great as to remove the object through an angular space corresponding to the semi-diameter of the finest wire that could be made ; and a body which, by the tables, ought to appear by the transitinstrument in the middle of that wire would in no case be removed to its outer edge. "*

Now, in regard to this quotation, it is only necessary to remember that the difference of 5.6 seconds above noticed, when multiplied by 1900 years, comes to one hour, thirty-three minutes, and twenty seconds; and that this would cause those who used the respective tables of Messrs. Delambre and Leverrier to differ from each other in regard to the transit of any particular star by all that time-equal to 23 degrees 20 minutes of arc upon a great circle of the heavens-to be convinced how very little the "highest authority" could have been aware of what he was saying. Under these circumstances we can hardly be expected to join with the author last quoted, when he so confidently remarks that he "can assure the young student, that the evidence on which these statements are founded is perfectly satisfactory to those whose attainments in the sciences qualify them to understand them ".†

Such discreditable assumptions and statements are apt to give the impression that all modern astronomical constants are unreliable; but fortunately experiment proves that they must nevertheless be very accurate; otherwise, as we shall see, the Mahayuga would have to be set aside as worthless. But, as we find that which is now supposed to be "the most perfect of all the sciences " containing such incongruities, we may be justified for the purposes of this enquiry if we proceed to elect a tentative value for the odd seconds of the solar year, according to whatever elements we may deem most reliable—and in this we only follow the same rule as the management of The Nautical Almanac adopts, when whatever are thought to be the best elements are chosen from year to year. For, this matter becomes of the utmost consequence in the examination of the Mahayuga and the sun's mean motion therein, where, unless we are provided with some data as to the possible limits of error in our radical numbers, it will not be

* Mechanism of the Heavens, 181, ed., 1850, by Denison Olmsted,

† Ibid, 100.

Milner's Gallery of Nature, 1, article on Astronomy.

feasible to assign corresponding limits to the sun's place in the Zodiac when we are dealing with long periods of time. And it appears upon trial, that an error of only one second per year will, when multiplied by 4,000,000 odd, entail an uncertainty of some 49 degrees of the sun's calculated longitude, or about fifty days of his mean motion in the ecliptic.

The determination of the sun's mean motion (and therefore of the tropical year) is said to have been made by M. Delambre from some 2,000 observations; whilst that of Leverrier was based upon more than 3,000. The instrumental means may have been better in his case, and he is supposed to have made use of some later refinements than Delambre in discussing these observations, so that his values are held to be the more accurate-moreover, as we have above seen, the corrections up to 1900 are immaterial. If both calculators had been equal in other respects, the weight or value which might be allotted to the determinations of each would be directly as the number of observations, supposing both sets equally accurate; in which case Leverrier's value would be to Delambre's as 3 to 2; but, owing to the above considerations, we shall be safer in using the proportion of 5 to 2. In this case, therefore, twice Delambre plus five times Leverrier, the sum divided by 7, will give the average value of the odd seconds we are in search of as 47.63 nearly. We may for the present assume this to be sufficiently correct, for it is found to agree with the same quantity as determined by a comparison of the observations transmitted to us by Hipparchus, 2,000 years ago, with those of the modern astronomers; though the latter have rejected the ancient observations as inferior to their own, because the latter are much more accurate and numerous, which makes up for the comparatively short period over which they extend. And the determination at which we thus arrive serves to indicate that the progress made in 120 years of assiduous observing has not been nearly so great as may be pretended, nor the ancient observations so valueless, as may be seen from the fact that M. de la Lande, in 1780, gained the prize of the Copenhagen Royal Society for his Mémoire sur la veritable Longueur de l' Année Astronomique, in which the odd seconds are 48 † and thus differ from our

* Vince's System of Astronomy, iii, 2, ed., 1808, Tables of the Sun. † Ibid, i, 56, ed., 1814.

adopted value only 0. 37. And it may here be noted that the mean motion of the sun used by Leverrier and Hansen, though it may be adapted to the last hundred years, is on the whole too rapid, in consequence of their year being a little too short; for this is becoming annually more and more manifest by the corrections which are given for the moon's places as calculated from the Lunar Tables of Hansen. These latter are adapted to the too rapid motion of the sun used; and therefore the moon's mean motion is also too fast, since the corrections which Professor S. Newcomb gives in The Nautical Almanac show a constantly increasing quantity to be subtracted from the moon's places, as these are given from Hansen's elements, though the whole of the difference is not due to this cause.

