NATURE 



177 



THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1872 



SENSATION AND SCIENCE 

 II. 



THERE lies before us, as we write, a work of excep- 

 tionally high merit as a mere literary composition, 

 entitled, Udicr die Natur dcr Coinc/en, Beitriv^c znr 

 Gcscliichte und Tlicorie der Erkenntniss. Von J. C. F. 

 ZoUner, Professor an der Universitat, Leipzig. The title 

 docs all it can to indicate the sensational character of the 

 work, which deals not alone with the nature of comets, the 

 inferiority of British to German physicists, and the grave 

 oflence of which a German is guilty when he sees any- 

 thing to admire except at home ; but also with the errors 

 of Thomas Buckle, the relations of Science to Labour 

 and Manufacture, and the analogies of development in 

 Languages and in Religions ! 



It is impossible for us in a brief article to give 

 the reader even a general glance at the numberless 

 sources of amusement which the work affords. We 

 will, therefore, confine our detailed remarks to a few of 

 the parts which have most interested us, merely pre- 

 mising that we cannot pretend to give anything re- 

 sembling a complete analysis of the contents of this 

 astounding volume. 



The skeleton, or framework, upon which the fabric is 

 supported, consists of some scientific papers by ZoUner, 

 extracted from the Transactions of the Royal Society of 

 Leipzig. Along with these are reprints of the descrip- 

 tions given by Olbers and Bessel of the Comet of iSii 

 and Hallcy's Coniet, with the speculations of these great 

 astronomers as to the nature of the forces under which 

 the various parts of a comet move, especially with regard 

 to the supposed repulsive force exerted by the sun on the 

 matter of the tails of all comets but the smallest, and by 

 the heads of the large comets upon their tails. 



We must not pause to criticise these speculations, else 

 we should be treating of Science, extremely hypothetical 

 no doubt, but still Science ; whereas we have undertaken 

 to give the reader some information about the progress of 

 the Sensational in Science. But there is one remark which 

 must be made. Prof. ZciUner is loud in his denunciations 

 of Sir J. Herschel's remarks on comet's tails, especially 

 where he says in his " Outlines of Astronomy," " There 

 is beyond question some profound secret and mystery 

 of nature concerned." On this ZoUner remarks, " Could 

 Sir J. Herschel have foreseen what mischief his mys- 

 tical comparisons about comets were to do to the 

 brains of his countrymen he would certainly have re- 

 frained from employing them." But with marvellous con- 

 sistency he shortly afterwards quotes with approval the 

 following passage from Olbers, as far as we can see quite 

 as strong as anything of Herschel's : — "The particles which 

 we see glittering in the comet's tail are thus not always the 

 same. No ; incessantly from its nucleus and from its 

 proper atmosphere new materials develop themselves, and 

 stream off from the comet with astounding {ersiaitn- 

 enswiiniig) velocity to be lost in the vast expanse of 

 heaven." 



VOL. VI. 



We must confess that the perusal of the scientific part 

 of Prof. ZoUner's work has not impressed us with the 

 highest respect for his originality or even his exactitude. 

 "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat;" so that when 

 we found Sir W. Thomson, Hclmholtz, and Hofmann 

 figuring everywhere among his playthings, we eagerly 

 looked to his original paper, the kernel of the volume, for 

 something of the very highest order of mathematical and 

 experimental inquiry. But, alas, in vain ! We found 

 some ordinary "second-year" mathematics (not always 

 correct) and one sole experimental ilkistration, of a ludi- 

 crously obvious case of Newton's Third Law of Motion ! 

 Any mathematical student should surely know, that it does 

 not require profound knowledge to calculate the distribution 

 of gas or vapour about a spherical body if the law of attrac- 

 tion and that connecting pressure and density be assigned. 

 But we must again recollect that our business at present 

 is not with science, even the feeblest, unless accompanied 

 by sensation. 



Our difficulty now lies in selecting. Hundreds of racy 

 passages must be omitted, else we should exceed all en- 

 durable limits. For, after the nucleus of the work, comes 

 a long and ferocious attack upon John {sic) TyndalPs 

 Cometen-Theorie, which may in the natural course of 

 events draw down on poor ZoUner a castigation he will 

 never live to forget. In the words of Burger, who 

 imagined his prototype in a much less perilous position — 

 O Zollner ! O ZoUner ! Entfleuch geschwind. 



It is drawn up in heads like a catechism, and is at least 

 as metaphysical ; but we have almost enough of it in the 

 first of these heads, which we do our best to translate as 

 "The fountain head of scientific knowledge, and its 

 practical signification." A perfect volley of Continuitdt, 

 Schamc^efiikl, Individuum, Causalitdt, Tlieorie derErschei- 

 nicng, Lust und Unlust, &c., all in italics, fills many sub- 

 sequent pages. We have not read them, save so far as to 

 see (by a cursory examination) that Prof. ZoUner employs 

 language no doubt intended to be bitterly sarcastic, but 

 which is so savage as to defeat its purpose, and which 

 would be utterly unjustifiable, even if his half-made, half- 

 implied, accusations had any foundation in fact. Section 

 13 has the appalling title, " AUgemeine Ursachenabnormer 

 Erscheinungen begrtindet im Zeitgeiste. Verhiiltniss der 

 Wissenschaft zur Technik und Industrie." Like a true 

 Mephistopheles the author next confesses that he is tired 

 of this diy tone, and must bring his victim (the reader, poor 

 wretch) into merry company, and show himhow joUilyone 

 can live. Whereupon he rises into the third heaven of 

 vapulatory eloquence about the Hofmann-Feicr zu Berlin. 

 This seems to have been a sort of scientific high-jinks, 

 perfectly harmless from every point of view. But Prof. 

 Zollner is a realisation in the flesh of Sydney Smith's 

 ridiculously inapt description of a Scotsman, he cannot 

 see a joke — perhaps even the surgical operation would be 

 thrown away upon him. 



We next come to a mighty chapter, headed " Aphoris- 

 men zur Geschichte und Theorie der Erkenntniss." Here 

 we get back again to the " trocknen Ton " and deal with 

 Causalitdt, Causalvcrhdltniss, Lust und Unlust, &c., more 

 bewilderingly than before ; and we find that it appears 

 to the gifted author that " the Phenomenon of Sensation 

 is a more fundamental fact of observation than the 



