On the occasion of my first visit to America, in 1873, I for the first time succeeded in obtaining a copy of this curious pamphlet. It had been mentioned to me (by Emerson, I think) as an amusing piece of trickery played off by a scientific man on his brethren; and Dr. Wendell Holmes, who was present, remarked that he had a copy in his possession. This he was good enough to lend me. Soon after, a valued friend in New York presented me with a copy.

Back

46

This Locke must not be confounded with Richard Lock, the circle-squarer and general paradoxist, who flourished a century earlier.

Back

47

The nurses' tale is, that the man was sent to the moon by Moses for gathering sticks on the Sabbath, and they refer to the cheerful story in Numbers xv. 32–36. According to German nurses the day was not the Sabbath, but Sunday. Their tale runs as follows: 'Ages ago there went one Sunday an old man into the woods to hew sticks. He cut a faggot and slung it on a stout staff, cast it over his shoulder, and began to trudge home with his burthen. On his way he met a handsome man in Sunday suit, walking towards the church. The man stopped, and asked the faggot-bearer; "Do you know that this is Sunday on earth, when all must rest from their labours?" "Sunday on earth or Monday in heaven, it's all one to me?" laughed the wood-cutter. "Then bear your bundle for ever!" answered the stranger. "And as you value not Sunday on earth, yours shall be a perpetual Moon-day in heaven; you shall stand for eternity in the moon, a warning to all Sabbath-breakers." Thereupon the stranger vanished; and the man was caught up with his staff and faggot into the moon, where he stands yet.' According to some narrators the stranger was Christ; but whether from German laxity in such matters or for some other reason, no text is quoted in evidence, as by the more orthodox British nurses. Luke vi. 1–5 might serve.

Back

48

Milton's opinion may be quoted against me here; and as received ideas respecting angels, good and bad, the fall of man, and many other such matters, are due quite as much to Milton as to any other authority, his opinion must not be lightly disregarded. But though, when Milton's Satan 'meets a vast vacuity' where his wings are of no further service to him,

'All unawares Flutt'ring his pennons vain, plumb down he drops Ten thousand fathoms deep, and to this hour Down had been falling, had not by ill chance The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud, Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him As many miles aloft,'

yet this was written nearly a quarter of a century before Newton had established the law of gravity. Moreover, there is no evidence to show in what direction Satan fell; 'above is below and below above,' says Richter, 'to one stripped of gravitating body;' and whether Satan was under the influence of gravity or not, he would be practically exempt from its action when in the midst of that 'dark, illimitable ocean' of space,

'Without bound, Without dimensions, where length, breadth, and height, And time and place are lost.'

His lighting 'on Niphates' top,' and overleaping the gate of Paradise, may be used as arguments either way. On the whole, I must (according to my present lights) claim for Satan a freedom from all scientific restraints. This freedom is exemplified by his showing all the kingdoms of the world from an exceeding high mountain, thus affording the first practical demonstration of the flat-earth theory, the maintenance of which led to poor Mr. Hampden's incarceration.

Back

49

The Sun itself claimed to have established the veracity of the account in a manner strongly recalling a well-known argument used by orthodox believers in the Bible account of the cosmogony. Either, say these, Moses discovered how the world was made, or the facts were revealed to him by some one who had made the discovery: but Moses could not have made the discovery, knowing nothing of the higher departments of science; therefore, the account came from the only Being who could rationally be supposed to know anything about the beginning of the world. 'Either,' said the New York Sun, speaking of a mathematical problem discussed in the article, 'that problem was predicated by us or some other person, who has thereby made the greatest of all modern discoveries in mathematical astronomy. We did not make it, for we know nothing of mathematics whatever; therefore, it was made by the only person to whom it can rationally be ascribed, namely Herschel the astronomer, its only avowed and undeniable author.' In reality, notwithstanding this convincing argument, the problem was stolen by Locke from a paper by Olbers, shortly before published, and gave the method followed by Beer and Mädler throughout their selenographical researches in 1833–37.

Back

Страница 98 из 99

Назад 1…97 98 99 Далее