But when enveloped in the fog of ignorance every phenomenon of Nature causes man to quake and tremble—he wants to know! Fear prompts him to ask, and Greed—greed for power, place and pelf—answers.

To succeed beyond the average is to realize a weakness in humanity and then bank on it. The priest who pacifies is as natural as the fear he seeks to assuage—as natural as man himself.

So first, man is in bondage to his fear, and this bondage he exchanges for bondage to a priest. First, he fears the unknown; second, he fears the priest who has power with the unknown.

Soon the priest becomes a slave to the answers he has conjured forth. He grows to believe what he at first pretended to know. The punishment of every liar is that he eventually believes his lies. The mind of man becomes tinted and subdued to what he works in, like the dyer's hand.

So we have the formula: Man in bondage to fear. Man in bondage to a priest. The priest in bondage to a creed.

Then the priest and his institution become an integral part and parcel of the State, mixed in all its affairs. The success of the State seems to lie in holding belief intact and stilling all further questions of the people, transferring all doubts to this Volunteer Class which answers for a consideration.

Naturally, the man who does not accept the answers is regarded as an enemy of the State—that is, the enemy of mankind.

To keep this questioner down has been the problem of every religion. And the great problem of progress has been to smuggle the newly-discovered truth past Cerberus, the priest, by preparing a sop that was to him palatable.

From every branch of Science the priest has been routed, save in Sociology alone. Here he has stubbornly made his last stand, and is saving himself alive by slowly accepting the situation and transforming himself into the Promoter of a Social Club.

* * * * *

The attempt to ascertain the truths of physical science outside of theology was, in the early ages, very seldom ventured. When men wanted to know anything about anything, they asked the priest.

Questions that the priest could not answer he declared were forbidden of man to know; and when men attempted to find out for themselves they were looked upon as heretics.

The early church regarded the earth as a flat surface with four corners. And in proof of their position they quoted Saint Paul, who wanted the gospel carried to the ends of the earth.

In fact, the universe was a house. The upper story was Heaven, the lower story was the Earth, and the cellar was Hell. God, the angels and the "saved" lived in Heaven, man lived on Earth, and the devils and the damned had Hell to themselves.

"And there shall be no night there," and this was proven by the stars, which were regarded as peepholes through which mortals could catch glimpses of the wondrous light of Heaven beyond. Hell was below, as was clearly shown by volcanoes, when the fierce fires occasionally forced themselves up through. Darkness to children is always terrible, and the night is regarded by them as the time of evil.

Later, Churchmen came to believe that the stars were jewels hung in the sky every night by angels whose business it was to look after them.

The word "firmament" means a solid dome or roof. This firmament, the sky, was supposed to be the floor of Heaven. The firmament had four corners and rested on the mountains, as the eye could plainly see. When God's car was rolled across the floor we heard thunder, and his movements were always accompanied by lightnings, winds, black clouds and rain—all this so He could not be too plainly seen.

Heaven was only a little way off—a few miles at the most. So there were attempts made at times by bad men to reach it. The Greeks had a story about the Aloidae who piled mountain upon mountain; the Bible story of the Tower of Babel is the same, where the masons called, "More mort," and those below sent up bricks. There is also an ancient Mexican legend of giants who built the Pyramid of Cholula, and they would have been successful in their attempts if fire had not been thrown down upon them from Heaven. In all "Holy Writ" we find accounts of "ascensions," "translations," "annunciations," and mortals caught up into the clouds. Many people had actually seen angels ascending and descending.

"Messengers from on high" and God's secretaries were constantly coming down on delicate errands. Everything that man did was noted and written down. We were watched all the time by unseen beings. The Bible tells of how the Earth was eventually to be destroyed, and then there would be only Heaven and Hell. God, His Son and the angels were going to come down, and for ages men watched the heavens to see them appear.

All sensitive children, born of orthodox Christian parents, who heard the Bible read aloud, looked fearfully into the sky for "signs and wonders." The Bible tells in several places of devils breaking out of Hell and roaming over the earth. Dante fully believed in this three-story-house idea, and pictures with awful exactness the details, which he gained from the preaching of the priests. Dante was never honored by having his books placed on the "Index." On the contrary, he got his vogue largely through the recommendation of the priests. To them he was a true scientist, for he corroborated their statements.

The Christian Fathers ridiculed the idea of the earth being round, because, if this were so, how could the people on the other side see the Son of Man when He came in the sky? Besides that, if the earth were round and turned on its axis, we would all fall off into space.

The idea that there was an ocean above the earth, in the heavens, was brought forward to show the goodness and wisdom of God. Without this there would be no rain and hence no vegetation, and man would soon perish. In Genesis we read that God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters," And in Psalms, "Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens and ye waters that be above the heavens." Then we hear, "The windows of Heaven were opened." So this thought of the waters above the earth was fully proved, accepted and fixed, and to pray for rain was quite a natural thing.

The English Prayer-Book contained such prayers up to within a very few years ago, and in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-three the Governor of Kansas set apart a day upon which the people were to pray that God would open the windows of Heaven and send them rain. They also prayed to be delivered from grasshoppers, just as in Queen Elizabeth's time the Prayer-Book had this, "From the Turk and the Comet, good Lord deliver us."

In the Sixth Century, Cosmos, one of the Saints, wrote a complete explanation of the phenomena of the heavens. To account for the movement of the sun, he said God had His angels push it across the firmament and put it behind a mountain each night, and the next morning it was brought out on the other side. He met every objection by citations from Job, Genesis, Ezekiel, Ecclesiastes and the New Testament, and wound up with an anathema upon any or all who doubted or questioned in this matter of astronomy.

The whole Christian idea of the Universe was simple, plain and plausible. The child-mind could easily accept it, and when backed up by the Holy Book, written at God's dictation, word for word, infallible and absolutely true in every part, one does not wonder that progress was practically blocked for fourteen hundred years, but the real miracle is that it was not blocked forever.

* * * * *

Thousands of years before Christ, the Chinese had mapped the heavens and knew the movements of the planets so well that they correctly prophesied the positions of the various constellations many years in advance. Twenty-five hundred years before our Christian era a Chinese Governor put to death the astronomers Hi and Ho because they had failed to foretell an eclipse, quite according to the excellent Celestial plan of killing the doctor when the patient dies.

Sir William Hamilton points out the fact that the Chinese, five thousand years ago, knew astronomy as well as we do, and that Christian astrology grew out of Chinese astronomy, in an effort to foretell the fortunes of men.

Fear wants to know the future, and astrology and priesthood are synonymous terms, since the business of the priest has always been to prophesy, a profession he has not yet discarded. Their prophecies are at present innocuous and lightly heeded. They preach that perfect faith will move a mountain, but energetic railroad-builders of today find it quicker and cheaper to tunnel.

* * * * *

A certain type of man accepts a certain theory.

The Christian view of creation was practically the conception of the Greeks before Thales. This wise man, in the Sixth Century before Christ, taught that the earth was round, and that certain stars were also worlds. He showed that the earth was round and proved it by the disappearance of the ship as it sailed away. He located the earth, moon and sun so perfectly that he prophesied an eclipse, and when it took place it so terrified the Medes and the Lydians, who were in battle with each other, that they threw down their arms and made peace. Thales had explained that Atlas carried the world on his shoulder, but he didn't explain what Atlas stood upon.

Pythagoras, one of the pupils of Thales, following the idea still further, showed that the moon derived its light from the sun; that the earth was a globe and turned daily on its axis.

He held that the sun was the center of the universe and that the planets revolved around it. Anaxagoras followed a few years later than Pythagoras, and became convinced that the sun was merely a ball of fire and therefore should not be worshiped; that it follows a natural law, that nothing ever happens by chance, and that to pray for rain is absurd.

For his honesty in expressing what he thought was truth, the priests of Athens had Anaxagoras and his family exiled to perpetual banishment from Athens and all of his books were burned.

Plato touched on Astronomy, for he touches on everything, and fully believed that the earth was round.

His pupil, Aristotle, taught all that Anaxagoras taught, and if he also had not been exiled, but had been free to study, investigate and express himself, he would have come very close to the truth.

Hipparchus, a hundred years after Aristotle, calculated the length of the year to within six minutes, discovered the precession of equinoxes and counted all the stars he could see, making a map of them.

Seventy years after Christ, Ptolemy, a Greco-Egyptian, but not of the royal line of Ptolemies, published his great book, "The Almagest." For over fourteen centuries it was the textbook for the best astronomers.

It taught that the earth was the center of the universe, and that the sun and the planets revolve around it. There were many absurdities, however, that had to be explained, and the priests practically rejected the whole book as "pagan" and taught an astronomy of their own, founded entirely upon the Bible. They wanted an explanation that would be accepted by the common people.

This astronomy was not designed to be very scientific, exact or truthful—all they asked was, "Is it plausible?" Expediency, to theology, has always been much more important than truth.

