the heavens may have been interpreted and
+expanded into the narrative of a contest between the man and the old
+serpent the dragon, Ophiuchus the serpent-bearer being supposed to
+typify the eventual defeat of the dragon. This fancy might be followed
+out like that relating to the deluge; but the present place would be
+unsuitable for further inquiries in that particular direction.
+
+Some interest attaches to the constellation Ophiuchus, to my mind, in
+the evidence it affords respecting the way in which the constellations
+were at first intermixed. I have mentioned one instance in which, as I
+think, the later astronomers separated two constellations which had once
+been conjoined. Many others can be recognised when we compare the actual
+star-groups with the constellation-figures as at present depicted. No
+one can recognise the poop of a ship in the group of stars now assigned
+to the stern of Argo, but if we include the stars of the Greater Dog,
+and others close by, a well-shaped poop can be clearly seen. The head
+of the Lion of our maps is as the head of a dog, so far as stars are
+concerned; but if stars from the Crab on one side and from Virgo on the
+other be included in the figure, and especially Berenice's hair to form
+the tuft of the lion's tail, a very fine lion with waving mane can be
+discerned, with a slight effort of the imagination. So with Bootes the
+herdsman. He was of old 'a fine figure of a man,' waving aloft his arms,
+and, as his name implies, shouting lustily at the retreating bear. Now,
+and from some time certainly preceding that of Eudoxus, one arm has been
+lopped off to fashion the northern crown, and the herdsman holds his
+club as close to his side as a soldier holds his shouldered musket. The
+constellation of the Great Bear, once I conceive the only bear (though
+the lesser bear is a very old constellation), has suffered wofully.
+Originally it must have been a much larger bear, the stars now forming
+the tail marking part of the outline of the back; but first some folks
+who were unacquainted with the nature of bears turned the three stars
+(the horses of the plough) into a long tail, abstracting from the animal
+all the corresponding portion of his body, and then modern astronomers
+finding a great vacant space where formerly the bear's large frame
+extended, incontinently formed the stars of this space into a new
+constellation, the Hunting Dogs. No one can recognise a bear in the
+constellation as at present shaped, but any one who looks attentively at
+the part of the skies occupied by the constellation will recognise
+(always 'making believe a good deal') a monstrous bear, with the proper
+small head of creatures of the bear family, and with exceedingly
+well-developed plantigrade feet. Of course this figure cannot at all
+times be recognised with equal facility; but before midnight during the
+last four or five months in the year, the bear occupies positions
+favouring his recognition, being either upright on his feet, or as if
+descending a slope, or squatting on his great haunches. As a long-tailed
+animal the creature is more like one of those wooden toy-monkeys which
+used to be made for children, and may be now, in which the sliding
+motion of a ringed rod carried the monkey over the top of a stick. The
+little bear has I think been borrowed from the dragon, which was
+certainly a winged monster originally.
+
+Now the astronomers who separated from each other, and in so doing
+spoiled the old constellation-figures, seem to have despaired of freeing
+Ophiuchus from his entanglements. The Serpent is twined around his body,
+the Scorpion is clawing at one leg. The constellation makers have _per
+fas et nefas_ separated Scorpio from the Serpent Holder, spoiling both
+figures. But the Serpent has been too much for them, insomuch that they
+have been reduced to the abject necessity of leaving one part of the
+Serpent on one side of the region they allow to Ophiuchus, and the other
+part of the Serpent to the other.
+
+A group of constellations whose origin and meaning are little understood
+remains to be mentioned. Close by the Dragon is King Cepheus, beside him
+his wife Cassiopeia (the Seated Lady), near whom is Andromeda the
+Chained Lady. The Sea Monster Cetus is not far away, though not near
+enough to threaten her safety, the Ram and Triangle being between the
+monster's head and her feet, the Fishes intervening between the body of
+the monster and her fair form. Close at hand is Perseus, the Rescuer,
+with a sword (looking very much like a reaping-hook in all the old
+pictures) in his right hand, and bearing in his left the head of Medusa.
+The general way of accounting for the figures thus associated has been
+by supposing that, having a certain tradition about Cepheus and his
+family, men imagined in the heavens the pictorial representation of the
+events of the tradition. I have long believed that the actual order in
+this and other cases was the reverse of this, that men imagined certain
+figures in the heavens, pictured these figures in their astronomical
+temples or observatories, and made stories to fit the pictures
+afterwards, probably many generations afterwards. Be this as it may, we
+can at present give no satisfactory explanation of the group of
+constellations.
+
+Wilford gives an account, in his 'Asiatic Researches,' of a conversation
+with a pundit or astronomer respecting the names of the Indian
+constellations. 'Asking him,' he says, 'to show me in the heavens the
+constellation Antarmada, he immediately pointed to Andromeda, though I
+had not given him any information about it beforehand. He afterwards
+brought me a very rare and curious work in Sanscrit, which contained a
+chapter devoted to _Upanachatras_, or extra-zodiacal constellations,
+with drawings of _Capuja_ (Cepheus) and of _Casyapi_ (Cassiopeia) seated
+and holding a lotus-flower in her hand, of Antarmada charmed with the
+Fish beside her, and last of _Paraseia_ (Perseus), who, according to the
+explanation of the book, held the head of a monster which he had slain
+in combat; blood was dropping from it, and for hair it had snakes.' Some
+have inferred from the circumstance that the Indian charts thus showed
+the Cassiopeian set of constellations, that the origin of these figures
+is to be sought in India. But probably both the Indian and the Greek
+constellation-figures were derived from a much older source.
+
+The zodiacal twelve are in some respects the most important and
+interesting of all the ancient constellations. If we could determine the
+origin of these figures, their exact configuration as at first devised,
+and the precise influences assigned to them in the old astrological
+systems, we should have obtained important evidence as to the origin of
+astronomy itself. Not indeed that the twelve signs of the zodiac were
+formed at the beginning or even in the early infancy of astronomy. It
+seems abundantly clear that the division of the zodiac (which includes
+the moon's track as well as the sun's) had reference originally to the
+moon's motions. She circuits the star-sphere in about twenty-seven days
+and a third, while the lunation or interval from new moon to new moon
+is, as we all know, about twenty-nine days and a half in length. It
+would appear that the earliest astronomers, who were of course
+astrologers also, of all nations--the Indian, Egyptian, Chinese,
+Persian, and Chaldaean astronomers--adopted twenty-eight days (probably
+as a rough mean between the two periods just named) for their chief
+lunar period, and divided the moon's track round the ecliptic into
+twenty-eight portions or mansions. How they managed about the fractions
+of days outstanding--whether the common lunation was considered or the
+moon's motion round the star-sphere--is not known. The very
+circumstance, however, that they were for a long time content with their
+twenty-eight lunar mansions shows that they did not seek great precision
+at first. Doubtless they employed some rough system of 'leap-months' by
+which, as occasion required, the progress of the month was reconciled
+with the progress of the moon, just as by our leap-years the progress of
+the year is reconciled with the progress of the sun or seasons.
+
+The use of the twenty-eight-day period naturally suggested the division
+of time into weeks of seven days each. The ordinary lunar month is
+divided in a very obvious manner into four equal parts by the lunar
+aspects. Every one can recognise roughly the time of full moon and the
+times of half moon before and after full, while the time of new moon is
+recognised from these two last epochs. Thus the four quarters of the
+month, or roughly the four weeks of the month, would be the first
+time-measure thought of;--after the day, which is the necessary
+foundation of all time measures. The nearest approach which can be made
+to a quarter-month in days is the week of seven days; and although some
+little awkwardness arose from the fact that four weeks differ
+appreciably from a lunar month, this would not long prevent the adoption
+of the week as a measure of time. In fact, just as our years begin on
+different days of the week without causing any inconvenience, so the
+ancient months might be made to begin with different week-days. All that
+would be necessary to make the week measure fairly well the quarters of
+the month, would be to start each month on the proper or nearest
+week-day. To inform people about this, some ceremony could be appointed
+for the day of the new moon, and some signal employed to indicate the
+time when this ceremony was to take place. This--the natural and obvious
+course--we find was the means actually adopted, the festival of the new
+moon and the blowing of trumpets in the new moon being an essential part
+of the arrangements adopted by nations who used the week as a chief
+measure of time. The seven days were not affected by the new moons so
+far as the nomenclature of these days, or special duties connected with
+any one of them, might be concerned.
