and reasoning minds, at such times of universal calamity, is well shown
by Defoe's remarks on the comets of the years 1664 and 1666. 'The old
women,' he says, 'and the phlegmatic, hypochondriacal part of the other
sex, whom I could almost call old women too, remarked that those two
comets passed directly over the city' [though that appearance must have
depended on the position whence these old women, male and female,
observed the comet], 'and that so very near the houses, that it was
plain they imported something peculiar to the city alone; and that the
comet before the Pestilence was of a faint, dull, languid colour, and
its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow; but that the comet before the
Fire was bright and sparkling, or, as others said, flaming, and its
motion swift and furious: and that accordingly one foretold a heavy
judgment, slow but severe, terrible and frightful, as was the Plague;
but the other foretold a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery, as was the
Conflagration. Nay, so particular some people were, that, as they looked
upon that comet preceding the Fire, they fancied that they not only saw
it pass swiftly and fiercely, and could perceive the motion with their
eye, but even that they heard it; that it made a mighty rushing noise,
fierce and terrible, though at a distance and but just perceivable. I
saw both these stars, and must confess had I had so much the common
notion of such things in my head, that I was apt to look upon them as
the forerunners and warnings of God's judgments, and especially when,
the Plague having followed the first, I yet saw another of the same
kind, I could not but say, God had not yet sufficiently scourged the
city' [London].
The comets of 1680 and 1682, though they did not bring plagues or
conflagrations immediately, yet were not supposed to have been
altogether without influence. The convenient fiction, indeed, that some
comets operate quickly and others slowly, made it very difficult for a
comet to appear to which some evil effects could not be ascribed. If any
one can find a single date, since the records of history have been
carefully kept, which was so fortunately placed that, during no time
following it within five years, no prince, king, emperor, or pope died,
no war was begun, or ended disastrously for one side or the other
engaged in it, no revolution was effected, neither plague nor pestilence
occurred, neither droughts nor floods afflicted any nation, no great
hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic outbursts, or other trouble was
recorded, he will then have shown the bare possibility that a comet
might have appeared which seemed to presage neither abrupt nor
slow-moving calamities. But it is not possible to name such a date, nor
even a date which was not followed within two years at the utmost by a
calamity such as superstition might assign to a comet. And so closely
have such calamities usually followed, that scarce a comet could appear
which might not be regarded as the precursor of very quickly approaching
calamity. Even if a comet had come which seemed to bring no trouble,
nay, if many such comets had come, men would still have overlooked the
absence of any apparent fulfilment of the predicted troubles. Henry IV.
well remarked, when he was told that astrologers predicted his death
because a certain comet had been observed: 'One of these days they will
predict it truly, and people will remember better the single occasion
when the prediction will be fulfilled than the many other occasions when
it has been falsified by the event.'
The troubles connected with the comets of 1680 and 1682 were removed
farther from the dates of the events themselves than usual, at least so
far as the English interpretation of the comets was concerned. 'The
great comet in 1680,' says one, 'followed by a lesser comet in 1682, was
evidently the forerunner of all those remarkable and disastrous events
that ended in the revolution of 1688. It also evidently presaged the
revocation of the edict of Nantes, and the cruel persecution of the
Protestants, by the French king Louis XIV., afterwards followed by those
terrible wars which, with little intermission, continued to ravage the
finest parts of Europe for nearly twenty-four years.'