"Besides," said Saint Basil, "what boots it concerning all this conjecture about the stars, since the earth is soon to come to an end, as is shown by our Holy Scriptures, and man's business is to prepare his soul for eternity?"

This was the general attitude of the Church—exact truth was a matter of indifference. And if Science tended to unseat men's faith in the Bible, and in God's most holy religion, then so much the worse for Science.

It will thus plainly be seen why the Church felt compelled to fight Science—the very life of the Church was at stake.

The Church was the vital thing—not truth. If truth could be taught without unseating faith, why, all right, but anything that made men doubt must be rooted out at any cost. And that is why priests have opposed Science, not that they hate Science less, but that they love the Church more.

From the time of Ptolemy to that of Copernicus—fourteen hundred years—theology practically dictated the learning of the world. And to Copernicus must be given the credit of having really awakened the science of astronomy from her long and peaceful sleep.

* * * * *

The little land that we know as Poland has produced some of the finest and most acute intellects the world has ever known.

Tragic and blood-stained is her history, and this tragedy, perhaps, has been a prime factor in the evolution of her men of worth. Poland has been stamped upon and pushed apart; and a persecuted people produce a pride of race that has its outcrop in occasional genius.

Recently we heard of the great Paderewski playing before the Czar, and His Majesty, in a speech meant to be very complimentary, congratulated the company that so great a genius as he was a citizen of Russia.

"Your Majesty, I am not a Russian—I am a Pole!" was the proud reply.

The Czar replied, smiling, "There is no such country as Poland—now there is only Russia!"

And Paderewski replied, "Pardon my hasty remark—you speak but truth." And then he played Chopin's "Funeral March," a dirge not only to the great men of Poland gone, but to Poland herself.

Nicholas Copernicus was born at the quaint old town of Thorn, in Poland, February Nineteen, Fourteen Hundred Seventy-three. The family name was Koppernigk, but Nicholas latinized it when he became of age, and seemingly separated from his immediate kinsmen forever.

His father was a merchant, fairly prosperous, and only in the line of money-making was he ambitious. In the Koppernigks ran a goodly strain of Jewish blood, but a generation before, pressure and expediency seemed to combine, so that the family, as we first see them, were Christians. No soil can grow genius, no seed can produce it—it springs into being in spite of all laws and rules and regulations. "No hovel is safe from it," says Whistler.

The portraits of Copernicus reveal a man of most marked personality: proud, handsome, self-contained, intellectual. The head is massive, eyes full, luminous, wide apart, his nose large and bold, chin strong, the mouth alone revealing a trace of the feminine, as though the man were the child of his mother. This mother had a brother who was a bishop, and the mother's ambition for her boy was that he should eventually follow in the footsteps of this illustrious brother who was known for a hundred miles as a preacher of marked ability.

So we hear of the young man being sent to the University of Cracow, as the preliminary to a great career.

The father bitterly opposed the idea of taking his son out of the practical world of business, and this evidently led to the breach that caused young Nicholas to discard the family name.

That Nicholas did not fully enter into his mother's plans is shown that while at Cracow he devoted himself mostly to medicine. He was so proficient in this that he secured a physician's degree; and having been given leave to practise he revealed his humanity by declining to do so, turning to mathematics with a fine frenzy.

This disposition to drop on a thing, turn loose on it, concentrate, and reduce it to a chaos, is the true distinguishing mark of genius. The difference in men does not lie in the size of their heads, nor in the perfection of their bodies, but in this one sublime ability of concentration—to throw the weight with the blow, live an eternity in an hour—"This one thing I do!"

Copernicus at twenty-one was teaching mathematics at Cracow, and by his extraordinary ability in this one direction had attracted the attention of various learned men. In fact the authorities of the college had grown a bit boastful of their star student, and when visiting dignitaries arrived, young Copernicus was given chalk and blackboard and put through his paces. Problems involving a dozen figures and many fractions were worked out by him with a directness and precision that made him the wonder of that particular part of the world.

The science of trigonometry was invented by Copernicus, and we see that early in his twenties he was well on the heels of it, for he had then arranged a quadrant to measure the height of standing trees, steeples, buildings or mountains. For rest and recreation he painted pictures.

A college professor from Bologna traveling through Cracow met Copernicus, and greatly impressed with his powers, invited him to return with him to Bologna and there give a course of lectures on mathematics.

Copernicus accepted, and at Bologna met the astronomer, Novarra. This meeting was the turning-point of his life. Copernicus was then twenty-three years of age, but in intellect he was a man. He had vowed a year before that he would indulge in no trivial conversation about persons or things—only the great and noble themes should interest him and occupy his attention.

With commonplace or ignorant people he held no converse. He had remarkable beauty of person and great dignity, and his presence at Bologna won immediate respect for him.

Men accept other men at the estimate they place upon themselves.

In listening to lectures by Novarra, he perceived at once how mathematics could be made valuable in calculating the movement of stars.

Novarra taught the Ptolemaic theory of astronomy for the esoteric few. The Church is made up of men, and while priests for the most part are quite content to believe what the Church teaches, yet it has ever been recognized that there was one doctrine for the Few, and another for the Many—the esoteric and the exoteric. The esoteric is an edged tool, and only a very few are fit to handle it. The charge of heresy is only for those who are so foolish as to give out these edged tools to the people. You may talk about anything you want, provided you do not do it; and you may do anything you want, provided you do not talk about it.

The proposition that the earth was flat, had four corners, and the stars were jewels hung in the sky as "signs," and were moved about by angels, was all right for the many, but now and then there were priests who were not content with these child-stories—they wanted truth—and these usually accepted the theories of Ptolemy.

Novarra believed that the earth was a globe; that this globe was the center of the universe, and that around the earth the sun, moon and certain stars revolved. The fixed stars he still regarded as being hung against the firmament, and that this firmament was turned in some mysterious way, en masse.

Copernicus listened silently, but his heart beat fast. He had found something upon which he could exercise his mathematics. He and Novarra sat up all night in the belfry of the cathedral and watched the stars.

They saw that they moved steadily, surely and without caprice. It was all natural, and could be reduced, Copernicus thought, to a mathematical system.

Astrology and astronomy were not then divorced. It was astrology that gave us astronomy. The angel that watched over a star looked after all persons who were born under that star's influence, or else appointed some other angel for the purpose. Every person had a guardian angel to protect him from the evil spirits that occasionally broke out of Hell and came up to earth to tempt men.

Mathematics knows nothing of angels—it only knows what it can prove. Copernicus believed that, if certain stars did move, they moved by some unalterable law of their own. In riding on a boat he observed that the shores seemed to be moving past, and he concluded that a part, at least, of the seeming movements of planets might possibly be caused by the moving of the earth.

In talking with astrologers he perceived that very seldom did they know anything of mathematics. And this ignorance on their part caused him to doubt them entirely.

His faith was in mathematics—the thing that could be proved—and he came to the conclusion that astronomy and mathematics were one thing, and astrology and child-stories another.

He remained at Bologna just long enough to turn the astrologers out of the society of astronomers.

Novarra's lectures on astronomy were given in Latin, and in truth all learning was locked up in this tongue. But astrology and the theological fairy-tales of the people floated free. They were a part of the vagrant hagiology of the roadside preachers, who with lurid imaginations said the things they thought would help carry conviction home and make "believers."

From Bologna Copernicus then moved on to Padua, where he remained two years, teaching and giving lectures. Here he devoted considerable time to chemistry, and on leaving he was honored by being given a degree by the University. Next we find him at Rome, a professor in mathematics and also giving lectures on chemistry. His lectures were not for the populace—they were for the learned few. But they attracted the attention of the best, and were commented upon and quoted by the various other teachers, preachers and lecturers. A daring thinker who expresses himself without reservation states the things that various others know and would like to state if they dared. It is often very convenient when you want a thing said to enclose the matter in quotation-marks. It relieves one from the responsibility of standing sponsor for it, if the hypothesis does not prove popular.

Copernicus was only nineteen years old when Columbus discovered America, but it seems he did not hear of Columbus until he reached Bologna in Fourteen Hundred Ninety-five. At Rome he made various references to Columbus in his lectures; dwelt upon the truth that the earth was a globe; mentioned the obvious fact that in sailing westward Columbus did not sail his ship over the edge of the earth into Hell, as had been prophesied he would.

He also explained that the red sky at sunset was not caused by the reflections from Hell, nor was the sun moved behind a mountain by giant angels at night. Copernicus was a Catholic, as all teachers were, but he had been deceived by the esoteric and the exoteric, and had really thought that the priests and so-called educated men actually desired, for themselves, to know the truth.

At Padua he had learned to read Greek, and had become more or less familiar with Pythagoras, Hipparchus, Aristotle and Plato. He quoted these authors and showed how in some ways they were beyond the present. This was all done in the exuberance of youth, with never a doubt as to the value and the beauty of the Church. But he was thinking more of truth than of the Church, and when a cardinal from the Vatican came to him, and in all kindness cautioned him, and in love explained it was all right for a man to believe what he wished, but to teach others things that were not authorized was a mistake.

