Problems of Astronomy 



reaching a complete solution. Yet the astron- 

 omer does not view them as Kantian antinomies 

 [contradictions] in the nature of things insoluble, 

 but as questions to which he may hopefully look 

 for at least a partial answer. 



The problem of the distances of the stars is 

 of peculiar interest in connection with the Coper- 

 nican system. The greatest objection to this 

 system, which must have been more clearly seen 

 by astronomers than by any others, was found in 

 the absence of any apparent parallax of the stars. 

 If the earth performed such an immeasurable 

 circle around the sun as Copernicus maintained, 

 then, as it passed from side to side of its orbit, 

 the stars outside the solar system must appear 

 to have a corresponding motion in the other 

 direction, and thus to swing back and forth as 

 the earth moved in the one and the other direc- 

 tion. The fact that not the slightest swing of 

 that sort could be seen was, from the time of 

 Ptolemy, the basis on which the doctrine of the 

 earth's immobility rested. The difficulty was 

 simply ignored by Copernicus and his immediate 

 successors. The idea that Nature would not 

 squander space by allowing immeasurable 

 stretches of it to go unused seems to have been 

 one from which mediaeval thinkers could not 

 entirely break away. The consideration that 

 there could be no need of any such economy, 

 because the supply was infinite, might have been 

 theoretically acknowledged, but was not prac- 

 tically felt. The fact is that magnificent as was 

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