If in some respects the fears inspired by comets have been reduced by
modern scientific discoveries respecting these bodies, yet in other
respects the very confidence engendered by the exactness of modern
astronomical computations has proved a source of terror. There is
nothing more remarkable, for instance, in the whole history of cometary
superstition, than the panic which spread over France in the year 1773,
in consequence of a rumour that the mathematician Lalande had predicted
the occurrence of a collision between a comet and the earth, and that
disastrous effects would inevitably follow. The foundation of the rumour
was slight enough in all conscience. It had simply been announced that
Lalande would read before the Academy of Sciences a paper entitled
'Reflections on those Comets which can approach the Earth.' That was
absolutely all; yet, from that one fact, not only were vague rumours of
approaching cometic troubles spread abroad, but the statement was
definitely made that on May 20 or 21, 1773, 'a comet would encounter the
earth.'[43] So great was the fear thus excited, that, in order to calm
it, Lalande inserted in the 'Gazette de France' of May 7, 1773, the
following advertisement:--'M. Lalande had not time to read his memoir
upon comets which may approach the earth and cause changes in her
motions; but he would observe that it is impossible to assign the epochs
of such events. The next comet whose return is expected is the one which
should return in eighteen years; but it is not one of those which can
hurt the earth.'
This note had not the slightest effect in restoring peace to the minds
of unscientific Frenchmen. M. Lalande's study was crowded with anxious
persons who came to inquire about his memoir. Certain devout folk, 'as
ignorant as they were imbecile,' says a contemporary journal, begged the
Archbishop of Paris to appoint forty hours' prayer to avert the danger
and prevent the terrible deluge. For this was the particular form most
men agreed that the danger would take. That prelate was on the point,
indeed, of complying with their request, and would have done so, but
that some members of the Academy explained to him that by so doing he
would excite ridicule.
Far more effective, and, to say truth, far better judged, was the irony
of Voltaire, in his deservedly celebrated 'Letter on the Pretended
Comet.' It ran as follows:--
'Grenoble, May 17, 1773.
'Certain Parisians who are not philosophers, and who, if we are to
believe them, will not have time to become such, have informed me that
the end of the world approaches, and will occur without fail on the 20th
of this present month of May. They expect, that day, a comet, which is
to take our little globe from behind and reduce it to impalpable powder,
according to a certain prediction of the Academy of Sciences which has
not yet been made.
'Nothing is more likely than this event; for James Bernouilli, in his
"Treatise upon the Comet" of 1680, predicted expressly that the famous
comet of 1680 would return with terrible uproar (_fracas_) on May 19,
1719; he assured us that in truth its perruque would signify nothing
mischievous, but that its tail would be an infallible sign of the wrath
of heaven. If James Bernouilli mistook, it is, after all, but a matter
of fifty-four years and three days.
'Now, so small an error as this being regarded by all geometricians as
of little moment in the immensity of ages, it is manifest that nothing
can be more reasonable than to hope (_sic, esperer_) for the end of the
world on the 20th of this present month of May 1773, or in some other
year. If the thing should not come to pass, "omittance is no quittance"
(_ce qui est differe, n'est pas perdu_).
'There is certainly no reason for laughing at M. Trissotin, triple
idiot though he is (_tout Trissotin qu'il est_), when he says to Madame
Philaminte (Moliere's "Femmes Savantes," acte iv. scene 3),
'Nous l'avons en dormant, madame, echappe belle;
Un monde pres de nous a passe tout du long,
Est chu tout au travers de notre tourbillon;
Et, s'il eut en chemin rencontre notre terre,
Elle eut ete brisee en morceaux comme verre.
'A comet coursing along its parabolic orbit may come full tilt against
our earth. But then, what will happen? Either that comet will have a
force equal to that of our earth, or greater, or less. If equal, we
shall do the comet as much harm as it will do us, action and reaction
being equal; if greater, the comet will bear us away with it; if less,
we shall bear away the comet.
'This great event may occur in a thousand ways, and no one can affirm
that our earth and the other planets have not experienced more than one
revolution, through the mischance of encountering a comet on their path.
'The Parisians will not desert their city on the 20th inst.; they will
sing songs, and the play of "The Comet and the World's End" will be
performed at the Opera Comique.'
