CONTRADICTIONS

ZETETIC COSMOGONY:
OR
Conclusive Evidence
THAT THE WORLD IS NOT A
ROTATING—REVOLVING—GLOBE,
BUT
A STATIONARY PLANE CIRCLE.
By Thomas Winship
1899

 start here

(Post 5/47)

CONTRADICTIONS.

The grave contradictions that exist among the recognised teachers of astronomical science, ought to cause a thinking man to pause before accepting a theory about which no two of its exponents may be found to agree.

Sir Isaac Newton, in his "Principia," resuscitated the fundamental proposition of Pythagoras thus—"The sun is the centre of the solar system and immovable." Since then Professor Herschel discovered that the sun was "not immovable."

In regard to the atmosphere of the planet Mars, the same contradiction is manifest. In the Christian Million (San Jose) of 9th August, 1894, we find that:

"Mr. Norman Lockyer has been telling an interviewer that Mars is like us in many respects. IT HAS AN ATMOSPHERE LIKE OURS."

The Standard of 18th August, 1894, says:

"Professor Campbell, of the Lick Observatory, announces that he has demonstrated that MARS presents NO EVIDENCE OF HAVING AN ATMOSPHERE."

Then Mr. J. Gillespie, in his "Triumph of Philosophy," page 89, comes to the rescue and says:     "As to the planets being inhabited, if we take refraction into account, we shall find that there is not such a thing as atmosphere near them; for instance, in an eclipse of the moon, especially at her apogee, the earth is brought to a mere point by refraction, caused by the air of the earth, and were the moon a little further away from this point, would be brought to nothingness; that is although the earth were exactly in a straight line between the sun and moon, the earth would not even show a spot on the moon's disc. . . . . . Now by this same rule, if either Mercury or Venus had any atmosphere, they could never be seen crossing the sun's disc. I think this is satisfactory proof that THEY HAVE NO ATMOSPHERE, and cannot, therefore, be inhabited."    

After all this delightful uncertainty, a writer in Knowledge of February, 1895, says:

"The interesting chapter on solar theories is well fitted to serve as a lesson in modesty, so diverse and conflicting are the various hypotheses, so difficult to harmonise, are the observed facts."

When we come to consider the atmosphere that concerns us most, the same contradictions are evident. Sir David Brewster, in his "More Worlds than One," tells us that the atmosphere of the earth extends for about 45 miles. In Science Siftings of 18th March, 1893, the following occurs:

"We may infer that a few hundred miles embrace all the gaseous envelope of the globe."     And in "Elementary Physiography," page 293, we are told that:

"The height of the atmosphere is not known with any certainty. There is probably no fixed limit to the atmosphere."

It is a fair inference from these contradictory statements that present day scientists (so-called) do not know anything about the height of the earth's atmosphere.

Many men of thought and learning have scouted the ideas imposed upon us by Sir Isaac Newton, of which the following is a sample:

"The repetition of a blunder is impertinent and ridiculous. To liberate oneself from an error is difficult, sometimes indeed impossible for even the strongest and most gifted minds. But to take up the error of another, and persist in it with stiff-necked obstinacy, is a proof of poor qualities. The obstinacy of a man of originality when he errs may make us angry, but the stupidity of the copyist irritates and renders us miserable. And if, in our strife with Newton, we have sometimes passed the bounds of moderation, the whole blame is to be laid upon the school of which Newton was the head, whose incompetence is proportional to its arrogance, whose laziness is proportional to its self-sufficiency, and whose virulence and love of persecution hold each other in perfect equilibrium." "Through the whole of Newton's experiments there runs a display of pedantic accuracy, but how the matter really stands, with Newton's gift of observation, and with his experimental aptitudes, every man possessing eyes and senses may make himself aware. It may be boldly asked, where can the man be found, possessing the extraordinary gifts of Newton, who would suffer himself to be deluded by such a hocus pocus if he had not in the first instance wilfully deceived himself? Only those who know the strength of self-deception, and the extent to which it sometimes trenches on dishonesty, are in a condition to explain the conduct of Newton and of Newton's school. To support his unnatural theory, Newton heaps fiction upon fiction, seeking to dazzle when he could not convince."—GOETHE. Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Vol. ix., part iii., p. 353-5.

