NOVEMBER 12, 1897. ] 
results ; that, however little they may have 
actually to learn of methods and results, 
they will feel stimulated to well-directed 
efforts and find themselves inspired by 
thoughts which, however familiar, will now 
be more easily worked out. 
We may pass from the aspects of the 
case as seen by the more strictly professional 
class to those more general aspects fitted to 
excite the attention of the great public. 
From the point of view of the latter it may 
well appear that the most striking feature 
of the celebration is to be found in the great 
amount of effort which it shows to be de- 
voted to the cultivation of a field quite out- 
side the ordinary range of human inter- 
ests. <A little more than two centuries ago 
Huyghens prefaced an account of his dis- 
coveries on the planet Saturn with the 
remark that many, even among the learned, 
might think he had been devoting to things 
too distant to interest mankind an amount 
of study which would better have been de- 
voted to subjects of more immediate con- 
cern. It must be admitted that this fear 
has not deterred succeeding astronomers 
from pursuing their studies. The enthusias- 
tic students whom we see around us are only 
a detachment from an army of investigators 
who, in many parts of the world, are seek- 
ing to explore the mysteries of creation. 
Why so great an expenditure of energy ? 
Certainly not to gain wealth, for astronomy 
is perhaps the one field of scientific work 
which, in our expressive modern phrase, 
“has no money in it.’ It is true that the 
great practical use of astronomical science 
to the country and the world in affording 
us the means of determining positions on 
land and at sea is frequently pointed out. 
It is said that an Astronomer Royal of Eng- 
land once calculated that every meridan 
observation of the moon made at Greenwich 
was worth a pound sterling, on account of 
the help it would afford to the navigation 
of the ocean. An accurate map of the 
SCIENCE. 
711 
United States cannot be constructed with- 
out astronomical observations at numerous 
points scattered over the whole country, 
aided by data which great observatories 
have been accumulating for more than a 
century and must continue to accumulate 
in the future. 
But neither the measurement of the earth, 
the making of maps, nor the aid of the 
navigator is the main object which the as- 
tronomers of to-day have in view. If they 
do not quite share the sentiment of that 
eminent mathematician who is said to have 
thanked God that his science was one which 
could not be prostituted to any useful pur- 
pose, they still know well that to keep utili- 
tarian objects in view would only prove a 
handicap on their efforts. Consequently, 
they never ask in what way their science is 
going to benefit mankind. 
As the great captain of industry is moved 
by the love of wealth and the politician by 
the love of power, so the astronomer is 
moved by the love of knowledge for its own 
sake, and not for the sake of its application. 
Yet he is proud to know that his science 
has been worth more to mankind than it 
has cost. He does not value its results 
merely as a means of crossing the ocean or 
‘mapping the country, for he feels that man 
does not live by bread alone. If it is not 
more than bread to know the place we oc- 
cupy in the universe it is certainly some- 
thing which we should place not far behind 
the means of subsistence. That we now 
look upon a comet as something very inter- 
esting, of which the sight affords us a pleas- 
ure unmixed with fear of war, pestilence or 
other calamity, and of which we therefore 
wish the return, is a gain that we cannot 
measure by money. In all ages astronomy 
has been an index to the civilization of the 
people who cultivated it. It has been crude 
or exact, enlightened or mingled with su- 
perstition, according to the current mode 
of thought. When once men understand 