The last touch is as fine in its way as Sydney Smith's remark that, if
London were destroyed by an earthquake, the surviving citizens would
celebrate the event by a public dinner among the ruins. Voltaire's
prediction was not fulfilled exactly to the letter, but what actually
happened was even funnier than what his lively imagination had
suggested. It was stated by a Parisian Professor in 1832 (as a reason
why the Academy of Sciences should refute an assertion then rife to the
effect that Biela's comet would encounter the earth that year) that
during the cometic panic of 1773 'there were not wanting people who
knew too well the art of turning to their advantage the alarm inspired
by the approaching comet, and _places in Paradise were sold at a very
high rate_.[44] The announcement of the comet of 1832 may produce
similar effects,' he said, 'unless the authority of the Academy apply a
prompt remedy; and this salutary intervention is at this moment implored
by many benevolent persons.'
In recent years the effects produced on the minds of men by comets have
been less marked than of yore, and appear to have depended a good deal
on circumstances. The comet of the year 1858 (called Donati's), for
example, occasioned no special fears, at least until Napoleon III. made
his famous New-Year's day speech, after which many began to think the
comet had meant mischief. But the comet of 1861, though less
conspicuous, occasioned more serious fears. It was held by many in Italy
to presage a very great misfortune indeed, viz. the restoration of
Francis II. to the throne of the Two Sicilies. Others thought that the
downfall of the temporal power of the Papacy and the death of Pope Pius
IX. were signified. I have not heard that any very serious consequences
were expected to follow the appearance of Coggia's comet in 1874. The
great heat which prevailed during parts of the summer of 1876 was held
by many to be connected in some way with a comet which some very
unskilful telescopist constructed in his imagination out of the glare of
Jupiter in the object-glass of his telescope. Another benighted person,
seeing the Pleiades low down through a fog, turned them into a comet,
about the same time. Possibly the idea was, that since comets are
supposed to cause great heats, great heats may be supposed to indicate a
comet somewhere; and with minds thus prepared, it was not wonderful,
perhaps, that telescopic glare, or an imperfect view of our old friends
the Pleiades, should have been mistaken for a vision of the
heat-producing comet.
It should be a noteworthy circumstance to those who still continue to
look on comets as signs of great catastrophes, that a war more
remarkable in many respects than any which has ever yet been waged
between two great nations--a war swift in its operations and decisive in
its effects--a war in which three armies, each larger than all the
forces commanded by Napoleon I. during the campaign of 1813, were
captured bodily--should have been begun and carried on to its
termination without the appearance of any great comet. The civil war in
America, a still more terrible calamity to that great nation than the
success of Moltke's operations to the French, may be regarded by
believers as presignified by the great comet of 1861. But it so chances
that the war between France and Germany occurred near the middle of one
of the longest intervals recorded in astronomical annals as unmarked by
a single conspicuous comet--the interval between the years 1862 and
1874.
If the progress of just ideas respecting comets has been slow, it must
nevertheless be regarded as on the whole satisfactory. When we remember
that it was not a mere idle fancy which had to be opposed, not mere
terrors which had to be calmed, but that the idea of the significance of
changes in the heavens had come to be regarded by mankind as a part of
their religion, it cannot but be thought a hopeful sign that all
reasoning men in our time have abandoned the idea that comets are sent
to warn the inhabitants of this small earth. Obeying in their movements
the same law of gravitation which guides the planets in their courses,
the comets are tracked by the skilful mathematician along those remote
parts of their course where even the telescope fails to keep them in
view. Not only are they no longer regarded as presaging the fortunes of
men on this earth, but men on this earth are able to predict the
fortunes of comets. Not only is it seen that they cannot influence the
fates of the earth or other planets, but we perceive that the earth and
planets by their attractive energies influence, and in no unimportant
degree, the fates of these visitants from outer space. Encouraging,
truly, is the lesson taught us by the success of earnest study and
careful inquiry in determining some at least among the laws which govern
bodies once thought the wildest and most erratic creatures in the whole
of God's universe.
IX.
_THE LUNAR HOAX._
Then he gave them an account of the famous moon hoax, which came
out in 1835. It was full of the most barefaced absurdities, yet
people swallowed it all; and even Arago is said to have treated it
seriously as a thing that could not well be true, for Mr. Herschel
would have certainly notified him of these marvellous discoveries.
