Richard Anthony Proctor

“ The true teachings of science will be recognized in due time—with results easily foretold. It was predicted that the religion of mercy would bring, not peace, but a sword; the seemingly stern religion of truth will bring, not a sword, but peace into the world. To recognize the universal reign of law is to perceive the futility of lawlessness, no matter under what high or even sacred names disguised. ”

“ I cannot doubt that Jupiter has a solid or liquid nucleus, though this nucleus—glowing, as it must be, with a most intense heat—may be greatly expanded; yet I should conceive that, with the enormous attractive power residing in it, containing as it must nearly the whole mass of the planet, its mean density cannot be less than that of the earth. Now, a globe of the mass of Jupiter, but of the same mean density as our earth, would have one-fourth of Jupiter's volume—the mean density of Jupiter, as at present judged, being equal to one-fourth that of the earth. ”

“ For my own part, however, I attach so much importance to the extension of sound scientific knowledge—so much more importance to this, I will even say, than to the results of the scientific researches of any man, or even of any body of men—that I regard as most earnestly to be deprecated all attempts to deprive our people of the literary services of those alone who can write effectively or satisfactorily about science—the scientific workers themselves. ”

“ Science, in the mean while, conscious of its strength and certain of its future, can afford to wait, "Its development," as Tyndall has well said, "is as necessary and irresistible as the motion of the tides or the flowing of the Gulf Stream. It is a phase of the energy of Nature, and, as such, is sure in due time to compel the recognition of those who now decry its influence and discourage its advance."
That science is worthy of endowment will be admitted by every one competent to form an opinion. ”

“ But a little before sunset—namely, about thirty-five minutes past three—the sun bursting forth from behind the clouds, he at once began to observe, and was gratified by beholding the pleasing spectacle of Venus upon the sun's disk. Rapt in contemplation, he stood for some time motionless, scarcely trusting his own senses, through excess of joy; for we astronomers have, as it were, a womanish disposition, and are overjoyed with trifles, and such small matters as scarcely make an impression upon others ”

“ If we could suppose that an unwillingness, either to confirm his rival's discovery of a starless nebula, or to acknowledge that he had himself fallen into an error on the subject of nebulæ, prevented Galileo from speaking about the great nebula in Orion, we should be compelled to form but a low opinion of his honesty. It happens too frequently that—
"The man of science himself is fonder of glory, and vain—
An eye well-practised in Nature, a spirit bounded and poor." ”

“ My own special purpose in visiting America on these occasions partly brought these matters to my attention. The circumstance that in a country so much more thinly peopled than Great Britain it should be possible not only to obtain audiences for lectures on such a subject as astronomy, but to obtain more and better and larger audiences, by far than could be obtained during a lecture-season in England for any single scientific subject whatever, appeared to me in itself sufficiently remarkable. ”

“ The planet Jupiter, in fact, may justly be described as a miniature sun, vastly inferior in bulk to our own sun, inferior to a greater degree in heat, and in a greater degree yet in lustre, but to be compared with the sun—not with our earth—in size, in heat, and in lustre, and, lastly, in the tremendous energy of the processes which are at work throughout his cloud-laden atmospheric envelope. ”

“ Every well-determined star, from the moment its place is registered, becomes to the astronomer, the geographer, the navigator, the surveyor, a point of departure which can never deceive or fail him—the same forever and in all places, of a delicacy so extreme as to be a test for every instrument yet invented by man, yet equally adapted for the most ordinary purposes; as available for regulating a town-clock as for conducting a navy to the Indies ”

“ We cannot doubt that deep down below the visible surface of the planet—that is, the surface of its outermost cloud-layers—the fiery mass of the real planet. Outbursts, compared with which the most tremendous volcanic explosions on our earth are utterly insignificant, are continually taking place beneath the seemingly quiescent envelope of the giant planet. Mighty currents carry aloft great masses of heated vapor, which, as they force their way through the upper and cooler strata of the atmosphere, are converted into visible cloud. ”

