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William Whewell and Edward Hitchcock
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Title: The Plurality of Worlds
Author: William Whewell
Edward Hitchcock
Release Date: May 31, 2011 [EBook #36288]
Language: English
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THE
PLURALITY OF WORLDS.
On Nature's Alps I stand,
And see a thousand firmaments beneath!
A thousand systems, as a thousand grains!
So much a stranger, _and so late arrived_,
How shall man's curious spirit not inquire
What are the natives of this world sublime,
Of this so distant, unterrestrial sphere,
Where mortal, untranslated, never strayed?
NIGHT THOUGHTS.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
EDWARD HITCHCOCK, D.D.,
PRESIDENT OF AMHERST COLLEGE, AND PROFESSOR OF
THEOLOGY AND GEOLOGY.
BOSTON:
GOULD AND LINCOLN,
50 WASHINGTON STREET.
1854.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by
GOULD AND LINCOLN,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of
the District of Massachusetts.
PREFACE.
Although the opinions presented in the following Essay are put forwards
without claiming for them any value beyond what they may derive from the
arguments there offered, they are not published without some fear of
giving offence. It will be a curious, but not a very wonderful event, if
it should now be deemed as blamable to doubt the existence of
inhabitants of the Planets and Stars, as, three centuries ago, it was
held heretical to teach that doctrine. Yet probably there are many who
will be willing to see the question examined by all the light which
modern science can throw upon it; and such an examination can be
undertaken to no purpose, except the view which has of late been
generally rejected have the arguments in its favor fairly stated and
candidly considered.
Though Revealed Religion contains no doctrine relative to the
inhabitants of planets and stars; and though, till within the last three
centuries, no Christian thinker deemed such a doctrine to be required,
in order to complete our view of the attributes of the Creator; yet it
is possible that at the present day, when the assumption of such
inhabitants is very generally made and assented to, many persons have so
mingled this assumption with their religious belief, that they regard it
as an essential part of Natural Religion. If any such persons find their
religious convictions interfered with, and their consolatory impressions
disturbed, by what is said in this Essay, the Author will deeply regret
to have had any share in troubling any current of pious thought
belonging to the time. But, as some excuse, it may be recollected, that
if such considerations had prevailed, this very doctrine, of the
Plurality of Worlds, would never have been publicly maintained. And if
such considerations are to have weight, it must be recollected, on the
other hand, that there are many persons to whom the assumption of an
endless multitude of Worlds appears difficult to reconcile with the
belief of that which, as the Christian Revelation teaches us, has been
done for this our World of Earth. In this conflict of religious
difficulties, on a point which rather belongs to science than to
religion, perhaps philosophical arguments may be patiently listened to,
if urged as arguments merely; and in that hope, they are here stated,
without reserve and without exaggeration.
All speculations on subjects in which Science and Religion bear upon
each other, are liable to one of the two opposite charges;--that the
speculator sets Philosophy and Religion at variance; or that he warps
Philosophy into a conformity with Religion. It is confidently hoped that
no candid reader will bring either of these charges against the present
Essay. With regard to the latter, the arguments must speak for
themselves. To the Author at least, they appear to be of no small
philosophical force; though he is quite ready to weigh carefully and
candidly any answers which may be offered to them. With regard to the
amount of agreement between our Philosophy and Religion, it may perhaps
be permitted to the Author to say, that while it appears to him that
some of his philosophical conclusions fall in very remarkably with
certain points of religious doctrine, he is well aware that Philosophy
alone can do little in providing man with the consolations, hopes,
supports, and convictions which Religion offers; and he acknowledges it
as a ground of deep gratitude to the Author of all good, that man is
not left to Philosophy for those blessings; but has a fuller assurance
of them, by a more direct communication from Him.
Perhaps, too, the Author may be allowed to say, that he has tried to
give to the book, not only a moral, but a scientific interest; by
collecting his scientific facts from the best authorities, and the most
recent discoveries. He would flatter himself, in particular, that the
view of the Nebulæ and of the Solar System, which he has here given, may
be not unworthy of some attention on the part of astronomers and
observers, as an occasion of future researches in the skies.
CONTENTS
OF
THE PLURALITY OF WORLDS.
PAGE
Introduction. 9
CHAPTER I.
Astronomical Discoveries. 17
CHAPTER II.
Astronomical Objection to Religion. 33
CHAPTER III.
The Answer from the Microscope. 41
CHAPTER IV.
Further Statement of the Difficulty. 49
CHAPTER V.
Geology. 72
CHAPTER VI.
The Argument from Geology. 98
CHAPTER VII.
The Nebulæ. 135
CHAPTER VIII.
The Fixed Stars. 163
CHAPTER IX.
The Planets. 192
CHAPTER X.
Theory of the Solar System. 219
CHAPTER XI.
The Argument from Design. 236
CHAPTER XII.
The Unity of the World. 275
CHAPTER XIII.
The Future. 292
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE
TO THE
AMERICAN EDITION.
It is an interesting feature in the literature of our day, that so many
minds are turning their attention to the bearings of science upon
religion. With a few honorable exceptions, Christian scholars have
regarded this as a most unpromising field, which they have left to the
tilting and gladiatorship of scepticism. But we owe it mainly to the
disclosures of geology, that the tables are beginning to be turned. For
a long time suspected of being in league with infidelity, it was treated
as an enemy, and Christians thought only of fortifying themselves
against its attacks. But they are finding out, that if this science has
been seen in the enemy's camp, it was only because of their jealousy
that it was compelled to remain there; like captives that are sometimes
pushed forwards to cover the front rank and receive the fire of their
friends. Judging from the number of works, some of them very able, that
appear almost monthly from the press, in which illustrations of
religion are drawn from geology, we may infer that this science is
beginning to be recognized by the friends of religion as an efficient
auxiliary.
"The Plurality of Worlds," now republished, is the most recent work of
this description that has fallen under our notice. We can see no reason
why an Essay of so much ability, in which the reasoning is so
dispassionate, and opponents are treated so candidly, should appear
anonymously. True, the author takes ground against some opinions widely
maintained respecting the extent of the inhabited universe, and seems to
suppose that he shall meet with little sympathy; and this may be his
reason, though in our view quite insufficient, for remaining incognito.
We think he will find that there are a secret seven thousand, who never
have bowed their understandings to a belief of many of the doctrines
which he combats, and he might reasonably calculate that his reasoning
will add seven thousand more to the number. We confess, however, that
though we have long been of this number to a certain extent, we cannot
go as far as this writer has done in his conclusions.
All the world is acquainted with Dr. Chalmers' splendid Astronomical
Discourses. Assuming, or rather supposing that he has proved, that the
universe contains a vast number of worlds peopled like our own, he
imagines the infidel to raise an objection to the mission of the Son of
God, on the ground that this world is too insignificant to receive such
an extraordinary interposition. His replies to this objection, drawn
chiefly from our ignorance, are ingenious and convincing. But the author
of the Plurality of Worlds doubts the premises on which the objection is
founded. He thinks the facts of science will not sustain the conclusion
that many of the heavenly bodies are inhabited; certainly not with moral
and intellectual beings like man. Nay, by making his appeal to geology,
he thinks the evidence strong against such an opinion. This science
shows us that this world was once certainly in a molten state, and very
probably, at a still earlier date, may have been dissipated into
self-luminous vapor, like the nebulæ or the comets. Immense periods,
then, must have passed before any organic structures, such as have since
peopled the earth, could have existed. And during the vast cycles that
have elapsed since the first animals and plants appeared upon the globe,
it was not in a proper condition to have sustained any other than the
inferior races. Accordingly, it has been only a few thousand years since
man appeared.
Now, so far as astronomy has revealed the condition of other worlds,
almost all of them appear to be passing through those preparatory
changes which the earth underwent previous to man's creation. What are
the unresolvable nebulæ and most of the comets also, but intensely
heated vapor and gas? What is the sun but a molten globe, or perhaps
gaseous matter condensed so as to possess almost the density of water?
The planets beyond Mars, also, (excluding the asteroids,) appear to be
in a liquid condition, but not from heat, and therefore may be composed
of water, or some fluid perhaps lighter than water; or at least be
covered by such fluid. Moreover, so great is their distance from the
sun, that his light and heat could not sustain organic beings such as
exist upon the earth. Of the inferior planets, Mercury is so near the
sun that it would be equally unfit for the residence of such beings.
Mars, Venus, and the Moon, then, appear to be the only worlds known to
us capable of sustaining a population at all analogous to that upon
earth. But of these, the Moon appears to be merely a mass of
extinguished volcanos, with neither water nor atmosphere. It has
proceeded farther in the process of refrigeration than the earth,
because it is smaller; and in its present state, is manifestly unfit for
the residence either of rational or irrational creatures. So that we are
left with only Mars and Venus in the solar system to which the common
arguments in favor of other worlds being inhabited, will apply.
But are not the fixed stars the suns of other systems? We will thank
those who think so, to read the chapter in this work that treats of the
fixed stars, and we presume they will be satisfied that at least many of
these bodies exhibit characters quite irreconcilable with such an
hypothesis. And if some are not central suns, the presumption that the
rest are, is weakened, and we must wait till a greater perfection of
instruments shall afford us some positive evidence, before we know
whether our solar system is a type of any others.
Thus far, it seems to us, our author has firm ground, both geological
and astronomical, to stand upon. But he does not stop here. He takes the
position that probably our earth may be the only body in the solar
system, nay in the universe, where an intellectual, moral and immortal
being, like man, has an existence. He makes the "earth the domestic
hearth of the solar system; adjusted between the hot and fiery haze on
one side, and the cold and watery vapor on the other: the only fit
region to be a domestic hearth, a seat of habitation." He says that "it
is quite agreeable to analogy that the solar system should have borne
but one fertile flower. And even if any number of the fixed stars were
also found to be barren flowers of the sky, we need not think the powers
of creation wasted, or frustrated, thrown away, or perverted." He does
not deny that some other worlds may be the abodes of plants and animals
such as peopled this earth during the long ages of preadamic history.
But he regards the creation of man as the great event of our world. He
looks upon the space between man and the highest of the irrational
creatures, as a vast one: for though in physical structure they approach
one another, in intellectual and moral powers they cannot be compared.
He does not think it derogatory to Divine Wisdom to have created and
arranged all the other bodies of the universe to give convenience and
elegance to the abode of such a being; especially since this was to be
the theatre of the work of redemption.
Now we sympathize strongly in views that give dignity and exaltation to
man, and not at all with that debasing philosophy, so common at this
day, that looks upon him as little more than a somewhat improved orang.
But we cannot admit that man is the only exalted created being to be
found among the vast array of worlds around us. Geology does, indeed,
teach us, that it is no disparagement of Divine Wisdom and benevolence
to make a world--and if one, why not many--the residence of inferior
creatures; nay to leave it without inhabitants through untold ages. But
it also shows us, that when such worlds have passed through these
preparatory changes, rational and immortal beings may be placed upon
them. Nay, does not the history of our world show us that this seems to
be the grand object of such vast periods of preparation. And is it not
incredible, that amid the countless bodies of the universe, a single
globe only, and that a small one, should have reached the condition
adapted to the residence of beings made in the image of God? Of what
possible use to man are those numberless worlds visible only through the
most powerful telescopes? Surely such a view gives us a very narrow idea
of the plans and purposes of Jehovah, and one not sustained in our
opinion by the analogies of science.
There is another principle to which our author attaches, as we think,
too little importance in this connection. When we see how vast is the
variety of organic beings on this globe, and how manifold the conditions
of their existence; how exactly adapted they are to the solid, the
liquid, and the gaseous states of matter, can we doubt that rational and
intelligent beings may be adapted to physical conditions in other worlds
widely diverse from those on this globe? May not spirits be connected
with bodies much heavier, or much lighter, than on earth; nay, with mere
tenuous ether; and those bodies, perhaps, be better adapted to the play
of intellect than ours; and be unaffected by temperatures which, on
earth, would be fatal? It does seem to us that such conclusions are
legitimate inferences from the facts of science; and if so, we can
hardly avoid the conclusion that there may be races of intelligent
beings upon other worlds where the condition of things is widely
different from that on earth. Yet there is a limit to this principle;
and when we can prove another world to be in a similar condition to our
earth, when it was inhabited by preadamic races, or not at all
inhabited, the presumption is strong, that such a world has inhabitants
of a like character, or none at all.
Our author makes but a slight allusion to some most important statements
of revelation, that seem to us to bear strongly upon the hypothesis
which he adopts. We refer to the existence of angels, holy and unholy.
In the history of the latter, we learn that _they kept not their first
estate, but left their own habitation_. Have we not here an example of
other rational creatures, more exalted than man, who, like him, have
fallen from their first estate; and does not the presumption hence
arise, that there may be similar examples in other worlds? And is there
not a probability, that holy angels now in heaven, may be rational
intelligences who have passed a successful probation in other worlds? It
does seem to us, that these biblical facts make the hypothesis of our
author respecting man extremely improbable.
But though we must demur as to some of the views of this work, we can
cordially recommend its perusal to intelligent and reasoning minds. It
is an effort in the right direction, and we think will do much to
correct some false notions respecting the Plurality of Worlds. And even
the author's peculiar hypothetical views are sustained with much
ability. He states the facts of geology and astronomy with great
clearness and correctness, and seems quite familiar with mathematical
reasoning. Nor does he advance opinions that come into collision with
natural or revealed religion; though, as already stated, we think his
favorite notions narrow our conceptions of the Divine plans and
purposes. We predict for the work an extended circulation among
scientific men and theologians; and commend it with confidence to all
readers--and in our country they are numerous--who are fond of tracing
out the connection between science and religion.
E. H.
Amherst College, April, 1854.
THE
PLURALITY OF WORLDS.
CHAPTER I.
ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES.
"When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the
stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of
him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?"
1. These striking words of the Hebrew Psalmist have been made, by an
eloquent and pious writer of our own time, the starting point of a
remarkable train of speculation. Dr. Chalmers, in his _Astronomical
Discourses_, has treated the reflection thus suggested, in connection
with such an aspect of the heavens and the stars, the earth and the
universe, as modern astronomy presents to us. Even from the point of
view in which the ancient Hebrew looked at the stars; seeing only their
number and splendor, their lofty position, and the vast space which they
visibly occupy in the sky; compared with the earth, which lies dark, and
mean, and perhaps small in extent, far beneath them, and on which man
has his habitation; it appeared wonderful, and scarcely credible, that
the maker of all that array of luminaries, the lord of that wide and
magnificent domain, should occupy himself with the concerns of men: and
yet, without a belief in His fatherly care and goodness to us,
thoughtful and religious persons, accustomed to turn their minds
constantly to a Supreme Governor and constant Benefactor, are left in a
desolate and bewildered state of feeling. The notion that while the
heavens are the work of God's fingers, the sun, moon, and stars ordained
by him, He is _not_ mindful of man, does not regard him, does not visit
him, was not tolerable to the thought of the Psalmist. While we read, we
are sure that he believed that, however insignificant and mean man might
be, in comparison with the other works of God,--however difficult it
might seem to conceive, that he should be found worthy the regards and
the visits of the Creator of All,--yet that God _was_ mindful of him,
and _did_ visit him. The question, "What is man, that this is so?"
implies that there is an answer, whether man can discover it or not.
"_What_ is man, that God is mindful of him?" indicates a belief,
unshaken, however much perplexed, that man is _something_, of such a
kind that God _is_ mindful of him.
2. But if there was room for this questioning, and cause for this
perplexity, to a contemplative person, who looked at the skies, with
that belief concerning the stars, which the ancient Hebrew possessed,
the question recurs with far greater force, and the perplexity is
immeasurably increased, by the knowledge, concerning the stars, which is
given to us by the discoveries of modern astronomy. The Jew probably
believed the earth to be a region, upon the whole, level, however
diversified with hills and valleys, and the skies to be a vault arched
over this level;--a firmament in which the moon and the stars were
placed. What magnitude to assign to this vault, he had no means of
knowing; and indeed, the very aspect of the nocturnal heavens, with the
multitude of stars, of various brightness, which come into view, one set
after another, as the light of day dies away, suggests rather the notion
of their being scattered through a vast depth of space, at various
distances, than of their being so many lights fastened to a single
vaulted surface. But however he might judge of this, he regarded them as
placed in a space, of which the earth was the central region. The host
of heaven all had reference to the earth. The sun and the moon were
there, in order to give light to it, by day and by night. And if the
stars had not that for their principal office, as indeed the amount of
light which they gave was not such as to encourage such a belief,--and
perhaps the perception, that the stars must have been created for some
other object than to give light to man, was one of the principal
circumstances which suggested the train of thought that we are now
considering;--yet still, the region of the stars had the earth for its
centre and base. Perhaps the Psalmist, at a subsequent period of his
contemplations, when he was pondering the reflections which he has
expressed in this passage, might have been led to think that the stars
were placed there in order to draw man's thoughts to the greatness of
the Creator of all things; to give some light to his mental, rather than
to his bodily eye; to show how far His mode of working transcends man's
faculties; to suggest that there are things in heaven, very different
from the things which are on earth. If he thought thus, he was only
following a train of thought on which contemplative minds, in all ages
and countries, have often dwelt; and which we cannot, even now,
pronounce to be either unfounded or exhausted; as we trust hereafter to
show. But whether or not this be so, we may be certain that the Psalmist
regarded the stars, as things having a reference to the earth, and yet
not resembling the earth; as works of God's fingers, very different from
the earth with its tribes of inhabitants; as luminaries, not worlds. In
the feeling of awe and perplexity, which made him ask, "What is man that
thou art mindful of him?" there was no mixture of a persuasion that
there were, in those luminaries, creatures, like man, the children and
subjects of God; and therefore, like man, requiring his care and
attention. In asking, "What is man, that thou visitest him?" there was
no latent comparison, to make the question imply, "that thou visitest
_him_, rather than those who dwell in those abodes?" It was the
multitude and magnificence of God's works, which made it seem strange
that he should care for a _thing_ so small and mean as man; not the
supposed multitude of God's intelligent creatures inhabiting those
works, which made it seem strange that he should attend to every
_person_ upon this earth. It was not that the Psalmist thought that,
among a multitude of earths, all peopled like this earth, man might seem
to be in danger of being overlooked and neglected by his Maker; but
that, there being only one earth, occupied by frail, feeble, sinful,
short-lived creatures, it might be unworthy the regards of Him who dwelt
in regions of eternal light and splendor, unsullied by frailty,
inaccessible to corruption.
3. This, we can have no doubt, or something resembling this, was the
Psalmist's view, when he made the reflection, which we have taken as the
basis of our remarks. And even in this view, (which, after all that
science has done, is perhaps still the most natural and familiar,) the
reflection is extremely striking; and the words cannot be uttered
without finding an echo in the breast of every contemplative and
religious person. But this view is, as most readers at this time are
aware, very different from that presented to us by Modern Astronomy. The
discoveries made by astronomers are supposed by most persons to have
proved, or to have made it in the highest degree probable, that this
view of the earth, as the sole habitation of intelligent subjects of
God's government; and of the stars, as placed in a region of which the
earth is the centre, and yet differing in their nature from this lower
world; is altogether erroneous. According to astronomers, the earth is
not a level space, but a globe. Some of the stars which we see in the
vault of heaven, are globes, like it; some smaller than the earth, some
larger. There are reasons, drawn from analogy, for believing that these
globes, the other planets, are inhabited by living creatures, as the
earth is. The earth is not at rest, with the celestial luminaries
circulating above it, as the ancients believed, but itself moves in a
circle about the sun, in the course of every year; and the other planets
also move round the sun in like manner, in circles, some within and some
without that which the earth describes. This collection of planets, thus
circulating about the sun, is the SOLAR SYSTEM: of which the earth thus
forms a very small part. Jupiter and Saturn are much larger than the
earth. Mars and Venus are nearly as large. If these be inhabited, as the
Earth is, which the analogy of their form, movements and conditions,
seems to suggest, the population of the earth is a very small portion of
the population of the solar system. And if the mere number of the
subjects of God's government could produce any difficulty in the
application of his providence to them, a person to whom this view of the
world which we inhabit had been disclosed, might well, and with far more
reason than the Psalmist, exclaim, "Lord, what is man, that thou art
mindful of him? the inhabitants of this Earth, that thou regardest him?"
4. But this is only the first step in the asserted revelations of
astronomy. Some of the stars are, as we have said, planets of the kind
just described. But these stars are a few only:--five, or at most six,
of those visible to the unassisted eye of man. All the rest, innumerable
as they appear, and numerous as they really are, are, it is found,
objects of another kind. They are not, as the planets are, opaque
globes, deriving their light from a sun, about which they circulate.
