Since the preceding paragraph was written, my attention has been attracted to the words of another observer more experienced than M. Cornu, who has not only expressed the same opinion which I entertain respecting M. Cornu’s ill-advised remark, but has illustrated in a very practical way, and in this very case, how science gains from commentary and theory upon observed facts. Herr Vögel considers “that the fear that an hypothesis” (he, also, means a theory here) “might do harm to science is only justifiable in very rare cases: in most cases it will further science. In the first place, it draws the attention of the observer to things which but for the hypothesis might have been neglected. Of course if the observer is so strongly influenced that in favour of an hypothesis he sees things which do not exist—and this may happen sometimes—science may for a while be arrested in its progress, but in that case the observer is far more to blame than the author of the hypothesis. On the other hand, it is very possible that an observer may, involuntarily, arrest the progress of science, even without originating an hypothesis, by pronouncing and publishing sentences which have a tendency to diminish the general interest in a question, and which do not place its high significance in the proper light.” (This is very neatly put.) He is “almost inclined to think that such an effect might follow from the reading of M. Cornu’s remark, and that nowhere better than in the present case, where in short periods colossal changes showed themselves occurring upon a heavenly body, might the necessary data be obtained for drawing useful conclusions, and tests be applied to those hypotheses which have been ventured with regard to the condition of heavenly bodies.” It was, as we shall presently see, in thus collecting data and applying tests, that Vögel practically illustrated the justice of his views.
The star which shone out in the Northern Crown in May, 1866, would seem to have grown to its full brightness very quickly. It is not necessary that I should here consider the history of the star’s discovery; but I think all who have examined that history agree in considering that whereas on the evening of May 12, 1866, a new star was shining in the Northern Crown with second-magnitude brightness, none had been visible in the same spot with brightness above that of a fifth-magnitude star twenty-four hours earlier. On ascertaining, however, the place of the new star, astronomers found that there had been recorded in Argelander’s charts and catalogue a star of between the ninth and tenth magnitude in this spot. The star declined very rapidly in brightness. On May 13th it appeared of the third magnitude; on May 16th it had sunk to the fourth magnitude; on the 17th to the fifth; on the 19th to the seventh; and by the end of the month it shone only as a telescopic star of the ninth magnitude. It is now certainly not above the tenth magnitude.