The writer of it had not troubled himself to invent probabilities,
but had borrowed his scenery from the 'Arabian Nights' and his
lunar inhabitants from 'Peter Wilkins.'--OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (in
_The Poet at the Breakfast-Table_).
In one of the earliest numbers of 'Macmillan's Magazine, the late
Professor De Morgan, in an article on Scientific Hoaxing, gave a brief
account of the so-called 'lunar hoax'--an instance of scientific
trickery frequently mentioned, though probably few are familiar with the
real facts. De Morgan himself possessed a copy of the second English
edition of the pamphlet, published in London in 1836. But the original
pamphlet edition, published in America in September 1835, is not easily
to be obtained. The proprietors of the New York 'Sun,' in which the
fictitious narrative first appeared, published an edition of 60,000
copies, and every copy was sold in less than a month. Lately a single
copy of that edition was sold for three dollars seventy-five cents.[45]
The pamphlet is interesting in many respects, and I propose to give
here a brief account of it. But first it may be well to describe briefly
the origin of the hoax.
It is said that after the French revolution of 1830 Nicollet, a French
astronomer of some repute, especially for certain lunar observations of
a very delicate and difficult kind, left France in debt and also in bad
odour with the republican party. According to this story, Arago the
astronomer was especially obnoxious to Nicollet, and it was as much with
the view of revenging himself on his foe as from a wish to raise a
little money that Nicollet wrote the moon-fable. It is said further that
Arago was entrapped, as Nicollet desired, and circulated all over Paris
the wonders related in the pamphlet, until Nicollet wrote to his friend
Bouvard explaining the trick. So runs the story, but the story cannot be
altogether true. Nicollet may have prepared the narrative and partly
written it, but there are passages in the pamphlet as published in
America which no astronomer could have written. Possibly there is some
truth in De Morgan's supposition that the original work was French. This
may have been Nicollet's: and the American edition was probably enlarged
by the translator, who, according to this account, was Richard Alton
Locke,[46] to whom in America the whole credit, or discredit, of the
hoax is commonly attributed. There can be no doubt that either the
French version was much more carefully designed than the American, or
there was no truth in the story that Arago was deceived by the
narrative; for in its present form the story, though clever, could not
for an instant have deceived any one acquainted with the most elementary
laws of optics. The whole story turns on optical rather than on
astronomical considerations; but every astronomer of the least skill is
acquainted with the principles on which the construction of optical
instruments depends. Though the success of the deception recently
practised on M. Chasles by the forger of the Pascal papers has been
regarded as showing how easily mathematicians may be entrapped, yet even
M. Chasles would not have been deceived by bad mathematics; and Arago, a
master of the science of optics, could not but have detected optical
blunders which would be glaring to the average Cambridge undergraduate.
But let us turn to the story itself.
The account opens with a passage unmistakably from an American hand,
though purporting, be it remembered, to be quoted from the 'Supplement
to the Edinburgh Journal of Science.' 'In this unusual addition to our
journal, we have the happiness of making known to the British public,
and thence to the whole civilised world, recent discoveries in astronomy
which will build an imperishable monument to the age in which we live,
and confer upon the present generation of the human race a proud
distinction through all future time. It has been poetically said' [where
and by whom?] 'that the stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of
man, as the intellectual sovereign of the animal creation. He may now
fold the zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of his mental
supremacy.' To the American mind enwrapment in the star-jewelled zodiac
may appear as natural as their ordinary oratorical references to the
star-spangled banner; but the idea is essentially transatlantic, and not
even the most poetical European astronomer could have risen to such a
height of imagery.
