Because this announcement assimilated with his own calculations upon a
planet between Mercury and the sun--
Because this solar system itself has never attained positiveness in the
aspect of Regularity: there are to Mercury, as there are to Neptune,
phenomena irreconcilable with the formulas, or motions that betray
influence by something else.
We are told that Leverrier "satisfied himself as to the substantial
accuracy of the reported observation." The story of this investigation
is told in _Monthly Notices_, 20-98. It seems too bad to threaten the
naive little thing with our rude sophistications, but it is amusingly of
the ingenuousness of the age from which present dogmas have survived.
Lescarbault wrote to Leverrier. Leverrier hastened to Orgeres. But he
was careful not to tell Lescarbault who he was. Went right in and
"subjected Dr. Lescarbault to a very severe cross-examination"--just the
way you or I may feel at liberty to go into anybody's home and be severe
with people--"pressing him hard step by step"--just as anyone might go
into someone else's house and press him hard, though unknown to the
hard-pressed one. Not until he was satisfied, did Leverrier reveal his
identity. I suppose Dr. Lescarbault expressed astonishment. I think
there's something utopian about this: it's so unlike the
stand-offishness of New York life.
Leverrier gave the name "Vulcan" to the object that Dr. Lescarbault had
reported.
By the same means by which he is, even to this day, supposed--by the
faithful--to have discovered Neptune, he had already announced the
probable existence of an Intra-Mercurial body, or group of bodies. He
had five observations besides Lescarbault's upon something that had been
seen to cross the sun. In accordance with the mathematical hypnoses of
his era, he studied these six transits. Out of them he computed elements
giving "Vulcan" a period of about 20 days, or a formula for heliocentric
longitude at any time.
But he placed the time of best observation away up in 1877.
But even so, or considering that he still had probably a good many years
to live, it may strike one that he was a little rash--that is if one has
not gone very deep into the study of hypnoses--that, having "discovered"
Neptune by a method which, in our acceptance, had no more to recommend
it than had once equally well-thought-of methods of witch-finding, he
should not have taken such chances: that if he was right as to Neptune,
but should be wrong as to "Vulcan," his average would be away below that
of most fortune-tellers, who could scarcely hope to do business upon a
fifty per cent. basis--all that the reasoning of a tyro in hypnoses.
The date:
March 22, 1877.
The scientific world was up on its hind legs nosing the sky. The thing
had been done so authoritatively. Never a pope had said a thing with
more of the seeming of finality. If six observations correlated, what
more could be asked? The Editor of _Nature_, a week before the predicted
event, though cautious, said that it is difficult to explain how six
observers, unknown to one another, could have data that could be
formulated, if they were not related phenomena.
In a way, at this point occurs the crisis of our whole book.
Formulas are against us.
But can astronomic formulas, backed up by observations in agreement,
taken many years apart, calculated by a Leverrier, be as meaningless, in
a positive sense, as all other quasi-things that we have encountered so
far?
The preparations they made, before March 22, 1877. In England, the
Astronomer Royal made it the expectation of his life: notified observers
at Madras, Melbourne, Sydney, and New Zealand, and arranged with
observers in Chili and the United States. M. Struve had prepared for
observations in Siberia and Japan--