+
+Originally the idea may have been to have festivals and sacrifices at
+the time of new moon, first quarter, full moon, and third quarter; but
+this arrangement would naturally (and did, as we know, actually) give
+way before long to a new moon festival regulating the month and
+seventh-day festivals, each class of festival having its appropriate
+sacrifices and duties. This, I say, was the natural course. Its adoption
+_may_ have been aided by the recognition of the fact that the seven
+planets of the old system of astronomy might conveniently be taken to
+rule the days and the hours in the way described in the essay on
+astrology. That that nomenclature and that system of association between
+the planets and the hours, days, and weeks of time-measurement was
+eventually adopted, is certain; but whether the convenience and apparent
+mystical fitness of this arrangement led to the use of weekly festivals
+in conjunction with monthly ones, or whether those weekly festivals were
+first adopted in the way described above, or whether (which seems
+altogether more likely) both sets of considerations led to the
+arrangement, we cannot certainly tell. The arrangement was in every way
+a natural one; and one may say, considering all the circumstances, that
+it was almost an inevitable one.
+
+There was, however, another possible arrangement, viz., the division of
+time into ten-day periods, three to each month, with corresponding new
+moon festivals. But as the arrival of the moon at the _thirds_ of her
+progress are not at all so well marked as her arrival at the quarters,
+and as there is no connection between the number ten and the planets,
+this arrangement was far less likely to be adopted than the other.
+Accordingly we find that only one or two nations adopted it. Six sets of
+five days would be practically the same arrangement; five sets of six
+for each month would scarcely be thought of, as with that division the
+use of simple direct observations of the moon for time measurement,
+which was the real aim of all such divisions, would not be convenient or
+indeed even possible for the generality of persons. Few could tell
+easily when the moon is two-fifths or four-fifths full, whereas every
+one can tell when she is half-full or quite full (the requisite for
+weekly measurement); and it would be possible to guess pretty nearly
+when she is one-third or two-thirds full, the requisite for the
+tridecennial division.
+
+My object in the above discussion of the origin of the week (as
+distinguished from the origin of the Sabbath, which I considered in the
+essay on astrology), has been to show that the use of the twelve
+zodiacal signs was in every case preceded by the use of the twenty-eight
+lunar mansions. It has been supposed that those nations in whose
+astronomy the twenty-eight mansions still appear, adopted one system,
+while the use of the twelve signs implies that another system had been
+adopted. Thus the following passage occurs in Mr. Blake's version of
+Flammarion's 'History of the Heavens:'--'the Chinese have twenty-eight
+constellations, though the word _sion_ does not mean a group of stars,
+but simply a mansion or hotel. In the Coptic and ancient Egyptian the
+word for constellations has the same meaning. They also have
+twenty-eight, and the same number is found among the Arabians, Persians,
+and Indians. Among the Chaldaeans or Accadians we find no sign of the
+number twenty-eight. The ecliptic, or "yoke of the sky," with them, as
+we see in the newly-discovered tablet, was divided into twelve
+divisions, as now, and the only connection that can be imagined between
+this and the twenty-eight is the opinion of M. Biot, who thinks that the
+Chinese had originally only twenty-four mansions, four more being added
+by Chenkung, 1100 B.C., and that they corresponded with the twenty-four
+stars, twelve to the north and twelve to the south, that marked the
+twelve signs of the zodiac amongst the Chaldaeans. But under this
+supposition the twenty-eight has no reference to the moon, whereas we
+have every reason to believe it has.' The last observation is
+undoubtedly correct--the twenty-eight mansions have been mansions of the
+moon from the beginning. But in this very circumstance, as also in the
+very tablets referred to in the preceding passage, we find all the
+evidence needed to show that originally the Chaldaeans divided the
+zodiac into twenty-eight parts. For we find from the tablets that, like
+the other nations who had twenty-eight zodiacal mansions, the Chaldaeans
+used a seven-day period, derived from the moon's motions, every seventh
+day being called _sabbatu_, and held as a day of rest. We may safely
+infer that the Chaldaean astronomers, advancing beyond those of other
+nations, recognised the necessity of dividing the zodiac with reference
+to the sun's motions instead of the moon's. They therefore discarded the
+twenty-eight lunar mansions, and adopted instead twelve solar signs;
+this number twelve, like the number twenty-eight itself, being selected
+merely as the most convenient approximation to the number of parts into
+which the zodiac was naturally divided by another period. Thus the
+twenty-eighth part of the zodiac corresponds roughly with the moon's
+daily motion, and the twelfth part of the zodiac corresponds roughly
+with the moon's monthly motion; and both the numbers twenty-eight and
+twelve admit of being subdivided, while twenty-nine (a nearer approach
+than twenty-eight to the number of days in a lunation) and thirteen
+(almost as near an approach as twelve to the number of months in a year)
+do not.
+
+It seems to me highly probable that the date to which all inquiries into
+the origin of the constellations and the zodiacal signs seems to
+point--viz. 2170 B.C.--was the date at which the Chaldaean astronomers
+definitely adopted the new system, the lunisolar instead of lunar
+division of the zodiac and of time. One of the objects which the
+architects of the Great Pyramid (not the king who built it) may have had
+was not improbably this--the erection of a building indicating the epoch
+when the new system was entered upon, and defining in its proportions,
+its interior passages, and other features, fundamental elements of the
+new system. The great difficulty, an overwhelming difficulty it has
+always seemed to me, in accepting the belief that the year 2170 B.C.
+defined the beginning of exact astronomy, has been this, that several of
+the circumstances insisted upon as determining that date imply a
+considerable knowledge of astronomy. Thus astronomers must have made
+great progress in their science before they could select as a day for
+counting from, the epoch when the slow reeling motion of the earth (the
+so-called precessional motion) brought the Pleiades centrally south, at
+noon, at the time of the vernal equinox. The construction of the Great
+Pyramid, again, in all its astronomical features, implies considerable
+proficiency in astronomical observation. Thus the year 2170 B.C. may
+very well be regarded as defining the introduction of a new system of
+astronomy, but certainly not the beginning of astronomy itself. Of
+course we may cut the knot of this difficulty, as Prof. Smyth and Abbe
+Moigno do, by saying that astronomy began 2170 B.C., the first
+astronomers being instructed supernaturally, so that the astronomical
+Minerva came into full-grown being. But I apprehend that argument
+against such a belief is as unnecessary as it would certainly be
+useless.
+
+And now let us consider how this theory accords with the result to which
+we were led by the position of the great vacant space around the
+southern pole. So far as the date is concerned, we have already seen
+that the epoch 2170 B.C. accords excellently with the evidence of the
+vacant space. But this evidence, as I mentioned at the outset,
+establishes more than the date; it indicates the latitude of the place
+where the most ancient of Ptolemy's forty-eight constellations were
+first definitely adopted by astronomers. If we assume that at this place
+the southernmost constellations were just fully seen when due south, we
+find for the latitude about thirty-eight degrees north. (The student of
+astronomy who may care to test my results may be reminded here that it
+is not enough to show that every star of a constellation would when due
+south be above the horizon of the place--what is wanted is, that the
+whole constellation when towards the south should be visible at a single
+view. However, the whole constellation may not have included all the
+stars now belonging to it.) The station of the astronomers who founded
+the new system can scarcely have been more than a degree or two north of
+this latitude. On the other side, we may go a little further, for by so
+doing we only raise the constellations somewhat higher above the
+southern horizon, to which there is less objection than to a change
+thrusting part of the constellations below the horizon. Still it may be
+doubted whether the place where the constellations were first formed was
+less than 32 or 33 degrees north of the equator. The Great Pyramid, as
+we know, is about 30 degrees north of the equator; but we also know that
+its architects travelled southwards to find a suitable place for it. One
+of their objects may well have been to obtain a fuller view of the
+star-sphere south of their constellations. I think from 35 to 39 degrees
+north would be about the most probable limits, and from 32 to 41 degrees
+north the certain limits of the station of the first founders of solar
+zodiacal astronomy.
