OUR SUN'S VARIATIONS OF HEAT 135 



lost to sight till Liliri Uncovered them, and 

 made them the common property of science, 

 resolved not to be baffled, Herachel turned to the 

 rise and fall of the price of wheat at Windsor an an 



it ion of the warmth or coldness of the sun's 



rays. It wan hi* only resource, and it was an idea 



>f a baffled man of science. But critics in 



nt quarters attacked and ridiculed this seeker 



after truth aa if he were guilty of supreme folly. 



Leaders of thought in every branch of science and 



in every department of life have to bear the brunt 



licule from learned ignorance I 1 

 se were the first steps taken by Herachel, it may 

 benai'l, in his quest after the plan on which Almighty 



in Imilt the world of nuns and systems. A 

 farther step forward was made when he addressed 

 himself to ascertain the motion of the sun and solar 

 system through space. That there was such a motion 

 he did not doubt Some had held the same faith 

 before him; astronomers as able had refused it a 

 h.-nrin;;. H> r..n\vru-l it fr-nn faith t. fact. What 

 it means is that our sun with his most distant planet 



comet, with every particle of matter that owns 

 his sway, is travelling onward through space, round 



itre of force apparently and constrained by 

 Newton's law of gravitation. Are those facts or 

 fancies, leading features in the plan of creation or 

 dreams of a mere enthusiast? Herachel not only 

 believed thoy were facts; he set himself to prove 



1 The tablet be took idrantage of were tboee giren bj Adam Smith 

 in TV Wra/M of Nation The ridicule that was heaped up 

 may be eeea in the JMtatof* JMtw, and in a letter aigned J. II., 

 1807, p. 829. 