In adverting to the values which may be quoted for the mean motions of the planets per century as they appear at the present time, and as they may be found according to the Mahāyuga, or any other period extending over millions of years, an examination of these as given by Leverrier some thirty years ago, and as adopted in The Nautical Almanac for 1900 from Newcomb and Hill, shows that there are still outstanding uncertainties amounting to five seconds of longitude in a hundred years; and yet it appears by comparison that the latter are to the former, as regards accuracy, only more so in about the proportion of 6 to 5, or but very little to be preferred. Under these circumstances we may adopt any of them as they appear best to meet the required case.

But there is another and much more far-reaching reason why we may expect to find that the centennial motions of the planets which suit the Mahayuga will differ slightly from present-day determinations, which may be thus illustrated. It is a well-known fact that the moon in her course about the earth is affected by the varying annual distance of the latter from the sun; which causes the orbit of the moon alternately to contract and dilate, and her mean motion to differ accordingly. It is also well-known that the slow change which in the course of many centuries goes on in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit causes another alteration in the movement of the moon, which expresses itself as an increase of a few seconds per century in her longitude, Now both the law of analogy and the results of experience indicate that just as the moon

revolves about the earth and the latter about the sun, so does the sun itself revolve about some enormously distant centre. By corres-pondence, his orbit about this centre will be elliptical; and consequently his distance from it will vary, as possibly the eccentricity also. And in such a case there will undoubtedly be similar corrections to be applied to the centennial mean motions of the planets, which we find in the annual and centennial motions of the moon; for all their orbits will similarly dilate and contract, as the sun may move nearer to or further from his primary.

Now as the sun's orbit must be vastly larger than any with which we are familiar, and its periodic time unimaginably long, so these corrections to the planetary motions must be insensible during the historic period; moreover in this time they would all be equal and have the same sign, and so could not be distinguished. But when we have a period such as the Mahāyuga, covering millions of years, and apparently coming to us from some remote antiquity which may be long anterior to traditionthen if such a period is found to be an almost exact multiple of the planetary years known to us, but on the whole is found to require a common difference by some minute quantity whether in excess or defect, it will be a fair presumption that such a quantity is of the nature of a secular equation of the mean longitudes, arising from the different position of the sun at some remote epoch in regard to the unknown centre about which it revolves. Or, seeing that we have no means of ascertaining by what means the Mahayuga was discovered, it may be that the results arrived at are what they would be if the sun had no motion in space.

S. STUART.

(To be continued.)

THE

"I AM THE WAY.”

SOME THOUGHTS UPON THE "ELIXIR OF LIFE."

HE hope of discovering some compound or process which would prolong life indefinitely or ensure uninterrupted memory has led many men of intellectual and occult attainments in all times and ages to devote themselves long and arduously to the problem. It would indeed be surprising if this were not so death having always been universally feared, and to retain their clutch upon existence, unsatisfactory and miserable though it be, the large majority would make almost any sacrifice. Lord Lytton makes one of his characters say, in answer to the question as to why, seeing her old age and wretchedness, she so earnestly prayed a potion to lengthen her days-that it was not that life was so sweet, but death was so bitter. Which suggests fairly well the general sentiment.

The fact that the most prominent characteristic of material things is Impermanence-that they are all subject to change and decay-has led the more subtle to abandon the idea that success could be attained with a lotion, potion or compound of material substances; albeit some researchers are said to have produced remarkable results-such as the renewal of the menses, etc., in the very aged-by the use of some highly volatile mixture of herbal origin. There are good reasons for thinking that the latter statement is not wholly to be discredited. Possibly the potion was saturated, by reason of the sympathetic relationship of the plants to stellar or astral influences, with vivifying etheric energy; though more probably with the quickening magnetism of the physician himself. But that the indefinite prolongation of existence without any lapse of memory, if possible to the higher types of humanity in its present condition at all, must be the result of a process spread over a very long period of years-and then with certain favorable characteristics and circumstances to begin with-is, of course, a settled thing amongst occultists.

It is of course obvious that this question of endless life involves that of the purpose of existence and its goal. For clearly, unless the former be accomplished there is little likelihood of attaining to the latter-and of thus escaping the final extinction which awaits all created things. Thus, in dealing with this great subject we must