+
+What their actual station may have been is not so easily established.
+Some think the region lay between the sources of the Oxus (Amoor) and
+Indus, others that the station of these astronomers was not very far
+from Mount Ararat--a view to which I was led long ago by other
+considerations discussed in the first appendix to my treatise on 'Saturn
+and its System.'
+
+At the epoch indicated, the first constellation of the zodiac was not,
+as now, the Fishes, nor, as when a fresh departure was made by
+Hipparchus, the Ram, but the Bull, a trace of which is found in Virgil's
+words--
+
+  Candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum Taurus.
+
+The Bull then was the spring sign, the Pleiades and ruddy Aldebaran
+joining their rays with the sun's at the time of the vernal equinox. The
+midsummer sign was the Lion (the bright Cor Leonis nearly marking the
+sun's highest place). The autumn sign was the Scorpion, the ruddy
+Antares and the stars clustering in the head of the Scorpion joining
+their rays with the sun's at the time of the autumnal equinox. And
+lastly the winter sign was the Water Bearer, the bright Fomalhaut
+conjoining his rays with the sun's at midwinter. It is noteworthy that
+all these four constellations really present some resemblance to the
+objects after which they are named. The Scorpion is in the best drawing,
+but the Bull's head is well marked, and, as already mentioned, a leaping
+lion can be recognised. The streams of stars from the Urn of Aquarius
+and the Urn itself are much better defined than the Urn Bearer.
+
+I have not left myself much space to speak of the finest of all the
+constellations, the glorious Orion--the Giant in his might, as he was
+called of old. In this noble asterism the figure of a giant ascending a
+slope can be readily discerned when the constellation is due south. At
+the time to which I have referred the constellation Orion was
+considerably below the equator, and instead of standing nearly upright
+when due south high above the horizon, as now in our northern latitudes,
+he rose upright above the south-eastern horizon. The resemblance to a
+giant figure must then have been even more striking than it is at
+present (except in high northern latitudes, where Orion, when due south,
+is just fully above the horizon). The giant Orion has long been
+identified with Nimrod; and those who recognise the antitypes of the Ark
+in Argo, of the old dragon in Draco, and of the first and second Adams
+in the kneeling Hercules defeated by the serpent and the upright
+Ophiuchus triumphant over the serpent, may, if they so please, find in
+the giant Orion, the Two Dogs, the Hare, and the Bull (whom Orion is
+more directly dealing with), the representations of Nimrod, that mighty
+hunter before the Lord, his hunting dogs, and the animals he hunted.
+Pegasus, formerly called the Horse, was regarded in very ancient times
+as the Steed of Nimrod.
+
+In modern astronomy the constellations no longer have the importance
+which once attached to them. They afford convenient means for naming the
+stars, though I think many observers would prefer the less attractive
+but more business-like methods adopted by Piazzi and others, according
+to which a star rejoices in no more striking title than 'Piazzi XIIIh.
+273,' or 'Struve, 2819.' They still serve, however, to teach beginners
+the stars, and probably many years will pass before even exact astronomy
+dismisses them altogether to the limbo of discarded symbolisms. It is,
+indeed, somewhat singular that astronomers find it easier to introduce
+new absurdities among the constellations than to get rid of these old
+ones. The new and utterly absurd figures introduced by Bode still remain
+in many charts despite such inconvenient names as _Honores Frederici_,
+_Globum AErostaticum_ and _Machina Pneumatica_; and I have very little
+doubt that a new constellation, if it only had a specially inconvenient
+title, would be accepted. But when Francis Baily tried to simplify the
+heavens by removing many of Bode's absurd constellations, he was abused
+by many as violently as though he had proposed the rejection of the
+Newtonian system. I myself tried a small measure of reform in the three
+first editions of my 'Library Atlas,' but have found it desirable to
+return to the old nomenclature in the fourth.
+
+  THE END.
+
+_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
+
+_Edinburgh and London_
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] These reflections were suggested to Tacitus by the conduct of
+Thrasyllus (chief astrologer of the Emperor Tiberius), when his skill
+was tested by his imperial employer after a manner characteristic of
+that agreeable monarch. The story runs thus (I follow Whewell's
+version): 'Those who were brought to Tiberius on any important matter,
+were admitted to an interview in an apartment situated on a lofty cliff
+in the island of Capreae. They reached this place by a narrow path,
+accompanied by a single freedman of great bodily strength; and on their
+return, if the emperor had conceived any doubts of their
+trustworthiness, a single blow buried the secret and its victim in the
+ocean below. After Thrasyllus had, in this retreat, stated the results
+of his art as they concerned the emperor, Tiberius asked him whether he
+had calculated how long he himself had to live. The astrologer examined
+the aspect of the stars, and while he did this showed hesitation, alarm,
+increasing terror, and at last declared that "The present hour was for
+him critical, perhaps fatal." Tiberius embraced him, and told him "he
+was right in supposing he had been in danger, but that he should escape
+it," and made him henceforward his confidential counsellor.' It is
+evident, assuming the story to be true (as seems sufficiently probable),
+that the emperor was no match for the charlatan in craft. It was a
+natural thought on the former's part to test the skill of his astrologer
+by laying for him a trap such as the story indicates--a thought so
+natural, indeed, that it probably occurred to Thrasyllus himself long
+before Tiberius put the plan into practice. Even if Thrasyllus had not
+been already on the watch for such a trick, he would have been but a
+poor trickster himself if he had not detected it the moment it was
+attempted, or failed to see the sole safe course which was left open to
+him. Probably, with a man of the temper of Tiberius, such a
+counter-trick as Galeotti's in _Quentin Durward_ would have been unsafe.
+
+[2] The belief in the influence of the stars and the planets on the
+fortunes of the new-born child was still rife when Shakespeare made
+Glendower boast:
+
+
+              At my nativity
+  The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes
+  Of burning cressets; know, that at my birth
+  The frame and huge foundation of the earth
+  Shook like a coward.
+
+And Shakespeare showed himself dangerously tainted with freethought in
+assigning (even to the fiery Hotspur) the reply:
+
+              So it would have done
+  At the same season, if your mother's cat
+  Had kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born.
+
+In a similar vein Butler, in _Hudibras_ ridiculed the folly of those who
+believe in horoscopes and nativities:
+
+  As if the planet's first aspect
+  The tender infant did infect
+  In soul and body, and instil
+  All future good and future ill;
+  Which in their dark fatalities lurking,
+  At destined periods fall a-working,
+  And break out, like the hidden seeds
+  Of long diseases, into deeds,
+  In friendships, enmities, and strife.
+  And all th' emergencies of life.
+
+
+
+[3] Preface to the _Rudolphine Tables_.
+
+[4] It is commonly stated that Bacon opposed the Copernican theory
+because he disliked Gilbert, who had advocated it. 'Bacon,' says one of
+his editors, 'was too jealous of Gilbert to entertain one moment any
+doctrine that he advanced.' But, apart from the incredible littleness of
+mind which this explanation imputes to Bacon, it would also have been an
+incredible piece of folly on Bacon's part to advocate an inferior theory
+while a rival was left to support a better theory. Bacon saw clearly
+enough that men were on their way to the discovery of the true theory,
+and, so far as in him lay, he indicated how they should proceed in order
+most readily to reach the truth. It must, then, have been from
+conviction, not out of mere contradiction, that Bacon declared himself
+in favour of the Ptolemaic system. In fact, he speaks of the diurnal
+motion of the earth as 'an opinion which we can demonstrate to be most
+false;' doubtless having in his thoughts some such arguments as misled
+Tycho Brahe.
+
+[5] To Bacon's theological contemporaries this must have seemed a
+dreadful heresy, and possibly in our own days the assertion would be
+judged scarcely less harshly, seeing that the observance of the
+(so-called) Sabbath depends directly upon the belief in quite another
+origin of the week. Yet there can be little question that the week
+really had its origin in astrological formulae.
