The Destinies of the Stars. Svante Arrhenius
from the Platonic-Aristotelian. He who is at all familiar with the history of natural science will understand us when we answer: “We have had more than enough thereof.”
That non-naturalists sometimes have a peculiar conception of the present status of astronomy is well illustrated by the statement of one of our foremost theologians in a review of a popular astronomical work where he remarked that the astronomer of today had not advanced much beyond those of ancient time who also could forecast eclipses of the Sun. The predictions were then founded on the recurrences of eclipses after regular intervals much as the new Moons were foretold, with the difference only that the latter occur much more frequently.
Our knowledge of the stellar bodies at present and fifty or sixty years ago are a world apart and the same is true of the latter and that of antiquity. But we must not therefore forget that our brilliant star-science today is derived from men’s desire to measure time, and particularly from their need to foresee the food supply in coming days.
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