They shine by a light of their own. They are of the nature of the sun,
not of the planets. That they appear mere specks of light, arises from
their being at a vast distance from us. At a vast distance they
undoubtedly are; for even with our most powerful telescopes, they still
appear mere specks of light;--mere luminous points. They do not, as the
planets do, when seen through telescopes, exhibit to us a circular face
or disk, capable of being magnified and distinguished into parts and
features. But this impossibility of magnifying them by means of
telescopes, does not at all make us doubt that they may be far larger
than the planets. For we know, from other sources of information, that
their distance is immensely greater than that of any of the planets. We
can measure the bodies of the solar system;--the earth, by absolutely
going round a part of it, or in other ways; the other bodies of the
system, by comparing their positions, as seen from different parts of
the earth. In this manner we find that the earth is a globe 8,000 miles
in diameter. In this way, again, we find that the circle which the earth
describes round the sun has, in round numbers, a radius about 24,000
times the earth's radius; that is, nearly a hundred millions of miles.
The earth is, at one time, a hundred millions of miles on one side of
the sun; and at another time, half a year afterwards, a hundred millions
of miles on the other side. Of the bright stars which shine by their own
light,--the _fixed stars_, as we call them, (to distinguish them from
the planets, the _wandering stars_,)--if any one were at any moderate
distance from us, we should see it change its apparent place with regard
to the others, in consequence of our thus changing our point of view two
hundred millions of miles: just as a distant spire changes its apparent
place with regard to the more distant mountain, when we move from one
window of our house to the other. But no such change of place is
discernible in any of the fixed stars: or at least, if we believe the
most recent asserted discoveries of astronomers, the change is so small
as to imply a distance in the star, of more than two hundred thousand
times the radius of the earth's orbit, which is, itself, as we have
said, one hundred millions of miles.[1] This distance is so vastly
great, that we can very well believe that the fixed stars, though to our
best telescopes they appear only as points of light, are really as large
as our sun, and would give as much light as he does, if we could
approach as near to them. For since they are thus, the nearest of them,
two hundred thousand times as far off as he is, even if we could magnify
them a thousand times, which we can hardly do, they would still be only
one two-hundredth of the breadth of the sun; and thus, still a mere
point.
5. But if each fixed star be of the nature of the sun, and not smaller
than the sun, does not analogy lead us to suppose that they have, some
of them at least, planets circulating about them, as our sun has? If the
Sun is the centre of the Solar System, why should not Sirius, (one of
the brightest of the fixed stars,) be the centre of the _Sirian System_?
And why should not that system have as many planets, with the same
resemblances and differences of the figure, movements, and conditions of
the different planets, as this? Why should not the Sirian System be as
great and as varied as the solar system? And this being granted, why
should not these planets be inhabited, as men have inferred the other
planets of the solar system, as well as the earth, to be? And thus we
have, added to the population of the universe of which we have already
spoken, a number (so far as we have reason to believe) not inferior to
the number of inhabitants of the solar system: this number being,
according to all the analogies, very many fold that of the population of
the whole earth?
And this is the conclusion, when we reason from one star only, from
Sirius. But the argument is the same, from each of the stars. For we
have no reason to think that Sirius, though one of the brightest, is
more like our sun than any of the others is. The others appear less
bright in various degrees, probably because they are further removed
from us in various degrees. They may not be all of the same size and
brightness; it is very unlikely that they are. But they may as easily be
larger than the sun, as smaller. The natural assumption for us to make,
having no ground for any other opinion, is, that they are, upon the
average, of the size of our sun. On that assumption, we have as many
solar systems as we have fixed stars; and, it may be, six or ten, or
twenty times as many inhabited globes; inhabited by creatures of whom
we must suppose, by analogy, that God is mindful, if he is mindful of
us. The question recurs with overwhelming force, if we still follow the
same train of reflection: "What is man, that God is mindful of him?"
6. But we have not yet exhausted the views which thus add to the force
of this reflection. The fixed stars, which appear to the eye so
numerous, so innumerable, in the clear sky on a moonless night, are not
really so numerous as they seem. To the naked eye, there are not visible
more than four or five thousand. The astronomers of Greece, and of other
countries, even in ancient times, counted them, mapped them, and gave
them names and designations. But Astronomy, who thus began her career by
diminishing, in some degree, the supposed numbers of the host of heaven,
has ended by immeasurably increasing them. The first application of the
telescope to the skies discovered a vast number of fixed stars,
previously unseen: and every improvement in that instrument has
disclosed myriads of new stars, visibly smaller than those which had
before been seen; and smaller and smaller, as the power of vision is
more and more strengthened by new aids from art; as if the regions of
space contained an inexhaustible supply of such objects; as if infinite
space were strewn with stars in every part of it to which vision could
reach. The small patch of the sky which forms, at any moment, the field
of view of one of the great telescopes of Herschel, discloses to him as
many stars, and those of as many different magnitudes, as the whole
vault of the sky exhibits to the naked eye. But the magnifying power of
such an instrument only discloses, it does not make, these stars. There
appears to be quite as much reason to believe, that each of these
telescopic stars is a sun, surrounded by its special family of planets,
as to believe that Sirius or Arcturus is so. Here, then, we have again
an extension, indefinite to our apprehension, of the universe, as
occupied by material structures; and if so, why not by a living
population, such as the material structures which are nearest to us
support?
7. Even yet we have not finished the series of successive views which
astronomers have had opened to them, extending more and more their
spectacle of the fulness and largeness of the universe. Not only does
the telescope disclose myriads of stars, unseen to the naked eye, and
new myriads with each increase of the powers of the instrument; but it
discloses also patches of light, which, at first at least, do not appear
to consist of stars: _Nebulæ_, as they are called; bright specks, it
might seem, of stellar matter, thin, diffused, and irregular; not
gathered into regular and definite forms, such as we may suppose the
stars to be. Every one who has noticed the starry skies, may understand
what is the general aspect of such nebulæ, by looking at the milky way
or galaxy, an irregular band of nebulous light, which runs quite round
the sky; "A circling zone, powdered with stars;" as Milton calls it. But
the nebulæ of which I more especially speak, are minute patches,
discovered mainly by the telescope, and in a few instances only
discernible by the naked eye. And what I have to remark especially
concerning them at present is, that though to visual powers which barely
suffice to discern them, they appear like mere bright clouds, patches of
diffused starry matter; yet that, when examined by visual powers of a
higher order, by more penetrating telescopes, these patches of
continuous feeble light are, in many instances at least, distinguishable
into definite points: they are found, in fact, to be aggregations of
stars; which before appeared as diffused light, only because our
telescopes, though strong enough to reveal to our senses the aggregate
mass of light of the cluster, were not strong enough to enable us to
discern any one of the stars of which the cluster consists. The galaxy,
in this way, may, in almost every part, be _resolved_ into separate
stars; and thus, the multitude of the stars in the region of the sky
occupied by that winding stream of light, is, when examined by a
powerful telescope, inconceivably numerous.
8. The small telescopic nebulæ are of various forms; some of them may be
in the shape of flat strata, or cakes, as it were, of stars, of small
thickness, compared with the extent of the stratum. Now, if our sun were
one of the individuals of such a stratum, we, looking at the stars of
the stratum from his neighborhood, should see them very numerous and
close in the direction of the edge of the stratum, and comparatively few
and rare in other parts of the sky. We should, in short, see a galaxy
running round the sky, as we see in fact. And hence Sir William Herschel
has inferred, that our sun, with its attendant planets, has its place in
such a stratum; and that it thus belongs to a host of stars which are,
in a certain way, detached from the other nebulæ which we see. Perhaps,
he adds, some of those other nebulæ are beds and masses of stars not
less numerous than those which compose our galaxy, and which occupy a
larger portion of the sky, only because we are immersed in the interior
of the crowd. And thus, a minute speck of nebulous light, discernible
only by a good telescope, may contain not only as many stars as occupy
the sky to ordinary vision, but as many as is the number into which the
most powerful telescope resolves the milky light of the galaxy. And of
such resolvable nebulæ the number which are discovered in the sky is
very great, their forms being of the most various kind; so that many of
them may be, for aught we can tell, more amply stocked with stars than
the galaxy is. And if all the stars, or a large proportion of the
stars, of the galaxy, be suns attended by planets, and these planets
peopled with living creatures, what notion must we form of the
population of the universe, when we have thus to reckon as many galaxies
as there are resolvable nebulæ! the stock of discoverable nebulæ being
as yet unexhausted by the powers of our telescopes; and the possibility
of resolving them into stars being also an operation which has not yet
been pursued to its limit.
9. For, (and this is the last step which I shall mention in this long
series of ascending steps of multitude apparently infinite,) it now
begins to be suspected that not some nebulæ only, but _all_, are
resolvable into separate stars. When the nebulæ were first carefully
studied, it was supposed that they consisted, as they appeared to
consist, of some diffused and incoherent matter, not of definite and
limited masses. It was conceived that they were not stars, but Stellar
Matter in the course of formation into stars; and it was conceived,
further, that by the gradual concentration of such matter, whirling
round its centre while it concentrated, not only stars, that is, suns,
might be formed, but also systems of planets, circling round these suns;
and thus this _Nebular Hypothesis_, as it has been termed, gave a kind
of theory of the origin and formation of systems, such as the solar
system. But the great telescope which Lord Rosse has constructed, and
which is much more powerful than any optical instrument yet fabricated,
has been directed to many of the nebulæ, whose appearance had given rise
to this theory; and the result has been, in a great number of cases,
that the nebulæ are proved to consist entirely of distinct stars; and
that the diffused nebulous appearance is discovered to have been an
illusion, resulting from the accumulated light of a vast number of small
stars near to each other. In this manner, we are led to regard every
nebula, not as an imperfectly formed star or system, but as a vast
multitude of stars, and, for aught we can tell, of systems; for the
apparent smallness and nearness of these stars are, it is thought, mere
results of the vast distance at which they are placed from us. And thus,
perhaps, all the nebulæ are, what some of them seem certainly to be, so
many vast armies of stars, each of which stars, we have reason to
believe, is of the nature of our sun; and may have, and according to
analogy has, an accompaniment of living creatures, such as our sun has,
certainly on the earth, probably, it is thought, in the other planets.
10. It is difficult to grasp, in one view, the effect of the successive
steps from number to number, from distance to distance, which we have
thus been measuring over. We may, however, state them again briefly, in
the way of enumeration.
From our own place on the earth, we pass, in thought, as a first step,
to the whole globe of the Earth; from this, as a second step, to the
Planets, the other globes which compose the Solar System. A third step
carries us to the Fixed Stars, as visible to the naked eye; very
numerous and immensely distant. The transition to the Telescopic Stars
makes a fourth step; and in this, the number and the space are
increased, almost beyond the power of numbers to express how many there
are, and at what distances. But a fifth step:--perhaps all this array of
stars, obvious and telescopic, only make up our Nebula; while the
universe is occupied by other Nebulæ innumerable, so distant that, seen
from them, our nebula, though including, it may be, stars of the 20th
magnitude, which may be 20 times or 2,000 times more remote than Sirius,
would become a telescopic speck, as their nebulæ are to us.
11. Various images and modes of representation have been employed, in
order to convey to the mind some notion of the dimensions of the scheme
of the universe to which we are thus introduced. Thus, we may reckon
that a cannon-ball, moving with its usual original velocity unabated,
would describe the interval between the sun and the earth in about one
year. And this being so, the same missile would, from what has been
said, occupy more, we know not how much more, than 200,000 years in
going to the nearest fixed star: and perhaps a thousand times as much,
in going to other stars belonging to our group; and then again, 200,000
times so much, or some number of the like order, in going from one group
to another. When we have advanced a step or two in this mode of
statement, the velocity of the cannon-ball hardly perceptibly affects
the magnitude of the numbers which we have to use.
And the same nearly is the case if we have recourse to the swiftest
motion with which we are acquainted; that of Light. Light travels, it is
shown by indisputable scientific reasonings, in about eight minutes from
the sun to the earth. Hence we can easily calculate that it would occupy
at least three years to travel as far as Sirius, and probably, three
thousand years, or a much greater number, to reach to the smallest
stars, or to come from them to us. And thus, as Sir W. Herschel
remarked, since light is the only vehicle by which information
concerning these distant bodies is conveyed to us, we do, by seeing
them, receive information, not what they are at this moment, but what
they were, as to visible condition, thousands of years ago. Stars may
have been created when man was created, and yet their light may not have
reached him.[2] Stars may have been extinguished thousands of years
ago, and yet may still be visible to our eyes, by means of the light
which they emitted previous to their extinction, and which has not yet
died away.
12. So vast then are the distances at which the different bodies of the
universe are distributed; and yet so numerous are those bodies. In the
vastness of their distances, there is, indeed, nothing which need
disturb our minds, or which, after a little reflection, is likely to do
so: for when we have said all that can be said, about the largeness of
these distances, still there is no difficulty in finding room for them.
We necessarily conceive _Space_ as being infinite in its extent: however
much space the heavenly bodies occupy, there is space beyond them: if
they are not there, space is there nevertheless. That the stars and
planets are so far from each other, is an arrangement which prevents
their disturbing each other with their mutual attractions, to any
destructive extent; and is an arrangement which the spacious, the
infinite universe, admits of, without any difficulty.
13. But we are more especially concerned with the _Numbers_ of the
heavenly bodies. So many planets about our sun: so many suns, each
perhaps with its family of planets: and then, all these suns making but
one group: and other groups coming into view, one after another, in
seemingly endless succession: and all these planets being of the nature
of our earth, as all these stars are of the nature of our sun:--all
this, presents to us a spectacle of a world--of a countless host of
worlds--of which, when we regard them as thus arranged in planetary
systems, and as having, according to all probability, years and seasons,
days and nights, as we have, we cannot but accept it as at least a
likely suggestion, that they have also inhabitants;--intelligent beings
who can reckon these days and years; who subsist on the fruits which
the season brings forth, and have their daily and yearly occupations,
according to their faculties. When we take, as our scheme of the
universe, such a scheme as this, we may well be overwhelmed with the
number of provinces, besides that in which man dwells, which the empire
of the Lord of all includes; and, recurring to the words of the
Psalmist, we may say with a profundity of meaning immeasurably
augmented--"Lord, what is man?"
It was this view, I conceive, which Dr. Chalmers had in his thoughts, in
pursuing the speculations which I have mentioned, in the outset of this
Essay.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It is quite to our purpose to recollect the impression which such
discoveries naturally make upon a pious mind.
Oh! rack me not to such extent,
These distances belong to Thee;
The world's too little for Thy tent,
A grave too big for me!
GEORGE HERBERT.
[2] This thought is, however, older. Young expresses it in his _Night
Thoughts_, Night IX., (published in 1744):
How distant some of these nocturnal suns!
So distant (says the sage) 'twere not absurd
To doubt if beams, set out at nature's birth,
Are yet arrived at this so foreign world.
CHAPTER II.
THE ASTRONOMICAL OBJECTION TO RELIGION.
1. Such astronomical views, then, as those just stated, we may suppose
to be those to which Chalmers had reference, in the argument of his
_Astronomical Discourses_. These real or supposed discoveries of
astronomers, or a considerable part of them, were the facts which were
present to his mind, and of which he there discusses the bearings upon
religious truths. This multiplicity of systems and worlds, which the
telescopic scrutiny of the stars is assumed to have disclosed, or to
have made probable, is the main feature in the constitution of the
universe, as revealed by science, to which his reflections are directed.
Nor can we say that, in fixing upon this view, he has gone out of his
way, to struggle with obscure and latent difficulties, such as the bulk
of mankind know and care little about. For in reality, such views are
generally diffused in our time and country, are common to all classes of
readers, and as we may venture to express it, are the _popular_ views of
persons of any degree of intellectual culture, who have, directly or
derivatively, accepted the doctrines of modern science. Among such
persons, expressions which imply that the stars are globes of luminous
matter, like the sun; that there are, among them, systems of revolving
bodies, seats of life and of intelligence; are so frequent and
familiar, that those who so speak, do not seem to be aware that, in
using such expressions, they are making any assumption at all; any more
than they suppose themselves to be making assumptions, when they speak
of the globular form of the earth, or of its motion round the sun, or of
its revolution on its axis. It was, therefore, a suitable and laudable
purpose, for a writer like Chalmers, well instructed in science, of
large and comprehensive views with regard both to religion and to
philosophy, of deep and pervasive piety, and master of a dignified and
persuasive eloquence, to employ himself in correcting any erroneous
opinions and impressions respecting the bearing which such scientific
doctrines have upon religious truth. It was his lot to labor among men
of great intellectual curiosity, acuteness, and boldness: it was his
tendency to deal with new views of others on the most various subjects,
religious, philosophical, and social; and, on such subjects, to
originate new views of his own. It fell especially within his province,
therefore, to satisfy the minds of the public who listened to him, with
regard to the conflict, if a conflict there was, or seemed to be,
between new scientific doctrines, and permanent religious verities. He
was, by his culture and his powers, peculiarly fitted, and therefore
peculiarly called, to mediate between the scientific and the religious
world of his time.
2. The scientific doctrine which he especially deals with, in the work
to which I refer, is the multiplicity of worlds;--the existence of many
seats of life, of enjoyment, of intelligence; and it may be, as he
suggests also, of moral law, of transgression, of alienation from God,
and of the need, and of the means, of reconciliation to Him; or of
obedience to Him and sympathy with Him. That if there be many worlds
resembling our world in other respects, they may resemble it in some of
these, is an obvious, and we may say, an irresistible conjecture, in any
speculative mind to which the doctrine itself has been conveyed. Nor can
it fail to be very interesting, to see how such a writer as I have
described deals with such a suggestion; how far he accepts or inclines
to accept it; and if so, what aspect such a view leads him to give to
truths, either belonging to Natural or to Revealed Theology, which,
before the introduction of such a view, were regarded as bearing only
upon the world of which man is the inhabitant.
3. The mode in which Chalmers treats this suggestion, is to regard it as
the ground of an objection to Religion, either Natural or Revealed. He
supposes an objector to take his stand upon the multiplicity of worlds,
assumed or granted as true; and to argue that, since there are so many
worlds beside this, all alike claiming the care, the government, the
goodness, the interposition, of the Creator, it is in the highest degree
extravagant and absurd, to suppose that he has done, for this world,
that which Religion, both Natural and Revealed, represents him as having
done, and as doing. When we are told that God has provided, and is
constantly providing, for the life, the welfare, the comfort of all the
living things which people this earth, we can, by an effort of thought
and reflection, bring ourselves to believe that it is so. When we are
further told that He has given a moral law to man, the intelligent
inhabitant of the earth, and governs him by a moral government, we are
able, or at least the great bulk of thoughtful men, on due consideration
of all the bearings of the case, are able, to accept the conviction,
that this also is so. When we are still farther asked to believe that
the imperfect sway of this moral law over man has required to be
remedied by a special interposition of the Governor of the world, or by
a series of special interpositions, to make the Law clear, and to
remedy the effects of man's transgression of it; this doctrine
also,--according to the old and unscientific view, which represents the
human race as, in an especial manner, the summit and crown of God's
material workmanship, the end of the rest of creation, and the selected
theatre of God's dealings with transgression and with obedience,--we can
conceive, and, as religious persons hold, we can find ample and
satisfactory evidence to believe. But if this world be merely one of
innumerable worlds, all, like it, the workmanship of God; all, the seats
of life, like it; others, like it, occupied by intelligent creatures,
capable of will, of law, of obedience, of disobedience, as man is; to
hold that this world has been the scene of God's care and kindness, and
still more, of his special interpositions, communications, and personal
dealings with its individual inhabitants, in the way which Religion
teaches, is, the objector is conceived to maintain, extravagant and
incredible. It is to select one of the millions of globes which are
scattered through the vast domain of space, and to suppose that one to
be treated in a special and exceptional manner, without any reason for
the assumption of such a peculiarity, except that this globe happens to
be the habitation of us, who make this assumption. If Religion require
us to assume, that one particular corner of the Universe has been thus
singled out, and made an exception to the general rules by which all
other parts of the Universe are governed; she makes, it may be said, a
demand upon our credulity which cannot fail to be rejected by those who
are in the habit of contemplating and admiring those general laws. Can
the Earth be thus the centre of the moral and religious universe, when
it has been shown to have no claim to be the centre of the physical
universe? Is it not as absurd to maintain this, as it would be to hold,
at the present day, the old Ptolemaic hypothesis, which places the
Earth in the centre of the heavenly motions, instead of the newer
Copernican doctrine, which teaches that the Earth revolves round the
Sun? Is not Religion disproved, by the necessity under which she lies,
of making such an assumption as this?