+
+[6] In Bohn's edition the word 'defective' is here used, entirely
+changing the meaning of the sentence. Bacon registers an _Astrologia
+Sana_ amongst the things needed for the advancement of learning, whereas
+he is made to say that such an astrology must be registered as
+defective.
+
+[7] The astrologers were exceedingly ingenious in showing that their art
+had given warning of the great plague and fire of London. Thus, the star
+which marks the Bull's northern horn--and which is described by Ptolemy
+as like Mars--was, they say, exactly in that part of the sign Gemini
+which is the ascendant of London, in 1666. Lilly, however, for whom they
+claim the credit of predicting the year of this calamity, laid no claim
+himself to that achievement; nay, specially denied that he knew when the
+fire was to happen. The story is rather curious. In 1651 Lilly had
+published his _Monarchy or no Monarchy_, which contained a number of
+curious hieroglyphics. Amongst these were two (see frontispiece) which
+appeared to portend plague and fire respectively. The hieroglyphic of
+the plague represents three dead bodies wrapped in death-clothes, and
+for these bodies two coffins lie ready and two graves are being dug;
+whence it was to be inferred that the number of deaths would exceed the
+supply of coffins and graves. The hieroglyphic of the fire represents
+several persons, gentlefolk on one side and commonfolk on the other,
+emptying water vessels on a furious fire into which two children are
+falling headlong. The occurrence of the plague in 1665 attracted no
+special notice to Lilly's supposed prediction of that event, though
+probably many talked of the coincidence as remarkable. But when in 1666
+the great fire occurred, the House of Commons summoned Lilly to attend
+the committee appointed to enquire into the cause of the fire. 'At two
+of the clock on Friday, the 25th of October 1666,' he attended in the
+Speaker's chamber, 'to answer such questions as should then and there be
+asked him.' Sir Robert Brooke spoke to this effect: 'Mr. Lilly, this
+committee thought fit to summon you to appear before them this day, to
+know if you can say anything as to the cause of the late fire, or
+whether there might be any design therein. You are called the rather
+hither, because in a book of yours long since printed, you hinted some
+such thing by one of your hieroglyphics.' Unto which he replied: 'May it
+please your honours, after the beheading of the late king, considering
+that in the three subsequent years the Parliament acted nothing which
+concerned the settlement of the nation's peace, and seeing the
+generality of the people dissatisfied, the citizens of London
+discontented, and the soldiery prone to mutiny, I was desirous,
+according to the best knowledge God had given me, to make enquiry by the
+art I studied, what might, from that time, happen unto the Parliament
+and nation in general. At last, having satisfied myself as well as I
+could, and perfected my judgment therein, I thought it most convenient
+to signify my intentions and conceptions thereof in forms, shapes,
+types, hieroglyphics, etc., without any commentary, that so my judgment
+might be concealed from the vulgar, and made manifest only unto the
+wise; I herein imitating the examples of many wise philosophers who had
+done the like. Having found, sir, that the great city of London should
+be sadly afflicted with a great plague, and not long after with an
+exorbitant fire, I framed these two hieroglyphics, as represented in the
+book, which in effect have proved very true.' 'Did you foresee the
+year?' said one. 'I did not,' said Lilly; 'nor was desirous; of that I
+made no scrutiny. Now, sir, whether there was any design of burning the
+city, or any employed to that purpose, I must deal ingenuously with you,
+that since the fire I have taken much pains in the search thereof, but
+cannot or could not give myself the least satisfaction therein. I
+conclude that it was the finger of God only; but what instruments He
+used thereunto I am ignorant.'
+
+[8] Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek were evidently not well
+taught in astrology. 'Shall we set about some revels?' says the latter.
+'What shall we do else?' says Toby; 'were we not born under Taurus?'
+'Taurus, that's sides and heart,' says sapient Andrew. 'No, sir,'
+responds Toby, 'it's legs and thighs. Let me see thee caper.'
+
+[9] 'This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick
+in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behaviour), we make guilty of
+our disasters the sun, moon, and stars: as if we were villains on
+necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
+treacherous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers,
+by inforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are, evil,
+by a divine thrusting on.'--SHAKESPEARE (_King Lear_).
+
+[10] There are few things more remarkable, or to reasoning minds more
+inexplicable, than the readiness with which men undertook in old times,
+and even now undertake, to interpret omens and assign prophetic
+significance to casual events. One can understand that foolish persons
+should believe in omens, and act upon the ideas suggested by their
+superstitions. The difficulty is to comprehend how these superstitions
+came into existence. For instance, who first conceived the idea that a
+particular line in the palm of the hand is the line of life; and what
+can possibly have suggested so absurd a notion? To whom did the thought
+first present itself that the pips on playing-cards are significant of
+future events; and why did he think so? How did the 'grounds' of a
+teacup come to acquire that deep significance which they now possess for
+Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Prig? If the believers in these absurdities be asked
+_why_ they believe, they answer readily enough either that they
+themselves or their friends have known remarkable fulfilments of the
+ominous indications of cards or tea-dregs, which must of necessity be
+the case where millions of forecasts are daily made by these instructive
+methods. But the persons who first invented those means of divination
+can have had no such reasons. They must have possessed imaginations of
+singular liveliness and not wanting in ingenuity. It is a pity that we
+know so little of them.
+
+[11] Wellington lived too long for the astrologers, his death within the
+year having unfortunately been predicted by them many times during the
+last fifteen years of his life. Some astrologers were more cautious,
+however. I have before me his horoscope, carefully calculated, _secundum
+artem_, by Raphael in 1828, with results 'sufficiently evincing the
+surprising verity and singular accuracy of astrological calculations,
+when founded on the correct time of birth, and mathematically
+calculated. I have chosen,' he proceeds, 'the nativity of this
+illustrious native, in preference to others, as the subject is now
+living, and, consequently, all possibility of making up any fictitious
+horoscope is at once set aside; thus affording me a most powerful shield
+against the insidious representations of the envious and ignorant
+traducer of my sublime science.' By some strange oversight, however,
+Raphael omits to mention anything respecting the future fortunes of
+Wellington, showing only how wonderfully Wellington's past career had
+corresponded with his horoscope.
+
+[12] 'I have still observed,' says an old author, 'that your right
+Martialist doth seldom exceed in height, or be at the most above a yard
+or a yard and a half in height' (which is surely stint measure). 'It
+hath been always thus,' said that right Martialist Sir Geoffrey Hudson
+to Julian Peveril; 'and in the history of all ages, the clean tight
+dapper little fellow hath proved an overmatch for his burly antagonist.
+I need only instance, out of Holy Writ, the celebrated downfall of
+Goliath and of another lubbard, who had more fingers in his hand, and
+more inches to his stature, than ought to belong to an honest man, and
+who was slain by a nephew of good King David; and of many others whom I
+do not remember; nevertheless, they were all Philistines of gigantic
+stature. In the classics, also, you have Tydeus, and other tight compact
+heroes, whose diminutive bodies were the abode of large minds.'
+
+[13] It is likely that Swedenborg in his youth studied astrology, for in
+his visions the Mercurial folk have this desire of knowledge as their
+distinguishing characteristic.
+
+[14] It is singular that, when there is this perfectly simple
+explanation of the origin of the nomenclature of the days of the week,
+an explanation given by ancient historians and generally received,
+Whewell should have stated that 'various accounts are given, all the
+methods proceeding upon certain arbitrary arithmetical processes
+connected in some way with astrological views.' Speaking of the
+arrangement of the planets in the order of their supposed distances, and
+of the order in which the planets appear in the days of the week, he
+says, 'It would be difficult to determine with certainty why the former
+order was adopted, and how and why the latter was derived from it.' But,
+in reality, there is no difficulty about either point. The former
+arrangement corresponded precisely with the periodic times of the seven
+planets of the old Egyptian system (unquestionably far more ancient than
+the system adopted by the Greeks), while the latter springs directly
+from the former. Assign to the hours of the day, successively, the seven
+planets in the former order, continuing the sequence without
+interruption day after day, and in the course of seven days each one of
+the planets will have ruled the first hour of a day, in the
+order,--Saturn, the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus.
