92 SCIENCE IX SHORT CHAPTERS. 



and pared, scraped and patched, lengthened and shortened, 

 thickened and narrowed, till they are made to fit the phenom- 

 ena with mathematical accuracy. These Laborious creations 

 are then put forth as philosophical truths, and, afterward, the 

 accuracy of their fitting to the phenomena is quoted as evi- 

 dence of the positive reality of the ethers, atoms, undulations, 

 i gyrations, collisions, or whatever else the mathematician may 

 have thus skilfully created and fitted. It appears to me that 

 such fitness only proves the ingenuity of the fitter the skill of 

 the mathematician and that all such hypotheses belong to the 

 poetry of science ; they should be distinctly labelled as prod- 

 ucts of mathematical imagination, and nowise be confounded 

 with objective natural truths. Such products of the imagina- 

 tion of the expert may assist the imagination of the student in 

 comprehending some phenomena, just as " Jack Frost" and 

 " Billy Wind" may represent certain natural forces to babies ; 

 but if Jack Frost, Billy Wind, electric and magnetic fluids, 

 ultimate atoms, interatomic ethers, nervous fluids, etc. are 

 allowed to invade the intellect, and are accepted as actual phys- 

 ical existences, they become very mischievous philosophical 

 superstitions. 



I make this digression in order to repudiate any participation 

 in this kind of speculation. Though tk The Fuel of the Sun" 

 is avowedly a very bold attempt to unravel majestic mysteries, 

 I have not sought to elucidate the known, by means of the un- 

 known, as do these inventors of imaginary agents, but have 

 scrupulously followed the opposite principle. I have invented 

 nothing, but have started from the experimental facts of the 

 laboratory, the demonstrated laws of physical action, and have 

 followed up step by step what I understand to be the necessary 

 consequences of these. Many years ago I convinced myself 

 that our atmosphere is but a portion of universal atmospheric 

 matter ; that Dr. Wollaston was wrong, and that the compres- 

 sion of this universal atmospheric matter is possibly the source 

 of solar light and heat ; but as this was long before M. Deville 

 had investigated the subject of dissociation by heat,* I was 

 unable to work out the problem at all satisfactorily. When I 

 subsequently resumed the subject, I knew nothing about the 

 corona, and had only read of the u red prominences" as possible 

 lunar appendages, or solar clouds, or optical illusions. I had 



* My first memorandum on the subject is dated April 23, 1840, in 

 * Register of Ideas, then commenced in very early student days. 