4. Such is, in a general way, the objection to Religion with which
Chalmers deals; and, as I have said, his mode of treating it is highly
interesting and instructive. Perhaps, however, we shall make our
reasonings and speculations apply to a wider class of readers, if we
consider the view now spoken of, not as an objection, urged by an
opponent of religion, but rather as a difficulty, felt by a friend of
religion. It is, I conceive, certain that many of those who are not at
all disposed to argue against religion, but who, on the contrary, feel
that their whole internal comfort and repose are bound up indissolubly
with their religious convictions, are still troubled and dismayed at the
doctrines of the vastness of the universe, and the multitude of worlds,
which they suppose to be taught and proved by astronomy. They have a
profound reverence for the Idea of God; they are glad to acknowledge
their constant and universal dependence upon His preserving power and
goodness; they are ready and desirous to recognize the working of His
providence; they receive the moral law, as His law, with reverence and
submission; they regard their transgressions of this law as sins against
Him; and are eager to find the mode of reconciliation to Him, when thus
estranged from him; they willingly think of God, as near to them. But
while they listen to the evidence which science, as we have said, sets
before them, of the long array of groups, and hosts, and myriads, of
worlds, which are brought to our knowledge, they find themselves
perturbed and distressed. They would willingly think of God as near to
them; but during the progress of this enumeration, He appears, at every
step, to be removed further and further from them. To discover that the
Earth is so large, the number of its inhabitants so great, its form so
different from what man at first imagines it, may perhaps have startled
them; but in this view, there is nothing which a pious mind does not
easily surmount. But if Venus and Mars also have their inhabitants; if
Saturn and Jupiter, globes so much larger than the earth, have a
proportional amount of population; may not man be neglected or
overlooked? Is he worthy to be regarded by the Creator of all? May not,
must not, the most pious mind recur to the exclamation of the Psalmist:
"Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him?" And must not this
exclamation, under the new aspect of things, be accompanied by an
enfeebled and less confident belief that God _is_ mindful of him? And
then, this array of planets, which derive their light from the Sun,
extends much further than even the astronomer at first suspected. The
orbit of Saturn is ten times as wide as the orbit of the earth; but
beyond Saturn, and almost twice as far from the sun, Herschel discovers
Uranus, another great planet; and again, beyond Uranus, and again at
nearly twice _his_ distance, the subtle sagacity of the astronomers of
our day, surmises, and then detects, another great planet. In such a
system as this, the earth shrinks into insignificance. Can its concerns
engage the attention of him who made the whole? But again, this whole
Solar System itself, with all its orbits and planets, shrinks into a
mere point, when compared with the nearest fixed star. And again, the
distance which lies between us and such stars, shrinks into incalculable
smallness, when we journey in thought to other fixed stars. And again,
and again, the field of our previous contemplation suffers an
immeasurable contraction, as we pass on to other points of view.
5. And in all these successive moves, we are still within the dominions
of the same Creator and Governor; and at every move, we are brought, we
may suppose, to new bodies of his subjects, bearing, in the expansion of
their number, some proportion to the expanse of space which they occupy.
And if this be so, how shall the earth, and men, its inhabitants, thus
repeatedly annihilated, as it were, by the growing magnitude of the
known Universe, continue to be anything in the regard of Him who
embraces all? Least of all, how shall men continue to receive that
special, persevering, providential, judicial, personal care, which
religion implies; and without the belief of which, any man who has
religious thoughts, must be disturbed and unhappy, desolate and
forsaken?
6. Such are, I conceive, the thoughts of many persons, under the
influence of the astronomical views which Chalmers refers to as being
sometimes employed against religious belief. Of course, it is natural
that the views which are used by unbelievers as arguments against
religious belief, should create difficulties and troubles in the minds
of believers; at least, till the argument is rebutted. And of course
also, the answers to the arguments, considered as infidel arguments,
would operate to remove the difficulties which believers entertain on
such grounds. Chalmers' reasonings against such arguments, therefore,
will, so for as they are valid, avail to relieve the mental trouble of
believers, who are perplexed and oppressed by the astronomical views of
which I have spoken; as well as to confute and convince those who reject
religion, on such astronomical grounds. It may, however, as I have said,
be of use to deal with these difficulties rather as difficulties of
religious men, than as objections of irreligious men; to examine rather
how we can quiet the troubled and perplexed believer, than how we can
triumph over the dogmatic and self-satisfied infidel. I, at least,
should wish to have the former, rather than the latter of these tasks,
regarded as that which I propose to myself.
I shall hereafter attempt to explain more fully the difficulties which
the doctrine of the Plurality of Worlds appears to some persons to throw
in the way of Revealed Religion; but before I do so, there is one part
of Chalmers' answer, bearing especially upon Natural Religion, which it
may be proper to attend to.
CHAPTER III.
THE ANSWER FROM THE MICROSCOPE.
1. It is not my business, nor my intention, to criticize the remarkable
work of Chalmers to which I have so often referred. But I may say, that
the arguments there employed by him, so far as they go upon astronomical
or philosophical grounds, are of great weight; and upon the whole, such
as we may both assent to, as scientifically true, and accept as
rationally persuasive. I think, however, that there are other arguments,
also drawn from scientific discoveries, which bear, in a very important
and striking manner, upon the opinions in question, and which Chalmers
has not referred to; and I conceive that there are philosophical views
of another kind, which, for those who desire and who will venture to
regard the Universe and its Creator in the wider and deeper relations
which appear to be open to human speculation, may be a source of
satisfaction. When certain positive propositions, maintained as true
while they are really highly doubtful, have given rise to difficulties
in the minds of religious persons, other positive propositions,
combating these, propounded and supported by argument, that they may be
accepted according to their evidence, may, at any rate, have force
enough to break down and dissipate such loosely founded difficulties. To
present to the reader's mind such speculations as I have thus
indicated, is the object of the following pages. They can, of course,
pretend to no charm, except for persons who are willing to have their
minds occupied with such difficulties and such speculations as I have
referred to. Those who are willing to be so employed, may, perhaps, find
in what I have to say something which may interest them. For, of the
arguments which I have to expound, some, though they appear to me both
very obvious and very forcible, have never, so far as I am aware, been
put forth in that religious bearing which seems to belong to them; and
others, though aspiring to point out in some degree the relation of the
Universe and its Creator, are of a very simple kind; that is, for minds
which are prepared to deal with such subjects at all.
2. As I have said, the arguments with which we are here concerned refer
both to Natural Religion and to Revealed Religion; and there is one of
Chalmers' arguments, bearing especially upon the former branch of the
subject, which I may begin by noticing. Among the thoughts which, it was
stated, might naturally arise in men's minds, when the telescope
revealed to them an innumerable multitude of worlds besides the one
which we inhabit, was this: that the Governor of the Universe, who has
so many worlds under his management, cannot be conceived as bestowing
upon this Earth, and its various tribes of inhabitants, that care which,
till then, Natural Religion had taught men that he does employ, to
secure to man the possession and use of his faculties of mind and body;
and to all animals the requisites of animal existence and animal
enjoyment. And upon this Chalmers remarks, that just about the time when
science gave rise to the suggestion of this difficulty, she also gave
occasion to a remarkable reply to it. Just about the same time that the
invention of the _Telescope_ showed that there were innumerable worlds,
which might have inhabitants requiring the Creator's care as much as the
tribes of this earth do,--the invention of the _Microscope_ showed that
there were, in this world, innumerable tribes of animals, which had been
all along enjoying the benefits of the Creator's care, as much as those
kinds with which man had been familiar from the beginning. The telescope
suggested that there might be dwellers in Jupiter or in Saturn, of giant
size and unknown structure, who must share with us the preserving care
of God. The microscope showed that there had been, close to us,
inhabiting minute crevices and crannies, peopling the leaves of plants,
and the bodies of other animals, animalcules of a minuteness hitherto
unguessed, and of a structure hitherto unknown, who had been always
sharers with us in God's preserving care. The telescope brought into
view worlds as numerous as the drops of water which make up the ocean;
the microscope brought into view a world in almost every drop of water.
Infinity in one direction was balanced by infinity in the other. The
doubts which men might feel as to what God could do, were balanced by
certainties which they discovered, as to what he had always been doing.
His care and goodness could not be supposed to be exhausted by the
hitherto known population of the earth, for it was proved that they had
not hitherto been confined to that population. The discovery of new
worlds at vast distances from us, was accompanied by the discovery of
new worlds close to us, even in the very substances with which we were
best acquainted; and was thus rendered ineffective to disturb the belief
of those who had regarded the world as having God for its governor.
3. This is a striking reflection, and is put by Chalmers in a very
striking manner; and it is well fitted to remove the scruples to which
it is especially addressed. If there be any persons to whom the
astronomical discoveries which the telescope has brought to light,
suggests doubts or difficulties with regard to such truths of Natural
Religion as God's care for and government of the inhabitants of the
earth, the discoveries of the many various forms of animalcular life
which the microscope has brought to light are well fitted to remove such
doubts, and to solve such difficulties. We may easily believe that the
power of God to sustain and provide for animal life, animal sustenance,
animal enjoyment, can suffice for innumerable worlds besides this,
without being withdrawn or distracted or wearied in this earth; for we
find that it does suffice for innumerable more inhabitants of this earth
than we were before aware of. If we had imagined before, that, in
conceiving God as able and willing to provide for the life and pleasure
of all the sentient beings which we knew to exist upon the earth, we had
formed an adequate notion of his power and of his goodness, these
microscopical discoveries are well adapted to undeceive us. They show us
that all the notions which our knowledge, hitherto, had enabled us to
form of the powers and attributes of the Creator and Preserver of all
living things, are vastly, are immeasurably below the real truth of the
case. They show us that God, as revealed to us in the animal creation,
is the Author and Giver of life, of the organization which life implies,
of the contrivances by which it is conducted and sustained, of the
enjoyment by which it is accompanied,--to an extent infinitely beyond
what the unassisted vision of man could have suggested. The facts which
are obvious to man, from which religious minds in all ages have drawn
their notions and their evidence of the Divine power and goodness, care
and wisdom, in providing for its creatures, require, we find, to be
indefinitely extended, in virtue of the new tribes of minute creatures,
and still new tribes, and still more minute, which we find existing
around us. The views of our Natural Theology must be indefinitely
extended on one side; and therefore we need not be startled or disturbed
at having to extend them indefinitely on the other side;--at having to
believe that there are, in other worlds, creatures whom God has created,
whom he sustains in life, for whom he provides the pleasures of life, as
he does for the long unsuspected creatures of this world.
4. This is, I say, a reflection which might quiet the mind of a person,
whom astronomical discoveries had led to doubt of the ordinary doctrines
of Natural Religion. But, I think, it may be questioned, whether, to
produce such doubts, is a common or probable effect of an acquaintance
with astronomical discoveries. Undoubtedly, by such discoveries, a
person who believes in God, in his wisdom, power, and goodness, on the
evidence of the natural world, is required to extend and exalt his
conceptions of those Divine Attributes. He had believed God to be the
Author of many forms of life;--he finds him to be the Author of still
more forms of life. He had traced many contrivances in the structure of
animals, for their sustentation and well-being; his new discoveries
disclose to him (for that is undoubtedly among the effects of
microscopic researches) still more nice contrivances. He had seen reason
to think that all sentient beings have their enjoyments; he finds new
fields of enjoyment of the same kind. But in all this, there is little
or nothing to disturb the views and convictions of the Natural
Theologian. He must, even by the evidence of facts patent to ordinary
observation, have been led to believe that the Divine Wisdom and Power
are not only great, but great in a degree which we cannot fathom or
comprehend;--that they are, to our apprehension, infinite: his new
discoveries only confirm the impression of this infinite character of
the Divine Attributes. He had before believed the existence of an
intelligent and wise Creator, on the evidence of the marks of design and
contrivance, which the creation exhibited: of such design and
contrivance he discovers new marks, new examples. He had believed that
God is good, because he found those contrivances invariably had the good
of the creature for their object: he finds, still, that this is the
general, the universal scheme of the creation, now when his view of it
is extended. He has no difficulty in expanding his religious
conceptions, to correspond with his scientific discoveries, so far as
the microscope is the instrument of discovery; there is no reason why he
should have any more difficulty in doing the same, when the telescope is
his informant. It is true, that in this case the information is more
imperfect. It does not tell him, even that there are living inhabitants
in the regions which it reveals; and, consequently, it does not disclose
any of those examples of design which belong to the structure of living
things. But if we suppose, from analogy, that there are living things in
those regions, we have no difficulty in conceiving, from analogy also,
that those living things are constructed with a care and wisdom such as
appear in the inhabitants of earth. It will not readily or commonly
occur to a speculator on such subjects, that there is any source of
perplexity or unbelief, in such an assumption of inhabitants of other
worlds, even if we make the assumption. It is as easy, it may well and
reasonably be thought, for God to create a population for the planets as
to make the planets themselves;--as easy to supply Jupiter with tenants,
as with satellites;--as easy to devise the organization of an inhabitant
of Saturn, as the structure and equilibrium of Saturn's ring. It is no
more difficult for the Universal Creator to extend to those bodies the
powers which operate in organized matter, than the powers which operate
in brute matter. It is as easy for Him to establish circulation and
nutrition in material structures, as cohesion and crystallization, which
we must suppose the planetary masses to possess; or attraction and
inertia, which we know them to possess. No doubt, to our conception,
organization appears to be a step beyond cohesion; circulation of living
fluids, a step beyond crystallization of dead masses:--but then, it is
in tracing such steps, that we discern the peculiar character of the
Creator's agency. He does not merely work with mechanical and chemical
powers, as man to a certain extent can do; but with organic and vital
powers, which man cannot command. The Creator, therefore, can animate
the dust of each planet, as easily as make the dust itself. And when
from organic life we rise to sentient life, we have still only another
step in the known order of Creative Power. To create animals, in any
province of the Universe, cannot be conceived as much more
incomprehensible or incredible, than to create vegetables. No doubt, the
addition of the living and sentient principle to the material, and even
to the organic structure, is a mighty step; and one which may, perhaps,
be made the occasion of some speculative suggestions, in a subsequent
part of this Essay; but still, it is not likely that any one, who had
formed his conceptions of the Divine Mind from its manifestations in the
production and sustentation of animal, as well as vegetable life, on
this earth, would have his belief in the operation of such a Mind,
shaken, by any necessity which might be impressed upon him, of granting
the existence of animal life on other planets, as well as on the earth,
or even on innumerable such planets, and on innumerable systems of
planets and worlds, system above system.
5. The remark of Chalmers, therefore, to which I have referred,
striking as it is, does not appear to bear directly upon a difficulty of
any great force. If astronomy gives birth to scruples which interfere
with religion, they must be found in some other quarter than in the
possibility of mere animal life existing in other parts of the Universe,
as well as on our earth. That possibility may require us to enlarge our
idea of the Deity, but it has little or no tendency to disturb our
apprehension of his attributes.
CHAPTER IV.
FURTHER STATEMENT OF THE DIFFICULTY.
1. We have attempted to show that if the discoveries made by the
Telescope should excite in any one's mind, difficulties respecting those
doctrines of Natural Religion,--the adequacy of the Creator to the
support and guardianship of all the animal life which may exist in the
universe,--the discoveries of the Microscope may remove such
difficulties; but we have remarked also, that the train of thought which
leads men to dwell upon such difficulties does not seem to be common.
But what will be the train of thought to which we shall be led, if we
suppose that there are, on other planets, and in other systems, not
animals only, living things, which, however different from the animals
of this earth, are yet in some way analogous to them, according to the
difference of circumstances; but also creatures analogous to
man;--intellectual creatures, living, we must suppose, under a moral
law, responsible for transgression, the subjects of a Providential
Government? If we suppose that, in the other planets of our solar
systems, and of other systems, there are creatures of such a kind, and
under such conditions as these, how far will the religious opinions
which we had previously entertained be disturbed or modified? Will any
new difficulty be introduced into our views of the government of the
world by such a supposition?
2. I have spoken of man as an Intellectual Creature; meaning thereby
that he has a Mind;--powers of thought, by which he can contemplate the
relations and properties of things in a general and abstract form; and
among other relations, moral relations, the distinction of _right_ and
_wrong_ in his actions. Those powers of thought lead him to think of a
Creator and Ordainer of all things; and his perception of right and
wrong leads him to regard this Creator as also the Governor and Judge of
his creatures. The operation of his mind directs him to believe in a
Supreme Mind: his moral nature directs him to believe that the course of
human affairs, and the condition of men, both as individuals and as
bodies, is determined by the providential government of God.
3. With regard to the bearing of a merely _intellectual_ nature on such
questions, it does not appear that any considerable difficulty would be
_at once_ occasioned in our religious views, by supposing such a nature
to belong to other creatures, the inhabitants of other planets, as well
as to man. The existence of our own minds directs us, as I have said, to
a Supreme Mind; and the nature of Mind is conceived to be, in all its
manifestations, so much the same, that we can conceive minds to be
multiplied indefinitely, without fear of confusion, interference, or
exhaustion. There may be, in Jupiter, creatures endowed with an
intellect which enables them to discover and demonstrate the relations
of space; and if so, they cannot have discovered and demonstrated
anything of that kind as true, which is not true for us also: their
Geometry must coincide with ours, as far as each goes:--thus showing how
absurdly, as Plato long ago observed, we give to the science which deals
with the relations of space, a name (_geometry_), borrowed from the art
of measuring the earth. The earth with its properties is no more the
special basis of geometry, than are Jupiter or Saturn, or, so far as we
can judge, Sirius or Arcturus and their systems, with their properties.
Wherever pure intellect is, we are compelled to conceive that, when
employed upon the same objects, its results and conclusions are the
same. If there be intelligent inhabitants of the Moon, they may, like
us, have employed their intelligence in reasoning upon the properties of
lines and angles and triangles; and must, so far as they have gone, have
arrived, in their thoughts, at the same properties of lines and angles
and triangles, at which we have arrived. They must, like us, have had to
distinguish between right angles and oblique angles. They may have come
to know, as some of the inhabitants of the earth came to know, four
thousand years ago, that, in a right-angled triangle, the square on the
larger side is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.
We can conceive occurrences which would give us evidence that the Moon,
as well as the Earth, contains geometers. If we were to see, on the face
of the full moon, a figure gradually becoming visible, representing a
right-angled triangle with a square constructed on each of its three
sides as a base; we should regard it as the work of intelligent
creatures there, who might be thus making a signal to the inhabitants of
the earth, that they possessed such knowledge, and were desirous of
making known to their nearest neighbors in the solar system, their
existence and their speculations. In such an event, curious and striking
as it would be, we should see nothing but what we could understand and
accept, without unsettling our belief in the Supreme and Divine
Intelligence. On the contrary, we could hardly fail to receive such a
manifestation as a fresh evidence that the Divine Mind had imparted to
the inhabitants of the Moon, as he has to us, a power of apprehending,
in a very general and abstract form, the relations of that space in
which he performs his works. We should judge, that having been led so
far in their speculations, they must, in all probability, have been led
also to a conception of the Universe, as the field of action of a
universal and Divine Mind; that having thus become geometers, they must
have ascended to the Idea of a God who works by geometry.
4. But yet, by such a supposition, on further consideration, we find
ourselves introduced to views entirely different from those to which we
are led by the supposition of mere animal life, existing in other worlds
than the earth. For, not to dwell here upon any speculations as to how
far the operations of our minds may resemble the operations of the
Divine Mind;--a subject which we shall hereafter endeavor to
discuss;--we know that the advance to such truths as those of geometry
has been, among the inhabitants of the earth, gradual and progressive.
Though the human mind have had the same powers and faculties, from the
beginning of the existence of the race up to the present time, (as we
cannot but suppose,) the results of the exercise of these powers and
faculties have been very different in different ages; and have gradually
grown up, from small beginnings, to the vast and complex body of
knowledge concerning the scheme and relations of the Universe, which is
at present accessible to the minds of human speculators. It is, as we
have said, probably about four thousand years, since the first steps in
such knowledge were made. Geometry is said to have had its origin in
Egypt; but it assumed its abstract and speculative character first among
the Greeks. Pythagoras is related to have been the first who saw, in the
clear light of demonstration, the property of the right-angled triangle,
of which we have spoken. The Greeks, from the time of Socrates,
stimulated especially by Plato, pursued, with wonderful success, the
investigation of this kind of truths. They saw that such truths had
their application in the heavens, far more extensively than on the
earth. They were enabled, by such speculations, to unravel, in a great
degree, the scheme of the universe, before so seemingly entangled and
perplexed. They determined, to a very considerable extent, the relative
motions of the planets and of the stars. And in modern times, after a
long interval, in which such knowledge was nearly stationary, the
progress again began; and further advances were successively made in
man's knowledge of the scheme and structure of the visible heavens; till
at length the intellect of man was led to those views of the extent of
the Universe and the nature of the stars, which are the basis of the
discussions in which we are now engaged. And thus man, having probably
been, in the earliest ages of the existence of the species, entirely
ignorant of abstract truth, and of the relations which, by the knowledge
of such truth, we can trace in nature, (as the barbarous tribes which
occupy the greater part of the earth's surface still are;) has, by a
long series of progressive steps, come into the possession of knowledge,
which we cannot regard without wonder and admiration; and which seems to
elevate him in no inconsiderable degree, towards a community of thought
with that Divine Mind, into the nature and scheme of whose works he is
thus permitted to penetrate.
