April 2, 1888.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE * 



139 



In the meantime — it is this which seems characteristic of 

 American journalistic notions — it seems never to occur to 

 the editor either of the Silereal Messenger or of the San 

 Francisco Examiner, that a body of honourable gentlemen 

 can be as certainly expected not to elect to any honorary 

 distinction a man proved guilty of falsehood, chicanery, and 

 malice, as (on the other hand) an average body of American 

 politicians would be to elect any scoundrel who could in 

 adequate degree make it worth their while. The editor of 

 the Sidereal Mcssew/er actually asks me — an Englishman — • 

 how I could feel certain that the Council of the Astrono- 

 mical Society would reject a man with contempt who had 

 been convicted of unworthy conduct 1 



* * * 



A CORRESPONDENT obligingly sends the following in re- 

 gard to the question raised in Gossip for February : — 



If it interests your readers, or your " polite " correspondent, — 

 Logan Mitchell, in bis " Mythology Revealed," published by 

 Triibner, sa)s, page 72: — "'The Egyptians,' says Plutarch, 'in- 

 serted nothing into their worship without a reason, nothing merely 

 fabulous, nothing superstitious, as many suppose ; but their insti- 

 tutions have either a reference to morals or to something useful in 

 life, and many of them bear a beautiful resemblance of some 

 appearance in nature.' Chairemou, the Egyptian philosopher, 

 says : — ' What is said of Osiris and Isis and all the sacred fables 

 may be resolved into the stars, their occuliations and risings, into 

 the course of the sun through the zodiac or the nocturnal and 

 diurnal hemispheres.' Porphyry corroborates the above thus : — 

 ' The learned Egyptians admit cf no other gods except what are 

 called the planets, the gods which give completion to the zodiao, and 

 such as rise together with these, and likewise the sections of the 

 zodiac into decans." 



" According to Eratosthenes, the celestial Virgin was supposed to 

 be Isis, that is, the symbol of the returning year. It was in honour 

 of this goddess that the Egyptians celebrated the famous festival of 

 light, which was imitated by the Christians in their feast of 

 Candlemas. From the Egyptians the Romans took their solar 

 festivals, in honour of the birth of the god of light (the sun), cele- 

 brated on December 2.5, at which time, says Servius, the sun may, 

 properly speaking, be said to be new, or have a new birth. Hence 

 the Christmas of the Christians, which had also been, previously, a 

 Druidical festival in honour of the solar god's birth ; hence the 

 evergreen emblems— the holly, the mistletoe. &o., all sacred among 

 the Druids thousands of yeai's before Christ." 



lb., page 86. '"The 'star in the cast' (a sign containing more 

 than a hundred stars), mentioned in Matthew, was no other than this 

 zodiacal sign of the celestial virgin, which arose on the eastern 

 horizon precisely at the time at which we fix the birth of Jesus 

 Christ — viz., December 2.5, when the sun had risen one degree above 

 the solstitial point,* which answers to a moment to the births of the 

 Egyptian Osiris, the Grecian Bacchus, and the Mithra of the 

 Persians. These mystic births are manifestly identical, being 

 metaphorical of the sun's annual birth at the winter solstice, after 

 which he gradually becomes, not only figuratively, but positively 

 the Saviour of the world. The resemblance, or rather the sameness, 

 of every circumstance relating to Mithras, the Mediator of the 

 Persians, and those connected with the Saviour, or Mediator of the 

 Christians, is so apparent th.at no rational man can doubt, or 

 hesitate a moment, in pronouncing the latter to be a counterpart of 

 the former. 



"Zoroaster taught the Magi that this celestial birth would be 

 announced by the rising of this star, or constellation of the Virgo, 

 in the middle of which would appear the figure of a young woman, 

 suckling an infant child, called Jesus by some nations, and Clirist 

 or Christos in Greek. This was the goddess of the year nursing the 

 god of day." 



