TYCHO BRAHE REVIVED.
The system of Tycho Brahé,[[621]] with some alteration and addition, has been revived and contended for in our own day by a Dane, W. Zytphen,[[622]] who has published The Motion of the Sun in the Universe, (second edition) Copenhagen, 1865, 8vo, and Le Mouvement Sidéral, 1865, 8vo. I make an extract.
"How can one explain Copernically that the velocity of the Moon must be added to the velocity of the Earth on the one place in the Earth's orbit, to learn how far the Moon has advanced from one fixed star to another; but in another place in the orbit these velocities must be subtracted (the movements taking place in opposite directions) to attain the same result? In the Copernican and other systems, it is well known that the Moon, abstracting from the insignificant excentricity of the orbit, always in twenty-four hours performs an equally long distance. Why has Copernicus never been denominated Fundamentus or Fundator? Because he has never convinced anybody so thoroughly that this otherwise so natural epithet has occurred to the mind."
Really the second question is more effective against Newton than against Copernicus; for it upsets gravity: the first is of great depth.
JAMES SMITH WILL NOT DOWN.
The Correspondent journal makes a little episode in the history of my Budget (born May, 1865, died April, 1866). It consisted entirely of letters written by correspondents. In August, a correspondent who signed "Fair Play"—and who I was afterwards told was a lady—thought it would be a good joke to bring in the Cyclometers. Accordingly a letter was written, complaining that though Mr. Sylvester's[[623]] demonstration of Newton's theorem—then attracting public attention—was duly lauded, the possibly greater discovery of the quadrature seemed to be blushing unseen, and wasting etc. It went on as follows:
"Prof. De Morgan, who, from his position in the scientific world, might fairly afford to look favourably on less practised efforts than his own, seems to delight in ridiculing the discoverer. Science is, of course, a very respectable person when he comes out and makes himself useful in the world [it must have been a lady; each sex gives science to the other]: but when, like a monk of the Middle Ages, he shuts himself up [it must have been a lady; they always snub the bachelors] in his cloistered cell, repeating his mumpsimus from day to day, and despising the labourers on the outside, we begin to think of Galileo,[[624]] Jenner,[[625]] Harvey,[[626]] and other glorious trios, who have been contemned ..."
The writer then called upon Mr. James Smith[[627]] to come
forward. The irony was not seen; and that day fortnight appeared the first of more than thirty letters from his pen. Mr. Smith was followed by Mr. Reddie,[[628]] Zadkiel,[[629]] and others, on their several subjects. To some of the letters I have referred; to others I shall come. The Correspondent was to become a first-class scientific journal; the time had arrived at which truth had an organ: and I received formal notice that I could not stifle it by silence, nor convert it into falsehood by ridicule. When my reader sees my extracts, he will readily believe my declaration that I should have been the last to stifle a publication which was every week what James Mill[[630]] would call a dose of capital for my Budget. A few anti-paradoxers brought in common sense: but to the mass of the readers of the journal it all seemed to be the difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Some said that the influx of scientific paradoxes killed the journal: but my belief is that they made it last longer than it otherwise would have done. Twenty years ago I recommended the paradoxers to combine and publish their views in a common journal: with a catholic editor, who had no pet theory, but a stern determination not to exclude anything merely for absurdity. I suspect it would answer very well. A strong title, or motto, would be wanted: not so coarse as was roared out in a Cambridge mob when I was an undergraduate—"No King! No Church! No House of Lords! No nothing, blast me!"—but something on that principle.