WOMEN IN ASTRONOMY 



189 



measure, it had no right to place the name of a lady in a 

 position the propriety of which might be contested, though 

 upon what it might consider narrow grounds and false 

 principles. But your council has no fear that such a dif- 

 ference could now take place between any men whose opin- 

 ion could avail to guide the society at large ; and, abandon- 

 ing compliment on the one hand and false delicacy on the 

 other, submits that, while the tests of astronomical merit 

 should in no case be applied to the works of a woman less 

 severely than to those of a man, the sex of the former 

 should no longer be an obstacle to her receiving any ac- 

 knowledgment which might be held due to the latter. And 

 your council, therefore, recommends this meeting to add to 

 the list of honorary members the names of Miss Caroline 

 Herschel and Mrs. Somerville, of whose astronomical knowl- 

 edge, and of the utility of the ends to which it has been 

 applied, it is not necessary to recount the proofs." 1 



Three years after this splendid recognition of Miss Her- 

 schel's astronomical labors she was elected an honorary 

 member of the Royal Irish Academy. 



But exceptional as were the honors conferred on her by 

 sovereigns and learned societies, none of them afforded her 

 the extreme satisfaction that she experienced on the receipt 

 of a copy, shortly before her death, of her nephew 's epochal 

 Cape Observations; for, as has well been said, "nothing in 

 the power of man to bestow could have given such pleasure 

 on her death-bed as this last crowning completion of her 

 brother's work." We are told that a copy, just from the 

 press, of his immortal work, De Orbium Celestium Eevolu- 

 tionibus, in which he had established the heliocentric theory 

 of the planetary system, was placed in the hands of Coper- 

 nicus on the day of his death, just a few hours before he 

 expired. He seemed conscious of what it was; but, after 

 touching it and contemplating it for a moment, he lapsed 



i Memoirs and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel, ut. sup., pp. 

 226-227. 



