570 Royal Astronomical Society. 



pointed out ; and that, in the event of a parallax at all comparahle 

 with that assigned by Mr. Henderson being found, he will deserve 

 the merit of its first discovery, and the warmest thanks of astrono- 

 mers, as an extender of the knowledge which we possess of our 

 connexion with the sidereal system." 



With this view of Mr. Henderson's labours I fully agree, and 

 await with highly excited interest the result of Mr. Maclear's 

 larger and complete series of observations on this star both with the 

 old circle and with that more perfect one with which the munifi- 

 cence of government has recently supplied the observatory. Should 

 a different eye and a different circle continue to give the same re- 

 sult, we must, of course, acquiesce in the conclusion ; and the di- 

 stinct and entire merit of the first discovery of the parallax of a 

 fixed star will rest indisputably with Mr. Henderson. At present, 

 however, we should not be justified in so far anticipating a decision 

 which time alone can stamp with the seal of absolute authenticity. 



Gentlemen of the Astronomical Society, I congratulate you and 

 myself that we have lived to see the great and hitherto impassable 

 barrier to our excursions into the sidereal universe ; that barrier 

 against which we have chafed so long and so vainly — {eestuantes an- 

 gusto limite mundi) — almost simultaneously overleaped at three dif- 

 ferent points. It is the greatest and most glorious triumph which 

 practical astronomy has ever witnessed. Perhaps I ought not to 

 speak so strongly — perhaps I should hold some reserve in favour of 

 the bare possibility that it may be all an illusion — and that further 

 researches, as they have repeatedly before, so may now fail to sub-, 

 stantiate this noble result. But I confess myself unequal to such 

 prudence under such excitement. Let us rather accept the joyful 

 omens of the time, and trust that, as the barrier has begun to yield, 

 it will speedily be effectually prostrated. Such results are among 

 the fairest flowers of civilization. They justify the vast expenditure 

 of time and talent which have led up to them ; they justify the 

 language which men of science hold, or ought to hold, when they 

 appeal to the governments of their respective countries for the liberal 

 devotion of the national means in furtherance of the great objects 

 they propose to accomplish. They enable them not only to hold 

 out but to redeem their promises, when they profess themselves 

 productive labourers in a higher and richer field than that of mere 

 •material and physical advantages. It is then when they become 

 (if I may venture on such a figure without irreverence) the messen- 

 gers from heaven to earth of such stupendous announcements as 

 must strike every one who hears them with almost awful admira- 

 tion, that they may claim to be listened to when they repeat in 

 every variety of urgent instance, that these are not the last of such 

 announcements which they shall have to communicate, — that there 

 are yet behind, to search out and to declare, not only secrets of nature 

 which shall increase the wealth or power of man, but truths which 

 shall ennoble the age and the country in which they are divulged, 

 and by dilating the intellect, react on the moral character of man- 

 kind. Such truths are things quite as worthy of struggles and sa- 



