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NATURE 



{May 9, 1889 



the eclipse during its totality, which gave the promise of 

 settling, once for all, the hitherto much-mooted question 

 as to whether the red prominences belonged to the sun, or 

 were attributable to a different origin. On his return 

 home he devised a micrometer -for the due measurement 

 of these remarkable phenomena, and in conjunction with 

 other photographs taken by Padre Secchi, at a station 

 some 250 miles distant from Riva Bellosa, he succeeded 

 in allocating these singular fiery prominences beyond 

 question, in the gaseous envelope which surrounds the 

 sun. The results of his researches were embodied in 

 the Bakerian Lecture delivered before the Royal Society 

 in 1862. Perhaps it is not too much to say that these 

 efforts laid the foundation of that wonderful structure of 

 solar physics which is daily enlarging our knowledge of 

 the true nature of the sidereal universe. 



In 1873 the Observatory at Cranford was dismantled, 

 on the occasion of De la Rue's removal from his com- 

 parative seclusion there to his residence in London. The 

 reflector, with all its numerous and valuable accessories, 

 was presented to the University of Oxford, and by this 

 noble gift it was enabled at length to establish an efficient 

 Astronomical Observatory at a place of learning where 

 H alley and Bradley had flourished and taught nearly two 

 centuries before. The instrument was erected in com- 

 pleteness at De la Rue's sole expense, and for several 

 years he defrayed the cost of the additional assistant 

 necessary for its utilization. 



Oxford has at no time been backward in acknowledg- 

 ing-with gratitude all efficient services rendered in behalf 

 of the studies of the place. Accordingly, on De la Rue 

 was conferred the rare honour of the full degree of M.A., 

 by which he became a member of Convocation, while 

 New College also incorporated him among her Society of 

 Wykehamists, and made him a member of their common 

 room. 



We have occasion to know that it was a source 

 of gratification to De la Rue to feel assured that his 

 generous gift was utilized to the full by his old friend the 

 present Professor of Astronomy, and specially in the 

 direction which himself had inaugurated. Moreover 

 when a few months ago he saw the marvellous results 

 produced by Mr. Roberts in his photographic pictures of 

 nebulae, secured by a four hours' exposure, he gave direc- 

 tions for the additional mechanism requisite for the pro- 

 duction, as he hoped and beheved, of similar pictures by 

 his own now ancient instrument. Such is the solidity 

 of the original mounting, that at this moment it is 

 finally placed on a par, in respect of accurate move- 

 ment, with any known instrument ; but he did not live 

 long enough to watch the progress of the experiment. Nor 

 does this end the catalogue of his gifts to the University. 

 When he heard of the projected scheme inaugurated by 

 Admiral Mouchez, the Director of the Paris Observatory, 

 for completing a photographic chart of the entire sidereal 

 heavens, he placed a considerable sum of money in the 

 hands of the Vice-Chancellor in order to defray the cost 

 of the large photographic telescope necessary for taking a 

 part in this great enterprise. The University of Oxford 

 is not an ephemeral institution, and De la Rue's acts of 

 generosity will remain inscribed upon her annals. 



While he was thus watching with intense interest the 

 uses:- made at Oxford of the work of his renovated instru- 



ment, he was himself engaged in a new enterprise of his 

 own. Whether the recollection of what his friend Gassiot 

 had done some twelve years before at Clapham — how, 

 when he returned from his City work in the early evening 

 he retreated down to his laboratory, furnished at incredible 

 labour and expense, and there tried to investigate the 

 nature and origin of the electric discharge, and especially 

 the strangely beautiful luminous striae observed in tubes 

 partially exhausted, visited now and then, while at work, 

 by Faraday and other kindred spirits — whether or not 

 this may have been the inducing cause, certain it is that 

 De la Rue became fascinated by the same phenomena, 

 and enamoured with the same pursuit. Possibly through 

 a like scientific contagion, Spottiswoode also, in due 

 course of time, endeavoured to wrest the same secret from 

 Nature's hands. For years these three men worked and 

 persevered in hope. None of them wholly succeeded, 

 and yet none of them wholly failed ; each and all left 

 finger-posts to guide some future and more fortunate 

 research. 



The space which can be here afforded to the memoir 

 even of an illustrious man precludes more than a passing 

 allusion to the honours and social distinctions which 

 always accompany the efforts of a life such as Warren 

 de la Rue's ; and upon him they were accumulated in 

 abundance. The abiding honour lies in the contem- 

 plation of the man. A career like his dignifies the daily 

 life of a manufacturer, giving it an aim and an object apart 

 from the accumulation of wealth ; it humanizes, warms, 

 and illuminates the absorbing abstraction of the solitary 

 student ; and it illustrates the fact of an Aristocracy of 

 Nature. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF MYSTICISM. 

 The Philosophy of Mysticism. By Carl du Prel, Dr. Phil, 

 Translated from the German by C. C. Massey. 2 Vols. 

 (London : George Red way, 1889.) 



WE own to a certain mistrust when we are asked to 

 accept goods under a trade-mark of mysticism ; just 

 as we have a most Levitical desire to pass by on the other 

 side when we encounter the latest lucubrations of the circle- 

 squarer, the absolute harmony of Genesis and geology, 

 or when the last new theory of the soul is extended before 

 us, "All Danae to the stars." Now the philosophy of mysti- 

 cism contains the latest of soul theories, or rather it is an 

 old theory — a very old theory indeed — which has been 

 newly adapted and furbished up and fitted with the very 

 latest adjuncts which the outskirts of modern science can 

 supply, so that it is to all intents and purposes just as 

 good as if it were altogether new and original. Do not 

 let us be misunderstood : both author and translator act 

 in the strictest good faith. There is no false pretence 

 about the matter. The whole work is perfectly ingenuous. 

 The antiquity of the central idea is not in dispute, but it 

 is claimed for the author that he has essentially modified 

 our conception of that idea, that he presents his matter 

 from a new stand-point, which is enough in all conscience 

 nowadays, and that he is the first to show, by systematic 

 analysis and comparison, that somnambulism and its 

 cognate states are not essentially abnormal or morbid, 

 but are in truth a mere exaltation of ordinary sleep, 

 that the faculties evinced in those states are incipiently 



