150 SCIENCE IN SHORT CHAPTERS. 



the assurance that such pictures have been obtained. There 

 can be no question about optical illusion in these ; they are 

 original affidavits made by the corona itself, signed, sealed, 

 and delivered as its own act and deed. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



METEORIC ASTRONOMY. 



THE number of the Quarterly Journal of Science for May, 

 1872, contains some articles of considerable interest. The 

 first is by the indefatigable Mr. Proctor, on " Meteoric Astron- 

 omy," in which he embodies a clear and popular summary of 

 the researches which have earned for Signer Schiaparelli this 

 year's gold medal of the Astronomical Society. Like all who 

 venture upon a broad, bold effort of scientific thought, extend- 

 ing at all into the regions of philosophical theory, Schiaparelli 

 has had to wait for recognition. A simple and merely 

 mechanical observation of a bare fact, barely and mechanically 

 recorded without the exercise of any other of the intellectual 

 faculties than the external senses and observing powers, is at 

 once received and duly honored by the scientific world ; but 

 any higher effort is received at first indifferently, or sceptically, 

 and is only accepted after a period of probation, directly pro- 

 portionate to its philosophical magnitude and importance, and 

 inversely proportionate to the scientific status of the daring 

 theorist. 



At first sight this appears unjust : it looks like honoring the 

 laborers who merely make the bricks, and despising the archi- 

 tect who constructs the edifice of philosophy from the mate- 

 rials they provide. Many a disappointed dreamer, finding 

 that his theory of the universe has not been accepted, and that 

 the expected honors have not been showered upon him, has 

 violently attacked the whole scientific community as a con- 

 temptible gang of low-minded mechanical plodders, void of 

 imagination, blind to all poetic aspirations, and incapable of 

 any grand and comprehensive flight of intellect. 



Had these impulsive gentlemen been previously subjected to 

 the strict discipline of inductive scientific training, their P9$i- 



