Problems of Astronomy 



necessary to apologize for it and, so far as pos- 

 sible, to attribute his ideas to the ancients. 



A century and a half after Copernicus fol- 

 lowed the second great step, that taken by New- 

 ton. This was nothing less than showing that 

 the seemingly complicated and inexplicable 

 motions of the heavenly bodies were only special 

 cases of the same kind of motion, governed by 

 the same forces, that we see around us whenever 

 a stone is thrown by the hand or an apple falls 

 to the ground. The actual motions of the 

 heavens and the laws which govern them being 

 known, man had the key with which he might 

 commence to unlock the mysteries of the uni- 

 verse. 



When Huyghens, in 1656, published his Sys- 

 tema Saturnium where he first set forth the 

 mystery of the rings of Saturn, which, for nearly 

 half a century, had perplexed telescopic ob- 

 servers, he prefaced it with a remark that many, 

 even among the learned, might condemn his 

 course in devoting so much time and attention 

 to matters far outside the Earth, when he might 

 better be studying subjects of more concern to 

 humanity. Notwithstanding that the inventor 

 of the pendulum clock was, perhaps, the last 

 astronomer against whom a neglect of things 

 terrestrial could be charged, he thought it neces- 

 sary to enter into an elaborate defence of his 

 course in studying the heavens. Now, however, 

 the more distant the objects are in space I 

 might almost add the more distant events are in 

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