“ Too long what has been called the popularization of science has been attempted by unscientific persons. When men like Herschel and Lyell, Darwin, Tyndall, and Huxley, undertake the real popularization of science, we have at once the promise and the sign of progress. "But," Mr. Appleton says, "there is not wanting evidence that the popularization of science, in the best and most necessary meaning of the word, is in this country beginning largely to take the place of original study and investigation of truth." ”

“ As to the amount of time and labor devoted to any subject of scientific research, it is tolerably certain that the nation would object to any system of retrospective endowment based on that criterion. The ardent student of science gives many more hours of his time to his favorite subject of research than any government would be willing to pay for, at the present day, or for many years to come. ”

“ Even Tyndall has spoken of science as though its chief value resided in its quality as "a source of individual and national might;" and many have dwelt on its value as a means of adding to material wealth. It would be affectation to contemn such considerations, but assuredly they do not present the noblest qualities of science, the chief good which science is competent to work. It is as a potent means of culture that science is worthiest of recognition. The material gain derived from scientific research has no doubt been great ”

“ Now, I do not say that it is inconceivable that an outlying star-system, so far off as to be irresolvable by any but the most powerful telescopes, should cover so large a space on the heavens. On the contrary, I do not believe that a galaxy resembling our own would be resolvable at all, unless it were so near as to appear much larger than the Orion nebula. I believe astronomers have been wholly mistaken in considering any of the nebulas to be such systems as our own. ”

“ It is to be remembered, however, that, whichever view we adopt, we must assume that a considerable portion of the light received, even from these portions of the planet's disk, must have been reflected sunlight. In fact, from what we know about the actual quantity of light received from Jupiter, we may be quite certain that no very large portion of that light is inherent. Jupiter shines about as brightly as if he were a giant cumulus-cloud, and therefore almost as white as driven snow. ”

“ In this way of estimating the value of science, and therefore the importance of scientific research, we may find an answer to the difficulty which presents itself when we consider the actual position of scientific workers—the fact, namely, that the search for scientific truth affords the worker no direct means of maintenance. A man may give many years of labor to discover some great law of Nature, or some important scientific fact, and when he has achieved success he may find that his discovery is his sole reward. ”

“ Let it be granted, for the sake of argument, that Jupiter's cloud-layer is less than fourteen miles in depth, so that we are freed for the moment from the inference that at the lower part of the atmosphere there is either an intense heat or else a density and pressure incompatible with the gaseous condition. We cannot, in this case, strike off more than twenty-eight miles from the planet's apparent diameter to obtain the real diameter of his solid globe—solid, at least, if we are to maintain the theory of his resemblance to our earth. ”

“ Surely not to illuminate our nights, which an additional moon of the thousandth part of the size of our own world would do much better; nor to sparkle as a pageant void of meaning and reality, and bewilder us among vain conjectures. Useful, it is true, they are to man as points of exact and permanent reference, but he must have studied astronomy to little purpose, who can suppose man to be the only object of his Creator's care; or who does not see, in the vast and wonderful apparatus around us, provision for other races of animated beings. ”

“ But I have long felt that it would greatly tend to advance the new views which I have advocated, if some process of research, pursued by one of those astronomers of our day who possess the requisite means and leisure for prolonged inquiries, should confirm in a clear and decisive way some definite point of my new theories. Thus, if new observational evidence should be found in favor of my theory that the nebulæ are not external to our galaxy, or if new evidence should be obtained to show that the stars are aggregated in certain regions within our system and segregated from others ”

“ Within the last twenty years, for example, methods of prediction based on the moon's movements, on the conjunctions of the planets, and on other relations, have been maintained with astonishing perseverance and constancy, in the face of what outsiders cannot but regard as a most discouraging want of agreement between the predicted weather and the actual progress of events. Here, as in so many cases of prediction, we find the justice of Bacon's aphorism, "Men mark when they hit, and never mark when they miss." ”

