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Astronomy   Listen
noun
Astronomy  n.  
1.
Astrology. (Obs.) "Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck; And yet methinks I have astronomy."
2.
The science which treats of the celestial bodies, of their magnitudes, motions, distances, periods of revolution, eclipses, constitution, physical condition, and of the causes of their various phenomena.
3.
A treatise on, or text-book of, the science.
Physical astronomy. See under Physical.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Astronomy" Quotes from Famous Books



... Of astronomy they had a fair working knowledge—that is a very old science; and with it, a surprising range ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman

... restore innocence and peace to the monastery, he corrected the calendar according to the calculations of chronology and astronomy and he compelled all the monks to accept his decision; he sent the women who had declined from St. Bridget's rule back to their convent; but far from driving them away brutally, he caused them to be led to their boat with ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... of his papers on Christianity, considered as a means of social progress, and on the Essenes. In fact, De Quincey's knowledge of theology is equal to that of two bishops—in metaphysics, he could puzzle any German professor—in astronomy, he has outshone Professor Nichol—in chemistry, he can outdive Samuel Brown—and in Greek, excite to jealousy the shades of Porson and Parr. There is another department in which he stands first, second, and third—we mean, the serious hoax. Do our readers remember the German romance of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... village of Periasamudram in the Mysore Provinces, came to the little town in the Bellary District where I was then employed. He was a good Sanskrit, Telugu and Canarese poet, and an excellent master of Vedic rituals; knew the Hindu system of astronomy, and professed to be an astrologer. Besides all this, he possessed the power of reading what was contained in any sealed envelope. The process adopted for this purpose was simply this:—We wrote whatever we chose on a piece of paper; enclosed it in one, two or three envelopes, each properly ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... been attempted to explain this change that has unquestionably taken place in the temperature of climate, by conceiving a change in the situation of the earth's axis. This hypothesis, however, is shown to be untenable by the calculations of physical astronomy: no other cause then remains but an actual change in the ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... larder by the proceeds of its sale. More profitable was some chance employment which was given to him by Filippo Archinto,[57] a generous and accomplished young nobleman of Milan, who was ambitious to figure as a writer on Astronomy, and, it may be remarked, Archinto's benefactions were not confined to the payment for the hack work which Jerome did for him at this period. Had it not been for his subsequent patronage and support, it is quite possible that Cardan would have ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters

... frightened, I'm not going to talk astronomy, but about my old ship, the first I ever sailed in, after having a kind of training in my father's little yachts, beginning with the shoulder-of-mutton sail; and next with the Cornish lugger, which he bought at Newlyn, on beyond Penzance, when Penwalloc went wrong, and his two boats ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn

... take up the study of the stars as an ideal rather than scientific occupation. These astronomers might be more correctly termed magicians, for with the stars they invariably connect the fate and fortune of king and people; which fact will also explain why it is that in their practice of astronomy mathematics are ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... rune, have grown the printed writings of mankind. Homer, Dante, Milton, and Shakespeare are the lineal descendants of the man who made holes in a leaf, or lines on a wave-washed sand. Out of the finger-counting have grown up book-keeping, geometry, mathematical astronomy and a knowledge of the higher curves. Out of the prehistoric shrugs and sounds and grimaces we have oral speech—much of it worthless, and not all of it yet wholly intelligible. We are still continually being ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... is Christianity's own child. Other sciences, such as geography and astronomy, may have been born among lands and nations outside of and even before Christendom. Other sciences, such as geology, may have had their rise in Christian time and in Christian lands, their foundation lines laid ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... mathematics were born. The one who planned it knew that the earth is a sphere and that its motion is rotary. It is said that in all the thousands of years since it was built not a single fact in astronomy or mathematics has been discovered to contradict the wisdom of those who ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols

... smile deepened upon his face, fixed there by the hand of death, the lips parted for the last time, and Dirke whispered; "I am going—in—for astronomy!" ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... we cannot yet walk so as not to stumble. Natural science has explained a thousand mysteries. Social science—understand the word; not schemes, plans or guessing, but genuine science, as far from guess or scheme as astronomy or chemistry is—will reveal to us as many truths and beauties as ever any other science has done. I now see clearly! Blessed be God for ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... not make use of three sciences; on the contrary it is rather the other sciences that make use of painting, as, for instance, astrology, which effects nothing without the aid of perspective, the principal link of painting,—that is, mathematical astronomy and not fallacious astrology (let those who by reason of the existence of fools make a profession of it, forgive me). The poet says he describes an object, that he represents another full of beautiful allegory; the painter says he is capable ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci

... either," he insisted. "Why, the whole principle of it is so awful simple! Ef you'd ben to high school, now, an' knew astronomy an' all, you'd see ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... individual" will result. Yes, man's origin was social; from the "Social Anthropoids,"—says Professor Huxley; and to omit the continuance of this social fact and law in sociology is worse than talking pre-Copernican astronomy. That should be left to our metaphysical anarchists, who chatter as if man was a solitarily created "Adam," defying the social "compact" of Rousseau, or dickering as to the terms upon which ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various

... Naishapur thus lived and died Omar Khayyam, 'busied,' adds the Vizier, 'in winning knowledge of every kind, and especially in Astronomy, wherein he attained to a very high pre-eminence. Under the Sultanate of Malik Shah, he came to Merv, and obtained great praise for his proficiency in science, and the ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... first suggested by the wearing out and dissolution of all material objects, and by the specks of dust floating in a sunbeam; and it is confirmed, on an enlarged scale, by the stellar universe as conceived by modern astronomy. When today we talk of nuclei and electrons, if we imagine them at all, we imagine them as atoms. But it is all a picture, prophesying what we might see through a sufficiently powerful microscope; the important philosophical question is the one raised by the other half of Locke's natural philosophy, ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana

... other societies had published a number of books in Chinese which they had translated from the European languages. I was at that time the custodian of two or three of these societies and had a great variety of Chinese books in my possession. I therefore sent him copies of our astronomy, geology, zoology, physiology and various other scientific books which I was at that time ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... who is ignorant of those two languages. You are by this time, I hope, pretty near master of both, so that a small part of the day dedicated to them, for two years more, will make you perfect in that study. Rhetoric, logic, a little geometry, and a general notion of astronomy, must, in their turns, have their hours too; not that I desire you should be deep in any one of these; but it is fit you should know something of them all. The knowledge more particularly useful and necessary for you, considering your destination, consists of modern languages, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... night about four o'clock in the afternoon I saw the sun distinctly appear through the clouds. The whole subject of daylight in the London winter is, however, one which belongs rather to the technique of astronomy than to a book of description. In practice daylight is but little used. Electric lights are burned all the time in all houses, buildings, railway stations and clubs. This practice which is now universally observed ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... culture of the latter. First the Digambara and later the ['S]vetambara began to use Sanskrit. They did not rest content with explaining their own teaching in Sanskrit works: they turned also to the secular sciences of the Brahma[n.]s. They have accomplished so much of importance, in grammar, in astronomy, as well as in some branches of letters, that they have won respect even from their enemies, and some of their works are still of importance to European science. In southern India, where they worked ...
— On the Indian Sect of the Jainas • Johann George Buehler

... tolerable, and at least an enthusiastic antiquarian, a more than tolerable poetaster; and he had a prodigious budget full of old ballads and songs, which he loved better to teach and I to learn, than all the 'Latin, Greek, geography, astronomy, and the use of the globes,' which my poor father had so ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... novice laid the foundations of a good general education, he devoted the next two years to grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, and then the same amount of time to what was called the Quadrivium, which consisted of "arithmetic, mathematics, astronomy, and music." Theology, the queen of the sciences, occupied three years; and at the end of the course, at the age of twenty-five, the brothers were ordained priests. We find Eckhart, towards the end of the century, Prior of Erfurt and Vicar of Thuringia, ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge

... Dominie—ye're speaking for ever" (by the way they were the first words the poor man had uttered that morning, excepting that he had said grace, and returned thanks)—"Mr. Mannering cannot get in a word for ye!—and so, Mr. Mannering, talking of astronomy, and spells, and these matters, have ye been so kind as to consider what we were speaking about ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... in mathematics for a young girl; every step seemed easy to her. She took everything severe that she could get a chance at, in the course or out of it,—surveying, navigation, mechanics, mathematical astronomy, and conic sections, as well as the ordinary course in mathematics; the calculus she had worked through at sixteen under a very able and exact teacher, and took her diploma from W.H. Wells, a master who allowed ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews

... as a third branch of our education, astronomy? 'Very good,' replied Glaucon; 'the knowledge of the heavens is necessary at once for husbandry, navigation, military tactics.' I like your way of giving useful reasons for everything in order to make friends of the world. And there is a difficulty in proving ...
— The Republic • Plato

... civilized American tribes had made considerable advances in some of the natural sciences, and in none more than in practical astronomy. By close observation of the heavenly bodies they had elaborated a complicated and remarkably exact system of chronology. They had determined the length of the year with greater accuracy than the white invaders; and the different cycles by which they computed time ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton

... Astonishing mira. Astonishment miro. Astound miregi. Astral astra. Astray, to go erarigxi. Astringent kuntira. Astrologer astrologiisto. Astrology astrologio. Astronomer astronomiisto. Astronomy astronomio. Astute ruza. Asunder aparte. Asylum rifugxejo. At cxe, je. At (house of) cxe. At all events kio ajn okazos. At any time iam. Atheist ateisto. Atheism ateismo. Athletic atleta. Athlete atleto. Atlas ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... except for capping quotations, and thereby being thought a pedant by the display of schoolboy erudition. How often have I wished that the years wasted over Latin verses and Greek plays had been utilised among French and German, astronomy, geology, chemistry and the like; but all such useful educationals were quite ignored by the clerical boobies who then professed to teach young gentlemen all that they needed to know. Sixty years ago I perceived what we all see now ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... notion, but it may have been coming by chance one day on the statue of Giordano Bruno, and realizing that it stood in the Campo di Fieri, on the spot where he was burned three hundred years ago for abetting Copernicus in his sacrilegious system of astronomy, and for divers other heresies, as well as the violation of his monastic vows. I saw it with the thrill which the solemn figure, heavily draped, deeply hooded, must impart as mere mystery, and I made haste to come again in the knowledge of what it was that had moved ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... Astronomy had a great charm for my mother. Her enthusiasm was soon communicated to my father who found his wealth was a requisite in establishing the observatory he had erected at Irvington and in its equipment. ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... not," said Phil, a little sadly; "there are so many things that puzzle me. I thought that perhaps, as you came from the stars, you knew something of astronomy." ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays

... an ancient family in Westmoreland, and born at Kirby-Kendal in that county, the 4th of April 1617, spent some time at Oxford, and had so strong a propensity to the study of astronomy and mathematics, that little or no knowledge of logic and philosophy was acquired by him[1]. After this, being possesed of some patrimony, he retired from the university, and indulged his genius, till the breaking ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... limited to mere observation, accepting what Nature offered, and confining intellectual action to it alone. The apparent motions of sun and stars first drew towards them the questionings of the intellect, and accordingly astronomy was the first science developed. Slowly, and with difficulty, the notion of natural forces took root in the human mind. Slowly, and with difficulty, the science of mechanics had to grow out of this notion; and slowly at last came the full application of mechanical principles to ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... more unfavourable to the moral and intellectual health of our race. The Brahminical mythology is so absurd that it necessarily debases every mind which receives it as truth; and with this absurd mythology is bound up an absurd system of physics, an absurd geography, an absurd astronomy. Nor is this form of Paganism more favourable to art than to science. Through the whole Hindoo Pantheon you will look in vain for anything resembling those beautiful and majestic forms which stood in the shrines of ancient Greece. All is hideous, and ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... favourite reading. He was surprised to observe that the greater portion of the works that, by the doubled leaf and the pencilled reference, seemed most frequently consulted, were not of a literary nature,—they were chiefly scientific; and astronomy seemed the chosen science. He then remembered that he had heard Maltravers speaking to a builder, employed on the recent repairs, on the subject of an observatory. "This is very strange," thought ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... devoted himself to literature, science, and charity, translating Odes of Horace and Eclogues of Virgil, studying geometry with Bossut, chemistry with Lavoisier, and astronomy with Rochon, and interesting himself in every thing by which human welfare could be advanced. Such a character, with such an experience of government, and the prophet of American independence, was naturally prepared to welcome ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... for him to Lord Ipsden, and affected to doubt their prudence. The bait took; Lord Ipsden wrote to his man of business, and an unexpected blow fell upon the ingenious Flucker. He was sent to school; there to learn a little astronomy, a little navigation, a little seamanship, a little manners, etc.; in the mysteries of reading and writing his sister had already perfected him by dint of "the taws." This school was a blow; but Flucker was no fool; he saw there was no way of getting from school to sea without working. ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade

... on sales, M'Coy said. I was with him one day and he bought a book from an old one in Liffey street for two bob. There were fine plates in it worth double the money, the stars and the moon and comets with long tails. Astronomy it was about. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... Disputes learnedly with the doctors in the temple, 7 on law, 9 on astronomy, 12 on physics and metaphysics. 21 Is worshipped by a philosopher, 28 and fetched home ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... meaning, signifying the "Host of Heaven," "The Planetary System." Saba, or Sheba, was especially the home of astronomical wisdom; and all words of this character mean wise in regard to the stars. The wisdom of Saba and of the Sabeans was planetary wisdom, the "Sabean language" meaning astronomy, or astrology, the latter being the esoteric portion of the science. At the time of the mysteries, astrology was a sacred or secret science, the words "sacred" and "secret" meaning the same thing. Among the oldest mysteries, ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... circle of his ideas. In this way they turn a human method of approach into a charter for existence and non-existence, and their point of view becomes the creative power. When the idealist studies astronomy, does he learn anything about the stars that God made? Far from him so naive a thought! His astronomy consists of two activities of his own (and he is very fond of activity): star-gazing and calculation. When he ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... the Gilman school, I was full of hope and determination to succeed. But during the first few weeks I was confronted with unforeseen difficulties. Mr. Gilman had agreed that that year I should study mathematics principally. I had physics, algebra, geometry, astronomy, Greek and Latin. Unfortunately, many of the books I needed had not been embossed in time for me to begin with the classes, and I lacked important apparatus for some of my studies. The classes I was in were very large, and it was impossible for the teachers to give me special ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... are forgetting your astronomy. This 'other side' is subject to the same conditions as the near side. The sun shines on them alike, but alternately. We are rounding the limb away from the sun. We find, as you see, a darkness that is absolute except for the light of the stars. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... ever so long ago, what this strange Thing called a Man of Learning was, and what is it that constitutes a Scholar? For, said I, here's a man speaks five Languages and reads the Sixth, is a master of Astronomy, Geography, History, and abundance of other useful Knowledge (which I do not mention, that you may not guess at the Man, who is too Modest to desire it), and yet, they say ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... to reason. Maui set forth his terms of peace, which the sun accepted, agreeing to go more slowly thereafter. Wherefore Hina had ample time in which to dry her kapas, and the days are longer than they used to be, which last is quite in accord with the teachings of modern astronomy." ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... of a young man desiring a liberal education, from twelve to twenty years of age, is given up to Greek and Latin. The other half is left for Mathematics, Geography, History, Geology, Chemistry, Natural History, Metaphysics, Ethics, Astronomy, and General Reading. Before entering college, his time must be almost wholly occupied with the study of Latin, Greek, and Mathematics. For he is required, in order to enter our principal university, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... literature as a subject of study from the first to the last place in the course. In the faculty of arts the earliest course begins with arithmetic, algebra, the calculation of probabilities, and geometry. Next follow physics and mechanics. Then astronomy. Fourthly, natural history and experimental physics. In the fifth class, chemistry and anatomy. In the sixth, logic and grammar. In the seventh, the language of the country. And it was not until the eighth, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... discarding and excluding wholly from his studies all the abstruse sciences, and limiting his philosophy to those practical points which could have influence on human conduct. "He himself was always conversing about the affairs of men," is the description given of him by Xenophon. Astronomy he pronounced to be one of the divine mysteries which it was impossible to understand and madness to investigate; all that man wanted was to know enough of the heavenly bodies to serve as an index to the change of seasons and as guides ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... only worked miracles in her ordinary course, but that she might, by the cabala of some master soul, be diverted from that course itself. Thus he pursued science, across her appointed boundaries, into the land of perplexity and shadow. From the truths of astronomy he wandered into astrological fallacy; from the secrets of chemistry he passed into the spectral labyrinth of magic; and he who could be sceptical as to the power of the gods, was credulously superstitious as to the ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... preacher that a series of similar discourses was to follow, excited the liveliest interest, not in his own congregation alone, but throughout the whole community. He had presented to his hearers a sketch of the recent discoveries of astronomy—distinct in outline, and drawn with all the ease of one who was himself a master in the science, yet gorgeously magnificent in many of its details, displaying, amid "the brilliant glow of a blazing eloquence,"[22] the sublime poetry of the heavens. In his subsequent discourses Dr. Chalmers ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... calling himself Professor of Italian Literature at Columbia, though without salary, managed to sell the college a large number of Italian books, and was engaged to make a catalogue of the college library. Another friend was Henry James Anderson, who became Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy in the college in 1825, the year in which Garcia came to New York with his operatic enterprise. Professor Anderson married his daughter and became the father of Edward Henry and Elbert Ellery Anderson. Other ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... poor man was dreadfully frightened at what he had seen in the moon. At first I laughed at the story and the odd idea of a huge, great fellow being alarmed at a glance through a telescope. Since then, however, on reflection, it seems to me perfectly natural. He was illiterate; he had never read of astronomy; to him it was really like a sudden peep into another world, for the instrument was exceptionally powerful, and the view of the sunlight on the peaks and the shadows in the valleys must have been extraordinary to him. There was nothing to laugh at; the ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... through Neeland's, had become affectionately confidential. He explained that he really was a nocturnal creature; that now he had completely waked up; that his habits were due to a passion for astronomy, and that the stars he had discovered at odd hours of the early morning were more amazing than any celestial bodies ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... is also conformed to by Language, the plastic arts, Music, &c.; so might we here show that the cause which we have hitherto found to determine progress holds in these cases also. Instances might be given proving how, in Science, an advance of one division presently advances other divisions—how Astronomy has been immensely forwarded by discoveries in Optics, while other optical discoveries have initiated Microscopic Anatomy, and greatly aided the growth of Physiology—how Chemistry has indirectly increased our knowledge of Electricity, Magnetism, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... withheld all provisions, in hopes either of starving the admiral and his people, or of driving them from the island. In this extremity, a fortunate idea presented itself to Columbus. From his knowledge of astronomy, he ascertained that, within three days, there would be a total eclipse of the moon in the early part of the night. He sent, therefore, an Indian of Hispaniola, who served as his interpreter, to summon the principal caciques to a grand conference, appointing ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... of Justin Martyr that, hearing of a Pythag- [2] orean professor of ethics, he expressed the wish to be- come one of his disciples. "Very well," the teacher replied; "but have you studied music, astronomy, and [5] geometry, and do you think it possible for you to under- stand aught of that which leads to bliss, without hav- ing mastered the sciences that disengage the soul from objects of sense, so rendering it a fit habitation ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... companions to have extended his curiosity, at this time, to many other objects of inquiry; and to have employed himself not only in the lighter studies of heraldry and English antiquities, but in the theory of music, mathematics, metaphysics, and astronomy. ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... A Study of Recent Observations. By Charles Lane Poor, Professor of Astronomy in Columbia ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