Copernicus was abashed and depressed.

He saw then that his lectures had really been for himself—he was endeavoring to make things plain to Copernicus, and the welfare of the Church had been forgotten.

He ceased lecturing for a time, but private pupils came to him, and among them astrologers in disguise, and these went away and told broadcast that Copernicus was teaching that the movements of the stars were not caused by angels, and that "God was being dethroned by a tape-measure and a yardstick." Alchemy had a strong hold upon the popular mind, and these alchemists and astrologers were fortune-tellers and derived a goodly income from the people.

They had their stands in front of all churches and turned in a goodly tithe "for the benefit of the poor."

When the astrologers attacked Copernicus he tried to explain that the heavens were under the reign of natural law, and that so far as he knew there was no direct relationship between the stars and the men upon earth. The answer was, "You yourself foretell the eclipse, and assume to know when a star will be in a certain place a hundred years in advance; now, if you can prophesy about stars, why can't we foretell a man's future?"

Copernicus proudly declined to answer such ignorance, but went on to say that alchemy was a violence to chemistry as much as astrology was to astronomy. In chemistry there were exact results that could be computed by mathematics and foretold; it was likewise so in astronomy.

Copernicus was philosopher enough to know that astrology led to astronomy, and alchemy led to chemistry, but he said all he wished to do was to eliminate error and find the truth, and when we have ascertained the laws of God in reference to these things, we should discard the use of black cats, goggles, peaked hats, red fire and incantations—these things were sacrilege. And the enemy declared that Copernicus was guilty of heresy in saying they were guilty of sacrilege. Moreover, black cats were not as bad as blackboards.

The Pope certainly had no idea of treating Copernicus harshly; in fact, he greatly admired him—but peace was the thing desired. Copernicus was creating a schism, and there was danger that the revenues would be affected. The Pope sent for Copernicus, received him with great honor, blessed him, and suggested that he return at once to his native town of Thorn and there await good news that would come to him soon.

Copernicus was overwhelmed with gratitude—he was in difficulties.

Certain priests had publicly denounced him; others had urged him on to unseemliness in debate; he had stated things he could not prove, even though he knew they were true—but the Pope was his friend! He loved the Church; he felt how necessary it was to the people, and at the last, the desire of his heart was to bless and benefit the world.

He fell on his knees and attempted to kiss the Pope's foot, but the Holy Father offered him his hand instead, smiled on him, stroked his head, and an attendant was ordered to place about his neck a chain of gold with a crucifix that would protect him from all harm. A purse was placed in his hand, and he was sent upon his way relieved, happy—wondering, wondering!

* * * * *

When Copernicus reached his native town of Thorn, the local clergy turned out in a procession to greet him, and a solemn service of thanksgiving was held for his safe return home.

Copernicus was only twenty-seven years of age, and what he had done was not quite clear to his uncle, the bishop, and the other dignitaries, but word had come from the secretary of the Pope that he should be honored, and it was all so done, in faith, love and enthusiasm.

Very shortly after this Copernicus was made Canon of the Cathedral at Frauenburg. The town of Frauenburg has now only about twenty-five hundred people, and it certainly was no larger then. The place is slow, sleepy, and quite off the beaten track of travel.

When Canon Copernicus preached now, it was to a dear, stupid lot of old marketwomen and overworked men and mischievous children. Oratory is a collaboration—let him wax eloquent about the precession of the equinoxes, and prate of Plato and Pythagoras if he wished—no one could understand him! Rome is wise—the crystallized experience of centuries is hers. Responsibility tames a man—marriage, political office, churchly preferment—read history and note how these things have dulled the bright blade of revolution and turned the radical into a Presbyterian professor at Princeton, a staunch upholder of the Established Order!

Plato said that Solar Energy found one of its forms of expression in man. Some men are much more highly charged with it than others; your genius is a man who does things. Do not think to dam up the red current of his life—he may die.

Copernicus set to work practising medicine, and gave his services gratis to the poor, who came for many miles to consult him.

He went from house to house and ordered his people to clean up their back yards, to ventilate their houses, to bathe and be decent and orderly. He devised a system of sewerage, and utilized the belfry of his church as a water-tower so as to get a water pressure from the little stream that ran near the town. The remains of this invention are to be seen there in the church-steeple even unto this day.

King Sigismund of Poland had heard of the attacks made by Copernicus upon the alchemists, and sent for him that he might profit by his advice, for it seems that the King, too, had been having experience with alchemists. In their seeking after a way to make gold out of the baser metals they had actually succeeded. At least they said so, and had made the King believe it.

They had shown the King how he could cheapen his coinage one-half, and "it was just as good!" The King could not tell the difference when the coins were new, but alas! when they went beyond the borders of Poland they could only be passed at one-half their face-value; travelers refused to accept them; and even the merchants at home were getting afraid.

Copernicus analyzed some of this money made for the King by his alchemist friends and found a large alloy of tin, copper and zinc. He explained to the King that by mixing the metals they did not change their nature nor value. Gold was gold, and copper was copper—God had made these things and hid them in the earth and men might deceive some men—a part of the time—but there was always a retribution. Debase your currency, and soon it will cease to pass current. No law can long uphold a fictitious value.

The King urged Copernicus to write a book on the subject of coinage.

The permission of the Pope was secured, and the book written. The work is valuable yet, and reveals a deep insight into the heart of things. The man knew political economy, and foretold that a people who debased their currency debased themselves.

"Money is character," he said, "and if you pretend it is one thing, and it turns out to be another, you lose your reputation and your own self-respect. No government can afford to deceive the governed. If the people lose confidence in their rulers, a new government will spring into being, built upon the ruins of the old. Government and commerce are built on confidence."

Then he went on to show that German gold was valuable everywhere, because it was pure; but Polish gold and Russian gold were below par, because the money had been tampered with, and as no secrets could be kept long, the result was the matter exactly equalized itself, save that Russians and Polanders had in a large degree lost their characters through belief in miracles. Copernicus advocated a universal coinage, to be adopted by all civilized nations, and the amount of alloy should be known and plainly stated, and this alloy should simply be the seigniorage, or what was taken out to cover the cost of mintage.

King Sigismund circulated this valuable book by Copernicus among all the courts of Europe, and it need not be stated that the suggestions made by Copernicus have been adopted by civilized nations everywhere.

* * * * *

The humdrum duties of a country clergyman did not still the intense longing of Copernicus to know and understand the truth. He visited the sick, closed the eyes of the dying, kept his parish register, but his heart was in mathematics, and so there is shown at Thorn an old church register kept by Copernicus, where, in the back, are great rows of figures put down by the Master as he worked at some astronomical problem. In the upper floor of the barn, back of the old dilapidated farmhouse where he lived for forty years, he cut holes in the roof, and also apertures in the sides of the building, through which he watched the movements of the stars. He lived in practical isolation and exile, for the Church had forbidden him to speak in public except upon themes that the Holy Fathers in their wisdom had authorized. None was to invite him to speak, read his writings or hold converse with him, except on strictly church matters.

Copernicus knew the situation—he was a watched man. For him there was no preferment: he knew too much! As long as he kept near home and did his priestly work, all was well; but a trace of ambition or heresy, and he would be dealt with. The Universities and all prominent Churchmen were secretly ordered to leave Copernicus and his vagaries severely alone. But the stars were his companions—they came out for him nightly and moved in majesty across the sky. "They do me great honor," he said; "I am forbidden to converse with great men, but God has ordered for me a procession." When the whole town slept, Copernicus watched the heavens, and made minute records of his observations. He had brought with him from Rome copies made by himself from the works of the prominent Greek astronomers, and the "Almagest" of Ptolemy he knew by heart.

He digested all that had been written on the subject of astronomy; slowly and patiently he tested every hypothesis with his rude and improvised instruments. "Surely God will not damn me for wanting to know the truth about His glorious works," he used to say.

Emerson once wrote this: "If the stars came out but once in a thousand years, how men would adore!" But before he had written this, Copernicus had said: "To look up at the sky, and behold the wondrous works of God, must make a man bow his head and heart in silence. I have thought and studied, and worked for years, and I know so little—all I can do is to adore when I behold this unfailing regularity, this miraculous balance and perfect adaptation. The majesty of it all humbles me to the dust."

It was ostracism and exile that gave Copernicus the leisure to pursue his studies in quiet, undiverted, undisturbed. He was relieved from financial pinch, having all he needed for his simple, homely wants. The mental distance that separated him from his parishioners made him free, and the order that he should not travel and that none should visit him made him master of his time. There were no interruptions—"God has set me apart," he wrote, "that I may study and make plain His works." But still, that he could not make his discoveries known was a constant, bitter disappointment to him.

In astronomy he found a means of using his mighty mathematical genius for his own pleasure and amusement. The Pope had, in seeking to subdue him, merely supplied the exact conditions he required to do his work—yet neither knew it. So mighty is Destiny: we work for one thing and fail to get it, but in our efforts we find something better.