“ There is scarcely one of the great thinkers whose work has most effectively advanced science, who has not made mistakes even in dealing with his own special subject; while those who, like the Herschels, Humboldt, and others, have dealt from time to time with subjects outside their own labors, have naturally been exposed to more serious misapprehensions. It is not wonderful that Professor Tait, engaged chiefly in analytical and physical researches, should fall into errors in dealing with astronomical matters, as when he discusses comets' tails, the solar corona, and so forth. ”

“ At every point, through every point, along every line, athwart every line, myriads of light-waves are at all times rushing with the inconceivable velocity just mentioned. It is from such waves that we have learned all we know about the universe outside our own earth. ”

“ Why the concurrence of every favorable condition is requisite for success in such inquiries may be readily comprehended. The object in view is to discern, singly, sparkling points, small as the point of a needle, and close as the particles of a handful of sand; so that it needs but the smallest unsteadiness in the air, or imperfection in the shape of the reflecting surface, to scatter the light of each point, to merge them into each other, and present them as one mass. ”

“ Now, if the dark spaces adjoining the light patches on Jupiter, which I have called shadows, are not shadows at all, but shades, it is obvious that the opaque surface of the planet on which the shadows should fall is concealed; whereas, if they are shadows, their boundaries are so soft and undefined as to lead to the conclusion that they are cast upon a semi-transparent body, which allows the shadow to be seen, indeed, but with diminishing distinctness toward its edge, according to the acuteness of its angle of incidence. ”

“ There is another aspect in which the improved scientific literature of our time must be considered. It is unfortunate that modern scientific progress necessarily tends to increase the number of specialists. Not only is it impossible for any man to thoroughly master several departments of scientific research, but no man can be thoroughly master of a single science in all its developments. It is absolutely necessary that there should be specialists—nay, every real worker in science must be a specialist. ”

“ It is incredible that the complex phenomena involved in meteorological relations regarded as a whole, those phenomena which are but just discernibly affected by the great sun-spot period, should respond to changes altogether insignificant even when compared with the development and decay of a single small sun-spot. It appears to me, therefore, that it is the duty of the true lover of science to indicate the futility of the promises which have been mistakenly held out ”

“ But even if we regard this part of Young's work as not yet proved—nay, even if we go further, and accept nothing more than the bare recognition of the sun's rotation by the new method—he must be congratulated on having effected the most delicate piece of spectroscopic observation yet achieved by man. He has placed beyond doubt or cavil a method of motion-measuring the most remarkable yet invented, and likely, as instrumental means improve, to be most fruitful in results of astronomical interest and importance. ”

“ It has been to such signals, then, that men of science have turned for the required means of determining longitude.
Galileo was the first to point out that the satellites of Jupiter supply a series of signals which might serve to determine the longitude. When one of these bodies is eclipsed in Jupiter's shadow, or passes out of sight behind Jupiter's disk, or reappears from eclipse or occultation, the phenomenon is one which can be seen from a whole hemisphere of the earth's surface. It is as truly a signal as the appearance or disappearance of a light in ordinary night-signalling. ”

“ The mere loss of so much money annually would be of little importance to the nation; but the discredit to science would be a very serious matter. Unfortunately, those who ought to know assert that among the persons who seem most earnest in the cause of science, and who not only seem, but are exceedingly earnest in advocating the endowment of science, there are not wanting men who may be characterized as "scientific Micawbers, waiting for something to turn up." ”

“ The bearing of climatic changes on a vast array of problems connected with navigation, agriculture, and health, need but be mentioned to show the importance of seeking in the sun, where they doubtless reside, for the causes which govern these changes. It is indeed my conviction that, of all the fields now open for scientific cultivation, there is not one which, quite apart from its transcendent philosophical interest, promises results of such high utilitarian value as the exhaustive systematic study of the sun. ”