Part 5

PREFACE.

The present Lecture, embodying a variety of subjects, under the general title of CHIMERAS OF SCIENCE, not only reviews them in succession, but expresses sentiments with regard to each which result from a long acquaintance with ancient and modern scientific authors; supported by an experimental, and, not unfrequently, by a practical acquaintance with several branches of natural philosophy. The consequence of this intimacy with various scientific studies, has been a thorough conviction of the necessity of possessing a knowledge of elementary principles, before professing a belief in new doctrines, whose only recommendation is their novelty, extravagance, and inutility. Without absolutely pretending to any golden road, or short path to learning, superficial but ambitious scholars are the first to seize on first impressions, build up some grand theory, lay down certain postulates, seek proselytes, and display a wonderful amount of enthusiasm in creating systems which, however beautiful in appearance, can boast of no solid foundation. Imperfectly educated, and shallow, but not unfrequently highly imaginative, men, if not themselves absolute charlatans, are the easily led dupes, who become the admirers and abettors of every "new wind of doctrine."

Every age has been sensational. Man delights in mystery, and mysticism is a certain sign of imperfect knowledge. A classic age was not proof against the tricks and deceitful practices of the oracles, soothsayers and jugglers. The dark ages only served to keep alive the human desire for sensation; and less than a century ago, poor, simple, half idiotic women, were burnt at the stake as witches. The Mahometans had their prophet, and so have the Mormons. Mesmer had his disciples, and so have many modern Spiritualists. The Astrologer of the 17th century, is presented to us in a modern dress by the seer Zadkiel. Jacob Behmen and Emanuel Swedenborg, but represent a class that is continually dying out, yet is as continually reproduced; the authors of pious romances, theological enigmas, scientific spiritualisms, and spiritualized transcendental philosophisms. Swedenborg introduces us to the inhabitants of the moon; they are short, the size of a youth of seven years of age; and they speak with a thunderous voice for want of an atmosphere, and not from the mouth, but from the abdomen! But many persons admire such wanderings of a pretended inward and prophetic light.

There are still living a few faithful believers in Alchemy, who earnestly look forward to the coming of the day when the grand, the glorious secret, shall be fully revealed; not, however, to the vulgar crowd, but to the noble, true, and virtuous adept,--to him, and him only.

A class of Mathematicians still continues to publish papers and pamphlets on squaring, cubing, and trisecting. On this subject, the reader might find some amusement in the critiques of Professor De Morgan, who wrote several papers in the Athenæum, 1865, under the title of A Budget of Paradoxes.

Mechanics are still living who firmly believe in the possibility of realizing a mechanical perpetual motion,--to spin, pump, or drive carriages or machinery, by means of a constantly descending weight. And, year by year, many such schemes, find their final resting place in the archives of the Patent Office.

It is melancholy to reflect on the waste of mental energy, inflicted on society by such vanities as Astrology, Alchemy, and their kindred empirical employments. Look at the centuries wasted, and worse than wasted, in studying such intellectual abortions, and in writing thousands of volumes of inanity to uphold falsehood and delude the unwary. What the sword has done physically, the pen and the wand of the sorcerer have done mentally, in prostrating the intellectuality of mankind.

It would tend to promote the progress of society at large, if education were so far general that the acquirements of the middle and lower classes should act on the upper classes as a stimulant to the pursuit of those higher branches of study, which mostly fall to the lot of the nobility and men of fortune: whose birth and ample means otherwise relieve them from all incitements other than such as are fostered by the necessities of public office. With title and fortune, and no ambition to hold public employment, any education is thought to be sufficient that serves to obtain the usual dignities, and to give that polish which completes the accomplished gentleman. To the spread of education alone, can we look with any reliance for the downfall, or at least the diminishing of the hold on the human mind which Chimeras of every order usurp in our own, in common with every other country.

Among other works that might be consulted by the curious in such matters, in the Libraries of the British Museum, the Patent Office, Chetham College Manchester, &c.; may be named, on ASTROLOGY,--B. Porta's Works, folio, 1616;--The Compost of Ptolomeus, Prince of Astronomie, 1645;--W. Ramsey's Vox Stellarum, 8vo., 1652;--The Geomancie of Maister Christopher Cattan, 4to., 1608;--Dr. John Dee's Work on Spirits, folio, 1659;--J. Goad's Astro-Meteorologica, folio, 1686;--Godfridus's Work on the Effects of the Planets, &c., 1649;--M. Manilius's System of the Ancient Astronomy and Astrology, &c., 8vo., 1697;--John Merrifield's Catastasis Mundi, 4to., 1684;--Jo. Holwells's Catastrophe Mundi, 4to., 1682;--with many others of modern date.