The simple, hard-working gardeners with whom Copernicus lived, had a reverent awe for the great man; they guessed his worth, but still had suspicions of his sanity. His nightly vigils they took for a sort of religious ecstasy, and a wholesome fear made them quite willing not to do anything that might disturb him.

So passed the days away, and from a light-hearted, ambitious man, Copernicus had grown old and bowed, and nearly blind from constant watching of the stars and writing at night.

But his book, "The Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies," was at last complete. For forty years he had worked at it, and for twenty-seven years, he himself says, not a day or a night had passed without his having added something to it.

He felt that he had in this book told the truth. If men wanted to know the facts about the heavens they would find them here. He had approached the subject with no preconceived ideas; he had ever been willing to renounce a theory when he found it wrong. He knew what all other great astronomers had taught, and out of them all he had built a Science of Astronomy that he knew would stand secure.

But what should he do with all this mass of truth he had discovered? It was in his own brain, and it was in the three thousand pages of this book, which had been rewritten five times. In a few years at most, his brain would be stilled in death; and in five minutes, ignorance and malice might reduce the book to ashes, and the forty years' labor of Copernicus—working, dreaming, calculating, weeping, praying—would all go for naught and be but a tale that is told. Others might have lived such lives and known as much as he, and all was lost!

To send the book frankly to Rome and ask the Censor for the privilege to publish it, was out of the question entirely—the request would be refused, the manuscript destroyed, and his own life might be in danger.

To publish it at home without the consent of his Bishop would be equally dangerous. There would be a bonfire of every copy in the public square; for in this volume, all that the priests taught of astronomy had been contradicted and refuted.

And then it occurred to him to send the manuscript to the free city of Nuremberg, the home of science, art and free speech, where men could print what they thought was truth—Nuremberg, the home of Albrecht Durer. With the book he sent a bag of gold, his savings of a lifetime, to pay the expense of printing the volume and putting it before the world.

To better protect himself, Copernicus wrote a preface, dedicating the book to the Pope Paul, thus throwing himself upon the mercy of His Holiness. He would not put the work out anonymously, as his friends in Nuremberg, for his own safety, had advised. And neither would he flee to Nuremberg for protection; he would stay at home—he was too old to travel now—besides, he had forgotten how to talk and act with men of talent.

How would Rome receive the book? He could only guess—he could only guess.

The months went by, and fear, anxiety and suspense had their sway. He was stricken with fever. In his delirium he called aloud, "The book—tell me—they surely have not burned it—you know I wrote no word but truth—oh, how could they burn my book!"

But on May Twenty-third, Fifteen Hundred Forty-three, a messenger came from Nuremberg.

He carried a copy of the printed book—he was admitted to the sick-room, and placed in the hands of the stricken man the volume. A gleam of sanity came to Copernicus. He smiled, and taking the book gazed upon it, stroked its cover as though caressing it, opened it and turned the leaves. Then closing the book and holding it to his heart, he closed his eyes, and sank to sleep, to awake no more.

His body was buried with simple village honors, and laid to rest beneath the floor of the Cathedral where he had so long ministered, side by side with a long line of priests. On the little slab that marked his resting-place no mention was made of the mighty work he had done for truth. There were fears that when the character of his book was known, the grave of Copernicus would not remain undisturbed, and so the inscription on the headstone was simply this: "I ask not the grace accorded to Paul; not that given to Peter; give me only the favor which Thou didst show to the thief on the cross."



HUMBOLDT

The actual miracle of the Universe is the invariableness of Law. Under like conditions a like result must follow, and upon this rock is the faith of the Scientists built.

—The Cosmos

HUMBOLDT

The Baron and Baroness von Hollwede were not happily married.

The Baroness had intellect, spirit, aspiration, with an appreciation of all that was best in art, music and the world of thought. As to the Baron, he had drunk life's wine to the lees and pronounced the draft bitter. He was a heavy dragoon with a soul for foxhounds. Later, when gout got to twinging him, he contented himself with cards and cronies.

And then Destiny, like a novelist who does not know what to do with a character, sent him on an excursion across the River Styx.

This was a good move all round, and the only accommodating action in which the Baron ever had a part. He left a large estate, not being able to take it along.

There are two kinds of widows, the bereaved and the relieved. In India no widow is allowed to remarry. The canons of the Episcopal Church forbid any widow or widower to remarry whose former partner is living. A member of the Catholic Church who makes a marital mistake is not allowed to rectify it. Yet Nature, sometimes, as if to prove the foolishness of fearsome little man, justifies that of which man hotly disapproves.

To be a widow of thirty-six, fair of face and comely in form, to own a beautiful home and have an income greater than you can spend, and still not enough to burden you—what nobler ambition!

The Baroness had a little encumbrance—a son aged ten. I would like to tell of his career, but alas, of him history is silent, save that he was heir to some of his father's proclivities, grew up, became an army officer and passed into obscurity in middle life, dishonored and unsung.

Such a widow as the Baroness von Hollwede is not apt to mourn for long. She was courted by many, but it was Major Humboldt who found favor in her heart. I assume that all of my gentle readers have in them some of the saltness of time, so that details may safely be omitted—let imagination bridge the interesting gap.

The Major was a few years younger than the lady, but like the gallant gentleman that he was, he swore i' faith before the notary that they were of the same age, just as Robert Browning did when officially interrogated as to the age of Elizabeth Barrett. Thomas Brackett Reed avowed that no gentleman ever weighed over two hundred pounds, and I also maintain no gentleman ever married a woman older than himself.

The marriage of Major Humboldt and the Baroness von Hollwede was a most happy mating that fully justified the venture. The Major had done his work bravely in the Seven Years' War, and was now an attache of the King's Court—a man of means, of intellect, and of many strong and beautiful virtues. After the marriage he became known as Baron von Humboldt, and as to just how he succeeded to the noble title let us not be curious—his wife undoubtedly bestowed it on him, good and generous woman that she was.

They lived in the romantic Castle Tegel, near Berlin, and separated from the city by a park, where the dark pines still tower aloft and murmur their secrets to the night breeze.

Tegel is a most beautiful place; it was first a hunting-lodge occupied by Frederick the Great. It is shut out from the world by its high stone walls; and in its dim, dense woods, one might easily imagine he was far indeed from the madding crowd.

Here there were two sons born to the Baron and Baroness—two years apart. One of these sons sleeps now beneath the turret where he first saw the light, and from which he made others see the light as long as he lived.

In Goethe's "Faust" is an allusion to a mysterious legend that had its rise in storied Tegel. On May Eighteenth, in the year Seventeen Hundred Seventy-eight. Goethe came here, walking over from Berlin, dined, and walked on to Potsdam. But before he left he saw two beautiful boys, aged eight and ten, playing beneath the spreading Tegel trees. The boys remembered the event and wrote of it in their journal, mentioning the kindly pats on their heads and the prophecy that they would grow up and be great men.

Goethe was always patting boys on the head and saying graceful things, and it is doubtful whether his prophecy was more than a mere commonplace. But Goethe always claimed it was divine prophecy. These boys were William and Alexander von Humboldt.

History does not supply another instance of two brothers attaining the intellectual height reached by Alexander and William von Humboldt. This being so, it seems meet that we should tarry a little to inspect the method adopted in the education of these boys—something that the educated world for the most part has not done.

* * * * *

This world of ours, round like an orange and slightly flattened at the poles, has produced only five men who were educated. Of course all education is comparative; but these five are so beyond the rest of mankind that they form a class by themselves.

An educated man means a developed man—a man rounded on every side of his nature. We are aware of no limit to which the mind of man may evolve; other men may appear who will surpass the Immortal Five, but this fact remains: none that we know have. Great men, so-called, are usually specialists: clever actors, individuals with a knack, talented comedians—who preach, carve, paint, orate, fight, manipulate, manage, teach, write, perform, coerce, bribe, hypnotize, accomplish, and get results. There are great financiers, sea-captains, mathematicians, football players, engineers, bishops, wrestlers, runners, boxers, and players on zithern-strings. But these are not necessarily very great men, any more than poets, painters and pianists, with wonderful hirsute effects and strange haberdashery are great men.

For it is intellect and emotion expanded in every direction that give the true title to greatness. Judged in this way, how rare is the educated man—five in six thousand years! And yet one of these five educated men had a brother nearly as great as he.

Alexander von Humboldt was past fifty before the world of thinking men realized that he had outstripped his brother William—and Alexander would never admit he had.

These two men, handsome in face, form and feature: strong in body and poised in mind, with souls athirst to realize and to know—happy men, living long lives of useful effort—surely should be classed as educated persons.

And in passing, let us note that all education is preparatory—it is life that gives the finals, not the college. The education of the von Humboldt boys was the Natural Method—the method advocated by Rousseau—the education by play and work so combined that study never becomes irksome nor work repulsive. Rousseau said, "Make a task repugnant and the worker will forever quit it as soon as the pressure that holds him to it is removed."