Dr. W. Friend says:

"It has, over and over again, been the hope and expectation of intelligent and unprejudiced men that some less extravagant and more intelligible system would, sooner or later, be found as a substitute for the mathematical romance with which Newton has favoured the world. This name has been the sanction for a device, which, the more it is examined, excites the more astonishment at its adoption by men of research and observation."

Then, again, Kepler's laws, said to be so well established and so absolutely necessary to the truth of the Newtonian hypothesis, when weighed in the balance by competent judges, are contradicted and set aside by a stroke of the pen. Professor W. B. Carpenter, in the Modern Review for October, 1880, says:

"It was not until twelve years after the publication of his first two laws, that Kepler was able to announce the discovery of the third. This, again, was the outcome of a long series of GUESSES, and what was remarkable as to the error of the idea which suggested the second law to his mind, was still more remarkable as to the third; for not only, in his search for the 'harmony' of which he felt assured, did he proceed on the erroneous notion of a whirling force emanating from the Sun, which decreases with increase of distance, but he took as his guide ANOTHER ASSUMPTION no less erroneous, viz., that the masses of the Planets increase with their distances from the Sun. In order to make this last fit with the facts he was driven to ASSUME a relation of their respective densities, which we now know to be UTTERLY UNTRUE; for, as he himself says, 'Unless we ASSUME this proportion of the densities, the law of the periodic times will not answer.' Thus, says his biographer, 'three out of the four suppositions made by Kepler to explain the beautiful law he had detected are now INDISPUTABLY KNOWN TO BE FALSE, what he considered to be the proof of it being only A MODE OF FALSE REASONING by which any required result might be deduced from any given principles.'"

Newton's theory and Kepler's laws are the chief foundation stones of modern astronomy, and when these are shaken, the whole fabric reels and staggers like a drunken man; until, sooner or later it will find a grave in the oblivion that it so well merits.

The Daily Chronicle, of 8th April, 1891, says: "It may be a surprise to find that we are still imperfectly acquainted with the figure of the Earth." 

The Ceylon Independent, of 23rd December, 1893, has the following:

"This question seems to be still agitating the Austrian Government, and more than one Austrian man-of-war that has called here lately has had an officer on board whose special commission was to make observations for the purpose of ascertaining the attraction of the earth in order thereby to arrive at the exact shape of the globe. An officer thus employed is on the Austrian steamer Fasana, who, since the vessel's arrival, has spent a good deal of time at the National Bank, where a room was allotted him for the purpose of adjusting his instruments. An officer engaged on similar duty was on the Kaiserin Elizabeth the other day."

Von Gumpach, in his work "Figure of the Earth," tells us how the men of science made the world a globe:

"The earth of the Newtonian theory, is the mere creation of the fancy. Its shape has been determined, partly of imaginary and partly of positively erroneous elements; and results of subsequent experiments and measurements have, by means of purely mathematical factors and tentative formulas been adapted to its PRESUPPOSED FIGURE."

Mr. J. Gillespie, who believes that the earth is a globe suspended in space, with no revolution round the sun, says, in his "Triumph of Philosophy," p. 6:

"I can challenge any astronomer in Great Britain on any point in theoretical astronomy, and prove that the present theory is a regular burlesque, A HOAX and A SWINDLE. If it is a sin to tell a lie, what must be the doom of men who teach generation after generation one of the most glaring and degraded falsehoods ever laid before mankind."

Dr. Lardner, in his "Museum of Science," says:

"All the diurnal changes of appearances, presented by the firmament, the risings and settings of the sun, moon and stars, and their varying appearances in different latitudes, admit of being explained with equal precision and completeness, either by supposing the universe to revolve daily round the earth, or the earth to revolve daily on its axis."

Then as to the velocity of light (if light travels at all) the same glorious mixture and uncertainty again present themselves. Guillemin ("The Heavens") conjectures that light travels at the rate of 192,000 miles a second. M. Leon Foucault guesses 184,000 miles; Sir R. Ball 180,000 miles; the Editor of Science Siftings assumes (first time) 186,000 miles, second time 196,000 miles. This is all contradicted by a writer in the English Mechanic, of 27th July, 1894, who says:

"I BELIEVE NO ONE NOW HOLDS THE VIEW THAT LIGHT ACTUALLY MOVES."

