CHAPTER I.
EARLY YEARS.
"Universal history—the history of what man has accomplished in this world," says Carlyle, "is at bottom the history of the great men who have worked here." It must be admitted that Carlyle under-estimated the labours of the innumerable lesser workers in all departments of human activity, that he overlooked the part played by mighty world-movements in the realm both of thought and of action and the influence, even on great men, of what has been called the "time-spirit". Still, Carlyle's dictum—slightly qualified—is fundamentally true. A great personality is a creative force; he gives more to his age and to posterity than he receives from his age or the ages before him.
The history of astronomical science has been dominated in a remarkable degree by great creative personalities pioneers of astronomical discovery. In the front rank of these distinguished men, posterity has placed the name of William Herschel.
The illustrious astronomer came of an old German family, and was descended from one of three brothers, who, on account of steadfast devotion to the principles of Protestantism, were driven out of Moravia in the early part of the seventeenth century and compelled to seek refuge in Saxony. Hans Herschel, one of these brothers, settled at Pirna in Saxony. His second son, Abraham, born in 1651, acquired some distinction as a landscape-gardener. He learned gardening in the
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