The parents of Alexander and William von Humboldt carefully studied the new plan of education that was at that time being advocated by some of the best professors at Berlin. "A child must have a teacher," said Jean Jacques, "but a professional teacher is apt to become the slave of his profession, and when this occurs he has separated himself from life, and therefore to that degree is unfitted to teach."

A school should not be a preparation for life: a school should be life. The Kindergarten Idea, among other things, suggests that a child should never know he is in school.

The discipline is kept out of sight, and the youngster finds himself a part of the busy life. He blends in with the others, and works, plays and sings under the wise and loving care of his "other mother," the teacher. He is living, not simply preparing to live. All life should be joyous, spontaneous, natural. The Rousseau Idea, which was modified and refined by Froebel, is the utilization of the propensity to play.

Major von Humboldt found a man who was saturated with the true Froebel spirit, although this was before Froebel was born.

The man's name was Heinrich Campe. Heinrich was hired to superintend the education of the Humboldt boys. That is to say, he was to become comrade, friend, counselor, fellow-scholar, playmate and teacher.

Play needs direction as well as work. Campe played with the boys. They lived with Nature—made lists of all the trees at Tegel, drew sketches of the leaves and fruit, calculated the height of trees, measured them at the base, and cut them down occasionally, first sitting in judgment on the case, and deciding why a certain tree should be removed, thus getting a lesson in scientific forestry.

They became acquainted with the bugs, beetles, birds and squirrels. They cared for the horses, cattle and fowls, and best of all they learned to wait on themselves.

Campe told them tales of history—of Achilles, Pericles and Caesar. Then they studied Greek, that they might read of Athens in the language of the men who made Athens great. They translated "Robinson Crusoe" into the German language, and Campe's translation of "Robinson Crusoe" is today a German classic. It was all natural—interesting, easy. The day was filled with work and play, and joyous tales of what had been said by others in days agone.

"Teach only what you know, and never that which you merely believe," said Rousseau.

There is still a cry that religion should be taught in the public schools. If we ask, "What religion?" the answer is, "Ours, of course!"

Religious dogma, being a matter of belief, was taught to the Humboldts as a part of history.

So these boys very early became acquainted with the dogmas of Confucianism, Mohammedanism, Christianity. They separated, compared and analyzed, and saw for themselves that dogmatic religions were all much alike. To know all religions is to escape slavery to any. In studying the development of races these boys saw that a certain type of religion fits a certain man in a certain stage of his evolution, and so perhaps to that degree religion is necessary. An ethnologist is never a Corner Grocery Infidel. The C.G.I. is very apt to be converted at the first revival, outrivaling all other "seekers," and when warm weather comes, falling from grace and dropping easily into scofferdom.

The Humboldts, like Thoreau, never had any quarrel with God, and they were never tempted to go forward to the Mourners' Bench.

Origin and destiny did not trouble them; predestination and justification by faith were not even in their curriculum; foreordination and baptism were to them problems not to be taken seriously.

By studying religions in groups and incidentally, they learned to distinguish the fetish in each. They read Greek mythology side by side with Judean mythology and noted similarities. The intent of Tutor Campe was to give these boys a scientific education. Science is only classified commonsense. To be truly scientific is to know differences—to distinguish between this and that. Every successful farmer has traveled a long way into science, for science deals with the maintenance of life. To know soils, animals and vegetation is to be scientific.

But when the average farmer learns to transmute compost into grass and grain, and these into beef, he usually stops, content. To be a scientist in the true sense, one must love knowledge for its own sake, and not merely for what it will bring on market-day, and so the Humboldts were led on through the stage of wanting to make money, to the stage of wanting to know the why and wherefore. It will be seen that the education of the Humboldts was what the Boylston Professor of English at Harvard calls "faddism, or the successful effort at flabbiness." Our Harvard friend thinks that education should be a discipline—that it should be difficult and vexatious, and that happiness, spontaneity and exuberance are the antitheses and the foes of learning. To him grim earnestness, silence, sweat and lamp-smoke are preferable to sunshine and joyous, useful work so wisely directed that the pupil thinks it play. He believes that to be sincere we must be serious. In these latter-day objections there is nothing new. Socrates met them all; Rousseau heard the cry of "fad"; Heyne, Pestalozzi, Campe, Knuth and Froebel met the carpist and answered him reason for reason, just as Copernicus, Bruno and Galileo told the reason the earth revolved. The professional teacher who can do nothing but teach—the college professor who is a college professor and nothing else—hates the Natural Method man about as ardently as the person who wears a paste diamond hates the lapidary.

* * * * *

Heinrich Campe was the tutor of the Humboldts for two years, when he entered the employ of the King as Commissioner of Education.

After this, however, he continued to spend one day a week at Tegel for some time. He loved the boys as his own, and his hope for their future never relaxed. Possibly his interest was not wholly disinterested—with the help of these lads he was working out and proving his pedagogic theories.

When Campe resigned his immediate tutorship he was allowed to select his successor, and he chose a young man by the name of Christian Knuth.

The mother was a member of this little university of four persons; Knuth, of course, was a member, for he always considered himself more of a student than a teacher.

When Campe resigned in favor of Knuth his action was in degree prompted by his love and consideration for the boys. Knuth was only a little past twenty, and was able to enter into the out-of-door sports and work of the youngsters better than the older man. Knuth was their hero—together they rode horseback, climbed mountains, excavated tunnels, mined for ore, built miniature houses. "Knuth made every good thing in Berlin available to us," wrote William years afterward; "we visited stores, factories, barracks and schools, and became familiar with a thousand commonplace things never taught in schools and colleges."

When Alexander was twelve years old, the father died. This would have been a severe blow to the boys were it not for Knuth, who seemed to stand to them more as the real parent than did Major von Humboldt.

Knuth was a businessman of no mean ability. The Baroness now trusted him with all her financial affairs. He called on the boys to help him in the details of business, so the keeping of accounts and the economical handling of money were lessons they learned early in life.

When Alexander was seventeen and William nineteen, the mother and Knuth decided that the boys should have the advantages of university life. Accordingly they were duly entered at the University of Frankfort as "special students."

Knuth also entered as a student in the class with them. Special students, let it be known, are usually those who have failed to pass the required examinations. In this instance, Alexander and William were beyond many of their classmates in some things, but in others they were deficient. Especially had their education in the dead languages been "neglected," so it is quite likely they could not have passed the examinations had they attempted it.

It should also be explained that special students are not eligible to diplomas or degrees.

But Campe and Knuth did not believe the nerve-racking plan of examinations wise, any more than it is wisdom to pull up a plant and examine the roots to see how it prospers. Neither did they prize a college degree.

They knew full well that a college degree is no proof of excellence of character; to them a degree was too cheap a thing to deviate in one's orbit to secure. They were after bigger game.

At Frankfort, Knuth and his charges lived in the family of Professor Loffler, "so as to rub off a little knowledge from this learned man." They studied history, philosophy, law, political economy and natural history. We would say their method was desultory, were it not for the fact that they were always thorough in all that they undertook. They were simply three boys together, intent on getting their money's worth.

William was a little better student than Alexander, and was the leader; he was larger in stature and seemed to have more vitality.

Two years were spent at the University of Frankfort, and then our trio moved on to the University of Gottingen, where there were distinguished lecturers on Natural History and Archeology. Antiquity especially interested the boys, and the evolution and history of races were followed with animation.

William took especially to philosophy as expressed in the writings of Kant, while Alexander developed a love for botany and what he called "the science of out-of-doors."

Two years at Gottingen, following the bent of their minds and listening only to those lectures they liked, and they moved on to Jena.

Here they were in the Goethe country. Soon there were overtures from Berlin that they enter the service of the Government. These overtures were set in motion by Campe, who, however, kept out of sight in the matter, and when accused, stoutly declared that it was every man's duty to help himself, and that he personally had never helped any one get a position and never would.

William was twenty-three and Alexander twenty-one. William was gracious and graceful in manner and made himself at home in the best society; Alexander was studious, reserved and inclined to be shy.

An invitation came that they should visit Weimar and spend some weeks in that little world of art and letters created by Goethe and Schiller. To William this was very tempting; but Alexander saw at Weimar scant opportunity to study botany and geology.

Besides that, he felt that sooner or later he would drift into the employ of the Government, following in his father's footsteps. His ambition was practical mining, with a taste for finance.

The brothers kissed each other good-by, and one went to Weimar to assist Schiller in editing a magazine that did not pay expenses, to bask in the sunshine of the great Goethe, and incidentally to secure a wife.

The other started on a geological excursion, and this excursion was to continue through life, and make of the man the greatest naturalist that the world had seen since Aristotle lived, two thousand years before.

* * * * *

Humboldt's first book was on the geological formation of the Rhine, published when he was twenty-six years old. The work was so complete and painstaking that it led to his being appointed to the position of "Assessor of Mines" at Berlin. This was the same office that Swedenborg once held in Scandinavia.

For the benefit of our social-science friends, it is rather interesting to note that at this time in Europe nearly all mines belonged to the Government.