On ALCHEMY,--Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, 4to., 1652;--Dr. John French's Art of Distillation;--Four Books of J. S. Weidenfeld, 4to., 1685;--A Philosophicall Epitaph, in Hierogliphicall Figures, 1673;--George Ridley's Compound of Alchemy, 1591;--Roger Bacon's Art and Nature, (in French,) 1557; his Mirror of Alchemy, 1597; his Philosopher's Stone, or Grand Elixir, 8vo., 1739; Theatrum Chemicum, 6 vols., 8vo., 1659-61;--Sandivogius's New Light of Alchymie, 4to., 1650;--Opuscula quædam Chemica, 8vo., 1514;--The Works of Geber, 1678;--Hermes Trismegistus's Works, collected in Theatrum Chemicum, 4 vols.;--Raimond Lully's De Secretis Naturæ, 1541;--Crollius's Philosophy Reformed and Improved, in four profound Tractates, 1657;--Beguinus (J.) Trocinium Chymicum, or Chymical Essays, 8vo., 1669;--Artis Auriferae, Quam Chemiam Vocant (a collection of treatises), woodcuts, 2 vols. 8vo. 1593;--Balduinus's Aurum Superius et Inferius Hermeticum, plates, 1675; Beccheri's Physica Subterranea, Lipsiæ, 1738 (with supplement), 8vo., 1681-80; with many others, ancient and modern. Interesting compendious treatises will be found in Dr. Thomas Thomson's History of Chemistry, ("The National Library,") 2 vols., 12mo., 1830; Justus von Liebig's Familiar Letters on Chemistry, edited by Dr. Blyth, 8vo., 1859. And--

On MATHEMATICAL and MECHANICAL Chimeras, many popular notices may be found in Encyclopædias; and particularly in Dr. Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary, 2 vols., 4to.; and the Author's "Perpetuum Mobile; or, History of the Search for Self-Motive Power; with an Introductory Essay," post 8vo., 1861; to which work, a second series will shortly be added.

CHIMERAS OF SCIENCE.

INTRODUCTION.

Although the present lecture seems to require some introductory remarks, they must necessarily be brief--our time being limited and this discourse rather discursive; yet it is sufficiently condensed to suit the present occasion, and illustrates fully the truthfulness of the axiom that--A little learning is a dangerous thing: from its tendency to inspire its possessors with vanity rather than with the humility which always accompanies profound knowledge.

You are no doubt all, or most of you, well acquainted with the use made of Astrology and Alchemy in the dramas of Shakspeare--"The Antiquary" of the "Wizard of the North"--the "Strange Story" of Lord Lytton--the "Faust" of Goëthe; and are probably familiar with the more instructive works of Scott on Demonology, and of Brewster on Natural Magic. Now we always find that fiction is more suitable than truth for romantic writings; truth is circumscribed, but the fictions whether of Astrology, Alchemy, or any other pseudo-philosophy are erratic, the delight of poets and romance writers, being the comets and ignes fatui of many popular compositions in our light literature.

There is no end of fabulous writings of the class we call novels and romances, and no end of deceptions which we patronize as tricks of legerdemain; the one gratifies our imagination and fancy, the other takes our common sense by surprise; but all these are harmless because only presented to us for our amusement.

Delusion, however, assumes a startling character when romance in the form of mystic writings, and jugglery in the form of pretended communication with the spirit-world demand our respect and serious attention, by claiming to have a divine origin. But hallucination of the human intellect, as we shall see, is not confined to such remote visionary speculations, and it is not unimportant to remark that in mathematics, as in physics, and in other branches of investigation, there is a singular persistency in upholding errors.

A contemporary astrologer, assuming the pseudonym of Zadkiel, tauntingly observes in his preface to a recent publication: "This is the age of inquiry; and yet prejudice continues to press down her leaden foot upon the neck of examination in this matter"--that is, Astrology. Now with this reproof before us we hope to discuss the subject with becoming propriety.

