ABSTRACT
Astronomy began as the handmaid of astrology when men believed that the study of the heavenly bodies would enable them to predict events on earth. There has been an Astronomer Royal for two hundred and fifty years, but there is neither Physicist Royal nor Bacteriologist Royal, although during the last fifty years physics and bacteriology have been of greater service to the State than astronomy. For the greatest benefits of astronomy has been indirect and unperceived. Modern astronomy, among other things, has given birth to spectroscopy. The spectroscope which analyses a beam of light into its component colours is the only means people have for investigating the composition of the stars, and it is largely for this reason that its use was developed. And it has turned out as practical an instrument as the telescope. The old astrology is dead, but a few earthly phenomena have been found to depend on the sun and moon.