An individual might own the surface, and up to the sky, but his claim did not go to the center of the earth. Iron, coal, copper, silver and gold were largely mined, and the Government operated the mines direct, or else leased them on a percentage.

I am told that in America all mining is done by individuals or private companies, and that four-fifths of all mining companies have no mines at all—merely samples of ores, blueprints, photographs and prospects. The genus promoter is a very modern production, and is a creation Humboldt never knew; the "salting" of mines was out of his province, and mining operations carried on exclusively in sky-scrapers was a combination he never guessed.

Whether society will ever take a turn backward, and the whole people own and control the treasures deposited by Nature in the earth, is a question I will leave to my Marxian colleagues to determine.

As a mine-manager Humboldt was hardly a success. He knew the value of ores, utilized various by-products that had formerly been thrown away, made plans for the betterment of his workers, and once sent a protest to the King against allowing women and children to be employed underground.

But the price per ton of his product was out of proportion to the expenses. While other men mined the ore he wrote a book on "Subterranean Vegetation." The details of business were not to his liking. His own private financial affairs were now turned over to Knuth, his modest fortune resolved into cash and invested in bonds that brought a low rate of interest. Freedom was his passion—to come and go at will was his desire. The thirst for travel was upon him—travel, not for adventure, but for knowledge.

He resigned his office and tramped with knapsack on back across the Alps. The habit of his mind was that of the naturalist-investigator. Geology, botany and zoology were his properties by divine right.

These sciences really form one—geognosy, or the science of the formation of the earth. The plants dissolve and disintegrate the rocks; the animal feeds upon the plants; and animal life makes new forms of vegetation possible. So the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms evolve together, constantly tending toward a greater degree of refinement and complexity.

The very highest form of animal life is man; and the highest type of man is evolved where there is a proper balance between the animal and the vegetable kingdoms.

Humboldt discovered very early in his career that the finest flowers grow where there are the finest birds, and man separated from birds, beasts and flowers could not possibly survive.

Just about this time, Humboldt, taking the cue from Goethe, said: "Man is a product of soil and climate, and is brother to the rocks, trees and animals. He is dependent on these, and all things seem to point to the truth that he has evolved from them. The accounts of special creation are interesting as archeology, but biology is distinctly the business of modern scientists. The scientist tells what he knows, and the theologist what he believes." And again we find Humboldt writing from Switzerland in Seventeen Hundred Ninety-six, making observations that have been recently unconsciously paraphrased by the United States Secretary of Agriculture, who said in a printed report: "Western farmers who raise and sell hogs and cattle, feeding them grain instead of selling it, are sure to acquire a competence. The farmers who sell grain are the ones who do not pay off their mortgages."

Says Humboldt:

"Here on the sides of these towering and forbidding mountains we find the most fertile and beautiful miniature farms, nestling in little valleys or on plateaus.

"Indeed, I heard today of a man falling out of his farm and being seriously injured. He ventured too near the edge.

"These Swiss gardens with their prosperous and intelligent owners are only possible through the fact that the owners keep all the cows and poultry that can comfortably exist on the acres. The peasants sell butter, cheese and eggs, instead of grain and vegetables exclusively.

"They give back to the earth all that they take from it, so in the course of a hundred years a fine soil evolves that supports valuable animals, including valuable men; choice fruit, flowers and birds appear, and we have what we are pleased to call Christian civilization. It is not for me to quibble about terms, but civilization is not necessarily Christian, since it is more a matter of economics and natural science than religion."

Where the climate is fairly propitious, but not so much so but that it compels watchfulness, economy and effort, man will work, and to aid him in his work he utilizes domestic animals. And the very act of domesticating the animal domesticates the man. As man improves the animal, he improves himself. One reason why the American Indian did not progress was because he had neither horses, camels, oxen, swine nor poultry. He had his dog, and the dog is a wolf, and always remains one, in that his intent is on prey. This fitted the mood of the Indian, and he continued to live his predaceous career without a particle of evolution. To stand still is to retreat, and there is evidence that long before the year Fourteen Hundred Ninety-two, there was a North American Indian that was a better Indian than the Indians who watched the approach of Columbus and exclaimed, "Alas! we are discovered!"

In crossing the Alps, Humboldt was impressed with the truth that man was a necessary factor in working out "creation," just as much as the earthworm. When men stir the soil so as to make it produce grain that the family may be fed, and utilize animals in this work, civilization is surely at hand.

Nations with a controlling desire to absorb, annex and exploit are still to that degree savages. Creation is still going on, and this earth is becoming better and more beautiful as men work in line with reason and allow science to become the handmaid of instinct.

Humboldt, above all men, prepared the way for Darwin, Spencer and Tyndall—all of these built on him, all quote him. His books form a mine in which they constantly delved.

Humboldt in boyhood formed the habit of close and accurate observation, and he traveled that he might gratify this controlling impulse of his life—the habit of seeing and knowing. His genius for classification was superb; he approached every subject with an open mind, willing to change his conclusions if it were shown that he was wrong; he had imagination to see the thing first with his inward eye; he had the strength to endure physical discomfort, and finally he had money enough so he was free to follow his bent.

These qualifications made him the prince of scientific travelers—the pioneer of close, accurate and reliable explorers.

* * * * *

Before Humboldt's time travelers had been mostly of the type of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, who discovered strange and wondrous things, such as horses with five legs, dogs that could talk, and anthropophagi with heads that grew beneath their shoulders. The temptation to be interesting at the expense of truth has always been strong upon the sailorman. Read even the history of Christopher Columbus and you will hear of islands off the coast of America inhabited exclusively by women who had only one calling-day in a year when their gentlemen friends from a neighboring island came to see them.

The world needed accurate, scientific knowledge concerning those parts of the world seldom visited by man. Travel a hundred years ago was accompanied by great expense and more or less peril. Nations held themselves aloof from one another, and travelers were looked upon as renegades or spies.

Alexander von Humboldt had explored deep mines, climbed high mountains, visited that strange people, the Basques of Spain, got little glimpses into Africa where the jungle was waiting for a Livingstone and a Stanley before giving up its secrets. The Corsican had thrown Europe into a fever of fear, and war was on in every direction, when in Seventeen Hundred Ninety-nine Humboldt ran the blockade and sailed out of the harbor of Coruna, Spain, on the little corvette "Pizarro," bound for the Spanish possessions in the New World. Spain had discovered America in the gross two hundred years before, but what this country really contained in way of possibilities, Spain had most certainly never discovered.

Humboldt's mind had conceived the idea of a Scientific Survey, and in this he was the maker of an epoch. In this undertaking he secured the assistance of the Prime Minister, who secretly issued passports and letters of recommendation to Humboldt, first cautioning him that if the Court of Madrid should know anything about this proposed voyage of discovery it could never be made, so jealous and ignorant were the officials.

Only one thing did Spain have in abundance, and that was religion.

At that time the Spanish Colonies included Louisiana, Florida, Texas, California, Mexico, Cuba, Central America, most of the West Indies, and most of South America, not to mention the Philippines. These colonies covered a territory stretching over five thousand miles from North to South. Twice a year Spain sent out her trading-ships, convoyed by armed cruisers. Trade then was monopoly and extortion. The goods sent out were as cheap and tawdry as could be palmed off; all that were brought back were bartered for at the lowest possible prices.

Cheating in count, weight and quality was then considered perfectly proper, and as the Government officials at home got a goodly grab into all transactions in way of perquisites, all went swimmingly—or fairly so.

For a Spaniard to trade with any other nation was treason, and if caught, his property was confiscated and probably his head forfeited.

No foreigners were allowed in the colonies, and exclusion was the rule. To hold her dependencies Spain thought she must keep them under close subjection; and she seemed beautifully innocent of the fact that she was the dependent, not they. She did not believe in Free Trade.

The Government was absolutely under military rule. Of the botany, zoology, geology, not to mention the topography, of her American possessions, the officials of Spain knew nothing save from the tales of sailors.

Such were the Spanish conditions when Humboldt got himself smuggled on board the "Pizarro," and sailed away, June Fourth, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-nine. With Humboldt was one companion, Bonpland, a Swiss by birth, and a rare soul.

Humboldt was a naturalist and a philosopher; by nature he was a traveler. But he lacked that intrepid quality possessed by, say, Lewis and Clarke.

He had too much brain—too fine a nerve-quality to face the forest alone. Bonpland made good all that he lacked. He used to call Bonpland his "Treasure." And surely such a friend is a treasure, indeed. Bonpland was a linguist, as most of the Swiss are. He was a mountain-climber, and had been a soldier and a sailor, and he knew enough of literature and science, so he was an interesting companion.

He was small in stature, lithe, immensely strong, absolutely fearless, and had left behind him neither family nor friends to mourn his loss. To Humboldt he was guide, teacher, protector and friend. Bonpland was the soul of unselfishness.

