131

1908 Nov 30
Logic
I.i. 12

few years hence be much improved for taking up other
problems. Thus, an astronomer may possess a heliometer,-
an instrument that few astronomer's possess,-and along with
that he may possess high skill in using it,-which is a still rarer
possession; an since today there is no other way of ascertaining
the distances of single fixed stars at all comparable to measuring
their annual parallax with a heliometer, he may be devoted, to
that special branch of astronomy which may be call measures
parallaxes; Be for the knowledge of them is will be indispensible
to solving the problem of the constitution of heavens, when his great grandchildren
or their contemporaries find themselves in a condition to ascertain
something positive about that. But the measurement of
a parallax with a heliometer is the most expensive kind of measurement