cause of astronomy. A fine instrument is purchased, and erected in a well-fitted and costly observatory; and during the first weeks after its erection the purchaser turns it on some of the objects he has read about. Then presently his enthusiasm is exhausted, and the telescope is no more used save perhaps to amuse visitors. Or worse, the telescopist's enthusiasm waxes fiercer; he passes night after night in his observatory, making his life a burden by unceasing efforts to just see with his telescope what one a little larger would show him easily; he sets his clocks and watches and all his neighbours' clocks and watches by transit observations; he notes down (to the fourth or fifth decimal place of seconds) the epochs when the moon occults stars or when Jupiter's satellites are eclipsed or occulted; and he seemingly remains all the while unconscious of the fact that twenty times his misplaced energy devoted for twenty lives to such work as I have described would produce results simply worth nothing.

This rule I suggest to every possessor of a telescope as one which should be written in letters of gold in his observatory, or rather, as one which should be kept continually in his thoughts while working there: Every observation not intended as a mere relaxation from real work should be intended to ascertain some as yet unknown fact. Grant that the fact sought after may turn out when found to be an unimportant one, or even that after much labour no new fact may be revealed at all. In any long series of researches it must needs happen again and again that labour is wasted. But there is all the difference in the world between labour wasted unavoidably, and the deliberate employment of time and labour in purposeless observations. Bernard Palissy wasted years of labour, and all but ruined himself, in seeking to master the

secrets of pottery; yet his successive failures were justified by his final success-nay, they would have been justified by his purpose even though he had failed; but no reasoning can justify the successful labours of the man who constructed a carriage complete in all its parts, which the wing of a fly could completely cover. The true astronomer finds it difficult to forgive the telescopists who successfully imitate the work done at Greenwich in systematic observatory work of the most utterly valueless nature, while he can admire the unsuccessful labours of Sir William Herschel directed to the enquiry whether the planet Uranus has rings.

It will be obvious that careful attention to the rule I have stated above will not merely lead to the devisal of new applications of telescopic power, but is likely to suggest to the ingenious observer new ways of supplementing the powers of his telescope. It is only necessary to consider the various contrivances suggested by that prince of modern observers, the late Mr. Dawes, to see how, without very heavily taxing his inventive or constructive powers, the observer may enter on researches which his telescope as it came from the hands of the maker would not have enabled him to carry out successfully. Nor can one study the labours of any of our more successful observers without seeing how very readily new researches may be effected by contrivances of extreme simplicity.

I would next invite attention to the absolute necessity of independence of mind in the study of the noblest of all the sciences. I would not indeed advocate a readiness to dispute the dicta of the great men who have devoted themselves to the advancement of astronomy; nor again is it fitting that the student should attempt to make independent enquiries into matters belonging to such branches of the science as he

has not yet familiarised himself with. It is neither dispute nor cavil that I advocate, but the careful examination and analysis of all statements submitted to the student's consideration, and the attempt to render the subject as far as possible his own by such a survey of the evidence as will suffice to give him independent reasons for believing in the correctness of the conclusions of his teachers. It will not unfrequently happen that while thus engaged he will detect, or imagine that he has detected, errors of greater or less importance. He should be prepared to find that for the most part these seeming errors have no real existence, but arise from misapprehensions on his own part-a circumstance which will of itself serve to convince him of the extreme import ance of the kind of investigation by which such misapprehensions have been brought to light. But in other instances he will find that there has been a real error in his text-book-a fact which will equally convince him of the importance of the careful analysis of all statements lying within his range of investigation. I would quote here the words of Professor Huxley, both as to the value of scientific doubt, and as to the nature of that sort of doubt which the student should alone permit himself: 'There is a path that leads to truth so surely, that any one who will follow it must needs reach the goal, whether his capacity be great or small. And there is one guiding rule by which a man may always find this path, and keep himself from straying when he has found it. This golden

rule is, Give unqualified assent to no propositions but those the truth of which is so clear and distinct that they cannot be doubted. The enunciation of this first commandment of science consecrates doubt. It removes doubt from the seat of penance among the grievous sins to which it had long been condemned, and enthrones it in that high place among the primary duties which is assigned to it by the scientific conscience of these latter days.' But you must remember that the sort of doubt which has thus been consecrated is that which Goethe has called "the active scepticism, whose whole aim is to conquer itself;" and not that other sort which is born of flippancy and ignorance, and whose aim is only to perpetuate itself as an excuse for idleness and indifference.'

