IfUW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 443 



their various movements, distances, and magnitudes, necessarily 

 result from the obedience of nebulous masses to natural laws. 



Throughout the theological world there was an outcry at once 

 against " atheism," and war raged fiercely. Herschel and others 

 pointed out many nebulous patches yet in the gaseous form. 

 They showed by physical and mathematical demonstrations that 

 the hypothesis accounted for the great body of facts, and, despite 

 clamor, they were gaining ground, when the improved telescopes 

 resolved some of the patches of nebulous matter into multitudes 

 of stars. The opponents of the nebular hypothesis were over- 

 joyed ; they now sang pseans to astronomy, because, as they said, 

 it had proved the truth of Scripture. They had jumped to the 

 conclusion that all nebulae must be alike ; that if some are made 

 up of systems of stars, all must be so made up ; that none can be 

 masses of attenuated gaseous matter, because some are not. 



Science halted for a time. The accepted doctrine became this : 

 That the only reason why all the nebulte are not resolved into 

 distinct stars is that our telescopes are not sufficiently jjowerful. 

 But in time came the discovery of the spectroscope and spectrum 

 analysis, and this was supplemented by Fraunhofer's discovery 

 that the spectrum of an ignited gaseous body is non-continuous, 

 with interrupting lines ; and this, in 1846, by Draper's discovery 

 that the spectrum of an ignited solid is continuous, with no inter- 

 rupting lines. And now the spectroscope was turned upon the 

 nebulae, and about one third of them were found to be gaseous. 

 Here, then, was excellent ground for the inference that in these 

 nebulous masses at different stages of condensation some ap- 

 parently mere patches of mist, some with luminous centers we 

 have the process of development actually going on, and observa- 

 tions like those of Lord Rosse and Arrest gave yet further confir- 

 mation to the scientific view. Then came the great contribution 

 of the nineteenth century to physics, aiding to explain a most 

 important part of the vast process by the mechanical theory of 

 heat. 



Again the nebular hypothesis came forth stronger than ever, 

 and about 1850 the beautiful experiment of Plateau on the rota- 

 tion of a fluid globe came in to illustrate if not to confirm it ; 

 even so determined a defender of orthodoxy as Mr. Gladstone at 

 last acknowledged the nebular hypothesis as probably true. 



Here, too, was exhibited that form of surrendering theological 

 views to science under the claim that science concurs with the- 

 ology, which we have seen in so many other fields ; and as typical 

 an example may be given, which, however restricted in its scope, 

 throws light on the process by which such surrenders are ob- 

 tained. A few years since one of the most noted professors of 

 chemistry in the city of New York, under the auspices of one of 