+What arbitrary arithmetical process there is in this it would be
+difficult to conceive. Arithmetic does not rule the method at all. Nor
+has any other method ever been suggested; though this method has been
+presented in several ways, some arithmetical and some geometrical. We
+need then have no difficulty in understanding what seems so perplexing
+to Whewell, the universality, namely, of the notions 'which have
+produced this result,' for the notions were not fantastic, but such as
+naturally sprang from the ideas on which astrology itself depends.
+
+[15] The following remarks by the Astronomer-Royal on this subject seem
+to me just, in the main. They accord with what I had said earlier in my
+essay on Saturn and the Sabbath of the Jews ('Our Place among
+Infinities,' 11th essay). 'The importance which Moses attached to it
+[the hebdomadal rest] is evident; and, with all reverence, I recognise
+to the utmost degree the justice of his views. No direction was given
+for religious ceremonial' (he seems to have overlooked Numbers xxviii.
+9, and cognate passages), 'but it was probably seen that the health
+given to the mind by a rest from ordinary cares, and by the opportunity
+of meditation, could not fail to have a most beneficial religious
+effect. But, to give sanction to this precept, the authority of at least
+a myth was requisite. I believe it was simply for this reason that the
+myth of the six days of creation was preserved. It is expressly cited in
+the first delivery of the commandments, as the solemn authority (Exodus
+xxxi. 17) for the command. It is remarkable that at the second mention
+of the commandment (Deuteronomy v.) no reference is made to the
+creation; perhaps, after the complete establishment of Jehovistic ideas
+in the minds of the Israelites, they had nearly lost the recollection of
+the Elohistic account, and it was not thought desirable to refer to it'
+(Airy, 'On the Early Hebrew Scriptures,' p. 17). It must be regarded as
+a singular instance of the persistency of myths, if this view be
+correct, that a myth which had become obsolete for the Jews between the
+time of Moses and that of the writer (whoever he may have been) who
+produced the so-called Mosaic book of Deuteronomy, should thereafter
+have been revived, and have come to be regarded by the Jews themselves
+and by Christians as the Word of God.
+
+[16] Of course it may be argued that nothing in the world is the result
+of _mere_ accident, and some may assert that even matters which are
+commonly regarded as entirely casual have been specially designed. It
+would not be easy to draw the precise line dividing events which all men
+would regard as to all intents and purposes accidental from those which
+some men would regard as results of special providence. But common sense
+draws a sufficient distinction, at least for our present purpose.
+
+[17] This star, called _Thuban_ from the Arabian _al-Thuban_, the
+Dragon, is now not very bright, being rated at barely above the fourth
+magnitude, but it was formerly the brightest star of the constellation,
+as its name indicates. Bayer also assigned to it the first letter of the
+Greek alphabet; though this is not absolutely decisive evidence that so
+late as his day it retained its superiority over the second magnitude
+stars to which Bayer assigned the second and third Greek letters. In the
+year 2790 B.C., or thereabouts, the star was at its nearest to the true
+north pole of the heavens, the diameter of the little circle in which it
+then moved being considerably less than one-fourth the apparent diameter
+of the moon. At that time the star must have seemed to all ordinary
+observation an absolutely fixed centre, round which all the other stars
+revolved. At the time when the pyramid was built this star was about
+sixty times farther removed from the true pole, revolving in a circle
+whose apparent diameter was about seven times as great as the moon's.
+Yet it would still be regarded as a very useful pole-star, especially as
+there are very few conspicuous stars in the neighbourhood.
+
+[18] Even that skilful astronomer Hipparchus, who may be justly called
+the father of observational astronomy, overlooked this peculiarity,
+which Ptolemy would seem to have been the first to recognise.
+
+[19] It would only be by a lucky accident, of course, that the direction
+of the slant tunnel's axis and that of the vertical from the selected
+central point would lie in the same vertical plane. The object of the
+tunnelling would, in fact, be to determine how far apart the vertical
+planes through these points lay, and the odds would be great against the
+result proving to be zero.
+
+[20] It may, perhaps, occur to the reader to inquire what diameter of
+the earth, supposed to be a perfect sphere, would be derived from a
+degree of latitude measured with absolute accuracy near latitude 30 deg.
+A degree of latitude measured in polar regions would indicate a diameter
+greater even than the equatorial; one measured in equatorial regions
+would indicate a diameter less even than the polar. Near latitude 30 deg.
+the measurement of a degree of latitude would indicate a diameter very
+nearly equal to the true polar diameter of the earth. In fact, if it
+could be proved that the builders of the pyramid used for their unit of
+length an exact subdivision of the polar diameter, the inference would
+be that, while the coincidence itself was merely accidental, their
+measurement of a degree of latitude in their own country had been
+singularly accurate. By an approximate calculation I find that, taking
+the earth's compression at 1-300, the diameter of the earth, estimated
+from the accurate measurement of a degree of latitude in the
+neighbourhood of the great pyramid, would have made the sacred
+cubit--taken at one 20,000,000th of the diameter--equal to 24.98 British
+inches; a closer approximation than Professor Smyth's to the estimated
+mean probable value of the sacred cubit.
+
+[21] It is, however, almost impossible to mark any limits to what may be
+regarded as evidence of design by a coincidence-hunter. I quote the
+following from the late Professor De Morgan's _Budget of Paradoxes_.
+Having mentioned that 7 occurs less frequently than any other digit in
+the number expressing the ratio of circumference to diameter of a
+circle, he proceeds: 'A correspondent of my friend Piazzi Smyth notices
+that 3 is the number of most frequency, and that 3-1/7 is the nearest
+approximation to it in simple digits. Professor Smyth, whose work on
+Egypt is paradox of a very high order, backed by a great quantity of
+useful labour, the results of which will be made available by those who
+do not receive the paradoxes, is inclined to see confirmation for some
+of his theory in these phenomena.' In passing, I may mention as the most
+singular of these accidental digit relations which I have yet noticed,
+that in the first 110 digits of the square root of 2, the number 7
+occurs more than twice as often as either 5 or 9, which each occur eight
+times, 1 and 2 occurring each nine times, and 7 occurring no less than
+eighteen times.
+
+[22] I have substituted this value in the article 'Astronomy,' of the
+_British Encyclopaedia_, for the estimate formerly used, viz. 95,233,055
+miles. But there is good reason for believing that the actual distance
+is nearly 92,000,000 miles.
+
+[23] It may be matched by other coincidences as remarkable and as little
+the result of the operation of any natural law. For instance, the
+following strange relation, introducing the dimensions of the sun
+himself, nowhere, so far as I have yet seen, introduced among pyramid
+relations, even by pyramidalists: 'If the plane of the ecliptic were a
+true surface, and the sun were to commence rolling along that surface
+towards the part of the earth's orbit where she is at her mean distance,
+while the earth commenced rolling upon the sun (round one of his great
+circles), each globe turning round in the same time,--then, by the time
+the earth had rolled its way once round the sun, the sun would have
+almost exactly reached the earth's orbit. This is only another way of
+saying that the sun's diameter exceeds the earth's in almost exactly the
+same degree that the sun's distance exceeds the sun's diameter.'
+
+[24] It has been remarked that, though Hipparchus had the enormous
+advantage of being able to compare his own observations with those
+recorded by the Chaldaeans, he estimated the length of the year less
+correctly than the Chaldaeans. It has been thought by some that the
+Chaldaeans were acquainted with the true system of the universe, but I do
+not know that there are sufficient grounds for this supposition.
+Diodorus Siculus and Apollonius Myndius mention, however, that they were
+able to predict the return of comets, and this implies that their
+observations had been continued for many centuries with great care and
+exactness.