5. Now the knowledge which man is capable, by the nature of his mental
faculties, of acquiring, being thus blank and rudimentary at first, and
only proceeding gradually, by the steps of a progress, numerous, slow,
and often long interrupted, to that stage in which it is the basis of
our present speculations; the view which we have just taken, of the
nature of Intellect, as a faculty always of the same kind, always
uniform in its operations, always consistent in its results, appears to
require reconsideration; and especially with reference to the
application which we made of that view, to the intelligent inhabitants
of other planets and other worlds, if such inhabitants there be. For if
we suppose that there are, in the Moon, or in Jupiter, creatures
possessing intellectual faculties of the same kind as those of man;
capable of apprehending the same abstract and general truths; able, like
man, to attain to a knowledge of the scheme of the Universe; yet this
supposition merely gives the capacity and the ability; and does not
include any security, or even high probability, as it would seem, of the
exercise of such capacity, or of the successful application of such
ability. Even if the surface of the Moon be inhabited by creatures as
intelligent as men, why must we suppose that they know anything more of
the geometry and astronomy, than the great bulk of the less cultured
inhabitants of the earth, who occupy, really, a space far larger than
the surface of the Moon; and, all intelligent though they be, and in the
full possession of mental faculties, are yet, on the subjects of
geometry and astronomy, entirely ignorant;--their minds, as to such a
knowledge, a blank? It does not follow, then, that even if there be such
inhabitants in the Moon, or in the Planets, they have any sympathy with
us, or any community of knowledge on the subjects of which we are now
speaking. The surface of the Moon, or of Jupiter, or of Saturn, even if
well peopled, may be peopled only with tribes as barbarous and ignorant
as Tartars, or Esquimaux, or Australians; and therefore, by making such
a supposition, we do little, even hypothetically, to extend the dominion
of that intelligence, by means of which all intelligent beings have some
community of thought with each other, and some suggestion of the working
of the Divine and Universal Mind.
6. But, in fact, the view which we have given of the mode of existence
of the human species upon the earth, as being a progressive existence,
even in the development of the intellectual powers and their results,
necessarily fastens down our thoughts and our speculations to the earth,
and makes us feel how visionary and gratuitous it is to assume any
similar kind of existence in any region occupied by other beings than
man. As we have said, we have no insuperable difficulty in conceiving
other parts of the Universe to be tenanted by animals. Animal life
implies no progress in the species. Such as they are in one century,
such are they in another. The conditions of their sustentation and
generation being given, which no difference of physical circumstances
can render incredible, the race may, so far as we can see, go on
forever. But a race which makes a progress in the development of its
faculties cannot thus, or at least cannot with the same ease, be
conceived as existing through all time, and under all circumstances.
Progress implies, or at least suggests, a beginning and an end. If the
mere existence of a race imply a sustaining and preserving power in the
Creator, the progress of a race implies a guiding and impelling power; a
Governor and Director, as well as a Creator and Preserver. And progress,
not merely in material conditions, not merely in the exercise of bodily
faculties, but in the exercise of mental faculties, in the intellectual
condition of a portion of the species, still more implies a special
position and character of the race, which cannot, without great license
of hypothesis, be extended to other races; and which, if so extended,
becomes unmeaning, from the impossibility of our knowing what is
progress in any other species;--from what and towards what it tends. The
intellectual progress of the human species has been a progress in the
use of thought, and in the knowledge which such use procures; it has
been a progress from mere matter to mind; from the impressions of sense
to ideas; from what in knowledge is casual, partial, temporary, to what
is necessary, universal, and eternal. We can conceive no progress, of
the nature of this, which is not identical with this; nothing like it,
which is not the same. And, therefore, if we will people other planets
with creatures, intelligent as man is intelligent, we must not only give
to them the intelligence, but the intellectual history of the human
species. They must have had their minds unfolded by steps similar to
those by which the human mind has been unfolded; or at least, differing
from them only as the intellectual history of one nation of the earth
differs from that of another. They must have had their Pythagoras, their
Plato, their Kepler, their Galileo, their Newton, if they know what we
know. And thus, in order to conceive, on the Moon or on Jupiter, a race
of beings intelligent like man, we must conceive, there, colonies of
men, with histories resembling more or less the histories of human
colonies; and indeed resembling the history of those nations whose
knowledge we inherit, far more closely than the history of any other
terrestrial nation resembles that part of terrestrial history. If we do
this, we exercise an act of invention and imagination which may be as
coherent as a fairy tale, but which, without further proof, must be as
purely imaginary and arbitrary. But if we do not do this, we cannot
conceive that those regions are occupied at all by intelligent beings.
Intelligence, as we see in the human race, in order to have those
characters which concern our argument, implies a history of intellectual
development; and to assume arbitrarily a history of intellectual
development for the inhabitants of a remote planet, as a ground of
reasoning either for or against Religion, is a proceeding which we can
hardly be expected either to assent to or to refute. If we are to form
any opinions with regard to the condition of such bodies, and to trace
any bearing of such opinions upon our religious views, we must proceed
upon some ground which has more of reality than such a gratuitous
assumption.
7. Thus the condition of man upon the earth, as a condition of
intellectual progress, implies such a special guidance and government
exercised over the race by the Author of his being, as produces
progress; and we have not, so far as we yet perceive, any reason for
supposing that He exercises a like guidance and government over any of
the other bodies with which the researches of astronomers have made us
acquainted. The earth and its inhabitants are under the care of God in a
special manner; and we are utterly destitute of any reason for believing
that other planets and other systems are under the care of God in the
same manner. If we regarded merely the existence of unprogressive races
of animals upon our globe, we might easily suppose that other globes
also are similarly tenanted; and we might infer, that the Creator and
Upholder of animal life was active on those globes, in the same manner
as upon ours. But when we come to a progressive creature, whose
condition implies a beginning, and therefore suggests an end, we form a
peculiar judgment with respect to God's care of that creature, which we
have not as yet seen the slightest grounds to extend to other possible
fields of existence, where we discern no indication of progress, of
beginning, or of end. So far as we can judge, God is mindful of man, and
has launched and guided his course in a certain path which makes his lot
and state different from that of all other creatures.
8. Now when we have arrived at this result, we have, I conceive, reached
one of the points at which the difficulties which astronomical discovery
puts in the way of religious conviction begin to appear. The Earth and
its human inhabitants are, as far as we yet know, in an especial manner
the subjects of God's care and government, for the race is progressive.
Now can this be? Is it not difficult to believe that it is so? The
earth, so small a speck, only one among so many, so many thousands, so
many millions of other bodies, all, probably, of the same nature with
itself, wherefore should it draw to it the special regards of the
Creator of all, and occupy his care in an especial manner? The teaching
of the history of the human race, as intellectually progressive, agrees
with the teaching of Religion, in impressing upon us that God is mindful
of man; that he does regard him; but still, there naturally arises in
our minds a feeling of perplexity and bewilderment, which expresses
itself in the words already so often quoted, What is man, that this
should be so? Can it be true that this province is thus singled out for
a special and peculiar administration by the Lord of the Universal
Empire?
9. Before I make any attempt to answer these questions, I must pursue
the difficulty somewhat further, and look at it in other forms. As I
have said, the history of Man has been, in certain nations, a history of
intellectual progress, from the earliest times up to our own day. But
intellectual progress has been, as I have also said, in a great measure
confined to certain nations thus especially favored. The greater part of
the earth's inhabitants have shared very scantily in that wealth of
knowledge to which the brightest and happiest intellects among men have
thus been led. But though the bulk of mankind have thus had little share
in the grand treasures of science which are open to the race, their life
has still been very different from that of other animals. Many nations,
though they may not have been conspicuous in the history of intellectual
progress, have yet not been without their place in progress of other
kinds--in arts, in arms, and, above all, in morals--in the recognition
of the distinction of right and wrong in human actions, and in the
practical application of this distinction. Such a progress as this has
been far more extensively aimed at, than a progress in abstract and
general knowledge; and, we may venture to say, has been, in many nations
and in a very great measure, really effected. No doubt the imperfection
of this progress, and the constant recurrence of events which appear to
counteract and reverse it, are so obvious and so common as to fill with
grief and indignation the minds of those who regard such a progress as
the great business of the human race; but yet still, looking at the
whole history of the human race, the progress is visible; and even the
grief and the indignation of which we have spoken are a part of its
evidences. There has been, upon the whole, a moral government of the
human race. The moral law, the distinction of right and wrong, has been
established in every nation; and penalties have been established for
wrong-doing. The notion of right and wrong has been extended, from mere
outward acts, to the springs of action, to affection, desire, and will.
The course of human affairs has generally been such, that the just, the
truthful, the kind, the chaste, the orderly portion of mankind have been
happier than the violent and wicked. External wrong has been commonly
punished by the act of human society. Internal sins, impure and
dishonest designs, falsehood, cruelty, have very often led to their own
punishment, by their effect upon the guilty mind itself. We do not say
that the moral government which has prevailed among men has been such,
that we can consider it complete and final in its visible form. We see
that the aspect of things is much the contrary; and we think we see
reasons why it may be expected to be so. But still, there has existed
upon earth a moral government of the human race, exercised, as we must
needs hold, by the Creator of man; partly through the direct operation
of man's faculties, affections, and emotions; and partly through the
authorities which, in all ages and nations, the nature of man has led
him to establish. Now this moral progress and moral government of the
human race is one of the leading facts on which Natural Religion is
founded. We are thus led to regard God as the Moral Governor of man; not
only his Creator and Preserver, but his Lawgiver and his Judge. And the
grounds on which we entertain this belief are peculiarly the human
faculties of man, and their operation in history and in society. The
belief is derived from the whole complex nature of man--the working of
his Affections, Desires, Convictions, Reason, Conscience, and whatever
else enters into the production of human action and its consequences.
God is seen to be the Moral Governor of man by evidence which is
especially derived from the character of Man, and which we could not
attempt to apply to any other creature than man without making our words
altogether unmeaning. But would it not be too bold an assumption to
speak of the Conscience of an inhabitant of Jupiter? Would it not be a
rash philosophy to assume the operation of Remorse or Self-approval on
the planet, in order that we may extend to it the moral government of
God? Except we can point out something more solid than this to reason
from, on such subjects, there is no use in our attempting to reason at
all. Our doctrines must be mere results of invention and imagination.
Here then, again, we are brought to the conviction that God is, so far
as we yet see, in an especial and peculiar manner, the Governor of the
earth and of its human inhabitants, in such a way that the like
government cannot be conceived to be extended to other planets, and
other systems, without arbitrary and fanciful assumptions; assumptions
either of unintelligible differences with incomprehensible results, or
of beings in all respects human, inhabiting the most remote regions of
the universe. And here, again, therefore, we are led to the same
difficulty which we have already encountered: Can the earth, a small
globe among so many millions, have been selected as the scene of this
especially Divine Government?
10. That when we attempt to extend our sympathies to the inhabitants of
other planets and other worlds, and to regard them as living, like us,
under a moral government, we are driven to suppose them to be, in all
essential respects, human beings like ourselves, we have proof, in all
the attempts which have been made, with whatever license of hypothesis
and fancy, to present to us descriptions and representations of the
inhabitants of other parts of the universe. Such representations, though
purposely made as unlike human beings as the imagination of man can
frame them, still are merely combinations, slightly varied, of the
elements of human being; and thus show us that not only our reason, but
even our imagination, cannot conceive creatures subjected to the same
government to which man is subjected, without conceiving them as being
men of one kind or other. A mere animal life, with no interest but
animal enjoyment, we may conceive as assuming forms different from those
which appear in existing animal races; though even here, there are, as
we shall hereafter attempt to show, certain general principles which run
through all animal life. But when in addition to mere animal impulses,
we assume or suppose moral and intellectual interests, we conceive them
as the moral and intellectual interests of man. Truth and falsehood,
right and wrong, law and transgression, happiness and misery, reward and
punishment, are the necessary elements of all that can interest us--of
all that we can call _Government_. To transfer these to Jupiter or to
Sirius, is merely to imagine those bodies to be a sort of island of
Formosa, or new Atlantis, or Utopia, or Platonic Polity, or something of
the like kind. The boldest and most resolute attempts to devise some
life different from human life, have not produced anything more
different than romance-writers and political theorists have devised _as_
a form of human life. And this being so, there is no more wisdom or
philosophy in believing such assemblages of beings to exist in Jupiter
or Sirius, without evidence, than in believing them to exist in the
island of Formosa, with the like absence of evidence.
11. Any examination of what has been written on this subject would show
that, in speculating about moral and intellectual beings in other
regions of the universe, we merely make them to be men in another place.
With regard to the plants and animals of other planets, fancy has freer
play; but man cannot conceive any moral creature who is not man. Thus
Fontenelle, in his _Dialogues on the Plurality of Worlds_, makes the
inhabitants of Venus possess, in an exaggerated degree, the
characteristics of the men of the warm climates of the earth. They are
like the Moors of Grenada; or rather, the Moors of Grenada would be to
them as cold as Greenlanders and Laplanders to us. And the inhabitants
of Mercury have so much vivacity, that they would pass with us for
insane. "Enfin c'est dans Mercure que sont les Petites-Maisons de
l'Univers." The inhabitants of Jupiter and Saturn are immensely slow and
phlegmatic. And though he and other writers attempt to make these
inhabitants of remote regions in some respects superior to man, telling
us that instead of only five senses, they may have six, or ten, or a
hundred, still these are mere words which convey no meaning; and the
great astronomer Bessel had reason to say, that those who imagined
inhabitants in the Moon and Planets, supposed them, in spite of all
their protestations, as like to men as one egg to another.[1]
12. But there is one step more, which we still have to make, in order to
bring out this difficulty in its full force. As we have said, the moral
law has been, to a certain extent, established, developed, and enforced
among men. But, as I have also said, looking carefully at the law, and
at the degree of man's obedience to it, and at the operation of the
sanctions by which it is supported, we cannot help seeing, that man's
knowledge of the law is imperfect, his conviction of its authority
feeble, his transgressions habitual, their punishment and consequences
obscure. When, therefore, we regard God, as the Lawgiver and Judge of
man, it will not appear strange to us, that he should have taken some
mode of promulgating his Law, and announcing his Judgments, in addition
to that ordinary operation of the faculties of man, of which we have
spoken. Revealed Religion teaches us that he has done so: that from the
first placing of the race of man upon the earth, it was his purpose to
do so: that by his dealing with the race of man in the earlier times,
and at various intervals, he made preparation for the mission of a
special Messenger, whom, in the fulness of time, he sent upon the earth
in the form of a man; and who both taught men the Law of God in a purer
and clearer form than any in which it had yet been given; and revealed
His purpose, of rewards for obedience, and punishments for disobedience,
to be executed in a state of being to which this human life is only an
introduction; and established the means by which the spirit of man, when
alienated from God by transgression, may be again reconciled to Him. The
arrival of this especial Messenger of Holiness, Judgment, and
Redemption, forms the great event in the history of the earth,
considered in a religious view, as the abode of God's servants. It was
attended with the sufferings and cruel death of the Divine Messenger
thus sent; was preceded by prophetic announcements of his coming; and
the history of the world, for the two thousand years that have since
elapsed, has been in a great measure occupied with the consequences of
that advent. Such a proceeding shows, of course, that God has an
especial care for the race of man. The earth, thus selected as the
theatre of such a scheme of Teaching and of Redemption, cannot, in the
eyes of any one who accepts this Christian faith, be regarded as being
on a level with any other domiciles. It is the Stage of the great Drama
of God's Mercy and Man's Salvation; the Sanctuary of the Universe; the
Holy Land of Creation; the Royal Abode, for a time at least, of the
Eternal King. This being the character which has thus been conferred
upon it, how can we assent to the assertions of Astronomers, when they
tell us that it is only one among millions of similar habitations, not
distinguishable from them, except that it is smaller than most of them
that we can measure; confused and rude in its materials like them? Or if
we believe the Astronomers, will not such a belief lead us to doubt the
truth of the great scheme of Christianity, which thus makes the earth
the scene of a special dispensation.
13. This is the form in which Chalmers has taken up the argument. This
is the difficulty which he proposes to solve; or rather, (such being as
I have said the mode in which he presents the subject,) the objection
which he proposes to refute. It is the bearing of the Astronomical
discoveries of modern times, not upon the doctrines of Natural Religion,
but upon the scheme of Christianity, which he discusses. And the
question which he supposes his opponent to propound, as an objection to
the Christian scheme, is:--How is it consistent with the dignity, the
impartiality, the comprehensiveness, the analogy of God's proceedings,
that he should make so special and pre-eminent a provision for the
salvation of the inhabitants of this Earth, where there are such myriads
of other worlds, all of which may require the like provision, and all of
which have an equal claim to their Creator's care?
14. The answer which Chalmers gives to this objection, is one drawn, in
the first instance, from our ignorance. He urges that, when the objector
asserts that other worlds may have the like need with our own, of a
special provision for the rescue of their inhabitants from the
consequences of the transgression of God's laws, he is really making an
assertion without the slightest foundation. Not only does Science not
give us any information on such subjects, but the whole spirit of the
scientific procedure, which has led to the knowledge which we possess,
concerning other planets and other systems, is utterly opposed to our
making such assumptions, respecting other worlds, as the objection
involves. Modern Science, in proportion as she is confident when she has
good grounds of proof, however strange may be the doctrines proved, is
not only diffident, but is utterly silent, and abstains even from
guessing, when she has no grounds of proof. Chalmers takes Newton's
reasoning, as offering a special example of this mixed temper, of
courage in following the evidence, and temperance in not advancing when
there is no evidence. He puts, in opposition to this, the example of the
true philosophical temper,--a supposed rash theorist, who should make
unwarranted suppositions and assumptions, concerning matters to which
our scientific evidence does not reach;--the animals and plants, for
instance, which are to be found in the planet Jupiter. No one, he says,
would more utterly reject and condemn such speculations than Newton,
who first rightly explained the motion of Jupiter and of his attendant
satellites, about which Science _can_ pronounce her truths. And thus,
nothing can be more opposite to the real spirit of modern science, and
astronomy in particular, than arguments, such as we have stated,
professing to be drawn from science and from astronomy. Since we know
nothing about the inhabitants of Jupiter, true science requires that we
say and suppose nothing about them; still more requires that we should
not, on the ground of assumptions made with regard to them, and other
supposed groups of living creatures, reject a belief, founded on direct
and positive proofs, such as is the belief in the truths of Natural and
of Revealed Religion.
15. To this argument of Chalmers, we may not only give our full assent,
but we may venture to suggest, in accordance with what we have already
said, that the argument, when so put, is not stated in all its
legitimate force. The assertion that the inhabitants of Jupiter have the
same need as we have, of a special dispensation for their preservation
from moral ruin, is not only as merely arbitrary an assumption, as any
assertion could be, founded on a supposed knowledge of an analogy
between the botany of Jupiter, and the botany of the earth; but it is a
great deal more so. There may be circumstances which may afford some
reason to believe that something of the nature of vegetables grows on
the surface of Jupiter; for instance, if we find that he is a solid
globe surrounded by an atmosphere, vapor, clouds, showers. But, as we
have already said, there is an immeasurable distance between the
existence of unprogressive tribes of organized creatures, plants, or
even animals, and the existence of a progressive creature, which can
pass through the conditions of receiving, discerning, disobeying, and
obeying a moral law; which can be estranged from God, and then
reconciled to him. To assume, without further proof, that there are, in
Jupiter, creatures of such a nature that these descriptions apply to
them, is a far bolder and more unphilosophical assumption, than any that
the objector could make concerning the botany of Jupiter; and therefore,
the objection thus supposed to be drawn from our supposed knowledge, is
very properly answered by an appeal to our really utter ignorance, as to
the points on which the argument rests.
