METEORIC ASTHONOM V. 151 



tion and opinions would have been very different. Their 

 great theories would either have had no existence, or have been 

 much smaller, and they would understand that philosophic 

 caution is one of the characteristic results of scientific train- 

 ing- 

 Simple facts, which can be immediately proved by simple 

 experiments and simple observations, are at once accepted, and 

 their discoverers duly honored, without any hesitation or 

 delay, but the grander efforts of generalization require careful 

 thought and laborious scrutiny for their verification, and there- 

 fore the acknowledgment of their merits is necessarily delayed ; 

 but when it does arrive full justice is usually done. 



Thus Grove's " Correlation of the Physical Forces," the 

 greatest philosophical work on purely physical science of this 

 generation, was commenced in 1842, when its author occupied 

 but a humble position at the London Institution. The book 

 was but little noticed for many years, and, had Mr. Grove 

 (now Sir William Grove) not been duly educated by the dis- 

 cipline above referred to, he might have become a noisy can- 

 tankerous martyr, one of those " Ill-used men" who have 

 been made familiar to so many audiences by Mr. George 

 Daw son. 



Instead of this, he patiently waited, and, as we have lately 

 seen, the well - deserved honors have now been liberally 

 awarded. 



In a very few years hence we shall be able to say the same 

 of the once diabolical Darwin, and eight or nine other theorists, 

 who must all be content to take their trial and patiently await 

 the verdict ; the time of waiting being of necessity propor- 

 tionate to the magnitude of the issue. 



The theories of Schiaparelli, which, as Mr. Proctor says, 

 " after the usual term of doubt have so recently received the 

 sanction of the highest astronomical tribunal of Great Britain," 

 are not of so purely speculative a character as to demand a 

 very long "term of doubt." They are directly based on 

 observations and mathematical calculations which bring them 

 under the domain of the recognized logic of mathematical prob- 

 ability. Those who arc specially interested in the modern 

 progress of astronomy should read this article in the Quarterly 

 Journal of Science, which is illustrated with the diagrams 

 necessary for the comprehension of the researches and reason- 

 ing of Schiaparelli and others who have worked on the same 

 ground. 