... are destined to eject and replace them. To sum up, even in our own day, chemistry rests on a less sound basis than either physics, which had the advantage of originating as late as the 17th century, or astronomy, which dates from the time when the Chaldean shepherd had sufficiently provided for his daily wants to find leisure for gazing into ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... had long since admitted women, and there were now beautiful creatures with Cleo de Merode hair studying astronomy at oaken desks and looking up at the teacher with eyes like comets. The university taught everything and did everything. It had whirling machines on the top of it that measured the speed of the wind, and deep in its basements it measured earthquakes with ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock

... very Banshee of Midsummer is rattling the windows drearily while I write. There are no visitors in the place but children, and they (my own included) have all got the hooping-cough, and go about the beach choking incessantly. A miserable wanderer lectured in a library last night about astronomy; but being in utter solitude he snuffed out the transparent planets he had brought with him in a box and fled in disgust. A white mouse and a little tinkling box of music that stops at "come," in the melody of the Buffalo Gals, and can't play "out to-night," are ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens

... with such discourse as those who sit at the tables of Dives are not often privileged to hear. For Herr Ritter was a scholar and a philosopher. He had studied from his youth the strange and growing discoveries of geology, astronomy, and chemistry; he had wrested from the bosom of Nature her most subtle secrets, and the earth and the heavens were written in a language which he understood and loved to read. I learned that he had been a ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... Seaside and Wayside Nature Reader, No. 4. Elementary lessons in geology, astronomy, world life, etc. ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton

... rates of profits, are all subject to laws as universal and unerring as those which Newton deduces in the "Principia," or Donald McKay applies in the construction of a clipper ship. As they are manifested by more complicated phenomena, man may not know them as accurately as he knows the laws of astronomy or mechanics; but he can no more doubt the existence of the former than he can the existence of the latter; and he can no more infringe the one than he can infringe the other with impunity. The poorest housekeeper is perfectly well aware that certain rules of order ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... astronomers, and developed some theories in relation to the subject, which, however audacious, betrayed at least a certain degree of intellectual culture. My father, who knew a good deal about astronomy, advanced some sound ideas of his own, which he ended up with his eternal, 'But what do we know about it, after all?' In my turn I cited the opinion of our neighbour of the Observatory— the great Arago. My Uncle Victor declared that comets had a peculiar influence on the quality of wines, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... to study to-night,—don't feel up to it. Besides, I want to visit Mr Blurt. The book he lent me on Astronomy ought to be returned, and I want to borrow another.—Come, you'll ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... I was set on teaching where I saw the chance, the thing came of itself. I had been mightily interested in the Frenchman Figuier's account of the formation and development of the earth, and took that for my topic. Twice a week, when I had set my traps in the glen, I went to town and talked astronomy and geology to interested audiences that gazed terror stricken at the loathsome saurians and the damnable pterodactyl which I sketched on the blackboard. Well they might. I spared them no gruesome detail, and ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... a part of our training at the Tuskegee Institute, I was amazed to find that it was almost impossible to find in the whole country an educated colored man who could teach the making of clothing. We could find numbers of them who could teach astronomy, theology, Latin or grammar, but almost none who could instruct in the making of clothing, something that has to be used by every one of us every day in the year. How often have I been discouraged as ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.

... Dr. Todd had often exchanged courtesies; but the university doctor was mainly interested in medical subjects, while Mr. Henderson delved more in the mysteries of astronomy and practical mechanics. ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... chairs of Astronomy had been founded in the fourteenth century, and that their incumbents were bound to sign Ptolemaic articles. In that case, with every respect for the efforts of persons thus hampered to attain and expound the truth, I think men of common sense would ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... this is only a very faint beginning of the painful progress towards being human. For the study of primitive race and religion stands apart in one important respect from all, or nearly all, the ordinary scientific studies. A man can understand astronomy only by being an astronomer; he can understand entomology only by being an entomologist (or, perhaps, an insect); but he can understand a great deal of anthropology merely by being a man. He is himself the animal which he studies. ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... person, who stood at the head of his class, had been early protected by Leicester, who employed him to fix a lucky day for the queen's coronation. He had since been patronized by her majesty, who once visited him at his house at Mortlake, took lessons of him in astronomy, and occasionally supplied him with money to defray the expenses of his experiment. She likewise presented him to some ecclesiastical benefices; but he often complained of the delay or non-performance of her promises of pensions and preferment. On one ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... "Bless my astronomy!" cried Mr. Damon. "There's a meteor fallen in our yard. Come out, wife—everybody—call the servants. It's a chance of a lifetime to see one, and they're valuable, too! Bless my star dust! I must tell ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton

... of Mage or Magus is never used in a good sense as signifying philosophers who studied astronomy, and were versed in divine and supernatural things, except in speaking of the Magi who came to adore Jesus Christ at Bethlehem.[146] Everywhere else the Scriptures condemn and abhor magic and magicians.[147] They ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... their religion. Physic and philosophy are cultivated among the Indians, and the Chinese have some skill in medicine; but that almost entirely consists in the art of applying hot irons or cauteries. They have some smattering of astronomy; but in this likewise the Indians surpass the Chinese. I know not that even so much as one man of either nation has embraced Mahomedism, or has learned to speak the Arabic language. The Indians have few horses, and there ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... History, Chemistry, Astronomy, Chronology, Hydrostatics, Meteorology, Logic, Pneumatics, Geology, Ontology, Electricity, Mineralogy, Mathematics, Galvanism, Physiology, Mechanics, Literature, Anatomy, Magnetism, Music, Zoology, Navigation, ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More