16. This appeal to our ignorance is the main feature in Chalmers'
reasonings, so far as the argument on the one side or the other has
reference to science. Chalmers, indeed, pursues the argument into other
fields of speculation. He urges, that not only we have no right to
assume that other worlds require a redemption of the same kind as that
provided for man, but that the very reverse maybe the case. Man maybe
the only transgressor; and this, the only world that needed so great a
provision for its salvation. We read in Scripture, expressions which
imply that other beings, besides man, take an interest in the salvation
of man. May not this be true of the inhabitants of other worlds, if such
inhabitants there be? These speculations he pursues to a considerable
length, with great richness of imagination, and great eloquence. But the
suppositions on which they proceed are too loosely connected with the
results of science, to make it safe for us to dwell upon them here.
17. I conceive, as I have said, that the argument with which Chalmers
thus deals admits of answers, also drawn from modern science, which to
many persons will seem more complete than that which is thus drawn from
our ignorance. But before I proceed to bring forward these answers,
which will require several steps of explanation, I have one or two
remarks still to make.
18. Undoubtedly they who believe firmly both that the earth has been
the scene of a Divine Plan for the benefit of man, and also that other
bodies in the universe are inhabited by creatures who may have an
interest in such a Plan, are naturally led to conjectures and
imaginations as to the nature and extent of that interest. The religious
poet, in his Night Thoughts, interrogates the inhabitants of a distant
star, whether their race too has, in its history, events resembling the
fall of man, and the redemption of man.
Enjoy your happy realms their golden age?
And had your Eden an abstemious Eve?
Or, if your mother fell are you redeemed?
And if redeemed, is your Redeemer scorned?
And such imaginations may be readily allowed to the preacher or the
poet, to be employed in order to impress upon man the conviction of his
privileges, his thanklessness, his inconsistency, and the like. But
every form in which such reflections can be put shows how intimately
they depend upon the nature and history of man. And when such
reflections are made the source of difficulty or objection in the way of
religious thought, and when these difficulties and objections are
represented as derived from astronomical discoveries, it cannot be
superfluous to inquire whether astronomy has really discovered any
ground for such objections. To some persons it may be more grateful to
remedy one assumption by another: the assumption of moral agents in
other worlds, by the assumption of some operation of the Divine Plan in
other worlds. But since many persons find great difficulty in conceiving
such an operation of the Divine Plan in a satisfactory way; and many
persons also think that to make such unauthorized and fanciful
assumptions with regard to the Divine Plans for the government of God's
creatures is a violation of the humility, submission of mind, and spirit
of reverence which religion requires; it may be useful if we can show
that such assumptions, with regard to the Divine Plans, are called forth
by assumptions equally gratuitous on the other side: that Astronomy no
more reveals to us extra-terrestrial moral agents, than Religion reveals
to us extra-terrestrial Plans of Divine government. Chalmers has spoken
of the _rashness_ of making assumptions on such subjects without proof;
leaving it however, to be supposed, that though astronomy does not
supply proof of intelligent inhabitants of other parts of the universe,
she yet does offer strong analogies in favor of such an opinion. But
such a procedure is more than rash: when astronomical doctrines are
presented in the form in which they have been already laid before the
reader, which is the ordinary and popular mode of apprehending them, the
analogies in favor of "other worlds," are (to say the least) greatly
exaggerated. And by taking into account what astronomy really teaches
us, and what we learn also from other sciences, I shall attempt to
reduce such "analogies" to their true value.
14. The privileges of man, which make the difficulty in assigning him
his place in the vast scheme of the Universe, we have described as
consisting in his being an _intellectual_, _moral_, and _religious_
creature. Perhaps the privileges implied in the last term, and their
place in our argument, may justify a word more of explanation. Religion
teaches us that there is opened to man, not only a prospect of a life in
the presence of God, after this mortal life, but also the possibility
and the duty of spending this life as in the presence of God. This is
properly the highest result and manifestation of the effect of Religion
upon man. Precisely because it is this, it is difficult to speak of this
effect without seeming to use the language of enthusiasm; and yet
again, precisely because it is so, our argument would be incomplete
without a reference to it. There is for man, a possibility and a duty of
bringing his thoughts, purposes, and affections more and more into
continual unison with the will of God. This, even Natural Religion
taught men, was the highest point at which man could aim; and Revealed
Religion has still more clearly enjoined the duty of aiming at such a
condition. The means of a progress towards such a state belong to the
Religion of the heart and mind. They include a constant purification and
elevation of the thoughts, affections, and will, wrought by habits of
religious reflection and meditation, of prayer and gratitude to God.
Without entering into further explanation, all religious persons will
agree that such a progress is, under happy influences, possible for man,
and is the highest condition to which he can attain in this life.
Whatever names may have been applied at different times to the steps of
such a progress;--the cultivation of the divine nature in us;
resignation; devotion; holiness; union with God; living in God, and with
God in us;--religious persons will not doubt that there is a reality of
internal state corresponding to these expressions; and that, to be
capable of elevation into the condition which these expressions
indicate, is one of the especial privileges of man. Man's soul,
considered especially as the subject of God's government, is often
called his _Spirit_; and that man is capable of such conformity to the
will of God, and approximation to Him, is sometimes expressed by
speaking of him as a _spiritual creature_. And though the privilege of
being, or of being capable of becoming, in this sense, a spiritual
creature, is a part of man's religious privileges; we may sometimes be
allowed to use this additional expression, in order to remind the
reader, how great those religious privileges are, and how close is the
relation between man and God, which they imply.
15. We have given a view of the peculiar character of man's condition,
which seem to claim for him a nature and place unique and incapable of
repetition, in the scheme of the universe; and to this view astronomy,
exhibiting to us the habitation of man as only one among many similar
abodes, offers an objection. We are, therefore, now called upon, I
conceive, to proceed to exhibit the answer which a somewhat different
view of modern science suggests to this difficulty or objection.
For this purpose, we must begin by regarding the Earth in another point
of view, different from that hitherto considered by us.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Populäre Vorlesungen über Wissenschaftliche Gegenstände, p. 31.
CHAPTER V.
GEOLOGY.
1. Man, as I trust has been made apparent to the consciousness and
conviction of the reader, is an intelligent, moral, religious, and
spiritual creature; and we have to discuss the difficulty, or
perplexity, or objection, which arises in our minds, when we consider
such a creature as occupying an habitation, which is but one among many
globes apparently equally fitted to be the dwelling-places of living
things--a mere speck in the immensity of creation--an atom among such a
vast array of material structures--a world, as we needs must deem it,
among millions of other objects which appear to have an equal claim to
be regarded as worlds.
2. The difficulty appears to be great, either way. Can the earth alone
be the theatre of such intelligent, moral, religious, and spiritual
action? On the other hand, can we conceive such action to go on in the
other bodies of the universe? If we take the latter alternative, we must
people other planets and other systems with men such as we are, even as
to their history. For the intellectual and moral condition of man
implies a _history_ of the species; and the view of man's condition
which religion presents, not only involves a scheme of which the history
of the human race is a part, but also asserts a peculiar reference had,
in the provisions of God, to the nature of man; and even a peculiar
relation and connection between the human and the divine nature. To
extend such suppositions to other worlds would be a proceeding so
arbitrary and fanciful, that we are led to consider whether the
alternative supposition may not be more admissible. The alternative
supposition is, that man is, in an especial and eminent manner, the
object of God's care; that his place in the creation is, not that he
merely occupies one among millions of similar domiciles provided in
boundless profusion by the Creator of the Universe, but that he is the
servant, subject, and child of God, in a way unique and peculiar; that
his being a spiritual creature, (including his other attributes in the
highest for the sake of brevity,) makes him belong to a spiritual world,
which is not to be judged of merely by analogies belonging to the
material universe.
3. Between these two difficulties the choice is embarrassing, and the
decision must be unsatisfactory, except we can find some further ground
of judgment. But perhaps this is not hopeless. We have hitherto referred
to the evidence and analogies supplied by one science, namely,
astronomy. But there are other sciences which give us information
concerning the nature and history of the earth. From some of these,
perhaps, we may obtain some knowledge of the place of the earth in the
scheme of creation--how far it is, in its present condition, a thing
unique, or only one thing among many like it. Any science which supplies
us with evidence or information on this head, will give us aid in
forming a judgment upon the question under our consideration. To such
sciences, then, we will turn our attention.
One science has employed itself in investigating the nature and history
of the earth by an examination of the materials of which it is
composed; namely, Geology. Let us call to mind some of the results at
which this science has arrived.
4. A very little attention to what is going on among the materials of
which the earth's surface is composed, suffices to show us that there
are causes of change constantly and effectually at work. The earth's
surface is composed of land and water, hills and valleys, rocks and
rivers. But these features undergo change, and produce change in each
other. The mountain-rivers cut deeper and deeper into the ravines in
which they run; they break up the rocks over which they rush, use the
fragments as implements of further destruction, pile them up in sloping
mounds where the streams issue from the mountains, spread them over the
plains, fill up lakes with sediment, push into the sea great deltas. The
sea batters the cliffs and eats away the land, and again, forms banks
and islands where there had been deep water. Volcanoes pour out streams
of lava, which destroy the vegetation over which they flow, and which
again, after a series of years, are themselves clothed with vegetation.
Earthquakes throw down tracts of land beneath the sea, and elevate other
tracts from the bottom of the ocean. These agencies are everywhere
manifest; and though at a given moment, at a given spot, their effect
may seem to us almost imperceptible, too insignificant to be taken
account of, yet in a long course of years almost every place has
undergone considerable changes. Rivers have altered their courses, lakes
have become plains, coasts have been swept away or have become inland
districts, rich valleys have been ravaged by watery or fiery deluges,
the country has in some way or other assumed a new face. The present
aspect of the earth is in some degree different from what it was a few
thousand years ago.
5. But yet, in truth, the changes of which we thus speak have not been
very considerable. The forms of countries, the lines of coasts, the
ranges of mountains, the groups of valleys, the courses of rivers, are
much the same now as they were in ancient times. The face of the earth,
since man has had any knowledge of it, may have undergone some change,
but the changeable has borne a small proportion to the permanent.
Changes have taken place, and are taking place, but they do not take
place rapidly. The ancient earth and the modern earth are, in all their
main physical features, identical; and we must go backwards through a
considerably larger interval than that which carries us back to what we
usually term _antiquity_, before we are led, by the operation of causes
now at work, to an aspect of the earth's surface very different from
that which it now presents.
6. For instance, rivers do, no doubt, more or less alter, in the course
of years, by natural causes. The Rhine, the Rhone, the Po, the Danube,
have, certainly, during the last four thousand years, silted up their
beds in level places, expanded the deltas at their mouths, changed the
channels by which they enter the sea; and very probably, in their upper
parts, altered the forms of their waterfalls and of their shingle beds.
Yet even if we were thus to go backwards ten thousand, or twenty, or
thirty thousand years, (setting aside great and violent causes of
change, as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the like,) the general
form and course of these rivers, and of the ranges of mountains in which
they flow, would not be different from what it is now. And the same may
be said of coasts and islands, seas and bays. The present geography of
the earth may be, and from all the evidence which we have, must be, very
ancient, according to any measures of antiquity which can apply to human
affairs.
7. But yet the further examination of the materials of the earth
carries us to a view beyond this. Though the general forms of the land
and the waters of continents and seas, were, several thousand years ago,
much the same as they now are; yet it was not always so. We have clear
evidence that large tracts which are now dry ground, were formerly the
bed of the ocean; and these, not tracts of the shore, where the varying
warfare of sea and land is still going on, but the very central parts of
great continents; the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Himalayas. For not only
are the rocks of which these great mountain-chains consist, of such
structure that they appear to have been formed as layers of sediment at
the bottom of water; but also, these layers contain vast accumulations
of shells, or impressions of shells, and other remains of marine
animals. And these appearances are not few, limited, or partial. The
existence of such marine remains, in the solid substance of continents
and mountains, is a general, predominant, and almost universal fact, in
every part of the earth. Nor is any other way of accounting for this
fact admissible, than that those materials really have, at some time,
formed bottoms of seas. The various other conjectures and hypotheses,
which were put forward on this subject, when the amount, extent,
multiplicity, and coherence of the phenomena were not yet ascertained,
and when their natural history was not yet studied, cannot now be
considered as worthy of the smallest regard. That many of our highest
hills are formed of materials raised from the depths of ocean, is a
proposition which cannot be doubted, by any one, who fairly examines the
evidence which nature offers.
8. If we take this proposition only, we cannot immediately connect it
with our knowledge respecting the surface of the earth in its present
form. We learn that what is now land, has been sea; and we may suppose
(since it is natural to assume that the bulk of the sea has not much
changed) that what is now sea was formerly land. But, except we can
learn something of the manner in which this change took place, we cannot
make any use of our knowledge. Was the change sudden, or gradual;
abrupt, or successive; brief, or long-continuing?
9. To these questions, the further study of the facts enables us to
return answers with great confidence. The change or changes which
produced the effects of which we have spoken--the conversion of the
bottom of the ocean into the centre of our greatest continents and
highest mountains,--were undoubtedly gradual, successive, and long
continued. We must state very briefly the grounds on which we make this
assertion.
10. The masses which form our mountain-chains, offer evidence, as I have
said, that they were deposited as sediment at the bottom of a sea, and
then hardened. They consist of successive layers of such sediment,
making up the whole mass of the mountain. These layers are, of course,
to a certain extent, a measure of the time during which the deposition
of sediment took place. The thicker the mass of sediment, the more
numerous and varied its beds, and the longer period must we suppose to
have been requisite for its formation. Without making any attempt at
accurate or definite estimation, which would be to no purpose, it is
plain that a mass of sedimentary strata five thousand or ten thousand
feet thick, must have required, for its deposit, a long course of years,
or rather, a long course of ages.
11. But again: on further examination it is found, that we have not
merely one series of sedimentary deposits, thus forming our mountains.
There are a number of different series of such layers or strata, to be
found in different ranges of hills, and in the same range, one series
resting upon another. These different series of strata are
distinguishable from one another by their general structure and
appearance, besides more intimate characters, of which we shall shortly
have to speak. Each such series appears to have a certain consistency of
structure within itself; the layers of which it is composed being more
or less parallel, but the successive series are not thus always
parallel, the lower ones being often highly inclined and irregular,
while the upper ones are more level and continuous: as if the lower
strata had been broken up and thrown into disorder, and then a new
series of strata had been deposited horizontally on their fragments. But
in whatever way these different sedimentary series succeeded each other,
each series must have required, as we have seen, a long period for its
formation; and to estimate the length of the interval between the two
series, we have, at the present stage of our exposition, no evidence.
12. But the mechanical structure of the strata, the result, as it seems,
of aqueous sedimentary deposit, is not the only, nor the most important
evidence, with regard to the length of time occupied by the formation of
the rocky layers which now compose our mountains. As we have said, they
contain shells, and other remains of creatures which live in the sea.
These they contain, not in small numbers, scattered and detached, but in
vast abundance, as they are found in those parts of the ocean which is
most alive with them. There are the remains of oysters and other
shell-fish in layers, as they live at present in the seas near our
shores; of corals, in vast patches and beds, as they now occur in the
waters of the Pacific; of shoals of fishes, of many different kinds, in
immense abundance. Each of these beds of shells, of corals, and of
fishes, must have required many years, perhaps many centuries, for the
growth of the successive individuals and successive generations of which
it consists: as long a time, perhaps, as the present inhabitants of the
sea have lived therein: or many times longer, if there have been many
such successive changes. And thus, while the present condition of the
earth extends backwards to a period of vast but unknown antiquity; we
have, offered to our notice, the evidence of a series of other periods,
each of which, so far as we can judge, may have been as long or longer
than that during which the dry land has had its present form.
13. But the most remarkable feature in the evidence is yet to come. We
have spoken in general of the oysters, and corals, and fishes, which
occur in the strata of our hills; as if they were creatures of the same
kinds which we now designate by those names. But a more exact
examination of these remains of organized beings, shows that this is not
so. The tribes of animals which are found petrified in our rocks are
almost all different, so far as our best natural historians can
determine, from those which now live in our existing seas. They are
different species; different genera. The creatures which we find thus
embedded in our mountains, are not only dead as individuals, but extinct
as species. They belonged, not only to a terrestrial period, but to an
animal creation, which is now past away. The earth is, it seems, a
domicile which has outlasted more than one race of tenants.
14. It may seem rash and presumptuous in the natural historian to
pronounce thus peremptorily that certain forms of life are nowhere to be
found at present, even in the unfathomable and inaccessible depths of
the ocean. But even if this were so, the proposition that the earth has
changed its inhabitants, since the rocks were formed, of which our hills
consist, does not depend for its proof on this assumption. For in the
organic bodies which our strata contain, we find remains, not only of
marine animals, but of animals which inhabit the fresh waters, and the
land, and of plants. And the examination of such remains having been
pursued with great zeal, and with all the aids which natural history can
supply, the result has been, the proofs of a vast series of different
tribes of animals and plants, which have successively occupied the earth
and the seas; and of which the number, variety, multiplicity, and
strangeness, exceed, by far, everything which could have been previously
imagined. Thus Cuvier found, in the limestone strata on which Paris
stands, animals of the most curious forms, combining in the most
wonderful manner the qualities of different species of existing
quadrupeds. In another series of strata, the Lias, which runs as a band
across England from N. E. to S. W., we have the remains of lizards, or
lacertine animals, different from those which now exist, of immense size
and of extraordinary structure, some approaching to the form of fishes
(_ichthyosaurus_); others, with the neck of a serpent; others with
wings, like the fabled forms of dragons. Then beyond these, that is,
anterior to them in the series of time, we have the immense collection
of fossil plants, which occur in the Coal Strata; the shells and corals
of the Mountain Limestone; the peculiar fishes, different altogether
from existing fishes, of the Old Red Sandstone; and though, as we
descend lower and lower, the traces of organic life appear to be more
rare and more limited in kind, yet still we have, beneath these, in
slates and in beds of limestone, many fossil remains, still differing
from those which occur in the higher, and therefore, newer strata.
15. We have no intention of instituting any definite calculation with
regard to the periods of time which this succession of forms of organic
life may have occupied. This, indeed, the boldest geological
speculators have not ventured to do. But the scientific discoveries thus
made, have a bearing upon the analogies of creation, quite as important
as the discoveries of astronomy. And therefore we may state briefly some
of the divisions of the series of terrestrial strata which have
suggested themselves to geological inquirers. At the outset of such
speculations, it was conceived that the lower rocks, composed of
granite, slate, and the like, had existed before the earth was peopled
with living things; and that these, being broken up into inclined
positions, there were deposited upon them, as the sediment of
superincumbent waters, strata more horizontal, containing organic
remains. The former were then called _Primitive_ or _Primary_, the
latter, _Secondary_ rocks. But it was soon found that this was too
sweeping and peremptory a division. Rocks which had been classed as
Primary, were found to contain traces of life; and hence, an
intermediate class of _Transition_ strata was spoken of. But this too
was soon seen to be too narrow a scheme of arrangement, to take in the
rapidly-accumulating mass of facts, organic and others, which the
geological record of the earth's history disclosed. It appeared that
among the fossil-bearing strata there might be discerned a long series
of Formations: the term _Formation_ being used to imply a collection of
successive strata, which, taking into account all the evidence, of
materials, position, relations, and organic remains, appears to have
been deposited during some one epoch or period; so as to form a natural
group, chronologically and physiologically distinct from the others. In
this way it appeared that, taking as the highest part of the Secondary
series, the beds of chalk, which, marked by characteristic fossils, run
through great tracts of Europe, with other beds, of sand and clay, which
generally accompany these; there was, below this _Cretaceous Formation_,
an _Oolitic Formation_, still more largely diffused, and still more
abundant in its peculiar organic remains. Below this, we have, in
England, the _New Red Sandstone Formation_, which, in other countries,
is accompanied by beds abundant in fossils, as the _Muschelkalk_ of
Germany. Below this again we have the _Coal Formation_, and the
_Mountain Limestone_, with their peculiar fossils. Below these, we have
the Old Red Sandstone or Devonian System, with its peculiar fishes and
other fossils. Beneath these, occur still numerous series of
distinguishable strata; which have been arranged by Sir Roderick
Murchison as the members of the _Silurian_ formation; the researches by
which it was established having been carried on, in the first place, in
South Wales, the ancient country of the Silures. Including the lower
part of this formation, and descending still lower in order, is the
_Cambrian_ formation of Professor Sedgwick. And since the races of
organic beings, as we thus descend through successive strata, seem to be
fewer and fewer in their general types, till at last they disappear;
these lower members of the geological series have been termed, according
to their succession, _Palæozoic_, _Protozoic_, and _Hypozoic_ or
_Azoic_. The general impression on the minds of geologists has been,
that, as we descend in this long staircase of natural steps, we are
brought in view of a state of the earth in which life was scantily
manifested, so as to appear to be near its earliest stages.
