Yet he
is proud to know that his science has been worth more to mankind
than it has cost. He does not value its results merely as a means
of crossing the ocean or mapping the country, for he feels that
man does not live by bread alone. If it is not more than bread to
know the place we occupy in the universe, it is certainly
something which we should place not far behind the means of
subsistence. That we now look upon a comet as something very
interesting, of which the sight affords us a pleasure unmixed with
fear of war, pestilence, or other calamity, and of which we
therefore wish the return, is a gain we cannot measure by money.
In all ages astronomy has been an index to the civilization of the
people who cultivated it. It has been crude or exact, enlightened
or mingled with superstition, according to the current mode of
thought. When once men understand the relation of the planet on
which they dwell to the universe at large, superstition is doomed
to speedy extinction. This alone is an object worth more than
money.
Astronomy may fairly claim to be that science which transcends all
others in its demands upon the practical application of our
reasoning powers. Look at the stars that stud the heavens on a
clear evening.
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