FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS IN ASTRO- 

 NOMICAL SCIENCE 



BY LEWIS BOSS 



[Lewis Boss, Director of Dudley Observatory, Albany, N. Y. Professor of Astro- 

 nomy, Union University, Albany, N. Y. b. Providence, R. I., October 26 r 

 1846. A. B. Dartmouth, 1870; A.M. ibid. 1877; LL.D. Union College, 1902. 

 Chief Civilian Astronomer, United States Northern Boundary Commission, 

 1872-76; Superintendent of Weights and Measures, State of New York, 1883. 

 Member of National Academy of Sciences; Foreign Associate of Royal Astro- 

 nomical Society, London; British Association for the Advancement of Science; 

 Astronomische Gesellschaft. Author of Declinations of 500 Stars ; Appendix H , 

 Report of the U. S. Northern Boundary Commission ; Catalogue of 8241 Stars ; 

 Positions and Motions of 627 Standard Stars; and various memoirs and shorter 

 articles.] 



ASTRONOMICAL research has put the world in possession of a wide 

 range of specific knowledge. This concerns a class of phenomena 

 outside the ordinary field of human experience. Astronomy seems to 

 be fairly entitled to another kind of recognition. It was the pioneer 

 in scientific method. It was the first to appreciate fully the logic of 

 mathematical analysis, and to stimulate its development. In pur- 

 suit of its characteristic aim to compare hypotheses with observed 

 facts, it brought into prominence this intellectual habit, subsequently 

 employed in the development of all branches of exact science. This 

 aspect of astronomy, as an intellectual pursuit, may properly claim 

 our special attention at the present time. 



The full and distinct conception of the material universe as a me- 

 chanism operating under the dominion of natural laws that are simple 

 and inflexible in their application is the product of later scientific 

 induction. From the first the investigating astronomer must have 

 apprehended some glimmerings of such a conception. This impelled 

 him to submit this idea to the test of exact examination. But before 

 attempting to trace the development and consequence of this im- 

 pulse let us notice some of the circumstances that environ the work 

 of the practical investigator in astronomy. 



In dealing with the celestial bodies we are hampered not only by 

 the fact of the great distances at which they are situated but also by 

 the fact that there is nothing in terrestrial experience that offers an 

 adequate analogy to some of the phenomena that are observed. The 

 handicap of distance has been somewhat reduced through the inven- 

 tion of the telescope. But the original unfamiliarity of conditions 

 involved in the idea of bodies moving along closed orbits in space, 

 without visible attachment to any support, produced a mental shock 

 requiring time for adaptation of the mind to a set of new conceptions. 

 Even now the physical conditions that we observe in celestial bodies, 



