ODDS AND ENDS.
“We do not possess a single evident proof in favor of the rotation”—of the earth—“around its axis.”—Dr. Shœpfer.
“To prove the impossibility of the revolution of the earth around the sun, will present no difficulty. We can bring self-evident proof to the contrary.”—Dr. Shœpfer.
“To reform and not to chastise, I am afraid is impossible …. To attack views in the abstract without touching persons may be safe fighting, indeed, but it is fighting with shadows.”—Pope.
“Both revelation and science agree as to the shape of the earth. The psalmist calls it the ‘round world,’ even when it was universally supposed to be a flat extended plain.”—Rev. Dr. Brewer. [What a mistake!?]
“If the earth were a perfect sphere of equal density throughout, the waters of the ocean would be absolutely level—that is to say, would have a spherical surface everywhere equidistant from the earth’s centre.”—English “Family Herald,” February 14, 1885.
“The more I consider them the more I doubt of all systems of astronomy. I doubt whether we can with certainty know either the distance or magnitude of any star in the firmament; else why do astronomers so immensely differ, even with regard to the distance of the sun from the earth? some affirming it to be only three, and others ninety millions of miles.”—Rev. John Wesley, in his “Journal.”
“I don’t know that I ever hinted heretofore that the aeronaut may well be the most sceptical man about the rotundity of the earth. Philosophy imposes the truth upon us; but the view of the earth from the elevation of a balloon is that of an immense terrestrial basin, the deeper part of which is that directly under one’s feet. As we ascend, the earth beneath us seems to recede—actually to sink away—while the horizon gradually and gracefully lifts a diversified slope, stretching away farther and farther to a line that, at the highest elevation, seems to close with the sky. Thus, upon a clear day, the aeronaut feels as if suspended at about an equal distance between the vast blue oceanic concave above and the equally expanded terrestrial basin below.”—Mr. Elliott, Baltimore.
In the “Scientific American,” for April 27, 1878, is a full report of a lecture delivered at Berlin, by Dr. Shœpfer, headed “Our Earth Motionless,” which concludes thus:—“The poet Goethe, whose prophetic views remained during his life wholly unnoticed, said the following: ‘In whatever way or manner may have occurred this business, I must still say that I curse this modern theory of cosmogony, and hope that perchance there may appear in due time some young scientist of genius who will pick up courage enough to upset this universally disseminated delirium of lunatics. The most terrible thing in all this is that one is obliged to repeatedly hear the assurance that all the physicists adhere to the same opinion on this question. But one who is acquainted with men knows how it is done: good, intellectual, and courageous heads adorn their mind with such an idea for the sake of its probability; they gather followers and pupils, and thus form a literary power; their idea is finally worked out, exaggerated, and with a passionate impulse is forced upon society; hundreds and hundreds of noble-minded, reasonable people who work in other spheres, desiring to see their circle esteemed and dear to the interests of daily life, can do nothing better or more reasonable than to leave to other investigators their free scope of action, and add their voice in the benefit of that business which does not concern them at all. This is termed the universal corroboration of the truthfulness of an idea!’ ”