188 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
that the problems it offers will be fertile ground for the new calculus of 
vectors to take root in and expand itself, for both are apparently just fitted 
for each other. 
This being a popular gathering, I propose giving a rapid sketch of the 
progress of astronomy and its present position, especially of the phenomena 
which this theory purports to link together and bring under the domain of 
recognized scientific law. This will also enable the extension of our ideas, 
which the theory suggests, to be better understood. I need not tell you 
that this sketch must be a very hasty one, as from the opposition which 
has generally attended progress in astronomy, every step would require 
much space to discuss it fully. 
It is certainly not now necessary to demonstrate that the Earth is not 
the centre of the Universe, although we all know the amount of prejudice 
and obstruction which had to be overcome to get even this much admitted. 
But the whole view of the Universe and the utterly insignificant position 
the Earth occupies in it has been achieved only by very hard steady work, 
in the face of the most virulent opposition, and probably even now some 
would not be prepared to concede all the ground claimed by astronomers. 
Nor need we wonder at this. It is natural for all of us to think more 
highly of anything which immediately concerns us than it probably deserves. 
and it is necessarily the peculiarity of ignorance to intensify this failing, 
The stay-at-home resident of a small town grows up thoroughly convinced 
that it is the undoubted centre around which the world revolves, and for 
which the metropolis exists as a place for the supply of the town’s neces- 
sities, and although the disputes of the terrace and the square render it 
doubtful as to the exact position of the axis, yet the broad fact of its local 
existence is never questioned. So, the untravelled mind sees in the sun, 
moon, and stars, ministering lights, having the sole offiee of rendering this 
earth a fit habitation for man. But occasionally, amidst the long ages of 
almost brute-like stupidity, periods of enlightenment have occurred, when 
men have thrown away this garment of egotism—have looked beyond mere 
self, and tried earnestly to gauge man’s place in nature. Thus we find 
Democritus teaching that the milky way was a belt of stars. Aristarchus 
showing the Greeks that the Sun is the centre of the system, and the Earth 
and planets revolve round it. Eratosthenes measuring the size of the 
globe and placing meridians and parallels on its surface. Then again, for 
many ages the cobbler stuck to his last, the practical man to his wooden 
plough, and the scholar to his traditions. No speculative theorist disturbed 
the calm, and gradually the world again became flat, and men’s ideas stale 
and unprofitable. But, after many centuries of this hybernation, Tycho 
Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, led on by Copernicus, with the insane folly of 
