SUNSPOTS AND SOME OF THEIR PECULIARITIES. 



71 



is the case ; the point must be examined into and the evidence 

 presented. Thus far, at least, all attempts to explain the 

 apparent difference between spot and prominence numbers 

 east and west, as due to any kind of perspective effect, have 

 been unsuccessful. Thus far w^e are at present justified in saying 

 that the earth does appear to have an appreciable influence on 

 the sun in the way of damping down solar disturbances, whether 

 they be spots or prominences. 



We make this statement with all the reservations to which I 

 have just alluded, reservations that amount to saying that the 

 evidence, though good so far as it goes, must be increased as 

 much as possible. But thei'e is one reservation we do not 

 make. We do not make the reservation that no amount of 

 evidence can establish the earth's influence upon the sun, 

 because it is impossible that so small a world should exercise an 

 influence upon a body so great as the sun, an influence visible 

 to us across the gulf of 93 millions of miles. Still less do we 

 make the reservation that no evidence could establish it, because 

 the fact itself would be morally or theologically wrong. This 

 question, like all the questions with which the physical sciences 

 deal, mast be decided upon the evidence, quite apart from any 

 previous assumptions. 



May I remind you of the little anecdote which I quoted near 

 the beginning of my paper of the reply of Scheiner's Provincial 

 when he told him of his discovery of sunspots, that there could 

 not be spots on the sun because Aristotle had not mentioned 

 them ? Another learned doctor contended that it was impossible 

 that the Eye of the Universe should vsuffer from ophthalmia. 

 You will see that the present attitude of science towards pre- 

 conceived assumptions has not always prevailed. It does not 

 prevail universally even now. When Mrs. Maunder was pursuing 

 this research, she came across an artisan who was out of work, 

 and knowing him to be a religious man and in need she employed 

 him to carry through a number of simple but lengthy computa- 

 tions for her. After he had completed these, he asked what all 

 these figures were about, and he was unfeignedly distressed 

 when he heard the conclusion of the whole matter. " That is 

 quite impossible,'' he said, " for the sun is the type of our Lord 

 Jesus Christ, and we cannot conceive that the earth would be 

 permitted to have any effect upon that which is a type of Him.'' 

 You see, therefore, that the attitude of the Jesuit Father 300 

 years ago is not unknown amongst some good and pious people 



