294 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



stars, proper motions of stars, distances of stars, magni- 

 tudes of stars, and the like, is the sole end in view, then 

 in the name of common sense and wholesome economy 

 let the farce be stopped. There is but one way to justify 

 all this labor and expense of accumulation and to lift 

 work of the same sort in the future above the plane of 

 drudgery and mental dissipation, and that is, by finding 

 a noble and structural use for it all. 



Suppose that mankind, notwithstanding all the in- 

 vestigations with telescope and spectroscope hitherto 

 made, should have continued in the belief that the earth 

 is the center of the universe and that the firmament re- 

 volves around it daily ; what genuine value would all our 

 detj$iled knowledge possess? The knowledge both of the 

 earth^lrotation on her axis and around the sun is abso- 

 lutely indispensable to^a sane interpretation of the solar 

 system. But it is no more essential to this purpose than 

 is the knowledge of the form of the sun's path in space 

 to a sane interpretation of the stellar motions and system. 

 It constitutes all the difference between truth and error, 

 between a yes and a no, whether the sun is speeding in a 

 straight line or in a curve. 



In asserting with such positiveness (v. q., p. 12, ante, 

 the rectilinear nature of the sun's path Doctor Camp- 

 bell has not only vented his own personal views, but has 

 likewise stated the only logical conclusion that the New- 

 tonian doctrines of uncaused motions and negation of 

 equilibrium allow. About the only thing of great sig- 

 nificance that this study of the proper and radial motions 

 of stars a study which represents a perfectly incredible 

 expenditure of valuable time, skill, energy and money 

 has developed, is the supposed existence of star-streams, 

 for which the investigators confess their inability to sug- 

 gest any explanation, and whose existence runs counter 

 to every Neivtonian tradition. Under my system of in- 

 terpretation these streams are not streams at all, but an 

 optical illusion created by the movement of our solar 

 system in its gyroscopic course from east to west and the 

 fall of the ecliptic; much as the ancient notion that the 