... variety of metaphysical arguments, as well as in the art of deduction—lord Bolingbroke's talents as a metaphysician have been questioned since his posthumous works appeared—great progress was made in mathematics and astronomy, by Wallis, Halley, and Flamstead—the art of medicine owed some valuable improvements to the classical Dr. Friend, and the elegant Dr. Mead. Among the poets of this era, we number John Philips, author of a didactic ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... had rested all winter so that he might enjoy farm life the more. He subjected the collegians to a rigid examination in Latin, quizzed them in physics and promised the whole company a course of lectures on astronomy. ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... lord, the comic butt of a king; in more recent times as the prize of a circus side-show. The huge, weighty head with its ugly brooding mask of a face, the child's body below—this was for the brain of Professor Erich Geinst, the solitary German who had stood preeminent on Earth in astronomy. ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... are eccentric and intervolved, yet are most regular when they seem most lawless. They were therefore compared by the earliest astronomers to the discords which blend in a harmony, and to the wild starts which often heighten the graces of a dance. Modern astronomy has revealed to us so much miraculous symmetry in celestial phenomena, that it shows us far more decisive proofs of a Ruler seated on the circles of the heavens, than were vouchsafed to the ancients. Moreover, many discover ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden

... whom it is difficult to say to strangers what is true, without being accused of exaggeration. A shopkeeper in that remote little town, he not only intermeddled fearlessly with all knowledge, but mastered more than many practised and University men do in their own lines. Mathematics, astronomy, and especially what may be called selenology, or the doctrine of the moon, and the higher geometry and physics; Hebrew, Sanscrit, Greek, and Latin, to the veriest rigors of prosody and metre; Spanish and ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... could not be supposed that the girl experienced just then any eager desire after religious knowledge; she had just reported Miss Starbrow's scoffing words with such a curious simplicity, as if she looked on religion merely as a branch of learning, like mineralogy or astronomy, which was scarcely necessary to her, and might therefore very well be dispensed with. No, it was purely a matter of personal preference; and Mrs. Churton, albeit loving and thinking well of herself, as most people do, could not help finding it a little strange: for her daughter, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... Liberalium Litterarum,' contains so much as the author thought that every monk should be acquainted with concerning the four liberal arts—Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Mathematics—the last of which is divided into the four 'disciplines' of Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. As illustrating the relative importance of these sciences (as we call them) as apprehended by Cassiodorus, it is curious to observe that while Geometry and Astronomy occupy only about one page, and Arithmetic and Music ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... simple granules of a blastema, or formative fluid. The evidence points rather towards the axiom, Omnis cellula a cellula; that is, the germ of a new cell is always derived from a preexisting cell. The doctrine of Schwann, as I remarked long ago (1844), runs parallel with the nebular theory in astronomy, and they may yet stand or ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... church believed and taught that every word in the Bible was absolutely true. Since his day it has been proven false in its cosmogony, false in its astronomy, false in its chronology and geology, false in its history, so far as the Old Testament is concerned, false in almost everything. There are but few, if any, scientific men, who apprehend that the ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... be considered as a last word of scientific explanation of psychical facts? Can psychology really in this way reach an ideal similar to that of scientific astronomy or chemistry? Would the scientist of nature ever be satisfied with this kind of explanation, which is nothing but generalization of certain sequences? Does not the explanation of the naturalist contain an entirely ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... improved Short-horn, or improved Pouter-pigeon, should be produced by accumulative variation without man's selection is as almost infinity to nothing; so with natural species without natural selection. How capitally in the 'Atlantic' you show that Geology and Astronomy are, according to Bowen, Metaphysics; but he leaves out ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... had Galileo to win renown in physics or astronomy, when his parents compelled him to go to a medical school? Yet while Venice slept, he stood in the tower of St. Mark's Cathedral and discovered the satellites of Jupiter and the phases of Venus, through ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... illimitable. Hence it is that from time to time we are startled and perplexed by theories which have no parallel in the contracted moral world; for the generalizations of science sweep on in ever-widening circles, and more aspiring flights, through a limitless creation. While astronomy, with its telescope, ranges beyond the known stars, and physiology, with its microscope, is subdividing infinite minutiae, we may expect that our historic centuries may be treated as inadequate counters in the history of the planet on which we are placed. We must expect new conceptions of the ...
— The Darwinian Hypothesis • Thomas H. Huxley

... inventions. When the temper of the times permitted, these men, with various others of like tastes, drew together, held weekly meetings at Gresham College in Bishopsgate Street, discoursed on abstruse subjects, and heard erudite lectures, from Dr. Petty on chemistry, from Dr. Wren on astronomy, from Mr. Laurence Rooke on geometry; so that the Society of Antiquaries may be said to have been founded in the last years ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... sat still and worked out the doctrine of chances, the most 'dreamy moonshine,' as the purely practical mind would consider, of all human pursuits; if 'idle star-gazers' had not watched long and carefully the motions of the heavenly bodies—our modern astronomy would have been impossible, and without our astronomy 'our ships, our colonies, our seamen,' all which makes modern life modern life could not have existed. Ages of sedentary, quiet, thinking people were required before that noisy ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot

... as every man is apprised of the Divine Presence within his own mind,—is apprised that the perfect law of duty corresponds with the laws of chemistry, of vegetation, of astronomy, as face to face in a glass; that the basis of duty, the order of society, the power of character, the wealth of culture, the perfection of taste, all draw their essence from this moral sentiment; then we have a religion that exalts, that commands all the social ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... thousands of pulpits do an active business on both the wholesale and retail plan, with science and philosophy as stock in trade. Famishing congregations are proffered the bugs of biology, the rocks of geology, and the stars of astronomy until their souls revolt, and they ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees

... astronomy or astrology, or more likely to both these subjects. It has not been far opened; but will probably prove of the utmost interest, if, as it is expected, it contains any account of the system of the heavens as known to or acknowledged by the Egyptians and Chaldeans, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various