Perhaps a certain quality of man attracts a certain quality of friend—I really am not sure. But this I know, that while Alexander von Humboldt had few personal friends, he always had just those which his nature required—his friends were hands, feet, eyes and ears for him, to quote his own words. This voyage on the "Pizarro" occupied five years. The travelers visited Teneriffe, Cuba, Mexico, and skirted the coast of South America, making many little journeys inland.

They climbed mountains that had never been scaled before; they ascended rivers where no white man had ever been, and pushed their way through jungle and forest to visit savage tribes who fled before them in terror thinking they were gods. On the return trip they visited the United States; spent some weeks in Washington, where they were the guests of the President, Thomas Jefferson. A firm friendship sprang up between Humboldt and Jefferson: they were both freethinkers, and when Humboldt recorded in his journal that Jefferson was by far the greatest man living in America, he not only recorded his personal conviction, but he spoke the truth.

And as if not to be outdone, although he did not then know what Humboldt had said of him, Jefferson declared that Alexander von Humboldt was the greatest man he ever saw.

Most of the vast number of rare specimens and natural-history curiosities gathered by Humboldt and Bonpland were placed on a homeward-bound ship that sailed from South America. This ship was lost and all the precious and priceless cargo went for naught. Had Humboldt and his companion sailed on this ship, as they had at first intended, instead of returning by way of the United States, the world would not have known the name of Alexander von Humboldt.

But Fate for once was kind—the world had great need of him.

* * * * *

When Humboldt landed at Bordeaux in August, in Eighteen Hundred Four, after his five-year journey, he immediately set out to visit his brother, who was then German Ambassador at Rome. We can imagine that it was a most joyous meeting.

Of it William said: "I could not recognize him for my tears—but beside this he seemed to have grown in stature and was as brown as a Malay. Was he really my brother? Ah, the hand was the hand of Esau, but when he spoke, it was the same kind, gentle, loving voice—the voice of my brother."

A few weeks at Rome and Alexander grew restless for work. He had made great plans about publishing the record of his travels. This work was to outstrip anything in bookmaking the world had ever seen, dealing with similar subjects. The writing was done on shipboard, by campfires, and in forest and jungle, but now it had all to be gone over and revised and much of it translated into French, for the original notes were sometimes in English and sometimes in German. Only in Paris could the work of bookmaking be done that would fill Humboldt's ideals. In Paris were printers, engravers, artists, binders—Paris was then the artistic center of the world, as it is today.

The results of this first great scientific voyage of discovery were written out in a work of seventeen volumes.

It was entitled, "The Travels of Humboldt and Bonpland in the Interior of America." Humboldt wrote the book, but wanted his friend to have half the credit. This superb set of books, containing many engravings, was issued under Humboldt's supervision and almost entirely at his own expense. It was divided into five general parts: Zoology and Comparative Anatomy; Geography and the Distribution of Plants; Political Essays and Description of Peoples and Institutions in the Kingdom of New Spain; Astronomy and Magnetism; Equinoctial Vegetation. It took two years to issue the first volume, but the others then came along more rapidly, yet it was ten years before the last book of the set was published. The total expense of issuing this set of books was more than a million francs, or, to be exact, two hundred twenty-six thousand dollars.

The cost of a set of these books to subscribers was two thousand five hundred fifty dollars, although there were a few sets containing hand-colored plates and original drawings that were valued at twenty thousand dollars. One such set can now be seen at the British Museum. In all, only three hundred sets of these books were issued.

One set at least came to North America, for it was presented to Thomas Jefferson, and, if I am not mistaken, is now in the Congressional Library at Washington.

This American Expedition forever fixed Alexander von Humboldt's place in history, but after it was completed and the record written out, he had still more than half a century to live.

* * * * *

At a time when few men could afford the luxury, Alexander von Humboldt was an atheist. Fortunately he had sufficient fortune to place him beyond reach of the bread-and-butter problem, and all of his books were written in the language of the esoteric. He did not serve as an iconoclast for the common people—his name was never on the tongue of rumor—very few, indeed, knew of his existence. His books were issued in deluxe, limited editions, and were for public libraries, the shelves of nobility or rich collectors.

Humboldt was judicial in all of his statements, approaching every question as if nothing were known about it. He built strong, and was preparing the way, such as throwing up ramparts and storing ammunition for the first decisive battle that was to take place between Theology and Science.

In his day Theology was supreme, the practical dictator of human liberties. But a World's Congress of Freethinkers has recently been held in Rome.

There were present more than three thousand delegates, representing every civilized country on the globe. The deliberations of the Congress were held in a hall supplied by the Italian Government, and all courtesies and privileges were tendered the delegates. The only protest came from the Pope, who turned Protestant and in all the Catholic churches in Rome ordered special services, to partially mitigate the blot upon the fair record of the "Holy City." Forty years ago armed men would have routed this Congress by force, and a hundred years ago the bare thought of such a meeting would have placed a person who might have suggested it in imminent peril.

Humboldt prophesied that the world would not forever be ruled by religious superstition—that science must surely win. But he did not expect that the change would come as quickly as it has; neither did he anticipate the fact that the orthodox religion would admit all the facts of science and still flourish. The number of Church communicants now is larger than it was in the time of Humboldt. The Church is a department-store that puts in the particular goods that the people ask for.

Freethinkers do not leave the Church; the Church is built on a Goodyear patent, and its lines expand when Freethinkers get numerous, so as to include them.

The Church would rather countenance vice, as it has in the past, than disband. In New York City we now have the spectacle of the Church operating a saloon and selling strong drink. In all country towns, religion, failing in being attractive, has, to keep churches alive, resorted to raffles, lotteries, concerts, chicken-pie socials, and lectures and exhortations by strange men in curious and unique garb, and singers of reputation.

The Church, being a part of society, evolves as society evolves. Christianity is a totally different thing now from what it was in Humboldt's time; it was a different thing in Humboldt's time from what it was a hundred years before.

Behold the spectacle of a thousand highly educated and gentle men, from all over the world, decorating with garlands the statue of Bruno in Rome, on the site where Churchmen piled high the fagots and burned his living body! I foretell that when the next World's Congress of Freethinkers occurs in Rome, the Pope will welcome the delegates, and their deliberations will occur by invitation in the wide basilica of Saint Peter's. The world moves, and the Pope and all the rest of us move with it.

When a meeting was recently called in Jersey City to welcome Turner, the so-called anarchist, the Mayor forbade the meeting and then placed a cordon of policemen around the intended meeting-place. But, lo, in their extremity the "anarchists" were invited by a clergyman to come and use his church and he led the way to the sacred edifice, warning the police to neither follow nor enter. As we become better we meet better preachers.

Humboldt could see no rift through the clouds outside of the death of the Church and the disbanding of her so-called sacred institutions. We now perceive that very rarely are religious opinions consciously abandoned; they change, are modified and later evolve into something else. Churches are now largely social clubs. In America this is true both of Catholic and of Protestant. Most all denominations are interested in social betterment, because the trend of human thought is in that direction.

The Church is being swept along upon the tide of time. In a few instances churches have already evolved practical industrial betterments, which are conducted directly under the supervision of the church and in its edifice. There are hundreds of Kindergartens now being carried on in church buildings that a few years ago were idle and vacant all the week. Others have sewing-circles and boys' clubs, and these have metamorphosed in some instances into Manual-Training Schools where girls are taught Domestic Science and boys are given instruction in the Handicrafts. I know a church that derives its support from the sale of useful things that are made by its members and workers under the supervision of its pastor, who is a master in handicraft. So this pretty nearly points the ideal—a church that has evolved into an ethical and industrial college, where the pastor is not paid for preaching, but for doing.

Charles Bradlaugh once said:

"A paid priesthood blocks evolution. These men are really educated to uphold and defend the institution. They can do nothing else. Most of them have families dependent upon them—do you wonder that it is a fight to the death? It is not truth that the clergy struggles for—they may think it is—but the grim fact remains, it is a fight for material existence."

We all confuse our interests with the eternal verities—the thing that pays us we consider righteous, or at least justifiable. This is the most natural thing in the world. An artist who painted very bad pictures once took one of his canvases to Whistler for criticism.

Jimmy shrugged his shoulders and made a grimace that spoke volumes. "But a man must live some way!" pleaded the poor fellow in his extremity.

"I do not see the necessity," was the weary reply.

Preachers must live; their education and environment have unfitted them for useful effort; but they are a part of the great, seething struggle for existence. And so we have their piteous and plaintive plea for the obsolete and the outworn. Disraeli once in an incautious moment exclaimed: "If we do away with the Established Church, what is to become of the fourteen million prepared and pickled sermons? Think for a moment of the infinite labor of writing new sermons, all based upon a different point of view—let us then be reasonable and not subject a profession that is overworked to the humiliation of destroying the bulk of its assets."

Science deals directly with the maintenance of human life and the bettering of every condition of existence through a wider, wiser and saner use of the world. Civilization is the working out and comprehending and proving how to live in the best way. Theology prepares men to die; science fits them to live.

