My faith in the appalling character of algebraic formulæ[5] received a rude shock when I learned of an experience of Louise Michel, the anarchist, who was transported for life to New Caledonia (afterwards pardoned). On arriving at the savage island, true to her humanitarian instincts, "she immediately established a school for native children, who by a curious freak of their minds, she noted with rejoicing, took naturally to algebra before they learned arithmetic!"
Hovenden quotes Huxley as saying that mathematics "is that study that knows nothing of observation, nothing of induction, nothing of experiment, nothing of causation." He also quotes the words of Clerk Maxwell, who said, in regard to mathematicians, that it was "doubtful whether the ideas as expressed in symbols had ever quite found their way out of the equations into their minds." They never seem to appeal to the doctrine of probabilities nor do they in any way permit imagination to act as a stimulus to suggestive thought.
Least of all would a layman ridicule or question the painstaking labor involved in astronomic work, though he cannot see a glimmer of light or intelligence in the enigmatical pages. A certain class of astronomers might take a lesson from an intelligent public in ceasing to scoff and ridicule what they are unable to see themselves in the Martian markings. The chief work of these men indicates the cold precise measuring of points of light in the heavens, the determination of orbits, elements and ephemeris of heavenly bodies, the determination of solar parallax, etc., most of the subjects strictly mathematical, a question of careful measurements for which the necessary instruments are at hand, or simply sweeping the heavens for a new variable, binary or asteroid. Parallaxes and orbits are matters of measurement to be reckoned by the figures of anybody else. It is obvious from all this that little or no interest is manifested by astronomers in planetary markings, least of all in those of Mars. The exasperating feature of the matter is that they persistently repudiate the observation of others equally well equipped, and endowed with the same enthusiasm and devotion to their work.
The way in which the gatherers of the raw material arrogate to themselves the science of astronomy, relegating the thinkers and generalizers to the limbo of speculation, is as if the book-keepers of a corporation should assume themselves to be the master-minds of the concern and the banker, or financier, at the head of it, a dreamer not worth regarding.
An illustration of the conservativeness of astronomers in regard to planetary markings is shown in their cautious attitude concerning the polar snow caps of Mars. Here are white polar caps on Mars, precisely where they ought to be if they are snow, they wax and wane at the time they should and at no other time, a dark band appears at their borders as the caps in turn diminish in size, which has been interpreted as water due to the melting snow, and no other substance known could possibly reproduce these varying conditions. Professor C. A. Young, in describing these white areas, says: "The one which happens to be turned toward the Sun continually diminishes in size, while the other increases, the process being reversed with the seasons of the planet." After these admissions Professor Young cautiously says: "These are believed to be ice caps." Sir John Herschel says: "The variety in the spots may arise from the planet not being destitute of atmosphere and clouds, and what adds greatly to the probability of this is the appearance of brilliant white spots at the poles—one of which appears in our figure—which have been conjectured with some probability to be snow, as they disappear when they have been long exposed to the Sun, and are greatest when just emerging from the long night of the polar winter." Had Michael Faraday been an astronomer, how long would it have taken him to pronounce these white polar caps snow and ice? De la Rive, in his memoir of Faraday, in speaking of his marvellous accomplishments, says: "One may easily understand what must be produced under such circumstances by a life thus wholly consecrated to science, when to a strong and vigorous intellect is joined a most brilliant imagination." Tyndall, in his discourse "On the Scientific use of the Imagination," says: "Bounded and conditioned by co-operant reason, imagination becomes the mightiest instrument of the physical discoverer. Newton's passage from a falling apple to a falling Moon was a leap of the imagination."
That Herbert Hall Turner, Professor of Astronomy in the University of Oxford, does not regard the various contributions on the surface features of Mars as belonging to astronomical science may be inferred from his interesting book lately published, entitled "Astronomical Discovery." This book presents to us the history of the discovery of Uranus and Eros, of Neptune, Bradley's aberration of light, Schwabe and sun-spot period, the variation of latitude, etc., but not a word about the marvellous discoveries of the canali of Mars by Schiaparelli, so fully confirmed by the observation and drawings of many others, and the great advances made by Lowell in the discovery of new features with his lucid and rational interpretation of the seeming enigmas.
Astronomy, the oldest and most conservative of all the sciences, has been the last to subdivide. Already one group of men has justified by its work a division of the science known as astrophysics. The lamented Keeler, in explaining the difference between astronomy and astrophysics, said: "Astrophysics seeks to ascertain the nature of the heavenly bodies, rather than their positions and motions in space, what they are, rather than where they are." This natural division suggests the propriety of making another division equally distinct, which should comprise the study and interpretation of the surface markings of the planets and satellites, under the name of planetology. The study would be the application to these bodies of the science of geology, in its broadest sense, meteorology, physical geography, geodesy, and related sciences.
With the science of planetology established, the student of this science will no longer call to his aid the astronomer, and, least of all, the astrophysicist, nor will he be mindful of their criticism or neglect. He will appeal to the sciences which are involved in the study of the surface features of his own globe, in the interpretation of planetary detail.