... and sheaf-like top of the wool-grass; it brings back the summer to our winter memories, and is among the forms which art loves to copy, and which, in the vegetable kingdom, have the same relation to types already in the mind of man that astronomy has. It is an antique style, older than Greek or Egyptian. Many of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with the gentleness of a lover ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... together by the link of genius and kindred political views; and Carlyle was himself an expert in mathematics, the mental science that most obviously subserves physical research: but of Physics themselves (astronomy being scarcely a physical science) his ignorance was profound, and his abusive criticisms of such men as Darwin are infantile. This intellectual defect, or rather vacuum, left him free to denounce material views of life with unconditioned vehemence. ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... adjoining parish of Bag Enderby). The most distinguished literary member of the family was Sir Henry Savile, a learned mathematician, Fellow and Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and Provost of Eton; a munificent patron of learning, founding Professorships of Astronomy and Geography at his University; he wrote a Treatise on Roman Warfare, but his great work was a translation of the writings of St. Chrysostom, a monument of industry and learning; he was knighted by James I., and his bust is carved in stone in the quadrangle of the Bodleian Library ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... the poles were alternately dark and light; the intervening spaces of the planet's superficies, between edge and edge, being intensely bright. The belts themselves were occasionally broken by spots, which the records of astronomy describe as varying both in form ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... arose from alchemy, astronomy from astrology, so hypnotism had its origin in mesmerism. Phenomena such as Mesmer described had undoubtedly been observed from early times, but to his work, which extended from 1756 to his death, in 1815, we owe the scientific interest ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... endow us with cautiousness in proclaiming impossibilities of the future. The study of psychic science has imposed no greater strain on my reason than the attempt to explain the mysteries of biology and astronomy. Observation and classification do not necessarily imply elucidation. The miracle of the foetus taking human shape and soul, or of the oak rising out of the acorn and the brown earth is to me as baffling as the materialization ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... (*"Astronomy instructs us that, in the original condition of the solar system, the sun was the nucleus of a nebulosity or luminous mass which revolved on its axis, and extended far beyond the orbits of all the planets,—the planets as yet having no existence. ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... listen to him for hours without wearying. Emperors usually enjoy the privilege of finding a ready audience, but even had the Emperor William been an ordinary citizen he would always have spoken to a crowded house. He could discourse on art, science, politics, music, religion, and astronomy in a most animated manner. What he said was not always quite correct; indeed, he often lost himself in very questionable conclusions; but the fault of boring others, the greatest of social faults, ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... hedgerows for him. Never feeling that I could have too much of his company, I frequently made him my companion in long country walks, during which he incessantly asked for information. For the science of astronomy he evinced an early taste. When a very little boy, I began to teach him the names and positions of the principal constellations, the revolutions of the earth on its axis, and the fixity of the polar star. I believe we were the first to notice a comet in 1845, which was only a ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills

... meeting, and drifted into a lover's mood of planning. Out of his wealth what a home he would provide for her, and how he would gratify her gentle whims! Even her astronomical fancy, Vassar-born, should become his own, and there should be an observatory to the house. He had a weakness for astronomy himself, and was glad his wife-to-be had the same taste intensified. They would study the heavens together from a heaven of their own. What was wealth good for anyhow, save to ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... be remembered that this cry of illicit knowledge, backed by more or less appropriate texts, has been used against every advance of human knowledge. It was used against the new astronomy, and Galileo had actually to recant. It was used against Galvani and electricity. It was used against Darwin, who would certainly have been burned had he lived a few centuries before. It was even used against Simpson's use of chloroform in child-birth, on the ground that the ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the senses in theology, on the same principle that it does in astronomy. Popular theology makes God tributary to man, coming at human call; whereas the reverse is true in Science. Men must approach God reverently, doing their own work in obedience to divine law, if they would fulfil ...
— Unity of Good • Mary Baker Eddy

... of the planets, perplexed and intricate as they must have appeared in the infancy of astronomy, are now calculated and known ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... many, does not reside in the wonders revealed to us by the science, but in the lore and legends connected with its history, the strange fancies with which in old times it has been associated, the half-forgotten myths to which it has given birth. In our own times also, Astronomy has had its myths and fancies, its wild inventions, and startling paradoxes. My object in the present series of papers has been to collect together the most interesting of these old and new Astronomical myths, associating with them, in due proportion, some of the chief marvels which recent Astronomy ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... all the terms of learning and art, from the alphabet to the highest peaks of metaphysics and theology, come directly from the Greek— philosophy, logic, anthropology, psychology, aesthetics, grammar, rhetoric, history, philology, mathematics, arithmetic, astronomy, anatomy, geography, stenography, physiology, architecture, and hundreds more in similar domains; the subdivisions and ramifications of theology as exegesis, hermeneutics, apologetics, polemics, dogmatics, ethics, homiletics, etc., are ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... criticism, comparison and research. At the opening of that education of modern by ancient thought which we call the Renaissance, it was the words of Aristotle which sent Columbus sailing to the New World, while a fragment of Pythagorean astronomy set Copernicus thinking on that train of reasoning which has revolutionised the whole position of our planet in the universe. Then it was seen that the only meaning of progress is a return to Greek modes of thought. The monkish ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... demonstrate the way you want me to. I don't want to lose my chance." So the professor just smiled awful friendly on George and says "all right." And George got up and recited perfect, according to the book and got 100. I never saw such a boy as George Heigold; for once the professor got up an astronomy class—the whole school mostly was in it—and he was teachin' us general things about the stars and what they was made of. So one day the professor called out quick as a test of what he had told us before: "What element is found on the planet Mars that is not found anywhere ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters

... always thought that explained it: the romance is a reaction from the algebra. I never knew a person connected with mathematics or astronomy or statistics, or any of those exact things, who didn't have a crazy streak in 'em SOMEwhere. They've got to blow off steam and be foolish to make up for putting in so much of their time at hard sense. But don't you think that I dislike Ann Apperthwaite. ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington

... of the Mental powers; to revise my Treatise on Logick; to begin the Epick which I have long projected; to proceed in my perusal of the Scriptures with Grotius's Comment; and at my leisure to regale myself with the works of classicks, ancient and modern, and to finish my Ode to Astronomy. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... a fixed principle with the girl that she was very ignorant, and she insisted that the sailor should teach her. For instance, among the books he found a treatise on astronomy; it yielded a keen delight to both to identify a constellation and learn all sorts of wonderful things concerning it. But to work even the simplest problem required a knowledge of algebra, and Iris had ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... objects with which philology, history, economics, politics, jurisprudence, theology deal are the products of the processes with which psychology deals, and philology, history, theology, etc., are thus related to psychology, as astronomy, geology, zooelogy are related to physics. There is thus nowhere a depreciation of psychology, and yet it is not in its right place. Such a position for psychology at the head of all 'Geisteswissenschaften' may ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various

