THE FIRST "POPULAR SCIENTIFIC TREATISE." 721 



in his time) " says, ' Phaethon is carried up by a hidden principle y ' 

 another, ' Phaethon is composed of certain numbers which make him 

 rise ; ' another, ' Phaethon has a certain attraction toward the top of 

 the theatre ; ' and a hundred such vagaries, which I should have sup- 

 posed would have cost antiquity all its credit. Finally, Descartes " 

 (an Englishman would have said Bacon), "and some other moderns, 

 have said, ''Phaethon rises because he is drawn up by cords, and because 

 a heavier weight descends.'' So now we have come to believe that, if 

 a body move, it is because it is pushed or pulled, and one who could 

 see Nature as it is Avould simply be seeing what is behind the scenes 

 at the opera." 



After this, Fontenelle goes on to sketch the history of his science, 

 and thence to give an account of the Ptolemaic and other systems, 

 which preceded the Copernican. Here, again, a happy image reminds 

 us of a danger all system-makers share, as common partners in a 

 weakness which is as universal as humanity : 



" Before I explain the first of these systems, I beg you to remem- 

 ber that we all of us are like a certain madman at Athens you may 

 have heard of, who took it into his head that all the ships which came 

 into the harbor belonged to him. Our common failing is to believe 

 all Nature created for our own use, and when you ask our philosophers 

 what end is served by that host of stars, they will calmly tell you, It 

 is there for us to look at.' In this way they could not fail to suppose 

 that the earth was fixed in the centre of the universe, and that all the 

 heavenly bodies were set to revolve about her, and give her light ; 

 the same propensity which leads one to desire the most honorable 

 seat at a ceremony makes the philosopher in his system put himself 

 at the centre of the universe if he can." 



It will be seen, as Sainte-Beuve remarks, that Fontenelle possesses 

 the art of scientific insinuation in the highest- degree ; in addressing 

 his marchioness, he is here appealing to the intelligence of every igno- 

 rant person who, rather than resemble the Athenian madman, is cajoled 

 into truth, and disposed in advance to reject Ptolemy's system, in 

 favor of the Copernican. 



The account of the Copernican system involves the (to the mar- 

 chioness) entirely novel idea of the earth's rotation. This is present- 

 ed to us in a lively picture of the scene which would be offered to a 

 spectator suspended above the surface as the speaker imagines him- 

 self to be : " ' Passing under my eyes I see all sorts of faces, white, 

 black, and brown. First come hats, and then turbans, and then 

 shaven crowns ; now towns with church-spires, now cities with slen- 

 der, crescent-tipped minarets, now porcelain towers, and then again 

 wide oceans and dreadful deserts.' 'What,' she cries, 'then in the 

 place where we are I don't mean this park, but this very place in the 

 air there are people continually passing by, wdio come where we are 

 now, and at the end of twenty-four hours we get back again our- 

 vol. x. 46 



