S SCIENCE IN SHORT CHAPTERS. 



abdication of their philosophical responsibilities. Any man 

 who publishes an astronomical or meteorological treatise 

 without discussing this question, which stands before him at 

 the threshold of his subject, is unfit for the task he has 

 undertaken, and unworthy of public confidence. This may 

 appear a strong conclusion just now, but a few years will be 

 sufficient to graft it firmly into the growth of scientific 

 public opinion.* 



" The Fuel of the Sun" is simply an attempt to trace 

 some of the consequences which must of necessity result 

 from the existence of an universal atmosphere, and it differs 

 from other attempts to explain the great solar mystery, by 

 making no demands whatever upon the imagination, in- 

 renting nothing, no outside meteors, no new forces or 

 materials. It supposes nothing whatever to exist but the 

 known facts of the laboratory the familiar materials of 

 the earth and its atmosphere. It is shown that these mate- 

 rials and the forces residing within them must of necessity 

 produce a sun, and manifest eternally all the observed solar 

 phenomena, provided only they are aggregated in the quan- 

 tities which our own central luminary presents, and are 

 surrounded by attendant planets, suoh as his. Nothing is 

 assumed or taken for granted beyond the simple funda- 

 mental hypothesis that the laws of nature are uniform 

 throughout the universe. The argument thus conducted 

 leads us step by step to a natural and connected explanation 

 of the following important phenomena: 



1. The sources of solar and stellar heat and light. 



2. The means by which the present amount of solar heat 

 and light must be maintained so long as the solar system 

 continues in existence. 



3. The origin of the general and particular phenomena 

 of the sun-spots. 



* Up to the present date (1882) nobody, as far as I know, has 

 questioned my figures or defended those of Wollaston. Sir William 

 Grove has written to me, pointing out his own anticipations of my 

 conclusions respecting the universality of atmospheric matter. Sir 

 Charles Lyell, before his death, expressed very strong approval of my 

 conclusions, and many other men of scientific eminence have done 

 the same. To expect any immediate, unreserved adoption of such 

 bold speculations would be unreasonable. 



