On Some Points in the Early History of Astronomy ¹

Abstract

IN the last astronomical course given in this theatre the subject touched upon was our present knowledge of the sun and stars. Some of you may possibly have been present at the lectures, but in any case the point made was something like this: an enormous advance had recently been made in our astronomical knowledge and in our powers of investigating the various bodies which people space, by the introduction of methods of work and ideas from other branches of science: the purpose was to show that the recent progress was to a large extent dependent upon the introduction of methods from other sciences.