CHAPTER XXVI 



THE MEASURE OF STELLAR SPACES 



IF the truth be the highest thing for which man may strive, 

 it surely seems to follow that we should award to seekers for 

 the truth a special place. So, in a way, mankind has always 

 done, first among savage tribes, to the medicine man ; in later 

 days, when his view widened to the inclusion of moral problems, 

 to the priest ; later still, when he had begun to reflect upon the 

 larger enigmas of existence, to the philosopher ; in our own 

 day, when the thing of utmost worth seems the reality, to the 

 magi of science.* But if the things revealed by these later-day 

 workers of magic be worth while, if humanity has been broadened, 

 its aims exalted, if its primitive savage instincts to hurt and to 

 kill, to maim and destroy, have been repressed or diverted, 

 then surely we owe a debt to those who have supplied the means 

 by which the miracle has been wrought. 



It is a commonplace that all our knowledge of the world 

 in which we live, its surroundings, its nature, its extent, has 

 been derived from mechanical appliances. Then it is not to 

 Galileo, the user of the telescope, but to Galileo the deviser, 

 and to his obscure forerunners in Holland, that the greater 

 debt is due. Insufficiently do we do honour unto him who con- 

 trives, who constructs, who invents, who improves. In the 

 instance immediately at hand it was the instrument-maker 

 who made it possible to work out the ranges of the stars. Scores 

 and even hundreds of assiduous astronomers had tried it, but 

 to no end. They had conceived many ingenious and round- 

 about ways ; perhaps two of these are worthy of record. 



The new star that roused Galileo to his first great battle 

 for the Coppernican system the new star of 1604 had like- 

 wise deeply engaged the attention of Kepler. He saw it first 

 in October. By January it had begun to wane. When October 

 came again it had disappeared from view. It was certainly 



a star. This Kepler could be sure of, because within this year 



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