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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1366 



planets revolving around those suns, of the 

 strong probability that intelligent life exists 

 in abundance throughout the universe, of the 

 number of the spiral nebulae, of the probable 

 sizes and masses of the spirals, etc., they fre- 

 quently react with the comment that, if what 

 the astronomer says (of the universe) is true, 

 it doesn't matter much whether we (the people 

 of the nation or the peoples of the earth) do 

 this or do that. Their " this " and their 

 "that" are generally dictated by t!he subject 

 which happens to be uppermost dn the public 

 mind at the time. If our country is thoroughly 

 interested in the presidential campaign, as it 

 certainly was in the struggle of June, 1912, 

 what is more natural than that Professor 

 W.ood's lone visitor should not be the only 

 person to illustrate his philosophy by turning 

 to that absorbing question of the day? And 

 so, following a sudden comprehension of the 

 extent and contents ,of the universe, our Her- 

 cules cluster visitor reacted, " I think it 

 doesn't matter very much whether Eoosevelt 

 or Taft is nominated at the Chicago conven- 

 tion; " and G. Lowes Dickinson's lone tele- 

 graph operator in a railroad shack in the Eock- 

 ,ies reacted, " I guess it doesn't matter two 

 cents after all who gets elected president." 

 ; Otiher visitorial reactions here have drawn 

 upO'U other subjects occupying the public mind, 

 but; there is no call to describe them now. 



I recently asked one of my colleagues who 

 has dealt extensively with the visiting public 

 in the past tm'enty-six years whether he has had 

 any experience bearing on this subject. He 

 replied : " I have on several occasions drawn 

 visitors' responses paralleling the incident de- 

 scribed in your address. I have observed this 

 reaction, not only in connection with visitors 

 to the observatory, but from members of audi- 

 ences to which I have lectured. Last month I 

 delivered a short lecture to the patients in the 

 tubercular hospital at Livermore, California, 

 iOn ' Life in other worlds,' making references 

 to the great number of suns in our stellar 

 system, the possible multitudes of planets re- 

 volving about those suns, and the probability 

 that many of those planets are inhabited. At 

 the close of the lecture one of the patients came 



up to me and said, ' After listening to your 

 lecture, I don't think it matters much whether 

 we patients get well or not.' " 



I am respecting the value of understatement 

 in saying that the essential parts of Professor 

 Wood's story (have happened here many times 

 in the past thirty-three years in connection 

 with the more than 200,000 visitors whose 

 ideas of the universe have been enlarged in 

 an immense number of cases by looking 

 through the telescopes or by listening to the 

 interpretation of astronomical photographs. I 

 hope it is also an understatement to say that 

 my experience in dealing with the public along 

 this interesting psychological line seems to 

 have been somewhat more extensive than that 

 of others who have written on the same subject. 



May I turn from these natural happenings to 

 an incident truly astonishing? In some well- 

 known book I have read of a human being 

 who, looking at the moon through a telescope, 

 was told that the large ring-formation in view 

 was the crater Copernicus (or possibly Tycho 

 or Archimedes — I can not locate the passage 

 now), and who said to his instructor, " I 

 should like to know how astronomers discov- 

 ered that the name of tlhat crater is Coperni- 

 cus." This imaginary event is widely known 

 in astronomical circles, but no one, in my 

 opinion, had thought that it actually happened 

 or even could happen. Yet, one Saturday 

 night in the nineties a visitor descending from 

 the observing chair said to me in all serious- 

 ness and innocence, " I was ^ble to follow your 

 description of the moon's surface, but I should 

 like to have you tell me how astronomers dis- 

 covered that the name of that large crater is 

 Copernicus." If this unnatural incident could 

 repeat, why waste energy and ink over the 

 hypothesis that Wood's neighbor, acting in ac- 

 cord with widely prevailing philosophy, was a 

 genuine unique? 



W. W. Campbell 



Mount Hamilton, California, 

 February 17, 1921 



GALILEO AND WOOD 



To THE Editor of Science: I have long 

 been interested in horns, and I should dearly 



