1 88 1.] Scientific Arrogance . 253 
and the Earth itself swallowed up by the Sun ! As a matter 
of faCt, when a base line has been measured a second time 
after the lapse of years, it has been found longer. If we 
may rely on Ordnance surveys and private measurements 
the acreage of England is increasing, but my critic declares 
nevertheless that the Earth is contracting ! According to 
the recent measurement of the Earth’s distance from the 
Sun it is very nearly a million of miles more distant than 
the estimate of Newcomb, deduced from observations by six 
methods ; it is more than a million of miles more distant 
than Leverrier’s estimate from the planetary disturbances ; 
and it is no less than 1,800,000 miles more distant than was 
shown by the transit observations of Stone in 1769. And 
yet my critic insists that, instead of the Earth receding from 
the Sun, it is moving in the reverse direction ! 
I have no idea of escaping criticism. It is exceedingly 
undesirable that new interpretations of Nature should be 
too readily accepted ; but if, in its publication, I have “ only 
succeeded in producing an absurd and extravagant work,” it 
should be easy to demonstrate such conclusion. It is 
described as “ odd ” and “ argumentative.” I do not know 
that either of these qualities is necessarily objectionable, 
although I admit that originality is a fault if unaccompanied 
by a reference to faCts or unsupported by reason. To be 
argumentative I have hitherto believed to be at least 
plausibly in the right, and certainly the reverse of “ absurd 
and extravagant.” Why did not my critic, instead of ap- 
pealing to his own imagination for a description of my book, 
give a true account of its contents ? He might at least have 
shown what, in an argumentative way (as he confesses), the 
book professes to teach. Must I conclude he was afraid that 
a mere summary of its contents might go far to satisfy his 
readers that there was at least something in it worthy of 
their investigation, and which could not be got rid of by a 
supercilious assertion as to its absurdity ? 
If the effedt of having received a “ really scientific 
training ” would simply have been to have bound me down 
to the existing modes of scientific thought, I should probably 
not have disturbed the mind of my critic in the way that I 
have done. I should have been content to have taken my 
place in the rank and file of modern science, conscious that 
there are many persons better qualified than myself to take 
the part of schoolmaster. But Science has not been created, 
however much it may have been extended, by a system of 
schooling. 
The introductory chapter of my book explains how, so far 
