1873*] Changes in the Moon's Surface. 483 



V. CHANGES IN THE MOON'S SURFACE, 



WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO 



SUPPOSED CHANGES IN LINNE AND PLATO. 



By Richard A. Proctor, B.A. Cambridge, Hon. Sec. R.A.S. 

 Author of " The Sun," "The Moon," " Saturn," &c. 



tHE study of our moon by astronomers has had for its 

 main purpose the recognition of change, the effects 

 of processes taking place on the moon resembling 

 in some degree those with which we are familiar on earth, 

 and especially of effects due to the existence of life, animal 

 or vegetable, upon the surface of our satellite. It is impos- 

 sible to avoid the recognition of this fact in the work of 

 even the most systematic and rigidly scientific lunarian 

 astronomers. The charting of the moon would certainly 

 not have been, prosecuted with the care and energy actually 

 shown by such workers as Cassini, Schroter, Beer and 

 Madler, Lohrman, and Schmidt, but for the fact that such 

 researches afford promise of an answer to the question, 

 whether the moon is on the one hand a dead and arid waste, 

 without any signs of motion or of change, or on the other 

 hand a scene where systematic processes of change are 

 taking place, which may or may not be interpretable by us, 

 but the mere occurrence of which would suggest that the 

 moon is the abode of some forms of life. 



I propose now to enter into the discussion of the 

 question here indicated, regarding it in the light afforded by 

 recent researches chiefly, but not omitting the consideration 

 of antecedent probabilities on the one hand, or of theoretical 

 inferences on the other. For I hold that, in scientific inves- 

 tigation, a mere array of facts is of little force ; it is from 

 facts viewed in their relation to known physical conditions 

 that we can alone hope for useful additions to our knowledge. 

 And we must in a special manner avoid the common mistake 

 of too rigidly directing our attention to the particular subject 

 we are upon, instead of combining a careful scrutiny of 

 that subject with the search for information and analogies 

 derivable from other subjects, and even from subjects which 

 at a first view may appear little connected with the one 

 in hand. This, at least, is the course which experience 

 suggests as the most effective, the whole history of science 

 showing the uselessness of the mere accumulation of facts, 



