256 THE PRIDE OF IGNORANCE. 



(liaineter, and lialf a dozen other minute meas- 

 urements, all unknown even by name to sailor 

 and boatswain, but duly entered by anticipation 

 for captain and mate in the Nautical Almanac by 

 the continuous labor of a hundred skilful and pro- 

 found astronomers. The very men who sail the 

 sea in safety by the aid of those prodigious 

 and learned calculations would probably be the 

 first to deride and despise the philosophers upon 

 whose accuracy their lives depend, as poor 

 foolish star-gazers and absurd theorists. " What 

 good does it do us to weigh the moon or to meas- 

 ure the distance from here to the sun?" ask 

 hundreds wlio do not know that without such 

 knowledge we cannot make our way securely 

 across the Pacific, and that an error in tlie deter- 

 mination of some small fact about the satellites of 

 Saturn may cost us the lives of many seafaring 

 men and the cargoes of many valuable ships, 

 wrecked through erroneous observations on the 

 reefs and barriers of the New Guinea passage or 

 the Bahama channel. What can be more absurd 

 than exjjorimenting upon sparks from amber or a 

 cat's back ? And yet ex[)eriments of the sort, so 

 seemingly useless, have given us at last the indis- 

 pensable electric telegraph, by means of which we 

 can govern the course of the markets in Sydney 

 and Calcutta, in the Cape of Good Hope or the 

 farthest confines of Afghanistan. Who does not 