Science deals with your welfare in this world; theology in another. Theology has not yet proved that there is another world—its claims are not even based upon hearsay. It is a matter of belief and assumption.

Science, too, assumes, and its assumption is this: The best preparation for a life to come is to live here and now as if there were no life to come.

Your belief will not fix your place in another world—what you are, may. The individual who gets most out of this life is fitting himself to get most out of another if there is one.

And this brings us up to that paragraph in the "Cosmos" where Humboldt says: "I perceive a period when the true priesthood will not be paid to defend a fixed system of so-called crystallized truth. But I believe the time will come when that man will be most revered who bestows most benefits here and now. The clergy of Christendom have stood as leaders of thought, but to hold this proud position they must abandon the intangible and devote themselves to this world and the people who are alive."

* * * * *

Most of Humboldt's time during his middle life was spent at Paris, where he was busily engaged in the herculean task of issuing his splendid books. He varied his work, however, so that several hours daily were devoted to study and scientific research; and from time to time he made journeys over Europe and Asia.

In Eighteen Hundred Twenty-seven a personal request came from the King of Prussia that Humboldt should thereafter make Berlin his home. He was too big a man for Germany to lose.

He acceded to the King's request, moved to Berlin and was spoken of as "The First Citizen," although he would not consent to hold office, nor would he accept a title.

In vexed questions of diplomacy he was often consulted by the King and his Cabinet, and in a great many ways he furthered the interests of education and civilization by his judicial and timely advice.

He was always a student, always an investigator, always a tireless worker. He lived simply and quietly—keeping out of society and away from crowds, except on the rare occasions when necessity seemed to demand it.

The quality of the man was well mirrored in those magnificent books—all that he did was on the scale of grandeur.

His books were too high in price for the average reader, but on request of the King he consented to give a course of five, free, popular lectures for the people.

No one foresaw the result of these addresses. The course was so successful that it extended itself into sixty-one lectures, and covered a period of more than ten years' time. No admittance was charged, free tickets being given out to applicants. Very soon after the first lecture, a traffic sprang up in these free tickets, carried on by our Semitic friends, and the tickets soared to as high as three dollars each. Then the strong hand of the Government stepped in: the tickets were canceled, and the public was admitted to the lectures without ceremony. Boxes, however, were set apart for royalty and foreign visitors, some of whom came from England, Belgium, Switzerland and France. The size of these audiences was limited simply by the capacity of the auditorium, the attendance at first being about a thousand; later, a larger hall was secured and the attendance ran as high as four thousand persons at each address.

The subjects were as follows: three lectures on the History of Science; two on reasons why we should study Science; four on the Crust of the Earth, and the nature of Volcanoes and Earthquakes; two on the form of Earth's Surface and the elevation of the Continents; five on Physical Geography; five on the nature of Heat and Magnetism; sixteen on Astronomy; two on Mountains and how they are formed; three on the Nature of the Sea; three on the Distribution of Matter; ten on the Atmosphere as an Elastic Fluid; three on the Geography of Animals; three on Races of Men.

Every good thing begins as something else, and what was intended for the common people became scientific lectures for educated people. "The man who was most benefited by these lectures was myself," said Humboldt.

Men grow by doing things. Lectures are for the lecturer.

Humboldt found out more things in giving these lectures than he knew before—he discovered himself. And long before they were completed he knew that his best work was embodied right here—in doing for others he had done for himself.

In attempting to reveal the Universe or "Cosmos," he revealed most of his own comprehensive intelligence. That many of his conclusions have since been abandoned by the scientific world does not prove such ideas valueless—they helped and are helping men to find the truth.

These sixty-one "popular" and free lectures make up that stupendous work now known to us as "Humboldt's Cosmos."

* * * * *

Says Robert Ingersoll in his tribute to Alexander von Humboldt:

"His life was pure, his aims were lofty, his learning varied and profound, and his achievements vast.

"We honor him because he has ennobled our race, because he has contributed as much as any man, living or dead, to the real prosperity of the world. We honor him because he has honored us—because he has labored for others—because he was the most learned man of the most learned nation of his time—because he left a legacy of glory to every human being. For these reasons he is honored throughout the world.

"Millions are doing homage to his genius at this moment, and millions are pronouncing his name with reverence and recounting what he accomplished.

"We associate the name of Humboldt with oceans, continents, mountains, volcanoes—with towering palms—the snow-lipped craters of the Andes—the wide deserts—with primeval forests and European capitals—with wilderness and universities—with savages and savants—with the lonely rivers of unpeopled wastes—with peaks, pampas, steppes, cliffs and crags—with the progress of the world—with every science known to man and with every star glittering in the immensity of space. Humboldt adopted none of the soul-shrinking creeds of his day; he wasted none of his time in the inanities, stupidities and contradictions of theological metaphysics; he did not endeavor to harmonize the astronomy and geology of a barbarous people with the science of the Nineteenth Century.

"Never, for one moment, did he abandon the sublime standard of truth: he investigated, he studied, he thought, he separated the gold from the dross in the crucible of his brain. He was never found on his knees before the altar of superstition. He stood erect by the tranquil column of Reason. He was an admirer, a lover, an adorer of Nature, and at the age of ninety, bowed by the weight of nearly a century, covered with the insignia of honor, loved by a nation, respected by a world, with kings for his servants, he laid his weary head upon her bosom—upon the bosom of the Universal Mother—and with her loving arms about him, sank into that slumber which we call Death.

"History added another name to the starry scroll of the immortals.

"The world is his monument; upon the eternal granite of her hills he inscribed his name, and there, upon everlasting stone, his genius wrote this, the sublimest of truths: The universe is governed by law."



WILLIAM HERSCHEL

The great number of alterations of stars that we are certain have happened within the last two centuries, and the much greater number that we have reason to suspect to have taken place, are curious features in the history of the heavens, as curious as the slow wearing away of the landmarks of our earth on mountains, on river banks, on ocean shores. If we consider how little attention has formerly been paid this subject, and that most of the observations we have are of a very late date, it would perhaps not appear extraordinary were we to admit the number of alterations that have probably happened to different stars, within our own time, to be a hundred.

—William Herschel

WILLIAM HERSCHEL

William Herschell, born Seventeen Hundred Thirty-eight, in the city of Hanover, was the fourth child in a family of ten. Big families, I am told, usually live in little houses, while little families live in big houses. The Herschels were no exception to the rule.

Isaac Herschel, known to the world as being the father of his son, was a poor man, depending for support upon his meager salary as bandmaster to a regiment of the Hanoverian Guards.

At the garrison school, taught by a retired captain, William was the star scholar. In mathematics he propounded problems that made the worthy captain pooh-pooh and change the subject.

At fourteen, he was playing a hautboy in his father's band and practising on the violin at spare times.

For music he had a veritable passion, and to have a passion for a thing means that you excel in it—excellence is a matter of intensity. One of the players in the band was a Frenchman, and William made an arrangement to give the "parlez vous" lessons on the violin as payment for lessons in French.

This whole brood of Herschel children was musical, and very early in life the young Herschels became self-supporting as singers and players. "It is the only thing they can do," their father said. But his loins were wiser than his head.

In Seventeen Hundred Fifty-five William accompanied his father's band to England, where they went to take part in a demonstration in honor of a Hanoverian, one George the Third, who later was to play a necessary part in a symphony that was to edify the American Colonies. America owes much to George the Third.

Young Herschel had already learned to speak English, just as he had learned French. In England he spent all the money he had for three volumes of "Locke on the Human Understanding."

These books were to remain his lifelong possession and to be passed on, well-thumbed, to his son more than half a century later.

At the time of the breaking out of the Seven Years' War, William Herschel was nineteen. His regiment had been ordered to march in a week. Here was a pivotal point—should he go and fight for the glory of Prussia?

Not he—by the connivance of his mother and sisters, he was secreted on a trading-sloop bound for England. This is what is called desertion; and just how the young man evaded the penalties, since the King of England was also Elector of Hanover, I do not know, but the House of Hanover made no effort toward punishment of the culprit, even when the facts were known.

Musicians of quality were, perhaps, needed in England; and as sheep-stealing is looked upon lightly by priests who love mutton, so do kings forgive infractions if they need the man.

When William Herschel landed at Dover he had in his pocket a single crownpiece, and his luggage consisted of the clothes he wore, and a violin. The violin secured him board and lodgings along the road as he walked to London, just as Oliver Goldsmith paid his way with a similar legal tender.

In London, Herschel's musical skill quickly got him an engagement at one of the theaters. In a few months we hear of his playing solos at Brabandt's aristocratic concerts. Little journeys into "the provinces" were taken by the orchestra to which Herschel belonged. Among other places visited was Bath, and here the troupe was booked for a two-weeks' engagement. At this time Bath was run wide open.

Bath was a rendezvous for the gouty dignitaries of Church and State who had grown swag through sloth and much travel by the gorge route. There were ministers of state, soldiers, admirals-of-the-sea, promoters, preachers, philosophers, players, poets, polite gamblers and buffoons.