ASTROLOGY.

The splendour of the sun by day, the glories of the firmament by night, together with the sublimity of all celestial phenomena, attract alike the attention of the most simple and the most intellectual among mankind. The distance, the magnitude, and the grandeur of the entire planetary system while exciting emotions of awe, reverence, and devotion among the mass of the human race, have at the same time been studied from the earliest period of man's history to the present time superstitiously by one class of observers, and scientifically by another.

As the telescope was not invented before the 17th century, it is evident that the study of Astronomy without that instrument must previously have been pursued under amazing difficulties; and we might have expected that when first used by Galileo at Venice in 1609, its introduction would have been hailed without a dissentient voice. Such, however, was not the fact, according to Sir David Brewster, who says:--

"The principal Professor of Philosophy at Padua resisted Galileo's repeated and urgent entreaties to look at the moon and planets through his telescope; and he even laboured to convince Cosmo de Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, that the satellites of Jupiter could not possibly exist. Sizzi, an astronomer of Florence, maintained that as there were only seven apertures in the head--two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and one mouth--and as there were only seven metals, and seven days in the week, so there could only be seven planets. He seems (eventually), however, to have admitted the visibility of the four satellites through the telescope; but he argues, that as they are invisible to the naked eye, they can exercise no influence on the earth; and being useless they do not exist."

See his "Martyrs of Science."

Such being the crude state of astronomical science in the 17th century, it must have been comparatively imperfect throughout all preceding centuries; and open to mystical appropriation and abuse by Egyptians, Chaldeans, Hindus, Chinese, and European and other ancient astrologers. Among that motley group the most learned were found strangely associated with ignorant impostors, and their activity in writing and travelling served to spread their different systems over the entire civilized world. It was not until late in the 17th century that Astrology could be absolutely declared to be in its decline. In England, William Lilly, the Sidrophel of Hudibras, and the most famous astrologer of his time, died in 1681, leaving behind him his Introduction to Astrology, together with many other works of the same character.

Astrology is merely a philosophism, being empirical, wholly visionary, a mere fanciful system compounded of incongruous mixtures of astronomical with human events, of mythology with theology, and of facts with pure fiction. It has been variously designated Judicial, Hororary, Atmospherical, and Mundane, Astrology. It has also many off-shoots subservient to Magic or the black art, Sorcery, Witchcraft, and other pretended mysticisms ostentatiously styled occult philosophy.

We may first observe that Astrology lays no claim to inspiration, but affects a very ancient unknown origin, tracing back to a dark, heathenish, and superstitious age, in the very infancy of traditional knowledge, when the boldest assertions of the seer were received as the authority of an oracle, no one daring to question their validity. Whatever is remotely possible the Astrologer accepts as a fact; while ignorant of much around him, he assumes with the utmost complacency an intimate acquaintance with the sun and planets thousands upon thousands of miles off; yea with the sun 969,272 miles in diameter, while he himself inhabits a globe only 7,916 miles in diameter; from which the moon is 237,000 miles distant, and the sun 400 times that distance. And these immense bodies revolving millions on millions of miles away in immeasurable space are described by him as fashioning an infant's nose, directing the fortunes or misfortunes of lovers, ordering the property of traders, meting out diseases, and improving or deranging man's mental faculties. And as if such puerile influences were not sufficiently preposterous we are informed by the modern seer, Zadkiel, that the 12 signs of the Zodiac not only rule the several parts of the human frame, but also those of a ship, as Aries, the bows; Taurus, the cutwater; Gemini, the rudder; Cancer, the bottom; Leo, the upper works; Virgo, the hold; Libra, parts above the water's edge; Scorpio, the seamen's berths; Sagittarius, the seamen; Capricorn, the ends of the vessel; Aquarius, the Captain; Pisces, the oars in galleys, the wheels in steam vessels, and the sails in others; but these latter being above water, we are left in doubt about the ruler of the submerged screw propeller.

This portion of the subject was illustrated by means of a Diagram exhibiting the Diameters and Magnitudes of Planets, thus:--

Miles. The Sun 882,000 Jupiter 91,522 Saturn 76,018 Uranus 35,100 Neptune 33,600 Earth 7,916 Venus 7,702 Mars 4,398 Mercury 3,123