_Times_, April 6 or 7, 1856. The moon has no rotary motion.
A letter from Mr. Jellinger Symons,[174] inspector of schools, which commenced a controversy of many letters and pamphlets. This dispute comes on at intervals, and will continue to do so. It sometimes arises from inability to understand the character of simple rotation, geometrically; sometimes from not understanding the mechanical doctrine of rotation.
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Lunar Motion. The whole argument stated, and illustrated by diagrams; with letters from the Astronomer Royal. By Jellinger C. Symons. London, 1856, 8vo.
The Astronomer Royal endeavored to disentangle Mr. J. C. Symons, but failed. Mr. Airy[175] can correct the error of a ship's compasses, because he can put her head which way he pleases: but this he cannot do with a speculator.
Mr. Symons, in this tract, insinuated that the rotation of the moon is one of the silver shrines of the craftsmen. To see a thing so clearly as to be satisfied that all who say they do not see it are telling wilful falsehood, is the nature of man. Many of all sects find much comfort in it, when they think of the others; many unbelievers solace themselves with it against believers; priests of old time founded the right of persecution upon it, and of our time, in some cases, the right of slander: many of the paradoxers make it an argument against students of science. But I must say for men of science, for the whole body, that they are fully persuaded of the honesty of the paradoxers. The simple truth is, that all those I have mentioned, believers, unbelievers, priests, paradoxers, are not so sure they are right in their points of difference that they can safely allow themselves to be persuaded of the honesty of opponents. Those who know demonstration are differently situated. I suspect a train might be laid for the formation of a better habit in this way. We know that Suvaroff[176] taught his Russians at Ismail not to fear the Turks by accustoming them to charge bundles of faggots dressed in turbans, etc.
At which your wise men sneered in phrases witty, He made no answer--but he took the city!
Would it not be a good thing to exercise boys, in pairs, in the following dialogue:--Sir, you are quite wrong!--Sir, {86} I am sure you honestly think so! This was suggested by what used to take place at Cambridge in my day. By statute, every B.A. was obliged to perform a certain number of disputations, and the _father_ of the college had to affirm that it had been done. Some were performed in earnest: the rest were huddled over as follows. Two candidates occupied the places of the respondent and the opponent: _Recte statuit Newtonus_, said the respondent: _Recte non statuit Newtonus_,[177] said the opponent. This was repeated the requisite number of times, and counted for as many _acts_ and _opponencies_. The parties then changed places, and each unsaid what he had said on the other side of the house: I remember thinking that it was capital drill for the House of Commons, if any of us should ever get there. The process was repeated with every pair of candidates.
The real disputations were very severe exercises. I was badgered for two hours with arguments given and answered in Latin,--or what we called Latin--against Newton's first section, Lagrange's[178] derived functions, and Locke[179] on innate principles. And though I _took off_ everything, and was pronounced by the moderator to have disputed _magno honore_,[180] I never had such a strain of thought in my life. For the inferior opponents were made as sharp as their betters by their tutors, who kept lists of queer objections, drawn from all quarters. The opponents used to meet the day before to compare their arguments, that the same might not come twice over. But, after I left Cambridge, it became the fashion to invite the respondent to be present, who therefore learnt all that was to be brought against him. This made the whole thing a farce: and the disputations were abolished.
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The Doctrine of the Moon's Rotation, considered in a letter to the Astronomical Censor of the _Athenaeum_. By Jones L. MacElshender.[181] Edinburgh, 1856, 8vo.
This is an appeal to those cultivated persons who will read it "to overrule the _dicta_ of judges who would sacrifice truth and justice to professional rule, or personal pique, pride, or prejudice"; meaning, the great mass of those who have studied the subject. But how? Suppose the "cultivated persons" were to side with the author, would those who have conclusions to draw and applications to make consent to be wrong because the "general body of intelligent men," who make no special study of the subject, are against them? They would do no such thing: they would request the general body of intelligent men to find their own astronomy, and welcome. But the truth is, that this intelligent body knows better: and no persons know better that they know better than the speculators themselves.
But suppose the general body were to combine, in opposition to those who have studied. Of course all my list must be admitted to their trial; and then arises the question whether both sides are to be heard. If so, the general body of the intelligent must hear all the established side have to say: that is, they must become just as much of students as the inculpated orthodox themselves. And will they not then get into _professional rule_, pique, pride, and prejudice, as the others did? But if, which I suspect, they are intended to judge as they are, they will be in a rare difficulty. All the paradoxers are of like pretensions: they cannot, as a class, be right, for each one contradicts a great many of the rest. There will be the puzzle which silenced the crew of the cutter in Marryat's novel of the Dog Fiend.[182] "A tog is a tog," said Jansen.--"Yes," replied another, "we all know a dog is a dog; but the question is--Is _this_ dog {88} a dog?" And this question would arise upon every dog of them all.