+
+[25] The language of the modern Zadkiels and Raphaels, though
+meaningless and absurd in itself, yet, as assuredly derived from the
+astrology of the oldest times, may here be quoted. (It certainly was not
+invented to give support to the theory I am at present advocating.) Thus
+runs the jargon of the tribe: 'In order to illustrate plainly to the
+reader what astrologers mean by the "houses of heaven," it is proper for
+him to bear in mind the four cardinal points. The eastern, facing the
+rising sun, has at its centre the first grand angle or first house,
+termed the Horoscope or ascendant. The northern, opposite the region
+where the sun is at midnight, or the _cusp_ of the lower heaven or
+nadir, is the Imum Coeli, and has at its centre the fourth house. The
+western, facing the setting sun, has at its centre the third grand angle
+or seventh house or descendant. And lastly, the southern, facing the
+noonday sun, has at its centre the astrologer's tenth house, or
+Mid-heaven, the most powerful angle or house of honour.' 'And although,'
+proceeds the modern astrologer, 'we cannot in the ethereal blue discern
+these lines or terminating divisions, both reason and experience assure
+us that they certainly exist; therefore the astrologer has certain
+grounds for the choice of his four angular houses' (out of twelve in
+all) 'which, resembling the palpable demonstration they afford, are in
+the astral science esteemed the most powerful of the whole. '--Raphael's
+_Manual of Astrology_.
+
+[26] Arabian writers give the following account of Egyptian progress in
+astrology and the mystical arts: Nacrawasch, the progenitor of Misraim,
+was the first Egyptian prince, and the first of the magicians who
+excelled in astrology and enchantment. Retiring into Egypt with his
+family of eighty persons, he built Essous, the most ancient city of
+Egypt, and commenced the first dynasty of Misraimitish princes, who
+excelled as cabalists, diviners, and in the mystic arts generally. The
+most celebrated of the race were Naerasch, who first represented by
+images the twelve signs of the zodiac; Gharnak, who openly described the
+arts before kept secret; Hersall, who first worshipped idols; Sehlouk,
+who worshipped the sun; Saurid (King Saurid of Ibn Abd Alkohm's
+account), who erected the first pyramids and invented the magic mirror;
+and Pharaoh, the last king of the dynasty, whose name was afterwards
+taken as a kingly title, as Caesar later became a general imperial title.
+
+[27] It is noteworthy how Swedenborg here anticipates a saying of
+Laplace, the greatest mathematician the world has known, save Newton
+alone. Newton's remark that he seemed but as a child who had gathered a
+few shells on the shores of ocean, is well known. Laplace's words, '_Ce
+que nous connaissons est peu de chose; ce que nous ignorons est
+immense_,' were not, as is commonly stated, his last. De Morgan gives
+the following account of Laplace's last moments, on the authority of
+Laplace's friend and pupil, the well-known mathematician Poisson: 'After
+the publication (in 1825) of the fifth volume of the Mecanique Celeste,
+Laplace became gradually weaker, and with it musing and abstracted. He
+thought much on the great problems of existence, and often muttered to
+himself, "_Qu'est-ce que c'est que tout cela!_" After many alternations
+he appeared at last so permanently prostrated that his family applied to
+his favourite pupil, M. Poisson, to try to get a word from him. Poisson
+paid a visit, and after a few words of salutation, said, "J'ai une bonne
+nouvelle a vous annoncer: on a recu au Bureau des Longitudes une lettre
+d'Allemagne annoncant que M. Bessel a verifie par l'observation vos
+decouvertes theoriques sur les satellites de Jupiter." Laplace opened
+his eyes and answered with deep gravity. "_L'homme ne poursuit que des
+chimeres._" He never spoke again. His death took place March 5, 1827.'
+
+[28] The reason assigned by Swedenborg is fanciful enough. 'In the
+spiritual sense,' he says, 'a horse signifies the intellectual principle
+formed from scientifics, and as they are afraid of cultivating the
+intellectual faculties by worldly sciences, from this comes an influx of
+fear. They care nothing for scientifics which are of human erudition.'
+
+[29] Similar reasoning applies to the moons of Jupiter, and it so
+chances that the result in their case comes out exactly the same as in
+the case of Saturn; all the Jovian moons, if full together, would
+reflect only the sixteenth part of the light which we receive from the
+full moon. It is strange that scientific men of considerable
+mathematical power have used the argument from design apparently
+supplied by the satellites, without being at the pains to test its
+validity by the simple mathematical calculations necessary to determine
+the quantity of light which these bodies can reflect to the planets
+round which they travel. Brewster and Whewell, though they took opposite
+sides in the controversy about other inhabited worlds, agreed in this.
+Brewster, of course, holding the theory that all the planets are
+inhabited, very naturally accepted the argument from design in this
+case. Whewell, in opposing that theory, did not dwell at all upon the
+subjects of the satellites. But in his 'Bridgewater Treatise on
+Astronomy and General Physics,' he says, 'Taking only the ascertained
+cases of Venus, the Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn, we conceive that a
+person of common understanding will be strongly impressed with the
+persuasion that the satellites are placed in the system with a view to
+compensate for the diminished light of the sun at greater distances.
+Mars is an exception; some persons might conjecture from this case that
+the arrangement itself, like other useful arrangements, has been brought
+about by some wider law which we have not yet detected. But whether or
+not we entertain such a guess (it can be nothing more), we see in other
+parts of creation so many examples of apparent exceptions to rules,
+which are afterwards found to be capable of explanation, or to be
+provided for by particular contrivances, that no one familiar with such
+contemplations will, by one anomaly, be driven from the persuasion that
+the end which the arrangements of the satellites seem suited to answer
+is really one of the ends of their creation.'
+
+[30] The reader who cares enough about such subjects to take the
+necessary trouble, can easily make a little model of Saturn and his ring
+system, which will very prettily illustrate the effect of the rings both
+in reflecting light to the planet's darkened hemisphere and in cutting
+off light from the planet's illuminated hemisphere. Take a ball, say an
+ordinary hand-ball, and pierce it through the centre with a fine
+knitting-needle. Cut out a flat ring of card, proportioned to the ball
+as the ring system of Saturn to his ball. (If the ball is two inches in
+diameter, strike out on a sheet of cardboard two concentric circles, one
+of them with a radius of a little more than an inch and a half, the
+other with a radius of about two inches and three-eights, and cut out
+the ring between these two circles.) Thrust the knitting-needle through
+this ring in such a way that the ball shall lie in the middle of the
+ring, as the globe of Saturn hangs (without knitting-needle connections)
+in the middle of his ring system. Thrust another knitting-needle
+centrally through the ball square to the plane of the ring, and use this
+second needle, which we may call the polar one, as a handle. Now take
+the ball and ring into sunlight, or the light of a lamp or candle,
+holding them so that the shadow of the ring is as thin as possible. This
+represents the position of the shadow at the time of Saturnian spring or
+autumn. Cause the shadow slowly to shift until it surrounds the part of
+the ball through which the polar needle passes on one side. This will
+represent the position of the shadow at the time of midwinter for the
+hemisphere corresponding to that side of the ball. Notice that while the
+shadow is traversing this half of the ball, the side of the ring which
+lies towards that half is in shadow, so that a fly or other small insect
+on that half of the ball would see the darkened side of the ring. A
+Saturnian correspondingly placed would get no reflected sunlight from
+the ring system. Move the ball and ring so that the shadow slowly
+returns to its first position. You will then have illustrated the
+changes taking place during one half of a Saturnian year. Continue the
+motion so that the shadow passes to the other half of the ball, and
+finally surrounds the other point through which the polar needle passes.
+The polar point which the shadow before surrounded will now be seen to
+be in the light, and this half of the ball will illustrate the
+hemisphere of Saturn where it is midsummer. It will also be seen that
+the side of the ring towards this half of the ball is now in the light,
+so that a small insect on this half of the ball would see the bright
+side of the ring. A Saturnian correspondingly placed would get reflected
+sunlight from the ring system _both by day and by night_. Moving the
+ball and ring so that the shadow returns to its first position, an
+entire Saturnian year will have been illustrated. These changes can be
+still better shown with a Saturnian orrery (see plate viii. of my
+Saturn), which can be very easily constructed.
+
+[31] Not 'of course' because Tycho used it, for, like other able
+students of science, he made mistakes from time to time. Thus he argued
+that the earth cannot rotate on her axis, because if she did bodies
+raised above her surface would be left behind--an argument which even
+the mechanical knowledge of his own time should have sufficed to
+invalidate, though it is still used from time to time by paradoxers of
+our own day.
