Dbc. 16, 1681.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



185 



Men of art, science, and literature, witli their keen sus- 

 ceptibilities, and their tendency to watoh with anxiety, if 

 not with envy, the success of their fellow-workers, stand at 

 the head of the professions and trades in suicidal tenden- 

 cies, despite the enormous increase to the value of life 

 wliich the study of art, science, and literature brings with 

 it Military men come next, in Italy at least (with 40+ to 

 the million of their class, as compared with 618 to the 

 million among litei-ary men). But this may lie due to 

 other causes, as Dr. Morselli notes. " MilitaiT life " (in 

 Italy), he says, " has the misfortune of incre:i.sing the loss 

 of active and vigorous elements by means of unhappy 

 .sacrifice to suicide ; whether that is owing to distiince from 

 home and disgust for military life, or to the severity of 

 discipline, this is not the place to discuss." 



Dr. Morselli's work is full of curious statistics, singularly 

 ill-arranged, and at time.s rendered almost unmeaning for 

 want of fuller information, or by the badness of the trans- 

 lation, yet well worth careful study. The conclusion to 

 wliich he comes is melancholy. The cure of the suicidal 

 tendency is indicated, he says, in one precept : " To develope 

 in man the ponxr of tcell-orderht'j sentiments and ideas bij 

 tnhirh to r'arh a certain aim in life ; in sJiort, to give force 



will be turned from the idle question : " Is life worth 

 living?" Life is always worth living when any good work 

 remains to be done. 



THE DESTROYED COMET. 



Br THE Editor. 



BEFORE considering the theory of repulsion as applied 

 to interpret the phenomena of comets' tails, it may 

 be well to consider a case in which some acti\e force (other 

 than gravity), exerted by thc^ sun, seems to have wrought 

 the destruction of a comet, or, at least, to have broken up 

 the comet into unrecognisable fragments. 



Kg comet ever observed has exhibited phenomena more 

 remarkable than those displayed by the comet known as 

 Biela's (more properly called Gambart's). We wish we 

 could agree with a modern astronomer, who has said that 

 no comet has thrown more light on the nature of these 

 bodies ; but, in point of fact, it is only promise of light, not 

 light itself, that we have obtained. 



Discovered in 1826, Biela's comet was presently found 

 to be identical with one seen in 1772 by Montaigne, and 



-Biela's Comet in 1^6, before its divisiou into two. 



atid enerrjy to the moral ohoracter." This amounts, in fact, 

 to saying that, since the weak and idle are more apt to 

 commit suicide than the strong and active, it is necessary 

 to become strong and energetic in order 1>o avoid the sui- 

 cidal tendency. But how? "Intemperance and dissolute- 

 ness are powerful causes of weakness, and consequently of 

 suicide." Therefore we must avoid intemperance and dis- 

 soluteness. But ma}' it not with as much truth be said 

 ihat weakness is a cause of intemperance and dissoluteness ^ 

 We are no nearer the cau-sa cajMan/ 7Jjrt--i-no»nearer thaa was 

 Hamlet when he reasoned how • • ■ li ■/ i: , ' '■ ; 



Oft it chances in particular men, 

 That for some vicious mole of Nature in them. 

 As in their birth (wherein they are not gailtr, 

 Since natnre cannot choose his origin) 

 By their [query *' tho "] off -growth of some coinp lesion, 

 Oft bre.'vking down the pales and forts of reason 



Their virtues else 



Shali in the general cengnre take coiTuption 

 From that particular fault. 



The true cure, it seems to ua, is from without, not from 

 within. Show a man that his life need not be a useless 

 one ; give lijxu some worthy end to achieve, and his mind 



2. — Biela's Comet on January 15, after its division into two. 



again by Pons in 130.5. A careful study of the obser\-a- 

 tions showed that the comet travels round the sun in a 

 period of about 6 J years, or, roughly, thrice in twenty years. 

 Its path was found to approach very near to the path of 

 our earth. The comet returned in 1832, when the ignorant 

 were scared much as they have been recently by the 

 threatened influence of the larger planets in perihelion. 

 The comet crossed the earth's track several weeks before 

 she herself came to the place where the two orbits approach 

 nearest, and it is hardly necessary to say that the comet's 

 passage did not injure the earth's roadway in any appre- 

 ciable degree. 



In 1839 the comet returned, but was not seen, travelling 

 across a part of the heavens only above the horizon in 

 the day-time, so that the comet's light was hidden by the 

 .sun's. 



It was at the next return in 1845-46 that the comet first 

 attracted special attention. On that occasion, instead of 

 behaving as comets usually do, Biela's, which in the first 

 days of 1846 had presented the appearance shown in Fig. 1, 

 was found to have divided into two. There Ls some little 

 doubt as to the time when the comet underwent division. 

 Lieut. Maury reported on .January 1-5 that he had seen the 