... a DOCTOR OF PHYSIC; In all this worlde was there none him like To speak of physic, and of surgery: For he was grounded in astronomy. He kept his patient a full great deal In houres by his magic natural. Well could he fortune* the ascendent *make fortunate Of his images for his patient,. He knew the cause of every malady, Were it of cold, or hot, or moist, or dry, And where engender'd, and of what humour. He was a very perfect ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... soon as I was called, and she came to the fig-tree, where she very well knew I was. "What are you doing there?" she asked. "Watching a star." "You were not watching a star," said my mother, who was listening on her balcony; "children of your age know nothing of astronomy." "Ah, madame," cried Mademoiselle Caroline, "he has opened the faucet of the reservoir; the garden is inundated!" Then there was a general excitement. The fact was that my sisters had amused themselves by turning the cock to see the water flow, but a sudden spurt wet them all ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... use of in the present Lecture, refers to that portion of natural science which lies midway between astronomy and chemistry. The former, indeed, is Physics applied to 'masses of enormous weight,' while the latter is Physics applied to atoms and molecules. The subjects of Physics proper are therefore those which lie nearest to human perception: light and heat, colour, sound, motion, the loadstone, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... of astronomy have now taught us the reason why, at a certain latitude, the sun, at the summer solstice, appears never to set: and at a lower latitude, the evening ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... interesting. This observatory has no tower and no telescope. It shows what can be done by sun-dials and structures almost level with the ground to mark the movements of the heavenly bodies, and thus demonstrates that primitive stargazers might even thus early acquire a very considerable knowledge of astronomy. The scientific and literary tastes of this Oriental monarch are also indicated by a noble public library of his own foundation, which contains a priceless collection of books and manuscripts in all ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong

... seeks knowledge. I have no knowledge of that Ancient and Supreme one. How shall I rescue myself from a false display of inclinations towards Him?[650] The Riks, all the Samanas, all the Yajuses, the Chhandas, Astronomy, Nirukta, Grammar, Sankalpa, and Siksha, I have studied. But I have no knowledge of the nature of the great creatures (the five primal elements) that enter into the composition of everything.[651] Tell me all I have asked thee, by using only ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... Chemistry and Human Physiology and Sound, Light and Heat, I did well. There was also a lighter, more discursive subject called Physiography, in which one ranged among the sciences and encountered Geology as a process of evolution from Eozoon to Eastry House, and Astronomy as a record of celestial movements of the most austere and invariable integrity. I learnt out of badly-written, condensed little text-books, and with the minimum of experiment, but still I learnt. Only thirty years ago ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... Yet, I fear, I may not take the authority of Pits, who is a wretched liar; nor is it at all credible that in so blind an age a Prince, who, with all his love of learning, I fear, had very little of either learning or parts, should write on Astronomy;—had it been on Astrology, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... unlikely to find it in conversation, the Prophet was greatly impressed by the astronomer's enormous brick-red face, round body, turned legs, eyes like marbles, and capacity for drinking port-wine—so much so, in fact that, on leaving the club, he hastened to buy a science primer on astronomy, and devoted himself for several days to a minute investigation of ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens

... knowledge taught in the ordinary schools was that represented by the division of the Seven Arts into the elementary Trivium of Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic, followed by the Quadrivium of Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy. The scope of the Trivium was much wider than the terms denote. Thus Grammar included the study of the classical Latin authors, which never entirely ceased; Rhetoric comprised the practice of composition in prose and verse, ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley

... evolution to-day, in the minds of all competent students, is quite as firmly established as is the law of gravity or the Copernican theory in astronomy. But, when it was first propounded in its modern form by Herbert Spencer, when he issued his first book, and when Darwin's "Origin of Species" was published, there was an outcry, especially throughout the religious world. There was a great ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage

... scattered—how, we know not—through infinity. What has become of that brazen seat of the old gods, that paradise to which an ascending Deity might be caught up through clouds, and hidden for a moment from the eyes of his disciples? The demonstration of the simplest truths of astronomy destroyed at a blow the legends that were most significant to the early Christians by annihilating their symbolism. Well might the Church persecute Galileo for his proof of the world's mobility. Instinctively she ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... and vigorous thinkers of the present day[2] has justly observed: "If you take the rhyme of Mary and her little lamb, and call Mary the sun and the lamb the moon, you will achieve astonishing results, both in religion and astronomy, when you find that the lamb followed Mary ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... earth and air and sun and stars, and of society and solitude, no preparation had been made, or dreamt of. The sentiment of nature had never been encouraged in him, or even mentioned. He knew not how to look at a landscape nor at a sky. Of plants and trees he was as exquisitely ignorant as of astronomy. It had not occurred to him to wonder why the days are longer in summer, and he vaguely supposed that the cold of winter was due to an increased distance of the earth from the sun. Still, he had learnt that Saturn had a ring, and sometimes he unconsciously looked for it in the firmament, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... soundings in the Saint Lawrence opposite Quebec. While thus occupied he had a narrow escape of being captured by the French. After this he had many opportunities of displaying his talents, while he applied himself diligently to the study of astronomy and other branches of nautical science. While serving on board the Northumberland, he was engaged in the capture of Newfoundland, and was afterwards employed, at different periods, in surveying its coast. At the end of 1762, returning to ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... says of history is true also of astronomy: it is the most impressive where it transcends explanation. It is not the mathematics of astronomy, but the wonder and the mystery that seize upon the imagination. The calculation of an eclipse owes all its prestige to the sublimity of its data; ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss

... most beautiful pieces of workmanship of our age; its mechanism is entirely new and in accordance with the present state of the science of astronomy, which as is well known, has attained a very high degree of certainty and exactness. Mr. Schwilgue has not made use of any of the pieces of the old clock, which are deposited in the chapel of the [OE]uvre-Notre-Dame; by comparing them with the pieces composing the new clock, ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous

... need not hope to find the business of toy-making, or the science of child-education in a very advanced state in China—the most Asiatic country of Asia. Child's play and toy-making have been organized into a business and a science in Europe, as astronomy, which had been studied so long in Asia, was developed into a science by the Greeks. And so we find that what is taught in the kindergarten of the West is learned in the streets of the East; and the toys which are manufactured in great Occidental business establishments, are made by poor ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland

... secrets exactly as it fell from the hands of the Greeks a thousand years before. The foundations of mathematics were so well laid by them that our children learn their geometry from a book written for the schools of Alexandria two thousand years ago. Modern astronomy is the natural continuation and development of the work of Hipparchus and of Ptolemy; modern physics of that of Democritus and of Archimedes; it was long before modern biological science outgrew the knowledge bequeathed to us ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... growth of knowledge, chiefly under the form of that part of knowledge called science, so changes the views of the universe that many of its long-unchallenged legends become no more than nursery tales. The text-books of astronomy and geology work their way in between the questions and answers of the time-honored catechisms. The doctrine of evolution, so far as it is accepted, changes the whole relations of man to the creative power. It substitutes ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... predictions, procured him much reputation all over England. He was a very honest man," continues the same authority; "abhorred any deceit in the art he studied; had a curious fancy in judging of thefts; and was successful in resolving love-questions. He was no mean proficient in astronomy; understood much in physic! was a great admirer of the antimonial cup; and not unlearned in chemistry, which he loved well, but did not practise." At the period of this history, he was clerk to Sir ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... do her very little good if it was too dark to see it, and still more as she had not the slightest idea whether her road lay north, south, east, or west. "If the stars were out!" was her next idea; but then, I am ashamed to say, Olive's ideas of astronomy were limited. She could have perhaps recognised the Plough and the Pole star, but she could not remember which way they pointed. Besides, she did not feel quite sure that in Thueringen one would see the same stars as in England or Paris; and, after all, as ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... only remember that he examined my Liddell and Scott to see whether those modern lexicographers had done their work in a way to merit his approval, and that he thought their book might be useful to me. He had some knowledge of astronomy, and was building a reflecting telescope which he never completed; but I remember that he was often occupied in polishing the reflectors whilst I was reading, and that his hand went on rubbing with a bit of soft leather, and a red powder, when ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... lines of art, from the fine arts of painting and sculpture to the practical and useful work of design in its multifold forms, women's advance is almost phenomenal. In the sciences of astronomy, medicine, physics, and psychology she has been far from inactive during the last half decade. In teaching, in all its branches from kindergarten and primary work through all the grades of intrauniversity training to specialization ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... me in a difficulty," said the stranger. "I confess I have no great notion of the use of books, except to amuse a railway journey; although, I believe, there are some very exact treatises on astronomy, the use of the globes, agriculture, and the art of making paper-flowers. Upon the less apparent provinces of life I fear you will find nothing truthful. Yet stay," he added, "have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... history, first, the feeble germinations of a papal dogma; next, its waxing growth; and at last, after the lapse of centuries, its full development and maturity. It is easy to conceive how a mere human science should advance only by slow and gradual stages,—astronomy, for instance, or geology, or even the more practical science of mechanics. Their authors have no infallible gift of discerning truth from error. They must observe nature; they must compare facts; they must deduce conclusions; they must correct previous errors; and this is both a slow and ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... another. Men really ought to leave off talking a kind of nonsense on this subject, which they would neither talk nor listen to on other matters of practical concernment. Nobody argues that the art of navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the Nautical Almanack. Being rational creatures, they go to sea with it ready calculated; and all rational creatures go out upon the sea of life with their minds made up on the common questions of right and wrong, as well as on many of the far more ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill

... English literature is associated with the summer-house and the grape arbor, with flecks of shade and glints of light, and a sense of unmistakable privilege. There was physiology, which was scarcely work, and astronomy, which I found so exhilarating that I fell ill over it. Alas, truth compels me to add that Mathematics, with a big M and stretching on through the books of Euclid, darkened my young horizon with dull despair; and that chemistry—but the facts are ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various

... "Astronomy is not my province, and I know little of it, but still I will tell you in a few words. The vault up there represents the sky, the board lying on the table, the earth. Now the wise speak thus: In the beginning Earth (Sibu) and Heaven (Nuit) lay near each ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... while he and his wife often read philosophy together.[136] Fithian speaks of him as a good scholar, even in classical learning, and a remarkable one in English grammar. Frequently the gentlemen of this period spent much time in the study of such matters as astronomy, the ancient languages, ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... can, my lord! That is what his father was, the last Earl, and that is what he is who left my door but now. He came to snatch old Soolsby's palace, his nest on the hill, to use it for a telescope, or such whimsies. He has scientific tricks like his father before him. Now is it astronomy, and now chemistry, and suchlike; and always it is the Eglington mind, which let God A'mighty make it as a favour. He would have old Soolsby's palace for his spy-glass, would he then? It scared him, as though I was the devil himself, to find me here. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... understand something he is conscious of a discord, and seeks for the cause of it not in himself, as he should, but outside himself—hence the war with what he does not understand. In the middle ages alchemy was gradually in a natural, peaceful way changing into chemistry, and astrology into astronomy; the monks did not understand, saw a conflict and fought against it. Just such a belligerent Spanish monk was our Pisarev ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... the University of Paris," says Brande, "the seven liberal arts (grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music) seem to have been the subjects of academic instruction. These constituted what was afterwards designated the Faculty of Arts. Three other faculties—those of divinity, law, and medicine—were subsequently added. In ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... as to the points of the compass. He knew pretty well what hour it was, so that the sun showed him the general bearings of the country, and he knew that when night came he could correct his course by the pole star. Dick's knowledge of astronomy was limited; he knew only one star by name, but that one was an inestimable treasure of knowledge. His perplexity was owing to his uncertainty as to the direction in which his companions and their pursuers had gone, for he had ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... must go with it: for, even on the soberest view, it demands an indefinitely long time antecedent to the introduction of organic life upon our earth. A fortiori is physical astronomy a branch of metaphysics, demanding, as it does, still larger "instalments of infinity," as the reviewer calls them, both as to time and number. Moreover, far the greater part of physical inquiries now relate to molecular actions, which, a distinguished natural philosopher informs us, "we have ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... 1828, the American public was told by Philip Trajetta,[A] that 'if counterpoint be not a science, neither is astronomy.' For want of proper expounders, this truth has made but little impression, and, while the Art of Music has advanced considerably among us, the Science has remained nearly stationary. In Europe, erudition, research, and collections of rules have not been wanting. Much has been accomplished, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various



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