+
+[32] Chinese chronicles contain other references to new stars. The
+annals of Ma-touan-lin, which contain the official records of remarkable
+appearances in the heavens, include some phenomena which manifestly
+belong to this class. Thus they record that in the year 173 a star
+appeared between the stars which mark the hind feet of the Centaur. This
+star remained visible from December in that year until July in the next
+(about the same time as Tycho Brahe's and Kepler's new stars, presently
+to be described). Another star, assigned by these annals to the year
+1011, seems to be the same as a star referred to by Hepidannus as
+appearing A.D. 1012. It was of extraordinary brilliancy, and remained
+visible in the southern part of the heavens during three months. The
+annals of Ma-touan-lin assign to it a position low down in Sagittarius.
+
+[33] Still a circumstance must be mentioned which tends to show that the
+star may have been visible a few hours earlier than Dr. Schmidt
+supposed. Mr. M. Walter, surgeon of the 4th regiment, then stationed in
+North India, wrote (oddly enough, on May 12, 1867, the first anniversary
+of Mr. Birmingham's discovery) as follows to Mr. Stone:--'I am certain
+that this same conflagration was distinctly perceptible here at least
+six hours earlier. My knowledge of the fact came about in this wise. The
+night of the 12th of May last year was exceedingly sultry, and about
+eight o'clock on that evening I got up from the tea-table and rushed
+into my garden to seek a cooler atmosphere. As my door opens towards the
+east, the first object that met my view was the Northern Crown. My
+attention was at once arrested by the sight of a strange star outside
+the crown' (that is, outside the circlet of stars forming the diadem,
+not outside the constellation itself). The new star 'was then certainly
+quite as bright--I rather thought more so--as its neighbour Alphecca,'
+the chief gem of the crown. 'I was so much struck with its appearance,
+that I exclaimed to those indoors, "Why, here is a new comet!'" He made
+a diagram of the constellation, showing the place of the new star
+correctly. Unfortunately, Mr. Walter does not state why he is so
+confident, a year after the event, that it was on the 12th of May, and
+not on the 13th, that he noticed the new star. If he fixed the date only
+by the star's appearance as a second-magnitude star, his letter proves
+nothing; for we know that on the 13th it was still shining as brightly
+as Alphecca, though on the 14th it was perceptibly fainter.
+
+[34] The velocity of three or four miles per second inferred by the
+elder Struve must now be regarded (as I long since pointed out would
+prove to be the case) as very far short of the real velocity of our
+system's motion through stellar space.
+
+[35] M. Cornu's observations are full of interest, and he deserves
+considerable credit for his energy in availing himself of the few
+favourable opportunities he had for making them. But he goes beyond his
+province in adding to his account of them some remarks, intended
+apparently as a reflection on Mr. Huggins's speculations respecting the
+star in the Northern Crown. '_I_,' says M. Cornu, 'will not try to form
+any hypothesis about the cause of the outburst. To do so would be
+unscientific, and such speculations, though interesting, cumber science
+wofully.' This is sheer nonsense, and comes very ill from an observer
+whose successes in science have been due entirely to the employment of
+methods of observation which would have had no existence had others been
+as unready to think out the meaning of observed facts as he appears to
+be himself.
+
+[36] The same peculiarity has been noticed since the discovery of the
+dark ring, the space within that ring being observed by Coolidge and G.
+Bond at Harvard in 1856 to be apparently darker than the surrounding
+sky.
+
+[37] I cannot understand why Mr. Webb, in his interesting little work,
+_Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes_, says that the satellite
+theory of the rings certainly seems insufficient to account for the
+phenomena of the dark ring. It seems, on the contrary, manifest that the
+dark ring can scarcely be explained in any other way. The observations
+recently made are altogether inexplicable on any other theory.
+
+[38] A gentleman, whose acquaintance I made in returning from America
+last spring, assured me that he had found demonstrative evidence showing
+that a total eclipse of the moon then occurred; for he could prove that
+Abraham's vision occurred at the time of full moon, so that it could not
+otherwise have been dark when the sun went down (v. 17). But the horror
+of great darkness occurred when the sun was going down, and total
+eclipses of the moon do not behave that way--at least, in our time.
+
+[39] It is not easy to understand what else it could have been. The
+notion that a conjunction of three planets, which took place shortly
+before the time of Christ's birth, gave rise to the tradition of the
+star in the east, though propounded by a former president of the
+Astronomical Society, could hardly be entertained by an astronomer,
+unless he entirely rejected Matthew's account, which the author of this
+theory, being a clergyman, can scarcely have done.
+
+[40] As, for instance, when he makes Homer say of the moon that
+
+  Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
+  And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole.
+
+It is difficult, indeed, to understand how so thorough an astronomer as
+the late Admiral Smyth could have called the passage in which these
+lines occur one of the finest bursts of poetry in our language, except
+on the principle cleverly cited by Waller when Charles II. upbraided him
+for the warmth of his panegyric on Cromwell, that 'poets succeed better
+with fiction than with truth.' Macaulay, though not an astronomer,
+speaks more justly of the passage in saying that this single passage
+contains more inaccuracies than can be found in all Wordsworth's
+'Excursion.'
+
+[41] It may be necessary to throw in here a few words of explanation,
+lest the non-astronomical reader should run away with the idea that the
+so-called exact science is a very inexact science indeed, so far as
+comets are concerned. The comet of 1680 was one of those which travel on
+a very eccentric orbit. Coming, indeed, from out depths many times more
+remote than the path even of the remotest planet, Neptune, this comet
+approached nearer to the sun than any which astronomers have ever seen,
+except only the comet of 1843. When at its nearest its nucleus was only
+a sixth part of the sun's diameter from his surface. Thus the part of
+the comet's orbit along which astronomers traced its motion was only a
+small part at one end of an enormously long oval, and very slight errors
+of observation were sufficient to produce very large errors in the
+determination of the nature of the comet's orbit. Encke admitted that
+the period might, so far as the comparatively imperfect observations
+made in 1680 were concerned, be any whatever, from 805 years to many
+millions of years, or even to infinity--that is, the comet might have a
+path not re-entering into itself, but carrying the comet for ever away
+from the sun after its one visit to our system.
+
+[42] For a portion of the passages which I have quoted in this essay I
+am indebted to Guillemin's 'Treatise on Comets,' a useful contribution
+to the literature of the subject, though somewhat inadequate so far as
+exposition is concerned.
+
+[43] Something very similar happened only a few years ago, so that we
+cannot afford to laugh too freely at the terrors of France in 1773. It
+was reported during the winter of 1871-1872, that Plantamour, the Swiss
+astronomer, had predicted the earth's destruction by a comet on August
+12, 1872. Yet there was no other foundation for this rumour than the
+fact that Plantamour, in a lecture upon comets and meteors, had stated
+that the meteors seen on August 10, 11, and 12 are bodies following in
+the track of a comet whose orbit passes very near to the earth's. It was
+very certainly known to astronomers that there could be no present
+danger of a collision with this comet, for the comet has a period of at
+least 150 years, and had last passed close to the earth's orbit (not to
+the earth herself, be it understood) in 1862. But it was useless to
+point this out. Many people insisted on believing that on August 12,
+1872, the earth would come into collision, possibly disastrous, with a
+mighty comet, which Plantamour was said to have detected and to have
+shown by a profound calculation to be rushing directly upon our
+unfortunate earth.
+
+[44] A rather amusing mistake was made by the stenographers of a New
+York paper in reporting the above sentence, which I happened to quote in
+a lecture upon Comets and Meteors. Instead of Paradise they wrote Paris.
+Those acquainted with Pitman's system of short-hand, the one most
+commonly employed by reporters, will easily understand how the mistake
+was made, the marks made to represent the consonants p, r, d, and s
+differing little from those made to represent the consonants p, r, and s
+(the 'd' or 't' sound is represented, or may be represented, by simply
+shortening the length of the sign for the preceding consonant). The
+mistake led naturally to my remarking in my next lecture that I had not
+before known how thoroughly synonymous the words are in America, though
+I had heard it said that 'Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris.'
