332 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



really identical with the sun's orbit. It would seem that these very 

 obvious laws could not escape a geometer of the caliber of Ptolemy. 

 It appears that he never attempted the generalization; nor did his suc- 

 cessors till the time of Copernicus. Each case was treated separately. 

 When each was solved the explanation was complete. It required 

 fourteen hundred years to make a generalization which is, in reality, 

 simple, almost obvious. 



Ptolemy's explanation of the system of the world accounted for all 

 the facts known to him. As time went on, those assiduous observers, 

 the Arabians, discovered other irregularities in the lunar and planetary 

 motions unknown to Ptolemy. Every new irregularity required a 

 new epicycle to explain it and in time the commentators of Ptolemy 

 had added cycle on cycle, orb on orb until more than sixty spheres 

 were necessary. The system lost its simplicity as more and more 

 facts had to be explained and became a tangle of single instances, a 

 web of particularities. It was never refuted. It broke of its own 

 weight. The heliocentric hypothesis of Copernicus explained all these 

 matters so simply, so convincingly, that it was soon adopted by all 

 competent persons who examined it. The simplicity of a hypothesis 

 is, of course, no evidence of its truth. Many modern theories are com- 

 plex to a degree, but this is no proof that they are not true. 



A layman seldom understands the attitude of a man of science 

 towards 'theories,' as they are often half-contemptuously termed. 

 Theory is popularly used as a synonym of opinion. 'His theory' is 

 thought of as merely 'his opinion.' When, let us ask, is a science 

 perfect? It is perfect when the circumstances of a phenomenon that 

 is to occur in the future can be as accurately predicted now, as they 

 can subsequently be observed when the actual phenomenon occurs. 

 The 'theory' of transits of Venus over the sun's disc is practically 

 perfect. We can predict the conditions of the next transit in A. D. 

 2004 almost as well as the astronomers of that day can observe it. 

 The theory of Neptune's motion is so well known that the position 

 of the planet in 1999 can be now predicted almost as accurately as it 

 can be observed in that year. The theory of the circulation of the sap 

 in plants is, on the other hand, far from perfect. We understand its 

 general laws very well, but it is quite impossible to predict the circum- 

 stances for any particular plant in any particular season. The theories 

 of hail, of lightning, of auroras and many others are in the same state. 



It is obvious that if our own methods and instruments of observa- 

 tion are greatly improved at any particular epoch the science to which 

 they belong will cease to be perfect even if it were a perfect science 

 in the first instance. Tycho Brahe observed the longitudes of the 

 stars by the naked eye. It is impossible, as we now know, to fix a 

 longitude by such observations within one minute of arc (!'). This 

 depends on the very constitution of the eye. Wlien the telescope was 