Most people think that there is only one school of Astronomy in vogue, whereas there are are at least four, all at loggerheads with each other, (1) The Ptolemaists, represented by J, Gillespie, of Dumfries, who suppose the "earth" globe a centre for the revolution of the sun, moon, and stars; (2) The Koreshans of America, who suppose the "earth" a hollow globe for us to live inside; (3) The Newtonian Copernicans, who suppose the sun a centre, keeping the planets whirling in orbits by gravity; and (4) the Cartesian Copernicans, who suppose the planets to whirl round the sun, without the necessity of gravity, Sir R. Phillips heading up this school.

Astronomy will sometimes summon Geology to its aid, when difficult problems are awaiting solution, but astronomers generally claim that when the two sciences disagree, astronomy is the safest ASSUMPTION. S. Laing, however, in his "Modern Science and Modern Thought" claims superiority for Geology. On pages 48 and 49, he says:

"The conclusions of Geology, at any rate up to the Silurian period . . . . . . are approximate facts and NOT THEORIES, while the astronomical conclusions are THEORIES, based on data so uncertain, that while in some cases they give results incredibly long, like that of 15,000,000 years for the whole past process of the formation of the solar system, in others they give results almost incredibly short, as in that which supposes the Moon to have been thrown off when the earth was rotating in three hours. . . . . . . . the safest course, in the present state of our knowledge seems to be to ASSUME THAT GEOLOGY REALLY PROVES the duration of the present order of things to have been somewhere over 100,000,000 years."

Thus one fable (falsely called science) exposes another fable of about the same value. "The safest course in the present state" of the utter ignorance of "science" as to the matters here in dispute, is certainly to reject both these delusions, and seek the truth for ourselves.

Geological blunders have been many and frequent, but they are seldom allowed to reach the eyes or ears of those who are duped into believing all this imposing "science" teaches. The Daily Chronicle of 14th January, 1893, speaks pretty plain, and proves the truth of the above remarks. The paper says:

"A GEOLOGICAL BLUNDER."

"There is in Nature an article by a French writer on Sir Archibald Geikie, Director-General of the Geological Survey, which is just now causing a good deal of talk amongst English men of science. Of course, nobody is surprised at the fulsomeness of M. de Lapparent's eulogy. As Nature seems to exist for pushing the great official scientific syndicate of Huxley, Hooker, Geikie and Co., Limited—very strictly limited—which may be said to 'run' science in England, M. de Lapparent would probably not have been permitted to write anything about a member of it unless it was fulsome. What has really amazed people is the audacity with which a famous historic bungle on the part of the Geological Survey is glossed over, and the Director-General not only credited with the work of those who exposed and corrected it, to his utter discomforture, but actually covered with laurels for thus winning one of the most glorious scientific conquests of the century. The whole thing is delightfully characteristic of State-endowed science in England. If you are one of the official syndicate who 'run' it, you may blunder with impunity and make your country ridiculous at the taxpayers' expense. Scientific men who can correct you shrink from the task. They know that the syndicate can boycott them, and by intrigue keep them out of every honour and profit, and that the syndicate's satellites can write and shout down everywhere independent non-official critics. They also know that if, perchance, some particular intrepid person does succeed in exposing one of this syndicate, they can always, by the same means—after the public has forgotten the incident— suppress him, and boldly appropriate to themselves the credit of his work."

"The geological secret of the Highlands, with the unlocking of which Sir Archibald Geikie is now credited, was really made a puzzle for more than half a century by the blundering of the Geographical Survey and Director-General Sir Roderick Murchison—and famous courtier and 'society' geologist of the last generation. In the Highlands he saw gneisses and ordinary crystalline schists resting on Silurian strata, and he foolishly held the sequence to be quite normal. The schists, he would have it, were not archaic formations, but only metamorphosed Silurian deposits. He also held that primitive gneiss was not part of the molten crust of the globe, but only sediments of sand and mud altered by intense pressure and heat. Murchison, not to put too fine a point on it, 'bounced' everybody into accepting this absurd theory, and the whole forces of the Geological Survey, with its official and social influence, together with the unscrupulous power of the official syndicate which then, as now jobbed science wherever it had a State endowment, were spent in perpetuating the blunder and blasting the scientific reputation of whoever scoffed at it. But in the Natural History School of Aberdeen University it was scoffed at. The late Dr. Nicol, Professor of Natural History in Aberdeen, proved that Murchison and the Survey were wholly wrong, his proof being as complete as the existing state of science allowed. When he died, Dr. Alleyne Nicholson took the same side, and for years, in relation to this grand problem, it was Aberdeen University against the world. . . . . . In shouting the last word no voice has been louder than Sir Archibald Geikie's. It is therefore diverting to find his official biographer stating in Nature that all the time he was wrestling in foro conseientiae with doubts as to the soundness of the official position, and that finally 'his love of truth' prompted him to order a re-survey of the whole Highland region. In plain English, the taxpayer, having had to pay for Murchison's bungling survey, was, because of his successor's "love of truth," to enjoy the luxury of paying over again to correct it.''

