Yet it seemed, on further
reflection, that, apart from the difficulty of making an adequate
statement of these problems on such an occasion as the present,
such a wording of the theme would not fully express the idea which
I wish to convey. The so-called problems of astronomy are not
separate and independent, but are rather the parts of one great
problem, that of increasing our knowledge of the universe in its
widest extent. Nor is it easy to contemplate the edifice of
astronomical science as it now stands, without thinking of the
past as well as of the present and future. The fact is that our
knowledge of the universe has been in the nature of a slow and
gradual evolution, commencing at a very early period in human
history, and destined to go forward without stop, as we hope, so
long as civilization shall endure. The astronomer of every age has
built on the foundations laid by his predecessors, and his work
has always formed, and must ever form, the base on which his
successors shall build. The astronomer of to-day may look back
upon Hipparchus and Ptolemy as the earliest ancestors of whom he
has positive knowledge. He can trace his scientific descent from
generation to generation, through the periods of Arabian and
medieval science, through Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Laplace, and
Herschel, down to the present time.
Pages:
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345