KNOWLEDGE 



[Skpt. 



direction ; that is, tliat the primitive state of mankind 

 was one of savagery, tliat tlie farther Lack mquiry is 

 pushed in everv habital-le quarter of the slol'*?. such cul- 

 ture as exists is" found to hav,- been preceded >)y barbarism ; 

 and tliat the savage races of to-day represent, not the 

 degradation to which, as many assert, mail has sunk, but 

 the condition out of which all races above the savage have 

 emerged. 



The adherents of the development theory do not overlook 

 tJie fact that civilisation has been arrested and overthrown 

 iKcasionally and locallv, for both hemispheres have 

 witnesses sad enough of' that ; neither do they forget that 

 knowletlge has been here and there used as an iustruuient 

 hurtful to culture. But these do not miliUte against the 

 general result — a progress in which none of us see, or, if 

 healthily constituted, desire to see, finality. 



Note.— Since giving Mr. Wallace's estimate of the 

 antiquity of man, as based on the rate of accumulation of 

 stalagmite in Kent's Cavern, I find that this estimate rests 

 en a misunderstanding, the accretion being reckoned by him 

 at one-eighth of an inch, instead of one-twentieth of an 

 inch, in -.'oO years. The estimate, however, remains sufK- 

 ciently high to support the main argument. 



VENUS NEARING TRANSIT. 

 By the Editor. 

 rplIE planet Venus is not only interesting just now 

 JL because of the approaching transit of the planet 

 across the face of the sun, but also as the ruling star of 

 Hve. Her movements at present are such that she appears 

 to be gradually increasing her distance from the sun, 

 attaining her greatest elongation (east) from him on 

 September 2G, at one in the afternoon, at which time she 

 will be separated about 4G° .'51', or T 31' more than half a 

 right angle from bim. But after tliat time she will draw 

 gradually nearer and nearer to him on the heavens (it must 

 be clearly understood when we speak of the distance of 

 Venus from the sun increasing and diminishing, that we are 

 not referring to actual distance, but to apparent distance 

 in the sky). During the first five weeks or so of thi.f 

 approach, Venus, which has been growing brighter and 

 brighter since she has been an evening star, will still con- 

 tinue to increase in brightne.ss, until on November 1 she 

 will attain her great<;8t brilliancy, after which, during 

 five more weeks, she will grow less and less bright, as she 

 draws nftarer and nearer to the sun in the heavens, until 

 on I>ecemV«;r C she reaches him, and [>asses across his face 

 towards the west to become a morning star. 



Before considering the transit of Venus specially, it may 

 be well, as Venus is the planet of the evening at present, 

 to consider her as she pre-sents herself at each passage 

 through her various phases of app»Arance. 



For rather more than eight months Venus is seen as an 

 evening star, getting brighter and bright<!r slowly, for the 

 fimt seven montlis, and then getting fainter much more 

 quickly, until at last she is lf*t to sight In aUiut a fort 

 night she is seen as a morning star, getting bright«?r and 

 Virighter quickly during rather more than a month, and 

 then getting slowly faint<r and faint*fr during seven 

 months, aft<;r which she can no more lie seen. So that 

 Venus shinca al*out eight months as a morning star ; aft<;r 

 this remains out of sight for a>X)ut two months, and is thim 

 seen as an evening star ; and so she goes on changing from a 

 morning to an evening star, and from an evening star to a 



morning star continually, and always changing in bright- 

 ness in the way just described. 



Venus was called of old the Planet of Love; and when 

 it was thought that the t.tars rule our fortunes, the rays of 

 Venus were supposed to do a great deal of good to those 

 who were born when she was shining brightly. But m 

 our time, men of sense reject the notion tliat because a star 

 looks beautiful, like \'eiius, it brings good luck ; or that 

 because a star looks dim and yellow, like Saturn, it brings 

 bad fortune. They know that Venus is a globe like our 

 own earth, going round the sun just as the earth does. 

 Our earth seen from Venus looks like a star, just as Venus- 

 looks like a star to us. And if there are any creatures 

 living on Venus who can study the stars as we do, they 

 have quite as much reason for thinking that tJie globe on 

 which we live brings them good luck, as wo have for think- 

 ing that tlicir globe brings uk good luck. 



Of all the stars we see, Venus is the only one which is 

 in reality like the earth in size. All the others are either very 

 much smaller or very much larger. Jlost of them— in fact 

 all the stars properly so called— are globes of fire like our 

 sun, and are thousands of times larger than the globe \y(! 

 live on. A few others are like Venus and the earth, in 

 not being true stars but bodies travelling round the sun 

 and owing all their light to him. But it so happens tiiat 

 not one even of these is nearly of the same size as the 

 earth ; they are all either very much larger or very much 

 smaller. ^'enus is the only sister-world the earth has, 

 among all the orbs which travel round the sun. There 

 may be others in the far off depths of space, travelling 

 round some one or other of those suns which we call 

 " stars," but if so, we can never know that such sister- 

 worlds' e.\ist, for no telescope could ever be made which 

 would show them to us. • , i 



And as Venus is the earth's sister-world, so is she her 

 nearest neighbour, except the moon, which is the earth's 

 constant companion. The globes which form the suns 

 family, go round him in paths which lie nearly in the same 

 level, ^'enus is the second in order of distan 



earth 



the third, and Mars the fourth (Fig. 1 ). So that Mars is our 

 next neighbour on the outside, and Venus our next neigh- 

 bour on the inside ; but the path of Venus lies nearer to 



