iJoT. 1, 18S5.] 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



21 



of every variety of nebulous or clustering form within 

 the galaxy : — viz., that if such be the case (i.e., if these 

 forms belong to and form part and jiarcel of the galactic 

 system), then that system includes icithin itself miniafnres 

 of itself on an almost infinitely reduced scale : and what 

 evidence, then, have we that there exists a universe 

 beyond — unless a sort of argument from analogy that the 

 galaxy with all its contents may be btit one of these 

 miniatures of that * more vast universe ; and so on ad 

 infinituni : and that there may be in that [more vast uni- 

 verse] multitudes of other systems on a scale as vast as 

 ottr galaxy ; the analogues of those other nebulous and 

 clustering forms which 

 are not miniatures of 

 our galaxy. t 



I hope you will not 

 be deterred from 

 dwelling more con- 

 secutively and closely 

 on these speculative 

 views by any idea of 

 their hopelessness 

 which the objectors 

 against paper astro- 

 nomy may entertain — 

 or by the real slender- 

 ness of the material 

 threads out of which 

 any connected theory 

 of the universe (at 

 present) has to be 

 woven. Hypotheses 

 fiiigo in this style of 

 oiir knowledge is quite 

 as good a motto as 

 Newton's Kon Jingo — 

 provided always they 

 be not hypotheses as 



* Possibly a mistake for 

 "a," "that" being antici- 

 pated from the, emphatic 

 " that " presently required, 

 and as it weiefelt coming. 

 But the reference may, of 

 course, be to the previously 

 mentioned " universe be- 

 yond.'— K. A. P. 



t H« re, as elsewhere in 

 this letter. Sir John 

 Herschel writes in a con- 

 densed form, very suitable 

 for the occasion (address- 

 ing as he was one who 

 was already fully engaged 

 upon and with the subject) 

 but not quite so fully, or 

 therefore so clearly, as he 

 would have deemed neces- 

 sary, had he been writing 

 to one viewing the subject 

 from outside. The idea of 

 the universe here pre- 

 sented, one of the grandest that could be imagined, may be 

 illustrated thus : — Imagine insects, examining twigs from some dis- 

 tance, at first under the mistaken idea that they were really boughs, 

 much farther awaj- than they seemed to be. If now any evidence 

 suggested that these objects were not so far away, and being near 

 were realh/ smaller than the boughs, a thoughtful insect might say. 

 They seem to belong to tlie bough, and some of them to be minia- 

 tures of it : if so, he might continue. What evidence have we of a 

 bough bejond.unlessasort of argument from analogy that this bough 

 with all its twigs may be but such a miniature of a more vast kind 

 of bough — [a tree as our w-ider knowledge tells us], and that there 

 may be in that [tree] multitudes of other boughs, on a scale as vast 

 as ours, those other boughs corresponding on a larger scale to the 

 other twigs on our bough which are not miniatures of it ? — E. A. P. 



to modes of physical action for which experience gives 

 uo warrant. — I remain, dear sir, yours very truly, 



J. H. W. Herschel. 



LUXOTYPE AND THE EDITOR'S PORTRAIT. 



I HE portrait of the Editor has been obtained 

 by the Luxotype method, about which we 

 wrote at some length in June, 1884. In 

 this method the engraving is purely a 

 nature-process, — landscapes, paintings, and 

 animals (including the human animal divine) can be 



taken in this way 

 without aid from the 

 engraver, except per- 

 haps to remove here 

 and there such flaws 

 or defects as must 

 occasionally appear 

 even in nature's work. 

 Art comes in, of course, 

 as in ordinary photo- 

 graphic work, — and to 

 this, no doubt, must 

 be attributed the 

 strange mistake of a 

 critic who praised 

 certain luxotype land- 

 scapes in a monthly 

 magazine because of 

 the artistic skill with 

 which the engraver 

 had — so said the critic 

 — transformed and 

 spiritualised nature's 

 features ! We hope 

 soon to have other op- 

 portunities of showing 

 the great valae of this 

 new process, and of as- 

 sociated improvements 

 invented by Messrs. 

 Brown, Barnes, it Bell. 

 We have to thank 

 Messrs. Elliott, _ Fry, 

 ife Co. for permission 

 to reproduce this por- 

 trait from their gal- 

 leiy, and for their 

 .sjiecial kindness in 

 lending the original 

 negative. 



lUCHAKU A. rROCTuK, Editor of Knowledge, 

 (Printed from a Luxotype process-block.) 



The British Race of 

 To-day.— The British race 

 of to-day ought to be tough 

 and enduring, for it has 

 been welded in the past by 

 many beatings. It is a race stubborn to endure, but it is also a race 

 readv to attack. If we are descended from races which have been 

 well" beaten, we are descended also from races which have well 

 achieved victory. We share the blood of the Britons, whom the 

 Saxons overcame, but we share also the blood of the Saxons who 

 overcame the Britons. We descend from the Saxons whom the 

 Normans subdued, but we inherit also the blood of their Isorman 

 conquerors. It is probably this mixture of many qualities good 

 in contest, fierceness in attack, resolution in defence, daring in 

 enterprise, stubbornness in endurance, which has made the BntisU 

 race what it is. It wants some of the finer qualities we admire in 

 the nations of antiquity, though not altogether unlike the Roman 

 race in some respects. But at present it is beyond all question pre- 

 dominant in the world. 



U 



