Alewander Winchell. 147 
the scenes which his pen was portraying, indulging to the full that 
highest of all the faculties, a scientific imagination, whose exist- 
ence and activity were indicated by the dreamy, far-off look not 
infrequently to be seen in his eyes. The feelings that the subject 
stirred within him may be seen in the following passage :— 
‘¢ The firmament is careering in infinite space. Our homes are 
rolled along at seven hundred miles an hour, and are transported 
sixty-eight thousand miles in a day bythe revolution of the earth 
in her orbit. The sun with his entire family is sweeping through 
immensity with a possible velocity of two hundred thousand 
miles an.-hour. And there must be some common motion of the 
whole inextricable maze of moving stars with a velocity to which 
fancy may assign what rate she pleases without restraint from 
science. This mighty waltz of cosmic dancers is joined by the 
gauzy nebule, animated as our own firmament by their own inter- 
nal motions. In the midst of this universe of seething move- 
ments is our appointed home. The mind uplifted in the effort to 
contemplate them and grasp their method grows giddy and impo- 
tent, -How sublime these activities. To what a numerous and 
lofty companionship does our little planet belong. Hard it seems 
to be imprisoned here while the realm of a universe tempts us to 
its exploration. How can human souls content themselves to 
roll and whirl through space during their mortal days and eat and 
sleep and trifle, like rats in a ship at sea, without wondering 
where we are and whither we are bound.’’* 
It will scarcely surprise any one to learn that a man so much 
in advance of his time, whose conceptions of nature were so far 
ahead of those that then prevailed and to a less degree prevail 
still, should become the victim of suspicion and persecution. 
This ‘deadly original sin of the Reformed Churches,” as Hallam 
has termed it, has not yet been reformed out of existence. It 
lingers still, and sometimes manifests in one way or another all 
its old strength and bitterness, as many of the leaders of science 
can from their own experience testify. Those who venture to 
doubt what the majority believe, or to believe what the majority 
doubt, must prepare themselves to stand almost alone—the posi- 
tion of the advanced guard everywhere and always. They must 
find what comfort they can in the thought that in the long run the 
majority are usually wrong, and that the right is always at first 
*Slightly condensed from “World Life.” 