16. Each of these formations is of great thickness. Several of the
members of each formation are hundreds, many of them thousands of feet
thick. Taken altogether, they afford an astounding record of the time
during which they must have been accumulating, and during which these
successive groups of animals must have been brought into being, lived,
and continued their kinds.
17. We must add, that over the Secondary strata there are found, in
patches, generally of more limited extent, another, and of course, newer
mass of strata, which have been termed _Tertiary Formations_. Of these,
the strata, near and under Paris, lying in a hollow of the subjacent
strata, and hence termed the _Paris Basin_, attracted prominent notice
in the first place. And these are found to contain an immense quantity
of remains of animals, which, being well preserved, and being subjected
to a careful and scientific scrutiny by the great naturalist George
Cuvier, had an eminent share in establishing in the minds of Geologists
the belief of the extinct character of fossil species, and of the
possibility of reconstructing, from such remains, the animals, different
from those which now live, which had formerly tenanted the earth.
18. We have, in this enumeration, a series of groups of strata, each of
which, speaking in a general way, has its own population of animals and
plants, and is separated, by the peculiarities of these, from the groups
below and above it. Each group may, in a general manner, be considered
as a separate creation of animal and vegetable forms--creatures which
have lived and died, as the races now existing upon the earth live and
die; and of which the living existence may, and according to all
appearance must, have occupied ages, and series of ages, such as have
been occupied by the present living generations of the earth. This
series of creations, or of successive periods of life, is, no doubt, a
very striking and startling fact, very different from anything which the
imagination of man, in previous stages of investigation of the earth's
condition, had conceived; but still, is established by evidence so
complete, drawn from an examination and knowledge of the structures of
living things so exact and careful, as to leave no doubt whatever of the
reality of the fact, on the minds of those who have attended to the
evidence; founded, as it is, upon the analogies, offices, anatomy, and
combinations of organic structures. The progress of human knowledge on
this subject has been carried on and established by the same
alternations of bold conjectures and felicitous confirmations of
them,--of minute researches and large generalizations,--which have given
reality and solidity to the other most certain portions of human
knowledge. That the strata of the earth, as we descend from the highest
to the lowest, are distinguished in general by characteristic or organic
fossils, and that these forms of organization are different from those
which now live on the earth, are truths as clearly and indisputably
established in the minds of those who have the requisite knowledge of
geology and natural history, as that the planets revolve round the sun,
and satellites round the planets. That these epochs of creation are
something quite different from anything which we now see taking place on
the earth, no more disturbs the belief of those facts, which scientific
explorers entertain, than the seemingly obvious difference between the
nebulæ which are regarded as yet unformed planetary systems, and the
solar system to which our earth belongs, disturbs the belief of
astronomers, that such nebulæ, as well as our system, really exist.
Indeed we may say, as we shall hereafter see, that the fact of our earth
having passed through the series of periods of organic life which
geologists recognize, is, hitherto, incomparably better established,
than the fact that the nebulæ, or any of them, are passing through a
series of changes, such as may lead to a system like ours; as some
eminent astronomers in modern times have held. In this respect, the
history of the world, and its place in the universe, are far more
clearly learnt from geology than from astronomy.
19. But with regard to this series of Organic _Creations_, if, for the
sake of brevity, we may call them so; we may naturally ask, in what
manner, by what agencies, at what intervals, they succeeded each other
on the earth? Now, do the researches of geologists give us any
information on these points, which may be brought to bear upon our
present speculations? If we ask these questions, we receive, from
different classes of geologists, different answers. A little while ago,
most geologists held, probably the greater number still hold, that the
transitions from one of these periods of organic life to another, were
accompanied generally by seasons of violent disruption and mutation of
the surface of the earth, exceeding anything which has taken place since
the surface assumed its present general form; in the same proportion as
the changes of its organic population go beyond any such changes which
we can discern to be at present in operation. And there were found to be
changes of other kinds, which seemed to show that these epochs of
organic transition had also been epochs of mechanical violence, upon a
vast and wonderful scale. It appeared that, at some of these epochs at
least, the strata previously deposited, as if in comparative
tranquillity, had been broken, thrust up from below, or drawn or cast
downwards; so that strata which must at first have been nearly level,
were thrown into positions highly inclined, fractured, set on edge,
contorted, even inverted. Over the broken edges of these strata, thus
disturbed and fractured, were found vast accumulations of the fragments
which such rude treatment might naturally produce; these fragmentary
ruins being spread in beds comparatively level, over the bristling edges
of the subjacent rocks, as if deposited in the fluid which had
overwhelmed the previous structure; and with few or no traces of life
appearing in this mass of ruins; while, in the strata which lay over
them, and which appeared to have been the result of quieter times, new
forms of organic life made their appearance in vast abundance. Such is,
for example, the relation of the coal strata in a great part of
England; broken into innumerable basins, ridges, valleys, strips, and
shreds, lying in all positions; and then filled into a sort of level, by
the conglomerate of the magnesian limestone, and the superincumbent red
sandstone and oolites. In other cases it appeared as if there were the
means of tracing, in these dislocations, the agency of igneous stony
matter, which had been injected from below, so as to form
mountain-chains, or the cores of such; and in which the period of the
convulsion could be traced, by the strata to which the disturbance
extended; _those_ strata being supposed to have been deposited before
the eruption, which were thrust upwards by it into highly-inclined
positions; while those strata which, though near to these scenes of
mechanical violence, were still comparatively horizontal, as they had
been originally deposited, were naturally inferred to have been formed
in the waters, after the catastrophe had passed away. By such reasonings
as these, M. Elie de Beaumont has conceived that he can ascertain the
relative ages (according to the vast and loose measurements of age which
belong to this subject) of the principal ranges of mountains of the
earth's surface.
20. Such estimations of age can, indeed, as we have intimated, be only
of the widest and loosest kind; yet they all concur in assigning very
great and gigantic periods of time, as having been occupied by the
events which have formed the earth's strata, and brought them into their
present position. For not only must there have been long ages employed,
as we have said, while the successive generations of each group of
animals lived, and died, and were entombed in the abraded fragments of
the then existing earth; but the other operations which intervened
between these apparently more tranquil processes, must also have
occupied, it would seem, long ages at each interval. The dislocation,
disruption, and contortion of the vast masses of previously existing
mountains, by which their framework was broken up, and its ruins covered
with beds of its own rubbish, many thousand feet thick, and gradually
becoming less coarse and smoother, as the higher beds were deposited
upon the lower, could hardly take place, it would seem, except in
hundreds and thousands of years. And then again, all these processes of
deposition, thus arranging loose masses of material into level beds,
must have taken place in the bottom of deep oceans; and the beds of
these oceans must have been elevated into the position of mountain
ridges which they now occupy, by some mighty operation of nature, which
must have been comparatively tranquil, since it has not much disturbed
those more level beds; and which, therefore, must have been
comparatively long continued. If we accept, as so many eminent
geologists have done, this evidence of a vast series of successive
periods of alternate violence and repose, we must assign to each such
period a duration which cannot but be immense, compared with the periods
of time with which we are commonly conversant. In the periods of
comparative quiet, such as now exist on the earth's surface, and such as
seem to be alone consistent with continued life and successive
generation, deposits at the bottom of lakes and seas take place, it
would seem, only at the rate of a few feet in a year, or perhaps, in a
century. When, therefore, we find strata, bearing evidence of such a
mode of deposit, and piled up to the amount of thousands and tens of
thousands of feet, we are naturally led to regard them as the production
of myriads of years; and to add new myriads, as often as, in the
prosecution of geological research, we are brought to new masses of
strata of the like kind; and again, to interpolate new periods of the
same order, to allow for the transition from one such group to another.
21. Nor is there anything which need startle us, in the necessity of
assuming such vast intervals of time, when we have once brought
ourselves to deal with the question of the antiquity of the earth upon
scientific evidence alone. For if geology thus carries us far backwards
through thousands, it may be, millions of years, astronomy does not
offer the smallest argument to check this regressive supposition. On the
contrary, all the most subtle and profound investigations of astronomers
have led them to the conviction, that the motions of the earth may have
gone on, as they now go on, for an indefinite period of past time. There
is no tendency to derangement in the mechanism of the solar system, so
for as science has explored it. Minute inequalities in the movements
exist, too small to produce any perceptible effect on the condition of
the earth's surface; and even these inequalities, after growing up
through long cycles of ages, to an amount barely capable of being
detected by astronomical scrutiny, reach a maximum; and, diminishing by
the same slow degrees by which they increased, correct themselves, and
disappear. The solar system, and the earth as part of it, constitute, so
for as we can discover, a Perpetual Motion.
22. There is therefore nothing, in what we know of the Cosmical
conditions of our globe, to contradict the Terrestrial evidence for its
vast antiquity, as the seat of organic life. If for the sake of giving
definiteness to our notions, we were to assume that the numbers which
express the antiquity of these four Periods;--the Present organic
condition of the earth; the Tertiary Period of geologists, which
preceded that; the Secondary Period, which was anterior to that; and the
Primary Period which preceded the Secondary; were on the same scale as
the numbers which express these four magnitudes:--the magnitude of the
Earth; that of the Solar System compared with the Earth; the distance
of the nearest Fixed Stars compared with the solar system; and the
distance of the most remote Nebulæ compared with the nearest fixed
stars; there is, in the evidence which geological science offers,
nothing to contradict such an assumption.
23. And as the infinite extent which we necessarily ascribe to space,
allows us to find room, without any mental difficulty, for the vast
distances which astronomy reveals, and even leaves us rather embarrassed
with the infinite extent which lies beyond our farthest explorations; so
the infinite duration which we, in like manner, necessarily ascribe to
past time, makes it easy for us, so far as our powers of intellect are
concerned, to go millions of millions of years backwards, in order to
trace the beginning of the earth's existence,--the first step of
terrestrial creation. It is as easy for the mind of man to reason
respecting a system which is billions or trillions of miles in extent,
and has endured through the like number of years, or centuries, as it is
to reason about a system (the earth, for instance,) which is forty
million feet in extent, and has endured for a hundred thousand million
of seconds, that is, a few thousand years.
24. This statement is amply sufficient for the argument which we have to
found upon it; but before I proceed to do that, I will give another view
which has recently been adopted by some geologists, of the mode in which
the successive periods of creation, which geological research discloses
to us, have passed into one another. According to this new view, we find
no sufficient reason to believe that the history of the earth, as read
by us in the organic and mechanical phenomena of its superficial parts,
has consisted of such an alternation of periods of violence and of
repose, as we have just attempted to describe. According to these
theorists, strata have succeeded strata, one group of animals and
plants has followed another, through a season of uniform change; with no
greater paroxysm or catastrophe, it may be, than has occurred during the
time that man has been an observer of the earth. It may be asked, how is
this consistent with the phenomena which we have described;--with the
vast masses of ruin, which mark the end of one period and the beginning
of another, as is the case in passing from the coal measures of England
to the superincumbent beds;--with the highly-inclined strata of the
central masses, and the level beds of the upper formations which have
been described as marking the mountain ranges of Europe? To these
questions, a reply is furnished, we are told, by a more extensive and
careful examination of the strata. It may be, that in certain
localities, in certain districts, the transition, from the mountain
limestone and the coal, to the superjacent sandstones and oolites, is
abrupt and seemingly violent; marked by _unconformable_ positions of the
upper upon the lower strata, by beds of conglomerate, by the absence of
organic remains in certain of these beds. But if we follow these very
strata into other parts of the world, or even into other parts of this
island, we find that this abruptness and incongruity between the lower
and the higher strata disappears. Between the mountain-limestone and the
red sandstone which lies over it, certain new beds are found, which fill
up the incoherent interval; which offer the same evidence as the strata
below and above them, of having been produced tranquilly; and which do
not violently differ in position from either group. The appearance of
incoherence in the series arose from the occurrence, in the region first
examined, of a gap, which is here filled up,--a blank which is here
supplied. Hence it is inferred, that whatever of violence and extreme
disturbance is indicated by the dislocations and ruins there observed,
was local and partial only; and that, at the very time when these
fragmentary beds, void of organized beings, were forming in one place,
there were, at the same time, going on, in another part of the earth's
surface, not far removed, the processes of the life, death and imbedding
of species, as tranquilly as at any other period. And the same assertion
is made with regard to the more general fact, before described, of the
stratigraphical constitution of mountain chains. It is asserted that the
unconformable relation of the strata which compose the different parts
of those chains, is a local occurrence only; and that the same strata,
if followed into other regions, are found conformable to each other; or
are reduced to a virtually continuous scheme, by the interpolation of
other strata, which make a transition, in which no evidence of
exceptional violence appears.
25. We shall not attempt (it is not at all necessary for us to do so) to
decide between the doctrines of the two geological schools which thus
stand in this opposition to each other. But it will be useful to our
argument to state somewhat further the opinions of this latter school on
one main point. We must explain the view which these geologists take of
the mode of succession of one group of _organized_ beings to another; by
which, as we have said, the different successive strata are
characterized. Such a phenomenon, it would at first seem, cannot be
brought within the ordinary rules of the existing state of things. The
species of plants and animals which inhabit the earth, do not change
from age to age; they are the same in modern times, as they were in the
most remote antiquity, of which we have any record. The dogs and horses,
sheep and cattle, lions and wolves, eagles and swallows, corn and vines,
oaks and cedars, which occupy the earth now, are not, we have the
strongest reasons to believe, essentially different now from what they
were in the earliest ages. At least, if one or two species have
disappeared, no new species have come into existence. We cannot conceive
a greater violation of the known laws of nature, than that such an event
as the appearance of a new species should have occurred. Even those who
hold the uniformity of the mechanical changes of the earth, and of the
rate of change, from age to age, and from one geological period to
another; must still, it would seem, allow that the zoological and
phytological changes of which geology gives her testimony, are complete
exceptions to what is now taking place. The formation of strata at the
bottom of the ocean from the ruin of existing continents, may be going
on at present. Even the elevation of the bed of the ocean in certain
places, as a process imperceptibly slow, may be in action at this
moment, as these theorists hold that it is. But still, even when the
beds thus formed are elevated into mountain chains, if that should
happen, in the course of myriads of years, (according to the supposition
it cannot be effected in a less period,) the strata of such mountain
chains will still contain only the species of such creatures as now
inhabit the waters; and we shall have, even then, no succession of
organic epochs, such as geology discovers in the existing mountains of
the earth.
26. The answer which is made to this objection appears to me to involve
a license of assumption on the part of the _uniformitarian_ geologist,
(as such theorists have been termed,) which goes quite beyond the bounds
of natural philosophy: but I wish to state it; partly, in order to show
that the most ingenious men, stimulated by the exigencies of a theory,
which requires some hypothesis concerning the succession of species, to
make it coherent and complete, have still found it impossible to bring
the creation of species of plants and animals within the domain of
natural science; and partly, to show how easily and readily geological
theorists are led to assume periods of time, even of a higher order than
those which I have ventured to suggest.
27. It must, however, be first stated, as a fact on which the assumption
is founded which I have to notice, that the organic groups by which
these successive strata are characterized, are not so distinct and
separate, as it was convenient, for the sake of explanation, to describe
them in the first instance. Although each body of strata is marked by
predominant groups of genera and species, yet it is not true, that all
the species of each formation disappear, when we proceed to the next.
Some species and genera endure through several successive groups of
strata; while others disappear, and new forms come into view, as we
ascend. And thus, the change from one set of organic forms to another,
as we advance in time, is made, not altogether by abrupt transitions,
but in part continuously. The uniformitarian, in the case of organic, as
in the case of mechanical change, obliterates or weakens the evidence of
sudden and catastrophic leaps, by interposing intermediate steps, which
involve, partly the phenomena of the preceding, and partly those of the
subsequent condition. As he allows no universal transition from one
deposit to a succeeding discrepant and unconformable deposit, so he
allows no abrupt and complete transition from one collection of organic
beings,--one creation, as we may call it,--to another. If creation must
needs be an act out of the region of natural science, he will have it to
be at least an act not exercised at distant intervals, and on peculiar
occasions; but constantly going on, and producing its effects, as much
at one time in the geological history of the world, as at another.
28. And this he holds, not only with regard to the geological periods
which have preceded the existing condition of the earth, but also with
regard to the transition from those previous periods to that in which we
live. The present population of the earth is not one in which all
previous forms are extinct. The past population of the earth was not one
in which there are found no creatures still living. On the contrary, he
finds that there exists a vast mass of strata, superior to the secondary
strata, which are characterized by extinct forms, and are yet inferior
to those deposits which are now going on by the agency of obvious
causes. These masses of strata contain a population of creatures, partly
extinct species, and partly such species as are still living on our land
and in our waters. The proportion in which the old and the new species
occur in such strata, is various; and the strata are so numerous, so
rich in organic remains, so different from each other, and have been so
well explored, that they have been classified and named according to the
proportion of new and of old species which they contain. Those which
contain the largest proportion of species still living, have been termed
_Pliocene_, as containing a _greater_ number of _new_ or recent species.
Below these, are strata which are termed _Miocene_, implying a _smaller_
number of _new_ species. Below these again, are others which have been
termed _Eocene_, as containing few new species indeed, but yet enough to
mark the _dawn_, the _Eos_, of the existing state of the organic world.
These strata are, in many places, of very considerable thickness; and
their number, their succession, and the great amount of extinct species
which they contain, shows, in a manner which cannot be questioned, (if
the evidence of geology is accepted at all,) in what a gradual manner, a
portion at least, of the existing forms of organic life have taken the
place of a different population previously existing on the surface of
the globe.
29. And thus the uniformitarian is led to consider the facts which
geology brings to light, as indicating a slow and almost imperceptible,
but, upon the whole, constant series of changes, not only in the
position of the earth's materials, but in its animal and vegetable
population. Land becomes sea and sea becomes land; the beds of oceans
are elevated into mountain regions, carrying with them the remains of
their inhabitants; sheets of lava pour from volcanic vents and overwhelm
the seats of life; and these, again, become fields of vegetation; or, it
may be, descend to the depths of the sea, and are overgrown with groves
of coral; lakes are filled with sediment, imbedding the remains of land
animals, and form the museums of future zoologists; the deltas of mighty
rivers become the centres of continents, and are excavated as
coal-fields by men in remote ages. And yet all this time, so slow is the
change, that man is unaware such changes are going on. He knows that the
mountains of Scandinavia are rising out of the Baltic at the rate of a
few feet in a century; he knows that the fertile slope of Etna has been
growing for thousands of years by the addition of lava streams and
parasitic volcanos; he knows that the delta of the Mississippi
accumulates hundreds of miles of vegetable matter every generation; he
knows that the shores of Europe are yielding to the sea; but all these
appear to him minute items, not worth summing; infinitesimal quantities,
which he cannot integrate. And so, in truth, they are, for him. His
ephemeral existence does not allow him to form a just conception, in any
ordinary state of mind, of the effects of this constant agency of
change, working through countless thousands of years. But Time,
inexhausted and unremitting, sums the series, integrates the formula of
change; and thus passes, with sure though noiseless progress, from one
geological epoch to another.
30. And in the meanwhile, to complete the view thus taken by the
uniformitarian of the geological history of the earth, by some constant
but inscrutable law, creative agency is perpetually at work, to
introduce, into this progressive system of things, new species of
vegetable and animal life. Organic forms, ever and ever new ones, are
brought into being, and left, visible footsteps, as it were, of the
progress which Time has made;--marks placed between the rocky leaves of
the book of creation; by which man, when his time comes, may turn back
and read the past history of his habitation. But the point for us to
remark is, the immeasurable, the inconceivable length of time, if any
length of time could be inconceivable, which is required of our
thoughts, by this new assumption of the constant production of new
species, as a law of creation. We might feel ourselves well nigh
overwhelmed, when, by looking at processes which we see producing only a
few feet of height or breadth or depth during the life of man, we are
called upon to imagine the construction of Alps and Andes,--when we have
to imagine a world made a few inches in a century. But there, at least,
we had _something_ to start from: the element of change was small, but
there _was_ an element of change: we had to expand, but we had not to
originate. But in conceiving that all the myriads of successive species,
which we find in the earth's strata, have come into being by a law which
is now operating, we have _nothing_ to start from. We have seen, and
know of, no such change; all sober and skilful naturalists reject it, as
a fact not belonging to our time. We have here to build a theory without
materials;--to sum a series of which every term, so far as we know, is
nothing;--to introduce into our scientific reasonings an assumption
contrary to all scientific knowledge.
31. This appears to me to be the real character of the assumption of
the constant creation of new species. But, as I have said, it is not my
business here, to pronounce upon the value or truth of this assumption.
The only use which I wish to make of it is this:--If any persons, who
have adopted the geological view which I have just been explaining,
should feel any interest in the speculations here offered to their
notice, they must needs be (as I have no doubt they will be) even more
willing than other geologists, to grant to our argument a scale of time
for geological succession, corresponding in magnitude to the scale of
distances which astronomy teaches us, as those which measure the
relation of the universe to the earth.
