124 THE FUNCTION OF LARGE TELESCOPES. 



subject seems to exercise. In the more prosperous days of the countries 

 bordering on the Mediterranean astrology played an important role, 

 and mediaeval history illustrates most clearly the ascendency which 

 the fancies of the astrologers had acquired over even cultivated minds. 

 So strong was the tendency of the times that even so able an astrono- 

 mer as Tycho Brahe was wont to cast horoscopes, in the significance of 

 which he firmly believed. He concluded that the new star of 1572 

 prognosticated great changes in the world. Similarity to the ruddy 

 planet Mars pointed to wars, pestilence, venomous snakes, and general 

 destruction, and its resemblance to Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn at other 

 times foretold temporary pleasant influences, followed by death and 

 famine. 1 Thus the heavenly bodies in their courses were supposed to 

 exercise evil or benign influences upon the human race, and the appari- 

 tion of a great comet or a new star gave rise to endless speculations 

 regarding the fate to which the inhabitants of the earth were shortly to 

 be exposed. Even in our own day it can not be said that we have alto- 

 gether escaped from the entangling meshes of the astrological net. 

 With that strong desire to be humbugged which Dr. Bolton has so well 

 illustrated in his recent paper in Science on Iatro-Ohemistry, a portion 

 of the general public seems to devote itself with enthusiasm to the 

 encouragement of charlatans, whether they deal with alchemy, with 

 medicine, or with astrology. So it is that astrologers flourish to-day, 

 and continue to derive profit from their philanthropic desire* to reveal 

 the future to inquiring minds. 



The interest of cultivated persons in astronomy and in the possibilities 

 of great telescopes is by no means to be compared with the blind group- 

 ing of less-developed intellects after the mysteries of astrology. But 

 if we must regard the large circulation of certain newspapers as any 

 index to the popularity of their contents, we are forced to admit that 

 their readers may comprise a class of persons whose admiration for the 

 science is ab least distantly related to the love for the sensational 

 which dominates the followers of modern seers and soothsayers. 

 Great telescopes are no sooner erected than these papers begin to 

 demand extraordinary revelations of celestial wonders. The astrono- 

 mer, quietly pursuing his investigations in the observatory, is from 

 time to time startled by imperative demands to introduce a waiting and 

 anxious public to the equally expectant inhabitants of Mars. Minute 

 particulars as to the appearance, strength, stature, and habits of these 

 hypothetical beings, whose existence is freely taken for granted, are 

 expected to be the results of a few moments' observation with the great 

 telescope. When the astronomer mildly protests that his observations 

 are likely to afford little or no material for discussions of such topics, 

 he is at least supposed to so cultivate his imaginative powers that he 

 shall be able to supplement his unsatisfactory observations by intui- 

 tive perception of things which are beyond his telescope's unaided 



1 See Dreyer's Tycho Brahe, p. 50. 