* * * 



Mr. FR.iNfis Ham sends me a long letter about whisti 

 maintaining his position that scientific whist is no more 

 efliective than " bttmWc-puppy." I have no space for 

 letters about scientific whist from a writer who professes to 

 know nothing about it. If he will not believe my assur- 



* This is of course quite wrong. On December 2.5 now the sun 

 has not risen more than 3 or 4 min. above his solstitial elevation. 

 But December 25 may have been the very day of the solstice in old 

 times. 



ances (as one who knows) that scientific whist is an entirely 

 different game from what he knows as whist, I cannot help 

 it. All I can do is to repeat my statement. I will not 

 strive to show why scientific whist, played by two partners 

 who understand its principles, is invariably successful (in 

 every spell of play long enough to eliminate the effects of 

 chance). The case is so, to my knowledge ; and, were it 

 otherwise, scientific whist is a game worth playing, an 

 admirable recreation for the tired worker. The game Mr. 

 Ham supposes to be whist is not worth sitting down to. 

 " Double dummy " is a finer game in the scientific sense 

 than the best whist played by four. But it is too difficult 

 to be called recreation. 



* * * 



A CORRESPONDENT asks me about my treatment of the 

 function sin-'x in my little book, " Easy Lessons in the 

 Diflerential Calculus," under the impression that sin-'x is 

 the same as (sin x)-'. This is not the case, though sin -x 

 is the same as (sin x)'^. It has been agreed that sin-'x 

 shall represent " the angle whose sine is x." 



The same correspondent calls my attention, however, to 

 a real, though easily detected erratum. Near the top of 

 page 34 in that little book sin-'x appears instead of sin x. 



TiiE chess editor of the Australasian calls attention to 

 the fact that in an article on the " Wonders of Blindfold 

 Chess," I not only make mistakes about Paul Morphy's 

 career, but have an illustration representing a chess player 

 blindfolded and feeling for the men. The Australasian is 

 good enough to express its belief that I am not responsible 

 for this particular absurdity (I should hope not), but in a 

 tone implying that I might be guilty of absurdities as great 

 and greater. Considering that I have played blindfold 

 chess, and have written about my experience in that sort of 

 play, it is rather too patent a bit of spite to write thus of 

 me. This was the sort of thing Mr. Go.'?sip used to do in 

 chess literature ; and one might almost imagine he had 

 lighted on the Melbourne chess-world — though, for Mel- 

 bourne's sake, it is to be hoped not. The chess editor of the 

 Australasian when I was in Melbourne was Mr. Wisker, 

 formerly the chess champion of England. I do not know 

 who has held the reins since his death. I fear there has 

 been a noteworthy falling-olf. As for the mistakes about 

 Paul INIorphy, most prolsably they are imagined. But in 

 any case they are not mine. They are made, in a sketch of 

 Morphy's chess tour in Europe, by a gentleman who accom- 

 panied him mo.st of the time. 



A CORRESPONDENT asks " if any review has appeared in 

 Knowledge of Mr. Lockyer's meteoric theory ? " When we 

 hear of any meteoric theory advanced by Mr. Lockyer we 

 will gladly review it. At present we know only of a 

 meteoric theory suggested, advanced, and maintained by 

 others during the last quarter of a century which some one 

 in the Times has endeavoured (in a five-column article) to 

 hand over to Mr. Lockyer 1 The wicked say the author of 

 the article is Mr. Lockyer himself; but that seems too 

 wild a fcincy to be possible. In the Boyal Society, however, 

 the method of advancing the meteoric theory recently 

 adopted has been described, publicly, by an eminent 

 ph3sicist as an insult oflered to the society by Mr. Lockyer ; 

 and Mr. Lockyer himself has been sat upon, after the 

 manner of speaking, almost as severely as if he had really 

 written that Lockyer-adulating article I " 'Tis true 'tis 

 pity : pity 'tis 'tis true." 



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