Passing over several pages of introductory matter, we come to the
description of the method by which a telescope of sufficient magnifying
power to show living creatures in the moon was constructed by Sir John
Herschel. It had occurred, it would seem, to the elder Herschel to
construct an improved series of parabolic and spherical reflectors
'uniting all the meritorious points in the Gregorian and Newtonian
instruments, with the highly interesting achromatic discovery of
Dolland'(_sic_). [This is much as though one should say that a clever
engineer had conceived the idea of constructing an improved series of
railway engines, combining all the meritorious points in stationary and
locomotive engines, with _Isaac_ Watts' highly ingenious discovery of
screw propulsion. For the Gregorian and Newtonian instruments simply
differ in sending the rays received from the great mirror in different
directions, and Dolland's discovery relates to the ordinary forms of
telescopes with large lens, not with large mirror.] However,
accumulating infirmities and eventually death prevented Sir William
Herschel from applying his plan, which 'evinced the most profound
research in optical science, and the most dexterous ingenuity in
mechanical contrivance. But his son, Sir John Herschel, nursed and
cradled in the observatory, and a practical astronomer from his boyhood,
determined upon testing it at whatever cost. Within two years of his
father's death he completed his new apparatus, and adapted it to the old
telescope with nearly perfect success.' A short account of the
observations made with this instrument, now magnifying six thousand
times, follows, in which most of the astronomical statements are very
correctly and justly worded, being, in fact, borrowed from a paper by
Sir W. Herschel on observation of the moon with precisely that power.
But this great improvement upon all former telescopes still left the
observer at a distance of forty miles from the moon; and at that
distance no object less than about twenty yards in diameter could be
distinguished, and even objects of that size 'would appear only as
feeble, shapeless points.' Sir John 'had the satisfaction to know that
if he could leap astride a cannon-ball, and travel upon its wings of
fury for the respectable period of several millions of years, he would
not obtain a more enlarged view of the more distant stars than he could
now possess in a few minutes of time; and that it would require an
ultra-railroad speed of fifty miles an hour for nearly the livelong
year, to secure him a more favourable inspection of the gentle luminary
of the night;' but 'the exciting question whether this "observed" of all
the sons of men, from the days of Eden to those of Edinburgh, be
inhabited by beings, like ourselves, of consciousness and curiosity, was
left to the benevolent index of natural analogy, or to the severe
tradition that the moon is tenanted only by the hoary _solitaire_, whom
the criminal code of the nursery had banished thither for collecting
fuel on the Sabbath-day.'[47] But the time had arrived when the great
discovery was to be made, by which at length the moon could be brought
near enough, by telescopic power, for living creatures on her surface to
be seen if any exist.
The account of the sudden discovery of the new method, during a
conversation between Sir John Herschel and Sir David Brewster, is one of
the most cleverly conceived (though also one of the absurdest) passages
in the pamphlet. 'About three years ago, in the course of a
conversational discussion with Sir David Brewster upon the merits of
some ingenious suggestions by the latter, in his article on Optics in
the "Edinburgh Encyclopaedia," p. 644, for improvements in Newtonian
reflectors, Sir John Herschel adverted to the convenient simplicity of
the old astronomical telescopes that were without tubes, and the
object-glass of which, placed upon a high pole, threw the focal image to
a distance of 150 and even 200 feet. Dr. Brewster readily admitted that
a tube was not necessary, provided the focal image were conveyed into a
dark apartment and there properly received by reflectors.... The
conversation then became directed to that all-invincible enemy, the
paucity of light in powerful magnifiers. After a few moments' silent
thought, Sir John diffidently enquired whether it would not be possible
to effect _a transfusion of artificial light through the focal object of
vision_! Sir David, somewhat startled at the originality of the idea,
paused awhile, and then hesitatingly referred to the refrangibility of
rays, and the angle of incidence. Sir John, grown more confident,
adduced the example of the Newtonian reflector, in which the
refrangibility was corrected by the second speculum, and the angle of
incidence restored by the third.'
All this part of the narrative is simply splendid in absurdity.
Hesitating references to refrangibility and the angle of incidence would
have been sheerly idiotic under the supposed circumstances; and in the
Newtonian reflector (which has only two specula or mirrors) there is no
refrangibility to be corrected; apart from which, 'correcting
refrangibility' has no more meaning than 'restoring the angle of
incidence.'