ut often
his imagination outran his facts.

Great minds divine the thing first--they see it with their inward eye.
Yet there may be danger in this, for in one's anxiety to prove what he
first only imagined, small proof suffices. Thus Herschel was for many
years sure that the moon had an atmosphere and was inhabited; he thought
that he had seen clear through the Milky Way and discovered empty space
beyond; he calculated distances, and announced how far Castor was from
Pollux; he even made a guess as to how long it took for a gaseous nebula
to resolve itself into a planetary system; he believed the sun was a
molten mass of fire--a thing that many believed until they saw the
incandescent electric lamp--and in various other ways made daring
prophecies which science has not only failed to corroborate, but which
we now know to be errors.

But the intensity of his nature was both his virtue and his weakness.
Men who do nothing and say nothing are never ridiculous. Those who hope
much, believe much, and love much, make mistakes.

Constant effort and frequent mistakes are the stepping-stones of genius.

In all, Herschel contributed sixty-seven important papers to the
proceedings of the Royal Society, and in one of these, which was written
in his eightieth year, he says, "My enthusiasm has occasionally led me
astray, and I wish now to correct a statement which I made to you
twenty-eight years ago." He then enumerates some particular statement
about the height of mountains in the moon, and corrects it. Truth was
more to Herschel than consistency. Indeed, the earnestness, purity of
purpose, and simplicity of his mind stamp him as one of the world's
great men.

At Windsor he built a two-story observatory. In the wintertime every
night when the stars could be seen, was sacred. No matter how cold the
weather, he stood and watched; while down below, the faithful Caroline
sat and recorded the observations that he called down to her.

Caroline was his confidante, adviser, secretary, servant, friend. She
had a telescope of her own, and when her brother did not need her
services she swept the heavens on her own account for maverick comets.
In her work she was eminently successful, and five comets at least are
placed to her credit on the honor-roll by right of priority. Her
discoveries were duly forwarded by her brother to the Royal Society for
record.

Later, the King of Prussia was to honor her with a gold medal, and
several lear