Oct. 17, 1889] 



NATURE 



591 



•elusion. " The dispute between science versus classics 

 in education will not be settled on paper or by discussion. 

 It will be settled, in fact, by the establishment some- 

 where or other, and in some form or other, of a system of 

 scientific education, the results of which will vindicate 

 t^hemselves. We may argue, and vested interests may 

 resist, but the tendency of things is unmistakable — the 

 sciences will end by conquering their place." 



W. R. D. 



CORRESPONDENCE OF CHRISTIAN 

 HUYGENS. 



-CEuvrcs Completes de Christiaan Huygens. Publides par 

 la Soci^te Hollandaise des Sciences. Tome Deuxifeme : 

 Correspondance, 1657-59. (La Haye : Martinus Nijhoff, 

 1889.) 



THE second volume of the great edition of Huygens's 

 works, the first volume of which was noticed last 

 year in these pages (Nature, vol. xxxviii. p. 193), has 

 made its appearance with creditable promptitude. The 

 letters included in it range from 1657 to 1659. That they 

 ^re numerous and elaborate is sufficiently shown by the 

 bulk of their receptacle ; their value might be taken on 

 trust from the names of the writers, and can be ascer- 

 tained by the somewhat laborious process of perusal. 

 This, however, may be curtailed at pleasure by having 

 recourse to a series of admirably-constructed indexes, 

 aided by which, readers, exempted from the ignominious 

 necessity for " skipping," are enabled to find what they 

 want, and neglect what less immediately concerns them. 



Scientific correspondence was in those days of far greater 

 importance than it is now. It, in fact, to a great extent, took 

 the place of scientific journalism. There was then no recog- 

 nized channel of public criticism. The first numbers of 

 the Philosophical Transactions and the Journal des 

 Savans appeared within a few months of each other in 

 1665 ; the Acta Eruditoruin began to be published at 

 Leipzig only in 1682. The learned formed a cosmopolitan 

 caste, using a cosmopolitan language. They made an 

 audience " fit and few " for each other's communications, 

 and cared little, in general, to address a wider public. 

 Epistolary intercourse assumed, accordingly, proportions 

 ■and a significance which we find it difficult to realize. 

 From one end of the Continent to the other, workers were, 

 by means of letters nominally private, kept an courant 

 of the progress of invention, readers of the course of 

 publication ; ideas and criticisms were interchanged ; 

 authors were informed of the impression produced by 

 their works ; controversies were conducted or commented 

 «pon. 



In the correspondence now before us, indeed, there is 

 small trace of the odium scientificum. Although often 

 obliged to stand on the defensive against unjust attacks 

 upon his originality, Huygens never lost self-control. The 

 scelerata insania belli had no place in his calm and 

 reasonable mind. His reticence is strikingly illustrated 

 by the incident of the feigned anagram, left unfinished 

 and mysterious by the earlier letters, but brought to a 

 satisfactory conclusion in the present collection. The 

 •bogus claim put forward by Dr. Wallis to the detection of 

 Saturn's first-known satellite, proves, in accordance with 



the conjecture emitted by Mr. Maunder in the Observatory 

 for last March, to have been an infelicitous practical joke. 

 It enforced, however, a designed moral by rendering pal- 

 pable the protective ineflicacy of crytographical announce- 

 ments ; and no more was heard (that we are aware) of 

 the entrenchment of discoveries or inventions behind 

 logogryphs. Huygens continued in a state of mystification 

 on the point for above three years, the Savilian Professor's 

 first explanatory letter having miscarried ; but he allowed 

 his natural irritation only the vent of a few jottings of a 

 strictly private character. 



The publication of Huygens's " Systema Saturnium " 

 was the leading event of the period now under consider- 

 ation. The book was long and eagerly expected, and was 

 received — so far as letters acknowledging the receipt of 

 " complimentary copies " enable us to judge — with a chorus 

 of approbation. Its author, at the age of thirty — Galileo 

 being already dead, and Newton as yet un'-:nown — found 

 himself pre-eminent among the astronomers of Europe. 

 " Ora ha Giotto il grido." Yet the flattering assurances 

 with which he was overwhelmed did not wholly exclude 

 some expressions of misgiving. The physical and 

 mechanical difficulties attending the existence of such a 

 Saturnian system as he described were very great. The 

 hypothesis of a ring was no doubt beautifully ingenious, 

 and accounted for observed phenomena with the utmost 

 neatness and sufficiency ; but was it true ? Was such an 

 incredible structure, in point of actual and undeniable fact, 

 to be found in the heavens ? Su:h questionings could not 

 but arise, and were only finally set at rest by the predicted 

 complete disappearance of the anomalous appendages as 

 the earth got to the unilluminated side of them towards 

 the end of 167 1. 



Saturn's ring-system has now so long held a place in 

 astronomical consciousness that it costs an eff'ort of the 

 imagination to conceive the audacity of the first attempt 

 to establish it there. Its author himself did not look for 

 immediate and unqualified assent. All he hoped for was 

 that his mode of accounting for the "bizarre appearances " 

 of the " triple planet " should get an unprejudiced trial. 

 Writing to Slusius in September 1659, he congratulated 

 himself that his hypothesis had not struck him as absurd ; 

 and he met the scruples of objectors with a quiet appeal to 

 time. It has not failed to justify his confidence. 



An incidental paragraph in the " Systema Saturnium " 

 (p. 9), announcing the virtual discovery of the great Orion 

 nebula, appears to have excited little attention, Huygens's 

 correspondents passed it over in silence ; he took no 

 trouble to invite their opinions on the subject ; nor is there 

 evidence that any of his subsequent observations were 

 directed towards that " gap " (as it were) in the crystalline 

 vault through which the glimmering of empyreal fire was 

 discernible. Still more singularly, Hevelius, although he 

 catalogued the stars, and enumerated fourteen nebula;, did 

 not include among them the Orion " portent," upon which, 

 indeed, he seems never to have had the curiosity to direct 

 his telescope (H. S chuliz, Astr. Nach., No. 1585). The 

 first intelligent observer of nebulee was Halley. 



A sidereal phenomenon of another sort, however, 

 attracted considerable attention in the learned eateries of 

 Paris and the Hague. Janson's "new star," in collo 

 Cygni, was again visible in 1658-59. First seen ia 

 i6co as of the third magnitude, it disappeared from view 



