and lost to sight till Libri discovered them, and made them the common property of science. But, resolved not to be baffled, Herschel turned to the rise and fall of the price of wheat at Windsor as an indication of the warmth or coldness of the sun's rays. It was his only resource, and it was an idea worthy of a baffled man of science. But critics in the highest quarters attacked and ridiculed this seeker after truth as if he were guilty of supreme folly. Leaders of thought in every branch of science and in every department of life have to bear the brunt of ridicule from learned ignorance![1]
These were the first steps taken by Herschel, it may be said, in his quest after the plan on which Almighty Wisdom built the world of suns and systems. A farther step forward was made when he addressed himself to ascertain the motion of the sun and solar system through space. That there was such a motion he did not doubt. Some had held the same faith before him; astronomers as able had refused it a hearing. He converted it from faith to fact. What it means is that our sun with his most distant planet and comet, with every particle of matter that owns his sway, is travelling onward through space, round a centre of force apparently, and constrained by Newton's law of gravitation. Are these facts or fancies, leading features in the plan of creation or dreams of a mere enthusiast? Herschel not only believed they were facts; he set himself to prove it.
- ↑ The tables he took advantage of were those given by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. The ridicule that was heaped upon him may be seen in the Edinburgh Review, and in a letter signed J. M., Scots Magazine, 1807, p. 329.