This being supposed to be granted, I am prepared to proceed with my
argument.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ARGUMENT FROM GEOLOGY.
1. I have endeavored to explain that, according to the discoveries of
geologists, the masses of which the surface of the earth is composed,
exhibit indisputable evidence that, at different successive periods, the
land and the waters which occupy it, have been inhabited by successive
races of plants and animals; which, when taken in large groups,
according to the ascending or descending order of the strata, consist of
species different from those above and below them. Many of these groups
of species are of forms so different from any living things which now
exist, as to give to the life of those ancient periods an aspect
strangely diverse from that which life now displays, and to transfer us,
in thought, to a creation remote in its predominant forms from that
among which we live. I have shown also, that the life and successive
generations of these groups of species, and the events by which the
rocks which contain these remains have been brought into their present
situation and condition, must have occupied immense intervals of
time;--intervals so large that they deserve to be compared, in their
numerical expression, with the intervals of space which separate the
planets and stars from each other. It has been seen, also, that the best
geologists and natural historians have not been able to devise any
hypothesis to account for the successive introduction of these new
species into the earth's population; except the exercise of a series of
acts of creation, by which they have been brought into being; either in
groups at once, or in a perpetual succession of one or a few species,
which the course of long intervals of time might accumulate into groups
of species. It is true, that some speculators have held that by the
agency of natural causes, such as operate upon organic forms, one
species might be transmuted into another; external conditions of
climate, food, and the like, being supposed to conspire with internal
impulses and tendencies, so as to produce this effect. This supposition
is, however, on a more exact examination of the laws of animal life,
found to be destitute of proof; and the doctrine of the successive
creation of species remains firmly established among geologists. That
the _extinction_ of species, and of groups of species, may be accounted
for by natural causes, is a proposition much more plausible, and to a
certain extent, probable; for we have good reason to believe that, even
within the time of human history, some few species have ceased to exist
upon the earth. But whether the extinction of such vast groups of
species as the ancient strata present to our notice, can be accounted
for in this way, at least without assuming the occurrence of great
catastrophes, which must for a time, have destroyed all forms of life in
the district in which they occurred, appears to be more doubtful. The
decision of these questions, however, is not essential to our purpose.
What is important is, that immense numbers of tribes of animals have
tenanted the earth for countless ages, before the present state of
things began to be.
2. The present state of things is that to which the existence and the
history of MAN belong; and the remark which I now have to make is, that
the existence and the history of Man are facts of an entirely different
order from any which existed in any of the previous states of the earth;
and that this history has occupied a series of years which, compared
with geological periods, may be regarded as very brief and limited.
3. The remains of man are nowhere found in the strata which contain the
records of former states of the earth. Skeletons of vast varieties of
creatures have been disinterred from their rocky tombs; but these
cemeteries of nature supply no portion of a human skeleton. In earlier
periods of natural science, when comparative anatomy was as yet very
imperfectly understood, no doubt, many fossil bones were supposed to be
human bones. The remains of giants and of antediluvians were frequent in
museums. But a further knowledge of anatomy has made it appear that such
bones all belong to animals, of one kind or another; often, to animals
utterly different, in their form and skeleton, from man. Also some
bones, really human, have been found petrified in situations in which
petrification has gone on in recent times, and is still going on. Human
skeletons, imbedded in rocks by this process, have been found in the
island of Guadaloupe, and elsewhere. But this phenomenon is easily
distinguishable from the petrified bones of other animals, which are
found in rocks belonging to really geological periods; and does not at
all obliterate the distinction between the geological and the historical
periods.
4. Indeed not bones only, but objects of art, produced by human
workmanship, are found fossilized and petrified by the like processes;
and these, of course, belong to the historical period. Human bones, and
human works, are found in such deposits as morasses, sand-banks,
lava-streams, mounds of volcanic ashes; and many of them may be of
unknown, and, compared with the duration of a few generations, of very
great antiquity; but such deposits are distinguishable, generally
without difficulty, from the strata in which the geologist reads the
records of former creations. It has been truly said, that the geologist
is an _Antiquary_; for, like the antiquary, he traces a past condition
of things in the remains and effects of it which still subsist; but it
has also been truly said, at the same time, that he is an antiquary _of
a new Order_; for the remains which he studies are those which
illustrate the history of the earth, not of man. The geologist's
antiquity is not that of ornaments and arms, utensils and habiliments,
walls and mounds; but of species and of genera, of seas and of
mountains. It is true, that the geologist may have to study the works of
man, in order to trace the effects of causes which produce the results
which he investigates; as when he examines the pholad-pierced pillars of
Pateoli, to prove the rise and the fall of the ground on which they
stand; or notes the anchoring-rings in the wall of some Roman edifice,
once a maritime fort, but now a ruin remote from the sea; or when he
remarks the streets in the towns of Scania, which are now below the
level of the Baltic,[1] and therefore show that the land has sunk since
these pavements were laid. But in studying such objects, the geologist
considers the hand of man as only one among many agencies. Man is to him
only one of the natural causes of change.
5. And if, with the illustrious author to whom we have just referred,[2]
we liken the fossil remains, by which the geologist determines the age
of his strata, to the Medals and Coins in which the antiquary finds the
record of reigns and dynasties; we must still recollect that a _Coin_
really discloses a vast body of characteristics of man, to which there
is nothing approaching in the previous condition of the world. For how
much does a Coin or Medal indicate? Property; exchange; government; a
standard of value; the arts of mining, assaying, coining, drawing, and
sculpture; language, writing, and reckoning; historical recollections,
and the wish to be remembered by future ages. All this is involved in
that small human work, a Coin. If the fossil remains of animals may (as
has been said) be termed Medals struck by Nature to record the epochs of
her history; Medals must be said to be, not merely, like fossil remains,
records of material things; they are the records of thought, purpose,
society, long continued, long improved, supplied with multiplied aids
and helps; they are the permanent results, in a minute compass, of a
vast progress, extending through all the ramifications of human life.
6. Not a coin merely, but any, the rudest work of human art, carries us
far beyond the domain of mere animal life. There is no transition from
man to animals. No doubt, there are races of men very degraded,
barbarous, and brutish. No doubt there are kinds of animals which are
very intelligent and sagacious; and some which are exceedingly disposed
to and adapted to companionship with man. But by elevating the
intelligence of the brute, we do not make it become the intelligence of
the man. By making man barbarous, we do not make him cease to be a man.
Animals have their especial capacities, which may be carried very far,
and may approach near to human sagacity, or may even go beyond it; but
the capacity of man is of a different kind. It is a capacity, not for
becoming sagacious, but for becoming rational; or rather it is a
capacity which he has in virtue of being rational. It is a capacity of
progress. In animals, however sagacious, however well trained, the
progress in skill and knowledge is limited, and very narrowly limited.
The creature soon reaches a boundary, beyond which it cannot pass; and
even if the acquired habits be transmitted by descent to another
generation, (which happens in the case of dogs and several other
animals,) still the race soon comes to a stand in its accomplishments.
But in man, the possible progress from generation to generation, in
intelligence and knowledge, and we may also say, in power, is
indefinite; or if this be doubted, it is at least so vast, that compared
with animals, his capacity is infinite. And this capacity extends to all
races of men its characterizing efficacy: for we have good reason to
believe that there is no race of human beings who may not, by a due
course of culture, continued through generations, be brought into a
community of intelligence and power with the most intelligent and the
most powerful races. This seems to be well established, for instance,
with regard to the African negroes; so long regarded by most, by some
probably regarded still, as a race inferior to Europeans. It has been
found that they are abundantly capable of taking a share in the arts,
literature, morality and religion of European peoples. And we cannot
doubt that, in the same manner, the native Australians, or the Bushmen
of the Cape of Good Hope, have human faculties and human capacities;
however difficult it might be to unfold these, in one or two
generations, into a form of intelligence and civilization in any
considerable degree resembling our own.
7. It is not requisite for us, and it might lead to unnecessary
difficulties, to fix upon any one attribute of man, as peculiarly
characteristic, and distinguishing him from brutes. Yet it would not be
too much to say that man is, in truth, universally and specifically
characterized by the possession of _Language_. It will not be questioned
that language, in its highest forms, is a wonderful vehicle and a
striking evidence of the intelligence of man. His bodily organs can, by
a few scarcely perceptible motions, shape the air into sounds which
express the kinds, properties, actions and relations of things, under
thousands of aspects, in forms infinitely more general and recondite
than those in which they present themselves to his senses;--and he can,
by means of these forms, aided by the use of his senses, explore the
boundless regions of space, the far recesses of past time, the order of
nature, the working of the Author of nature. This man does, by the
exercise of his Reason, and by the use of Language, a necessary
implement of his Reason for such purposes.
8. That language, in such a stage, is a special character of man, will
not be doubted. But it may be thought, there is little resemblance
between Language in this exalted degree of perfection, and the seemingly
senseless gibberish of the most barbarous tribes. Such an opinion,
however, might easily be carried too far. All human language has in it
the elements of indefinite intellectual activity, and the germs of
indefinite development. Even the rudest kind of speech, used by savages,
denotes objects by their kinds, their attributes, their relations, with
a degree of generality derived from the intellect, not from the senses.
The generality may be very limited; the relations which the human
intellect is capable of apprehending may be imperfectly conveyed. But to
denote kinds and attributes and actions and relations _at all_, is a
beginning of generalization and abstraction;--or rather, is far more
than a beginning. It is the work of a faculty which can generalize and
abstract; and these mental processes once begun, the field of progress
which is open to them is indefinite. Undoubtedly it may happen that weak
and barbarous tribes are, for many generations, so hard pressed by
circumstances, and their faculties so entirely absorbed in providing for
the bare wants of the poorest life, that their thoughts may never travel
to anything beyond these, and their language may not be extended so as
to be applicable to any other purposes. But this is not the standard
condition of mankind. It is not, by such cases, that man, or that human
nature, is to be judged. The normal condition of man is one of an
advance beyond the mere means of subsistence, to the arts of life, and
the exercise of thought in a general form. To some extent, such an
advance has taken place in almost every region of the earth and in every
age.
9. Perhaps we may often have a tendency to think more meanly than they
deserve, of so-called barbarous tribes, and of those whose intellectual
habits differ much from our own. We may be prone to regard ourselves as
standing at the summit of civilization; and all other nations and ages,
as not only occupying inferior positions, but positions on a slope which
descends till it sinks into the nature of brutes. And yet how little
does an examination of the history of mankind justify this view! The
different stages of civilization, and of intellectual culture, which
have prevailed among them, have had no appearance of belonging to one
single series, in which the cases differed only as higher or lower. On
the contrary, there have been many very different kinds of civilization,
accompanied by different forms of art and of thought; showing how
universally the human mind tends to such habits, and how rich it is in
the modes of manifesting its innate powers. How different have been the
forms of civilization among the Chinese, the Indians, the Egyptians, the
Babylonians, the Mexicans, the Peruvians! Yet in all, how much was
displayed of sagacity and skill, of perseverance and progress, of mental
activity and grasp, of thoughtfulness and power. Are we, in thinking of
these manifestations of human capacity, to think of them as only a stage
between us and brutes? or are we to think so, even of the stoical Red
Indians of North America, or the energetic New Zealanders, and Caffres?
And if not, why of the African Negroes, or the Australians, or the
Bushmen? We may call their Language a jargon. Very probable it would, in
its present form, be unable to express a great deal of what we are in
the habit of putting into language. But can we refuse to believe that,
with regard to matters with which they are familiar, and on occasions
where they are interested, they would be to each other intelligible and
clear? And if we suppose cases in which their affections and emotions
are strongly excited, (and affections and emotions at least we cannot
deny them,) can we not believe that they would be eloquent and
impressive? Do we not know, in fact, that almost all nations which we
call savage, are, on such occasions, eloquent in their own language? And
since this is so, must not their language, after all, be a wonderful
instrument as well as ours? Since it can convey one man's thoughts and
emotions to many, clothed in the form which they assume in his mind;
giving to things, it may be, an aspect quite different from that which
they would have if presented to their own senses; guiding their
conviction, warming their hearts, impelling their purposes;--can
language, even in such cases, be otherwise than a wonderful produce of
man's internal, of his mental, that is, of his peculiarly _human_
faculties? And is not language, therefore, even in what we regard as its
lowest forms, an endowment which completely separates man from animals
which have no such faculty?--which cannot regard, or which cannot
convey, the impressions of the individual in any such general and
abstract form? Probably we should find, as those who have studied the
language of savages always have found, that every such language contains
a number of curious and subtle practices,--_contrivances_, we cannot
help calling them,--for marking the relations, bearings and connections
of words; contrivances quite different from those of the languages
which we think of as more perfect; but yet, in the mouths of those who
use such speech, answering their purpose with great precision. But
without going into such details, the use of any _articulate_ language
is, as the oldest Greeks spoke of it, a special and complete distinction
of man as man.
10. It would be an obscure and useless labor, to speculate upon the
question whether animals have among themselves anything which can
properly be called _Language_. That they have anything which can be
termed Language, in the sense in which we here speak of it, as admitting
of general expressions, abstractions, address to numbers, eloquence, is
utterly at variance with any interpretation which we can put upon their
proceedings. The broad distinction of Instinct and Reason, however
obscure it may be, yet seems to be most simply described, by saying,
that animals do not apprehend their impressions under general forms, and
that man does. Resemblance, and consequent association of impressions,
may often show like generalization; but yet it is different. There is,
in man's mind, a germ of general thoughts, suggested by resemblances,
which is evolved and fixed in language; and by the aid of such an
addition to the impressions of sense, man has thousands of intellectual
pathways from object to object, from effect to cause, from fact to
inference. His impressions are projected on a sphere of thought of which
the radii can be prolonged into the farthest regions of the universe.
Animals, on the contrary, are shut up in their sphere of
sensation,--passing from one impression to another by various
associations, established by circumstances; but still, having access to
no wider intellectual region, through which lie lines of transition
purely abstract and mental. That they have their modes of communicating
their impressions and associations, their affections and emotions, we
know; but these modes of communication do not make a language; nor do
they disturb the assignment of Language as a special character of man;
nor the belief that man differs in his Kind, and we may say, using a
larger phrase, in his Order, from all other creatures.
11. We may sometimes be led to assign much of the development of man's
peculiar powers, to the influence of external circumstances. And that
the development of those powers is so influenced, we cannot doubt; but
their development only, not their existence. We have already said that
savages, living a precarious and miserable life, occupied incessantly
with providing for their mere bodily wants, are not likely to possess
language, or any other characteristic of humanity, in any but a stunted
and imperfect form. But, that manhood is debased and degraded under such
adverse conditions, does not make man cease to be man. Even from such an
abject race, if a child be taken and brought up among the comforts and
means of development which civilized life supplies, he does not fail to
show that he possesses, perhaps in an eminent degree, the powers which
specially belong to man. The evidences of human tendencies, human
thoughts, human capacities, human affections and sympathies, appear
conspicuously, in cases in which there has been no time for external
circumstances to operate in any great degree, so as to unfold any
difference between the man and the brute; or in which the influence of
the most general of external agencies, the impressions of several of the
senses, have been intercepted. Who that sees a lively child, looking
with eager and curious eyes at every object, uttering cries that express
every variety of elementary human emotion in the most vivacious manner,
exchanging looks and gestures, and inarticulate sounds, with his nurse,
can doubt that already he possesses the germs of human feeling, thought
and knowledge? that already, before he can form or understand a single
articulate word, he has within him the materials of an infinite
exuberance of utterance, and an impulse to find the language into which
such utterance is to be moulded by the law of his human nature? And
perhaps it may have happened to others, as it has to me, to know a child
who had been both deaf, dumb, and blind, from a very early age. Yet she,
as years went on, disclosed a perpetually growing sympathy with the
other children of the family in all their actions, with which of course
she could only acquaint herself by the sense of touch. She sat, dressed,
walked, as they did; even imitated them in holding a book in her hand
when they read, and in kneeling when they prayed. No one could look at
the change which came over her sightless countenance, when a known hand
touched hers, and doubt that there was a human soul within the frame.
The human soul seemed not only to be there, but to have been fully
developed; though the means by which it could receive such
communications as generally constitute human education, were thus cut
off. And such modes of communication with her companions as had been
taught her, or as she had herself invented, well bore out the belief,
that her mind was the constant dwelling-place, not only of human
affections, but of human thoughts. So plainly does it appear that human
thought is not produced or occasioned by external circumstances only;
but has a special and indestructible germ in human nature.
12. I have been endeavoring to illustrate the doctrine that man's nature
is different from the nature of other animals; as subsidiary to the
doctrine that the Human Epoch of the earth's history is different from
all the preceding Epochs. But in truth, this subsidiary proposition is
not by any means necessary to my main purpose. Even if barbarous and
savage tribes, even if men under unfavorable circumstances, be little
better than the brutes, still no one will doubt that the most civilized
races of mankind, that man under the most favorable circumstances, is
far, is, indeed, immeasurably elevated above the brutes. The history of
man includes not only the history of Scythians and Barbarians,
Australians and Negroes, but of ancient Greeks and of modern Europeans;
and therefore there can be no doubt that the period of the Earth's
history, which includes the history of man, is very different indeed
from any period which preceded that. To illustrate the peculiarity, the
elevation, the dignity, the wonderful endowments of man, we might refer
to the achievements, the recorded thoughts and actions, of the most
eminent among those nations;--to their arts, their poetry, their
eloquence; their philosophers, their mathematicians, their astronomers;
to the acts of virtue and devotion, of patriotism, generosity,
obedience, truthfulness, love, which took place among them;--to their
piety, their reverence for the deity, their resignation to his will,
their hope of immortality. Such characteristic traits of man as man,
(which all examples of intelligence, virtue, and religion, are,) might
serve to show that man is, in a sense quite different from other
creatures, "fearfully and wonderfully made;" but I need not go into such
details. It is sufficient for my purpose to sum up the result in the
expressions which I have already used; that man is an intellectual,
moral, religious, and spiritual being.
13. But the existence of man upon the earth being thus an event of an
order quite different from any previous part of the earth's history, the
question occurs, how long has this state of things endured? What period
has elapsed since this creature, with these high powers and faculties,
was placed upon the earth? How far must we go backward in time, to find
the beginning of his wonderful history?--so utterly wonderful compared
with anything which had previously occurred. For as to that point, we
cannot feel any doubt. The wildest imagination cannot suggest that
corals and madrepores, oysters and sepias, fishes and lizards, may have
been rational and moral creatures; nor even those creatures which come
nearer to human organization; megatheriums and mastodons, extinct deer
and elephants. Undoubtedly the earth, till the existence of man, was a
world of mere brute creatures. How long then has it been otherwise? How
long has it been the habitation of a rational, reflective, progressive
race? Can we by any evidence, geological or other, approximate to the
beginning of the Human History?
14. This is a large and curious question, and one on which a precise
answer may not be within our reach. But an answer not precise, an
approximation, as we have suggested, may suffice for our purpose. If we
can determine, in some measure, the order and scale of the period during
which man has occupied the earth, the determination may serve to support
the analogy which we wish to establish.
15. The geological evidence with regard to the existence of man is
altogether negative. Previous to the deposits and changes which we can
trace as belonging obviously to the present state of the earth's
surface, and the operation of causes now existing, there is no vestige
of the existence of man, or of his works. As was long ago observed,[3]
we do not find, among the shells and bones which are so abundant in the
older strata, any weapons, medals, implements, structures, which speak
to us of the hand of man, the workman. If we look forwards ten or twenty
thousand years, and suppose the existing works of man to have been, by
that time, ruined and covered up by masses of rubbish, inundations,
morasses, lava-streams, earthquakes; still, when the future inhabitant
of the earth digs into and explores these coverings, he will discover
innumerable monuments that man existed so long ago. The materials of
many of his works, and the traces of his own mind, which he stamps upon
them, are as indestructible as the shells and bones which give language
to the oldest work. Indeed, in many cases the oldest fossil remains are
the results of objects of seemingly the most frail and perishable
material;--of the most delicate and tender animal and vegetable tissues
and filaments. That no such remains of textures and forms, moulded by
the hand of man, are anywhere found among these, must be accepted as
indisputable evidence that man did not exist, so as to be contemporary
with the plants and animals thus commemorated. According to geological
evidence, the race of man is a novelty upon the earth;--something which
has succeeded to all the great geological changes.