''The real truth, however, is this:—When it was supposed that the Aberdonians were finally crushed, there arose in England a young geologist called Lapworth, who had the courage to revise the whole controversy and take sides with the Aberdeen school. As he developed an extraordinary genius for stratigraphy he not only broke to pieces the official work of the Geological Survey in the Highlands, but by revealing the true secret of the structure of that perplexing region, he played havoc with the Murchisons and the Geikies and all their satellites, convicting them of bungling and covering them with ridicule. . . .''

"Nature, in fact, in these parts had suffered from a much more powerful emetic than Murchison imagined, and when bits of the primitive crust of the GLOBE were thrown up and pushed on the top of more recent deposits, Murchison jumped to the conclusion that they were of later date than what they lay on. It was a terrible blunder, as the Aberdeen men persistently held, and we do not wonder that Sir Archibald Geikie, who rose to place and power by defending it, is anxious to have his connection with it veiled by a friendly hand. But it is rather outrageous for the friendly hand to give him the credit of conceding the very error which he defended to the last gasp, and deprive Professor Lapworth of the honour of having banished it from science. One of the most diverting things, however, in the Article in Nature is that Sir Archibald Geikie is belauded because, when frightened by the stir Professor Lapworth's paper made in 1883, he was fain to send his surveyors to go over the Highlands again—he, as their official chief, ordered them 'to divest themselves of any prepossession in favour of published views, and to map out the actual facts.' Old Colin Campbell, when he objected to the institution of the Victoria Cross, said it was as absurd to decorate a soldier for being brave as a woman for being virtuous. He did not foresee a still greater absurdity—that of eulogising a man of science because he instructed his assistants to tell the truth when conducting an investigation into his own blunders." (Italics ours).—From the Daily Chronicle, Saturday, Jan. 14th, 1893.

And in a further issue the same paper says:

"Sir Archibald Geikie, Director-General of the Geological Survey, has at last taken notice—in Nature, we need hardly say—of our article condemning the attempt to give the Survey all the credit of some of the most remarkable discoveries of the age which have really been made by men unaided by the State, and toiling for daily bread as teachers of science. We had heard something that caused us to expose this scandal. The fact is the official ring of State-endowed science, not content with jobbing the Royal Society and its distinctions, as their critics have been showing in the Times, are meditating a raid on the taxpayer. They want more money, and as a preliminary step their official organ Nature of course begins to 'boom' their work and reputations. This is a good old game. The only novelty in the situation is that a daily newspaper, for the first time in history, ventured to show it up. We do not desire to be harsh to the illustrious scientists who edit Nature. It is the duty of all official organs to make big men out of small material. But when they begin to do this by coolly confiscating the achievements of private and independent workers for one of the managing partners of the great firm of Huxley, Geikie, Dyer & Co., Limited, we thought it time to protest. . . . . The letters that have been appearing in the Times make some funny revelations about the way the Royal Society is 'worked.' Sir Archibald Geikie's defence suggests that if the Times only followed up the game it scented it would show its readers plenty of sport. We ourselves would make no objection to a vote of money in aid of researches into the 'frank' and 'practical' manner in which, and the terms on which, the official gang of science frequently 'acknowledge' the achievements of young outsiders."—Daily Chronicle, Feb. 2, 1893.

Modern Astronomy has been set down as "the most exact of all the sciences," and geology said to be little less than infallible. The reader may form his own conclusions from the above extracts.