+
+[45] On the occasion of my first visit to America, in 1873, I for the
+first time succeeded in obtaining a copy of this curious pamphlet. It
+had been mentioned to me (by Emerson, I think) as an amusing piece of
+trickery played off by a scientific man on his brethren; and Dr. Wendell
+Holmes, who was present, remarked that he had a copy in his possession.
+This he was good enough to lend me. Soon after, a valued friend in New
+York presented me with a copy.
+
+[46] This Locke must not be confounded with Richard Lock, the
+circle-squarer and general paradoxist, who flourished a century earlier.
+
+[47] The nurses' tale is, that the man was sent to the moon by Moses for
+gathering sticks on the Sabbath, and they refer to the cheerful story in
+Numbers xv. 32-36. According to German nurses the day was not the
+Sabbath, but Sunday. Their tale runs as follows: 'Ages ago there went
+one Sunday an old man into the woods to hew sticks. He cut a faggot and
+slung it on a stout staff, cast it over his shoulder, and began to
+trudge home with his burthen. On his way he met a handsome man in Sunday
+suit, walking towards the church. The man stopped, and asked the
+faggot-bearer; "Do you know that this is Sunday on earth, when all must
+rest from their labours?" "Sunday on earth or Monday in heaven, it's all
+one to me?" laughed the wood-cutter. "Then bear your bundle for ever!"
+answered the stranger. "And as you value not Sunday on earth, yours
+shall be a perpetual Moon-day in heaven; you shall stand for eternity in
+the moon, a warning to all Sabbath-breakers." Thereupon the stranger
+vanished; and the man was caught up with his staff and faggot into the
+moon, where he stands yet.' According to some narrators the stranger was
+Christ; but whether from German laxity in such matters or for some other
+reason, no text is quoted in evidence, as by the more orthodox British
+nurses. Luke vi. 1-5 might serve.
+
+[48] Milton's opinion may be quoted against me here; and as received
+ideas respecting angels, good and bad, the fall of man, and many other
+such matters, are due quite as much to Milton as to any other authority,
+his opinion must not be lightly disregarded. But though, when Milton's
+Satan 'meets a vast vacuity' where his wings are of no further service
+to him,
+
+              'All unawares
+  Flutt'ring his pennons vain, plumb down he drops
+  Ten thousand fathoms deep, and to this hour
+  Down had been falling, had not by ill chance
+  The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud,
+  Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him
+  As many miles aloft,'
+
+yet this was written nearly a quarter of a century before Newton had
+established the law of gravity. Moreover, there is no evidence to show
+in what direction Satan fell; 'above is below and below above,' says
+Richter, 'to one stripped of gravitating body;' and whether Satan was
+under the influence of gravity or not, he would be practically exempt
+from its action when in the midst of that 'dark, illimitable ocean' of
+space,
+
+              'Without bound,
+  Without dimensions, where length, breadth, and height,
+  And time and place are lost.'
+
+His lighting 'on Niphates' top,' and overleaping the gate of Paradise,
+may be used as arguments either way. On the whole, I must (according to
+my present lights) claim for Satan a freedom from all scientific
+restraints. This freedom is exemplified by his showing all the kingdoms
+of the world from an exceeding high mountain, thus affording the first
+practical demonstration of the flat-earth theory, the maintenance of
+which led to poor Mr. Hampden's incarceration.
+
+[49] The _Sun_ itself claimed to have established the veracity of the
+account in a manner strongly recalling a well-known argument used by
+orthodox believers in the Bible account of the cosmogony. Either, say
+these, Moses discovered how the world was made, or the facts were
+revealed to him by some one who had made the discovery: but Moses could
+not have made the discovery, knowing nothing of the higher departments
+of science; therefore, the account came from the only Being who could
+rationally be supposed to know anything about the beginning of the
+world. 'Either,' said the _New York Sun_, speaking of a mathematical
+problem discussed in the article, 'that problem was predicated by us or
+some other person, who has thereby made the greatest of all modern
+discoveries in mathematical astronomy. We did not make it, for we know
+nothing of mathematics whatever; therefore, it was made by the only
+person to whom it can rationally be ascribed, namely Herschel the
+astronomer, its only avowed and undeniable author.' In reality,
+notwithstanding this convincing argument, the problem was stolen by
+Locke from a paper by Olbers, shortly before published, and gave the
+method followed by Beer and Maedler throughout their selenographical
+researches in 1833-37.
+
+[50] I had at the same time the good fortune to satisfy in equal degree,
+though quite unexpectedly, an English student of the sun, who at that
+time bore me no great good-will. Something in the article chanced to
+suggest that it came from another, presumably a rival, hand; while an
+essay which appeared about the same time (the spring of 1872) was
+commonly but erroneously attributed to me. Accordingly, a leading
+article in _Nature_ was devoted to the annihilation of the writer
+supposed to be myself, and to the lavish and quite undeserved laudation
+of the article I had written, which was selected as typifying all the
+good qualities which an article of the kind should possess. Those
+acquainted with the facts were not a little amused by the mistake.
+
+[51] The Astronomer-Royal once told me that he had found that few
+persons have a clear conception of the fact that the stars rise and set.
+Still fewer know how the stars move, which stars rise and set, which are
+always above the horizon, which move on large circles, which on small
+ones; though a few hours' observation on half-a-dozen nights in the year
+(such observations being continuous, but made only at hourly intervals)
+would show dearly how the stars move. It is odd to find even some who
+write about astronomy making mistakes on matters so elementary. For
+instance, in a primer of astronomy recently published, it is stated that
+the stars which pass overhead in London rise and set on a slant--the
+real fact being that _those_ stars never rise or set at all, never
+coming within some two dozen moon-breadths of the horizon.
+
+[52] In passing let me note that, of course, I am not discussing the
+arguments of paradoxists with the remotest idea of disproving them. They
+are not, in reality, worth the trouble. But they show where the general
+reader of astronomical text-books, and other such works, is likely to go
+astray, and thus conveniently indicate matters whose explanation may be
+useful or interesting.
+
+[53] Sterne anticipated this paradoxist in (jestingly) attributing
+glassiness to an inferior planet. He made the inhabitants, however, not
+the air, glassy. 'The intense heat of the country,' he says, speaking of
+the planet Mercury, 'must, I think, long ago have vitrified the bodies
+of the inhabitants to suit them for the climate; so that all the
+tenements of their souls may be nothing else, for aught the soundest
+philosophy can show to the contrary, but one fine transparent body of
+clear glass; so that till the inhabitant grows old and tolerably
+wrinkled, whereby the rays of light become monstrously refracted, or
+return reflected from the surface, etc., his soul might as well play the
+fool out o' doors as in her own house.'
+
+[54] It will be seen from Table X. of my treatise on Saturn that the
+ring disappeared on December 12, remaining invisible (because turning
+its dark side earthwards) till the spring of 1613. But on December 4,
+the ring must have been quite invisible in a telescope so feeble as
+Galileo's. The ring then would have been little more than a fine line of
+light as seen with one of our powerful modern telescopes.
+
+[55] _North British Review_ for August 1860.
+
+[56] He had, indeed, at an earlier stage, shown a marvellous ignorance
+of astronomy by the remark, which doubtless appeared to him a safe one,
+that when he saw a planet on the sun in September he supposed it was
+Mercury; a September transit of Mercury being as impossible as an
+eclipse of the sun during the moon's third quarter.
+
+[57] It is, by the way, somewhat amusing to find Baron Humboldt
+referring a question of this sort to the great mathematician Gauss, and
+describing the problem as though it involved the most profound
+calculations. Ten minutes should suffice to deal with any problem of the
+kind.
+
+
+  Transcriber's Note
+
+  The following typographical errors were corrected.
+
+  Page          Error       Correction
+
+  4             Julias      Julius
+
+  35            genuis      genius
+
+  36            artficers   artificers
+
+  37            signfies    signifies
+
+  footnote 14   preplexing  perplexing
+
+  45            Chaldean    Chaldaean
+
+  46            Chaldeans   Chaldaeans
+
+  225           peruquier   perruquier
+
+  237           peruque     perruque
+
+  281           Northfolk   Norfolk
+
+  350           ascant      askant
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Myths and Marvels of Astronomy, by
+Richard A. Proctor
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #26556 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26556)