f the grounds, the investigator is not put
in the wrong. He knew beforehand that there was an alternative: and he
takes the horn of the alternative indicated by his calculations. The two
sides of this case present an instructive contrast. Eight astronomers
produce nearly the same result, and yet the last two doubt the sufficiency
of their means: compare them with the what's-his-name who rushes in where
thing-em-bobs fear to tread.

I was not aware, until I had written what precedes, that Mr. Airy had given
a sufficient answer on the point. Mr. Reddie says (_Correspondent_, Jan.
20, 1866):

"I claim to have forced Professor Airy to give up the notion of 'solar
motion in space' altogether, for he admits it to be 'at present in
doubt and abeyance.' I first made that claim in a letter addressed to
the Astronomer Royal himself in June, 1864, and in replying, very
courteously, to other portions of my letter, he did not gainsay that
part of it."

Mr. Reddie is not ready at reading satire, or he never would have so missed
the meaning of the courteous reply on one point, and the total silence upon
another. Mr. Airy must be one of those peculiar persons who, when they do
not think an assertion worth notice, let it alone, without noticing it by a
notification of non-notice. He would never commit the bull of "Sir! I will
not say a word on that subject." He would put it thus, "Sir! I will only
say ten words on that subject,"--and, having thus said them, would {351}
proceed to something else. He assumed, as a matter of form, that Mr. Reddie
would draw the proper inference from his silence: and this because he did
not care whether or no the assumption was correct.

The _Mechanics of the Heavens_, which Mr. Reddie sends to be noticed, shall
be noticed, so far as an extract goes:

"My connection with this subject is, indeed, very simply explained. In
endeavoring to understand the laws of physical astronomy as generally
taught, I happened to entertain some doubt whether gravitating bodies could
revolve, and having afterwards imbibed some vague idea that the laws of the
universe were chemical and physical rather than mechanical, and somehow
connected with electricity and magnetism as opposing correlative
forces--most probably suggested to my mind, as to many others, by the
transcendent discoveries made in electro-magnetism by Professor
Faraday[657]--my former doubts about gravitation were revived, and I was