August 1, 1864.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



T.'iE BASIS OF TECHNOLOGY. 7 



this occasion forget it ; fur, in truths, if man has reason to feel proud of 

 any one of his achievements, it is of his science of astionomy ; and the 

 limitations which restrict its study j ustii'y his pride the more. 



Those limitations are great. Ages before the existence of scientific 

 astronomy the question was put to the patriarch Job, " Canst thou bind 

 the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion ; canst thou 

 bring forth Mazzaroth in his season ? or canst thou guide Arcturus with 

 his soms?" And when Job in his heart, if not with his lips, answered 

 the Almighty, No, he auswered for all his successors as well as for him- 

 self. Astronomical problems accumulate unsolved on our hands, because 

 we cannot as mechanicians, chemists, or physiologists, experiment upon 

 the stars. Are they built of the same ma erials as our planet 1 Are they 

 inhabited ? Are Saturn's rings solid or liquid 1 Has the moon an atmo- 

 sphere ? Are the atmospheres of the planets like ours? Are the light 

 and heat of the sun begotten of combustion ? and what is the fuel which 

 feeds his unquenchable fires 1 These are but a few of the questions 

 which we ask, and variously answer, but leave in reality unanswered, 

 after all. A war of words regarding the revolution of the moon 

 round her axis may go on to the end of time, because we cannot throw 

 our satellite out of gearing, or bring her to a momentary stand-still ; and 

 the problem of the habitability of the stars awaits in vain an experimen- 

 tum cruris. The only exceptions which may be made to the essentially 

 non-experimental character of astronomy are furnished by the opportu- 

 nity granted us to modify to the extent of our power the sidereal influ- 

 ences, such as heat, light, and actinism, and the sidereal bodies, such as 

 the meteoric stones which reach our globe. The sidereal influences, how- 

 ever, have passed from the domain of Astronomy into that of Physics, 

 before they come under our examination ; and the meteoric stones are 

 terrestrial minerals before we analyse them. Optics and Chemistry claim 

 them from Astronomy. 



The astronomer, accordingly, must be content to be the chronicler of 

 a spectacle, in which, except as an onlooker, he takes no part. Like the 

 sailor at the mast-head in his solitary night-watch, he must see, as he 

 sails through space in his small earthly bark, that nothing escapes his 

 view within the vast, visible firmament. But he stands, as it were, with 

 folded arms, occupied solely in wistfully gazing over the illimitable 

 ocean, where the nearest vessel, like his own, is far beyond summons or 

 signal, and the greatest appears but as a speck on the distant horizon. 

 His course lies out of the track of every other vessel ; and year after 

 year he repeats the same voyage, without ever practically altering his 

 relation to the innumerable fleets which navigate those seas. 



Astronomy is thus pre-eminently the Observational Science ; and 

 represents in its greatest purity that function of the physical sciences 

 which consists in the investigation of the works of God, as untouched 

 by man. Such investigation is the basis of all our knowledge and all 

 our industry. And if our human pride ever tempts us to undervalue 



