s 



KNOAVLEDGE 



[Nov. 1, 1885, 



be thought th?.t iu no case could the Ghureh ever become 

 suboi'dinate to the State ; that Nonconformity coixld not 

 even begin to be, f;ir less grow into rivalry with an 

 established Church; and that even if Nonconformity did 

 spring into existence the Church could always maintain 

 superiority, if not supremacy. 



In niiMiy countries the Church Jms proved irresistible. 

 There have been civilisations which have passed through 

 all the stages of their development to the close of their 

 career, with the Church always iudissolubly aseoci .ted 

 with the State, and always the sujn-eme power. Greece 

 perhaps is the only example among ancient races cf a 

 nation where the priestly power did not attain great 

 development. 



Mr. Spencer attributes the change — where it is 

 effected — from an original predominance of the spiritual 

 power over the temporal power until ultimately the tem- 

 poral power bears sway, to tliat cause which we have 

 found in other cases chiefly operative in determining the 

 higher tj'pes of social organisation — the development of 

 industrialism, the modification of Nature caused by 

 substittition of a life carried on under voluntary co- 

 operatiiin for a life carried on under compulsory co-opera- 

 tion — the transition from a social state in which obedience 

 to authority is the supreme virtue, to a social state in 

 which it is a virtue to resist authority when it trans- 

 gresses prescribed limits. He remarks very justly that 

 the character fostered by the discipline arising from the 

 daily habit of insisting on self-claims while respecting 

 the claims of others, dees not favour iinqualified .submis- 

 sion either to the political head and his laws, or to the 

 ecclesia-stical head and his dogmas. Moreover to the 

 moral change must hi added the intellectual — " also 

 directly resulting from the development of industrial life 

 — that spreading- knowledge of natural causation which 

 conflicts with and gradiially weakens belief iu super- 

 natui-al causation." 



It is strange for us in England — fortunate here 

 above all other nations except our English-speaking 

 kindred across the Atla,nfic — to look back on the past 

 condition of our r.ice in this respect. From 1373 until 

 Henry VIII., in 1-530, ju'omofed Sir Thomas More, not 

 one of our chancellors, as Blackstone notes in his 

 " Commentaries " was a lawyer, — most of them were 

 ecclesiastics, the rest courtiers. From the year 1592, 

 when Serjeant Puckering was made Lord Keeper, the 

 Chancellor wa.s always a lawj-er until 1625, when in the 

 evil Stuart times the Seal was intrusted to Williams, 

 afterwards Bishop of Lincoln. 



We may be permitted to regard the loss of that past 

 infiirence by the Chui-ch as a gain, when we note that, 

 as Buckle truly points out, the history of England in the 

 sixteenth and seventeeth centuries shows the power and 

 reputation of the Church "almost always bearing an 

 inverse ratio to the power and reputation of the country 

 at large ; rapidly sinking under the brilliant and orderly 

 administration of Elizabeth, and as rapidly rising under 

 the disgraceful and disorderly Governments of the first 

 English Stuarts." 



The loss of power by the Church since the extravagant 

 pretensions of the hierarchy in Stuart days have been 

 resigned, has not baen inconsistent with a growth of 

 reputation and even of real influence. For though in 

 parts of England where the industri A type of life and 

 organisation predominate, the influence of the Church 

 has naturally diminished, yet among rural populations 

 it has prob^.bly increased — with increase of dignity of life 

 i-.nd earnestness of purpose among the priesthood of the 

 Established Church, , 



MOVEMENTS OF THE PLANETS. 

 By Richard A. Proctor. 



HE chart of planetary orbits indicates the 

 movements of the four giant planets 

 during the four next years. The move- 

 ments of the earth month by month along 

 her small orbit, the third in order of 

 distance from the sun, are also indicated. 

 It will be seen that Neptune is in oppo- 

 sitiou iu November, not only this year (November 16, at 

 8 a.m.), but nest year (November 18, at 7 p.m.), and 

 du.ring several years past and to come. Uranus was in 

 opposition last on March 21, at 8 a.m., and will next be in 

 opposition on March 26, at 10 a.m., and again on 

 March 31, 1887, after which his oppositions for several 

 years will occur in April. Saturn will be in 

 opposition on December 26, at 11 a.m., and will 

 not be in opposition again till January, 1887. (Astro- 

 logei'S, please find some meaning in the circumstance 

 that the whole of 1886 will pass — the first time such a 

 thing has happened in many years — without any opposi- 

 tion of SaturQ.) Jupiter was last in opposition on Feb. 1 9, 

 at 8 a.m., and will again be in opposition on March 21, 

 1886. If the student will recall that the sun himself is 

 exaggerated in size in the chart, small though he looks 

 there, so that even Jupiter would be far less than the 

 least of the dots set round the orbits, he will probably 

 appreciate the enormous risk to which our solar system 

 has been exposed through the passage of their perihelia 

 by the giant planets. It is easy to draw the orbits and 

 the planets themselves in such a way as to make the risk 

 look terrible ; but rightly pictured the solar system is 

 seen to be safe enough from this particular form of 

 danger. 



Simple though the illustrative chart is, the planetary 

 movements have never before been presented with the 

 same degree of accuracy in a chart of the kind. 



The path of Satiirn from conjunction, when he was of 

 course invisible, in 1885 (June 18) to conjunction again 

 in 1886 (July 4) is .shown in the smaller figure. No 

 other planet will be in opposition this quarter, except 

 Neptune, whose small loop seemed scarcely worth 

 depicting. 



It will be seen that during the first quarter of 1886 

 Saturn will pass very close to the third magnitude stars 

 fi and )] Geminorum. 



The small map illustrates one use of my zodiacal maps 

 which is I think worth noticing ; the places of the stars 

 have been pricked off from the proper zodiacal chart, and 

 then the path of the planet marked in from the places 

 given in the " Nautical Almanac."* 



Next month we propose to give the movements of the 

 four inferior planets. Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, 

 from month to montli, during 1886, with suitable expla- 

 natory diagrams. 



The opposition of Mars in 1886 will also be illustrated 

 next month. 



We hope soon to start a series of monthly observations, 

 — that is observations made during a month preceding the 

 time of publication, — by our esteemed contributor " A 

 Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society." 



* I have thought it might be useful to republish these twenty 

 fouv charts, and liave incfucled them in a work now ready for pub- 

 lication, "The Seasons Pictured," in forty-eight sun-views of the 

 earth, twenty-four zodiacal maps, and other drawings. 