But

I have not hitherto referred specially to the grandeur of the facts with which the student of astronomy becomes acquainted. Certainly in this respect Astronomy stands before all other sciences. Geology alone approaches her in respect of the vastness of the timeintervals which either science presents to our contemplation. as respects extension in space, the domain of geology is utterly insignificant by comparison with even the threshold of that vast domain into which astronomy invites us. The geologist's field of research is indeed, as the most distinguished living geologist has remarked, 'insignificant when compared to the entire globe of the earth;' and astronomy teaches us to regard that globe, and even the

system to which it belongs, as occupying the merest speck of space by comparison with the visible portion of the star-system; while the sphere enclosing all the stars visible to the naked eye is small by comparison with the spaces revealed by the telescope, and infinitely small by comparison with those spaces whose existence is suggested by telescopic research. Nor is even the vastness of the domain of astronomy the noblest feature of the science. The wonderful variety recognised within that domain is perhaps but faintly pictured in the solar system with all its various forms of mattersun, primary planets, and moons; major planets, minor planets, and asteroids; planet-girdling rings, meteoric systems and comets; with perchance many other forms of matter hitherto unrecognised. And beyond the wideness of the domain of astronomy and the amazing variety recognised within that domain, there remains the yet more impressive lesson taught by the infinite vitality which pervades every portion of space. I apprehend that if such powers of vision, and also (for they would be even more needed) such powers of conception, were given to the astronomer that the extent of that domain which the telescope has revealed to man could he adequately recognised, while he further became cognisant of the way in which the various portions of that domain are occupied, that, deeply as he would be impressed by the amazing scene, the sense of wonder he would experience would

sink almost into nothingness by comparison with that which would overwhelm him could he recognise with equal clearness the movements taking place amongst the orbs presented to his contemplation-could he see moons and moon systems circling around primary planets, these urging their way with inconceivable velocity around their central suns, while amid the star-depths the suns were seen swiftly travelling on their several courses, starstreams and star-clusters aggregating or segregating according to the various influences of the attractions to which they were subject, and the vast spaces occupied by the gaseous nebulae stirred to their inmost depths by the action of mighty forces whose real nature is as yet unknown to us. The mind cannot but be strengthened and invigorated, it cannot but be purified and elevated, by the contemplation of a scene so full of magnificence, imperfect though the means be by which the wonders of the scene are made known to us. The information given by the telescope may indeed be spoken of as piecemeal, nor as yet have any adequate attempts been made to bring the whole array of known facts as far as possible into one grand picture; but seen as it is only by parts, and (even so) only as through a veil and darkly, the scene presented to the astronomer is the grandest and the most aweinspiring which man can study, and the one whose contemplation is best fitted to strengthen his powers and to purify his mental vision.

are now referring, little regard was paid to legal rights in effecting inclosures of waste land; the great proprietors did pretty much what seemed good in their own eyes, in that and in most other respects, affecting the neighbourhood; all opposition was overborne, and inclosures were carried out without troubling either Parliament or Inclosure Commissioners in the matter. The system of strict settlement, first introduced in the reign of Charles II., was converted into a means of preserving the estates of the nobility from being broken up or dissipated; so that they continually received fresh additions, and never, or very rarely, gave back anything to the public stock. Before the inclosure of the common and waste lands, small farms, and plots attached to cottages, might be, and very frequently were, created by grant, or were acquired by prescription; but the stringency of the law of entail on the one side, and the difficulties and expense of conveyances on the other, put an effectual bar to the dividing of any portion of the land that had once been inclosed, and brought within the grasp of the modern law of land tenure. Thus step by step have we been brought to our present condition, in which the ownership of the soil is monopolised by a smaller number of individuals than in any other country in the world, and the labourers are more completely divorced from the soil they cultivate than they are in any other, except in those where slavery prevails.

In the middle of the seventeenth century nearly one-half of England was still uninclosed. Over much the larger portion, if not over the whole of this, the public, or those at least who lived in the vicinity of any uninclosed land, possessed rights more or less extensive. They enjoyed the right of depasturing their cattle upon it, and of taking wood, furze, turf, &c., for

firing and other purposes. The lord of the manor, in whom the property in the soil was legally vested, could not inclose this land, could not turn pasture into arable land. He had certain rights over the waste in common with the rest of the commoners, but no more. The waste had originally been granted to his predecessor, not for his own benefit, but for the benefit of all those who held land within the manor. He was bound at law to leave sufficient for them to depasture their cattle on, in proportion to the number they were able to keep during the winter.

It would have been the height of folly to have proposed that these lands, comprising a moiety of the whole area of the country, should have remained permanently uncultivated; it was impossible even that they should have been allowed to remain unappropriated, either in justice to the commoners or with a due regard to the claims of the nation at large. The increase of population and stock in the country led to the waste lands being over pastured, and diminished their value to those who possessed common rights over them. The same cause rendered land, which in an uninclosed state was almost worthless, of great value, as soon as it was inclosed and brought into cultivation, with the prospect of a further indefinite increase. Had the destinies of this country in the early part of last century been in the hands of statesmen of enlightened and disinterested views, the whole of this vast extent of territory might at a very small cost have been preserved for the public benefit. The lords of the manors would have been willing to part with their rights for a money compensation; which two or three years' improved rent would have amply provided; and thus the fee simple of the land would have been secured in perpetuity for the nation. There would