﻿OPINIONS. 



TEE MORNING ADVERTISER, JANUARY 21, 1865. 



"Theoretical Astronomy Examined and Exposed. By "Common Sense." Parts 

 I., II., and III. — London : Job Caudwell, Strand. Sincere conviction earnestly urged, 

 and resulting not from hasty prejudice or unreasoning obstinacy, but from a peculiar 

 and exceptional mental bias, is deserving of respect and consideration, notthe contempt 

 and ridicule which is too often its fate. We had all thought that the system of 

 Copernicus, and the discoveries of Galileo, TychoBrahe, and Newton, were received as 

 matters no longer to be discussed, much less disputed. Here we have, however, no 

 brainsick speculator or rapt stargazer, but a sane, sober, hard-thinking, reasoning, well- 

 informed man, adducing arguments, aye, and plausible arguments too, to show that the 

 world is a plane surface, and not a globe, as man and youth have been taught ; that the 

 sun goes round, or rather over and under, the earth ; in short, that error and delusion 

 have blinded the mental vision of the scientific men whom we have worshipped with 

 unreasoning idolatry. Pope said — 



" Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night — 

 God said, ' Let Newton be,' and all was light." 

 " The little Queen Anne's man" it seems was wofully misled, and the millions of 

 Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, have been equally bamboozled. The writer, who 

 has adopted the pseudonyme "Common Sense," displays certainly uncommon ability 

 in support of his thesis — or skill in riding his hobby, as it maybe more properly termed. 

 " Common Sense" proposes as his axiom of investigation Dr. Beattie's axiom, " When 

 men are once satisfied to take things as they find them; when they believe Nature upon 

 her bare declaration, without suspecting her of any design to impose upon them; when 

 their utmost ambition is to be her servants and interpreters; then, and not until then, 

 will philosophy prosper." Our author next appeals, certainly rather to our "senses" 

 than to our "sense," as to whether the earth is round. He arrives at the conclusion of 

 Byron's excellent "Commander of the Faithful," and lord of the unfaithful Gulbeyaz, 

 who was— " Sure the moon was round, 



And also was convinced the earth was square, 

 For he had travelled sixty miles, and found 

 No sign that it was circular anywhere." 



'* Our author, however, is not to be classed with the ignorant — far from it. He has 

 examined, weighed, and considered all the "proofs" of the astronomers, and, by his 

 balance, "found them wanting." Whether he will find othersto approve of his balance, 

 or able to see through his spectacles, is another question. He puts his case ingeniously.* 

 One little point amused us, and though it does not convince us of the earth's fiatness 

 any more than of its actual concavity, suggests a reflection that may serve to humble a 

 too arrogant assumption of facts admitted without enquiry. 



" ' Another curious effect of the aerial ascent was, tnat the Earth, when we were 

 " at our greatest altitude, positively appeared concave, looking like a huge dark bowl, 

 "rather than the convex sphere such as we naturally expect to see it. . . The horizon 

 "always appears to be on a level with our eye, and seems to rise as we rise, until at 

 "length the elevation of the circular boundary of the sight becomes so marked that the 

 " earth assumes the anomalous appearance, as we have said, of a concave, rather than 

 "a convex body.' — Mayhew's Great World of London. 



" ' Mr. Elliott, an American aeronaut, in a letter giving an account of his ascension 

 " from Baltimore, thus speaks of the appearance of the earth from a balloon : — e I don't 

 " know that I ever hinted heretofore that the aeronaut may well be the most sceptical 

 " man about the rotundity of the earth. Philosophy imposes the truth upon us : but 

 " the view of the earth from the elevation of a balloon is that of an immense terrestrial 

 "basin, the deeper part of which is that directly under one's feet. As we ascend, the 

 "earth beneath us seems to recede — actually to sink away, while the horizon gradually 

 " and gracefully lifts a diversified slope stretching away farther and farther to aline 

 "that, at the highest elevation, seems to close with the sky. Thus, upon a clear day, 

 "the aeronaut feels as if suspended at about an equal distance between the vast blue 

 " oceanic concave above, and the equally expanded terrestrial basin below.' 



' The chief peculiarity of the view from a balloon, at a considerable elevation, 

 " was the altitude of the horizon, which remained practically at a level with the eye at 

 " an elevation of two miles, causing the surface of the earth to appear concave instead 

 " of convex, and to recede during the rapid ascent, whilst the horizon and the balloon 

 "seemed to be stationary.' — London Journal, July 18, 1857." 



" These extracts are followed by others from Burchett's Linear Perspective, the 

 Leisure Hour, &c. Indeed the writer appears to have ransacked every modern pub- 

 lication for passages to confute the received theory of our solar system, and indeed our 

 Geodesy in bulk and in detail. Our author is never dull, and his onslaughts on what he 

 believes to be error are hearty and trenchant. Without endorsing his arguments, or 

 holding his peculiar theories, we can commend these little pamphlets to the reading 

 and thoughtful public" 



