286 HISTORY OF PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY. 



able to the present extent of science, and the vast 

 population of its cultivators. It would be useless to 

 attempt to give a view either of their number or of 

 the enormous mass of scientific literature which 

 their Transactions present. But we may notice, as 

 specially connected with our present subject, the 

 Astronomical Society of London, founded in 1820, 

 which gave a strong impulse to the pursuit of the 

 science in England. 



Sect. 4. Patrons of Astronomy. 



THE advantages which letters and philosophy derive 

 from the patronage of the great have sometimes 

 been questioned; that love of knowledge, it has 

 been thought, cannot be genuine which requires 

 such stimulation, nor those speculations free and 

 true which are thus forced into being. In the 

 sciences of observation and calculation, however, 

 in which disputed questions can be experimentally 

 decided, and in which opinions are not disturbed by 

 men's practical principles and interests, there is 

 nothing necessarily operating to poison or neutralize 

 the resources which wealth and power supply to 

 the investigation of truth. 



Astronomy has, in all ages, flourished under the 

 favour of the rich and powerful ; in the period of 

 which we speak, this was eminently the case. 

 Louis the Fourteenth gave to the astronomy of 

 France a distinction which, without him, it could 