16. And in this, almost all geologists are agreed. Even those who hold
that, in other ways, the course of change has been uniform;--that even
the introduction of man, as a new species of animal, is only an event of
the same kind as myriads of like events which have occurred in the
history of the earth;--still allow that the introduction of man, as a
moral being, is an event entirely different from any which had taken
place before; and that event is, geologically speaking, recent. The
changes of which we have spoken, as studied by the geologist in
connection with the works of man, the destruction of buildings on
sea-coasts by the incursions of the ocean, the removal of the shore many
miles away from ancient harbors, the overwhelming of cities by
earthquakes or volcanic eruptions; however great when compared with the
changes which take place in one or two generations; are minute and
infinitesimal, when put in comparison with the changes by which ranges
of mountains and continents have been brought into being, one after
another, each of them filled with the remains of different organic
creations.
17. Further than this, geology does not go on this question. She has no
chronometer which can tell us when the first buildings were erected,
when man first dwelt in cities, first used implements or arms; still
less, language and reflection. Geology is compelled to give over the
question to History. The external evidences of the antiquity of the
species fail us, and we must have recourse to the internal. Nature can
tell us so little of the age of man, that we must inquire what he can
tell us himself.
18. What man can tell us of his own age--what history can say of the
beginning of history--is necessarily very obscure and imperfect. We know
how difficult it is to trace to its origin the History of any single
Nation: how much more, the History of all Nations! We know that all such
particular histories carry us back to periods of the migrations of
tribes, confused mixtures of populations, perplexed and contradictory
genealogies of races; and as we follow these further and further
backwards, they become more and more obscure and uncertain; at least in
the histories which remain to us of most nations. Still, the obscurity
is not such as to lead us to the conviction that research is useless and
unprofitable. It is an obscurity such as naturally arises from the lapse
of time, and the complexity of the subject. The aspect of the world,
however far we go back, is still historical and human; historical and
human, in as high a degree, as it is at the present day. Men, as
described in the records of the oldest times, are of the same nature,
act with the same views, are governed by the same motives, as at
present. At all points, we see thought, purpose, law, religion,
progress. If we do not find a beginning, we find at least evidence that,
in approaching the beginning, the condition of man does not, in any way,
cease to be that of an intellectual, moral, and religious creature.
19. There are, indeed, some histories which speak to us of the beginning
of man's existence upon earth; and one such history in particular, which
comes to us recommended by indisputable evidence of its own great
antiquity, by numerous and striking confirmations from other histories,
and from facts still current, and by its connection with that religious
view of man's condition, which appears to thoughtful men to be
absolutely requisite to give a meaning and purpose to man's faculties
and endowments. I speak, of course, of the Hebrew Scriptures. This
history professes to inform us how man was placed upon the earth; and
how, from one centre, the human family spread itself in various branches
into all parts of the world. This genealogy of the human race is
accompanied by a chronology, from which it results that the antiquity of
the human race does not exceed a few thousand years. Even if we accept
this history as true and authoritative, it would not be wise to be
rigidly tenacious of the chronology, as to its minute exactness. For, in
the first place, of three different forms in which this history appears,
the chronology is different in all the three: I mean the Hebrew, the
Samaritan, and the Septuagint versions of the Old Testament. And even if
this were not so, since this chronology is put in the form of
genealogies, of which many of the steps may very probably have a meaning
different from the simple succession of generations in a family, (as
some of them certainly have,) it would be unwise to consider ourselves
bound to the exact number of years stated, in any of the three versions,
or even in all. It makes no difference to our argument, nor to any,
purpose in which we can suppose this narrative to have a bearing,
whether we accept six thousand or ten thousand years, or even a longer
period, as the interval which has now elapsed since the creation of man
took place, and the peopling of the earth began.
20. And, in our speculations at least, it will be well for us to take
into account the view which is given us of the antiquity of the human
race, by other histories as well as by this. A satisfactory result of
such an investigation would be attained if, looking at all these
histories, weighing their value, interpreting their expressions fairly,
discovering their sources of error, and of misrepresentation, we should
find them all converge to one point; all give a consistent and
harmonious view of the earliest stages of man's history; of the times
and places in which he first appeared as man. If all nations of men are
branches of the same family, it cannot but interest us, to find all the
family traditions tending upwards towards the same quarter; indicating a
divergence from the same point; exhibiting a recollection of the
original domicile, or of the same original family circle.
21. To a certain extent at least, this appears to be the result of the
historical investigations which have been pursued relative to this
subject. A certain group of nations is brought before us by these
researches which, a few thousands of years ago, were possessed of arts,
and manners, and habits, and belief, which make them conspicuous, and
which we can easily believe to have been contemporaneous successors of a
common, though, it may be even then, remote stock. Such are the Jews,
Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians. The histories of these nations are
connected with and confirm each other. Their languages, or most of them,
have certain affinities, which glossologists, on independent grounds,
have regarded as affinities implying an original connection. Their
chronologies, though in many respects discrepant, are not incapable of
being reduced into an harmony by very probable suppositions. Here we
have a very early view of the condition of a portion of the earth as the
habitation of man, and perhaps a suggestion of a condition earlier
still.
22. It is true, that there are other nations also, which claim an
antiquity for their civilization equal to or greater than that which we
can ascribe to these. Such are the Indians and the Chinese. But while we
do not question that these nations were at a remote period in possession
of arts, knowledge, and regular polity, in a very eminent degree, we are
not at all called upon to assent to the immense numbers, tens of
thousands and hundreds of thousands of years, by which such nations, in
their histories, express their antiquity. For, in the first place, such
numbers are easily devised and transferred to the obscure early stages
of tradition, when the art of numeration is once become familiar. These
vast intervals, applied to series of blank genealogies, or idle fables,
gratify the popular appetite for numerical wonders, but have little
claim on critical conviction.
23. And in the next place, we discover that not enumeration only, but a
more recondite art, had a great share in the fabrication of these
gigantic numbers of years. Some of the nations of whom we have thus
spoken, the Indians, for example, had, at an early period, possessed
themselves of a large share of astronomical knowledge. They had observed
and examined the motions of the Sun, the Moon, the Planets, and the
Stars, till they had discovered Cycles, in which, after long and
seemingly irregular wanderings in the skies, the heavenly bodies came
round again to known and regular positions. They had thus detected the
order that reigns in the seeming disorder; and had, by this means,
enabled themselves to know beforehand when certain astronomical events
would occur; certain configurations of the Planets, for instance, and
eclipses; and knowing how such events would occur in future, they were
also able to calculate how the like events had occurred in the past.
They could thus determine what eclipses and what planetary
configurations had occurred, in thousands and tens of thousands of years
of past time; and could, if they were disposed to falsify their early
histories, and to confirm the falsification by astronomical evidence, do
so with a very near approximation to astronomical truth. Such
astronomical confirmation of their assertions, so incapable in any
common apprehension of being derived from any other source than actual
observation of the fact, naturally produced a great effect upon common
minds; and still more, on those who examined the astronomical fact,
enough only to see that it was, approximately, at least, true. But in
recent times the fallacy of this evidence has been shown, and the
fabrication detected. For though the astronomical rules which they had
devised were approximately true, they were true approximately only. The
more exact researches of modern European astronomy discovered that their
cycles, though nearly exact, were not quite so. There was in them an
error which made the cycle, at every revolution of its period, when it
was applied to past ages, more and more wrong; so that the astronomical
events which they asserted to have happened, as they had calculated that
they would have happened, the better informed astronomer of our day
knows would not have happened exactly so, but in a manner differing more
and more from their statement, as the event was more and more remote.
And thus the fact which they asserted to have been observed, had not
really happened; and the confirmation, which it had been supposed to
lend to their history, disappeared. And thus, there is not, in the
asserted antiquity of Indian civilization and Indian astronomy, anything
which has a well-founded claim to disturb our belief that the nations of
the more western regions of Asia had a civilization as ancient as
theirs. And considerations of nearly the same kind may be applied to the
very remote astronomical facts which are recorded as having been
observed in the history of some others of the ancient nations above
mentioned.
24. Still less need we be disturbed by the long series of dynasties,
each occupying a large period of years, which the Egyptians are said to
have inserted in their early history, so as to carry their origin beyond
the earliest times which I have mentioned. If they spoke of the Greek
nations as children compared with their own long-continued age, as Plato
says they did, a few thousands of years of previous existence would well
entitle them to do so. So far as such a period goes, their monuments and
their hieroglyphical inscriptions give a reality to their pretensions,
which we may very willingly grant. And even the history of the Jews
supposes that the Egyptians had attained a high point in arts,
government, knowledge, when Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation,
was still leading the life of a nomad. But this supposition is not
inconsistent with the account which the Jewish Scriptures give, of the
origin of nations; especially if, as we have said, we abstain from any
rigid and narrow interpretation of the chronology of those scriptures;
as on every ground, it is prudent to do.
25. It appears then not unreasonable to believe, that a very few
thousands, or even a few hundreds of years before the time of Abraham,
the nations of central and western Asia offer to us the oldest aspect of
the life of man upon the earth; and that in reasoning concerning the
antiquity of the human race, we may suppose that at that period, he was
in the earliest stages of his existence. Although, in truth, if we were
to accept the antiquity claimed by the Egyptians, the Indians, or the
Chinese, the nature of our argument would not be materially altered; for
ten thousand, or even twenty thousand years, bears a very small
proportion to the periods of time which geology requires for the
revolutions which she describes; and, as I have said, we have geological
evidence also, to show how brief the human period has been, when
compared with the period which preceded the existence of man. And if
this be so; if such peoples as those who have left to us the monuments
of Egypt and of Assyria, the pyramids and ancient Thebes, the walls of
Nineveh and Babylon, were the first nations which lived as nations; or
if they were separated from such only by the interval by which the
Germans of to-day are separated from the Germans of Tacitus; we may well
repeat our remark, that the history of man, in the earliest times, is as
truly a history of a wonderful, intellectual, social, political,
spiritual creature, as it is at present. We see, in the monuments of
those periods, evidences so great and so full of skill, that even now,
they amaze us, of arts, government, property, thought, the love of
beauty, the recognition of deity; evidences of memory, foresight, power.
If London or Berlin were now destroyed, overwhelmed, and, four thousand
years hence, disinterred, these cities would not afford stronger
testimony of those attributes, as existing in modern Europeans, than we
have of such qualities in the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians. The
history of man, as that of a creature pre-eminent in the creation, is
equally such, however far back we carry our researches.
26. Nor is there anything to disturb this view, in the fact of the
existence of the uncultured and barbarous tribes which occupy, and
always have occupied, a large portion of the earth's surface. For, in
the first place, there is not, in the aspect of the fact, or in the
information which history gives us, any reason to believe that such
tribes exhibit a form of human existence, which, in the natural order of
progress, is earlier than the forms of civilized life, of which we have
spoken. The opinion that the most savage kind of human life, least
acquainted with arts, and least provided with resources, is the state of
nature out of which civilized life has everywhere gradually emerged, is
an opinion which, though at one time popular, is unsupported by proof,
and contrary to probability.[4] Savage tribes do not so grow into
civilization; their condition is, far more probably, a condition of
civilization degraded and lost, than of civilization incipient and
prospective. Add to this, that if we were to assume that this were
otherwise; if man thus originally and naturally savage, did also
naturally tend to become civilized; this _tendency_ is an endowment no
less wonderful, than those endowments which civilization exhibits. The
capacity is as extraordinary as the developed result; for the capacity
involves the result. If savage man be the germ of the most highly
civilized man, he differs from all other animal germs, as man differs
from brute. And add to this again, that in the tribes which we call
savage, and whose condition most differs, in external circumstances,
from ours, there are, after all, a vast mass of human attributes:
thought, purpose, language, family relations; generally property, law,
government, contract, arts, and knowledge, to no small extent; and in
almost every case, religion. Even uncivilized man is an intellectual,
moral, social, religious creature; nor is there, in his condition, any
reason why he may not be a spiritual creature, in the highest sense in
which the most civilized man can be so.
27. Here then we are brought to the view which, it would seem, offers a
complete reply to the difficulty, which astronomical discoveries
appeared to place in the way of religion:--the difficulty of the opinion
that man, occupying this speck of earth, which is but as an atom in the
Universe, surrounded by millions of other globes, larger, and, to
appearance, nobler than that which he inhabits, should be the object of
the peculiar care and guardianship, of the favor and government, of the
Creator of All, in the way in which Religion teaches us that He is. For
we find that man, (the human race, from its first origin till now,) has
occupied but an atom of time, as he has occupied but an atom of
space:--that as he is surrounded by myriads of globes which may, like
this, be the habitations of living things, so he has been preceded, on
this earth, by myriads of generations of living things, not possibly or
probably only, but certainly; and yet that, comparing his history with
theirs, he has been, certainly has been fitted to be, the object of the
care and guardianship, of the favor and government, of the Master and
Governor of All, in a manner entirely different from anything which it
is possible to believe with regard to the countless generations of brute
creatures which had gone before him. If we will doubt or overlook the
difference between man and brutes, the difficulty of ascribing to man
peculiar privileges, is made as great by the revelations of geology, as
of astronomy. The scale of man's insignificance is, as we have said, of
the same order in reference to time, as to space. There is nothing
which at all goes beyond the magnitude which observation and reasoning
suggest for geological periods, in supposing that the tertiary strata
occupied, in their deposition and elevation, a period as much greater
than the period of human history, as the solar system is larger than the
earth:--that the secondary strata were as much longer than these in
their formation, as the nearest fixed star is more distant than the
sun:--that the still earlier masses, call them primary, or protozoic, or
what we will, did, in their production, extend through a period of time
as vast, compared with the secondary period, as the most distant nebula
is remoter than the nearest star. If the earth, as the habitation of
man, is a speck in the midst of an infinity of space, the earth, as the
habitation of man, is also a speck at the end of an infinity of time. If
we are as nothing in the surrounding universe, we are as nothing in the
elapsed eternity; or rather, in the elapsed organic antiquity, during
which the earth has existed and been the abode of life. If man is but
one small family in the midst of innumerable possible households, he is
also but one small family, the successor of innumerable tribes of
animals, not possible only, but actual. If the planets _may_ be the
seats of life, we know that the seas which have given birth to our
mountains _were_ the seats of life. If the stars may have hundreds of
systems of tenanted planets rolling round them, we know that the
secondary group of rocks does contain hundreds of tenanted beds,
witnessing of as many systems of organic creation. If the nebulæ may be
planetary systems in the course of formation, we know that the primary
and transition rocks either show us the earth in the course of
formation, as the future seat of life, or exhibit such life as already
begun.
28. How far that which astronomy thus asserts as possible, is
probable:--what is the value of these possibilities of life in distant
regions of the universe, we shall hereafter consider. But in what
geology asserts, the case is clear. It is no possibility, but a
certainty. No one will now doubt that shells and skeletons, trunks and
leaves, prove animal and vegetable life to have existed. Even,
therefore, if Astronomy could demonstrate all that her most fanciful
disciples assume, Geology would still have a complete right to claim an
equal hearing;--to insist upon having her analogies regarded. She would
have a right to answer the questions of Astronomy, when she says, How
can we believe this? and to have her answers accepted.
29. Astronomy claims a sort of dignity over all other sciences, from her
_antiquity_, her _certainty_, and the _vastness_ of her discoveries. But
the antiquity of astronomy as a science had no share in such
speculations as we are discussing; and if it had had, new truths are
better than old conjectures; new discoveries must rectify old errors;
new answers must remove old difficulties. The vigorous youth of Geology
makes her fearless of the age of Astronomy. And as to the certainty of
Astronomy, it has just as little to do with these speculations. The
certainty stops, just when these speculations begin. There may, indeed,
be some danger of delusion on this subject. Men have been so long
accustomed to look upon astronomical science as the mother of
certainty, that they may confound astronomical discoveries with
cosmological conjectures; though these be slightly and illogically
connected with those. And then, as to the vastness of astronomical
discoveries,--granting that character, inasmuch as it is to a certain
degree, a matter of measurement,--we must observe, that the discoveries
of geology are no less vast: they extend through time, as those of
astronomy do through space. They carry us through millions of years,
that is, of the earth's revolutions, as those of astronomy do through
millions of the earth's diameters, or of diameters of the earth's orbit.
Geology fills the regions of duration with events, as astronomy fills
the regions of the universe with objects. She carries us backwards by
the relation of cause and effect, as astronomy carries us upwards by the
relations of geometry. As astronomy steps on from point to point of the
universe by a chain of triangles, so geology steps from epoch to epoch
of the earth's history by a chain of mechanical and organical laws. If
the one depends on the axioms of geometry, the other depends on the
axioms of causation.
30. So far then, Geology has no need to regard Astronomy as her
superior; and least of all, when they apply themselves together to
speculations like these. But in truth, in such speculations, Geology has
an immeasurable superiority. She has the command of an implement, in
addition to all that Astronomy can use; and one, for the purpose of such
speculations, adapted far beyond any astronomical element of discovery.
She has, for one of her studies,--one of her means of dealing with her
problems,--the knowledge of Life, animal and vegetable. Vital
organization is a subject of attention which has, in modern times, been
forced upon her. It is now one of the main parts of her discipline. The
geologist must study the traces of life in every form; must learn to
decypher its faintest indications and its fullest development. On the
question, then, whether there be in this or that quarter, evidence of
life, he can speak with the confidence derived from familiar knowledge;
while the astronomer, to whom such studies are utterly foreign, because
he has no facts which bear upon them, can offer, on such questions, only
the loosest and most arbitrary conjectures; which, as we have had to
remark, have been rebuked by eminent men, as being altogether
inconsistent with the acknowledged maxims of his science.
31. When, therefore, Geology tells us that the earth, which has been
the seat of human life for a few thousand years only, has been the seat
of animal life for myriads, it may be, millions of years, she has a
right to offer this, as an answer to any difficulty which Astronomy, or
the readers of astronomical books, may suggest, derived from the
considerations that the Earth, the seat of human life, is but one globe
of a few thousand miles in diameter, among millions of other globes, at
distances millions of times as great.
32. Let the difficulty be put in any way the objector pleases. Is it
that it is unworthy of the greatness and majesty of God, according to
our conceptions of Him, to bestow such peculiar care on so small a part
of His creation? But we know, from geology, that He has bestowed upon
this small part of His creation, mankind, this special care;--He has
made their period, though only a moment in the ages of animal life, the
only period of intelligence, morality, religion. If then, to suppose
that He has done this, is contrary to our conceptions of His greatness
and majesty, it is plain that our conceptions are erroneous; they have
taken a wrong direction. God has not judged, as to what is worthy of
Him, as we have judged. He has found it worthy of Him to bestow upon man
His special care, though he occupies so small a portion of time; and why
not, then, although he occupies so small a portion of space?
33. Or is the objection this; that if we suppose the earth only to be
occupied by inhabitants, all the other globes of the universe are
wasted;--turned to no purpose? Is waste of this kind considered as
unsuited to the character of the Creator? But here again, we have the
like waste, in the occupation of the earth. All its previous ages, its
seas and its continents, have been wasted upon mere brute life; often,
so far as we can see, for myriads of years, upon the lowest, the least
conscious forms of life; upon shell-fish, corals, sponges. Why then
should not the seas and continents of other planets be occupied at
present with a life no higher than this, or with no life at all? Will it
be said that, so far as material objects are occupied by life, they are
not wasted; but that they are wasted, if they are entirely barren and
blank of life? This is a very arbitrary saying. Why should the life of a
sponge, or a coral, or an oyster, be regarded as a good employment of a
spot of land and water, so as to save it from being wasted? No doubt, if
the coral or the oyster be there, there is a reason why it is so,
consistently with the attributes of God. But then, on the same ground,
we may say that if it be not there, there is a reason why it is not so.
Such a mode of regarding the parts of the universe can never give us
reasons why they should or should not be inhabited, when we have no
other grounds for knowing whether they are. If it be a sufficient
employment of a spot of rock or water that it is the seat of
organization--of organic powers; why may it not be a sufficient
employment of the same spot that it is the seat of attraction, of
cohesion, of crystalline powers? All the planets, all parts of the
universe, we have good reason to believe, are pervaded by attraction, by
forces of aggregation and atomic relation, by light and heat. Why may
not these be sufficient to prevent the space being wasted, in the eyes
of the Creator? as, during a great part of the earth's past history, and
over large portions of its present mass, they are actually held by Him
sufficient; for they are all that occupy those portions. This notion,
then, of the improbability of there being, in the universe, so vast an
amount of waste spaces, or waste bodies, as is implied in the opinion
that the earth alone is the seat of life, or of intelligence, is
confuted by the fact, that there are vast spaces, waste districts, and
especially waste times, to an extent as great as such a notion deems
improbable. The avoidance of such waste, according to our notions of
waste, is no part of the economy of creation, so far as we can discern
that economy, in its most certain exemplifications.
34. Or will the objection be made in this way; that such a peculiar
dignity and importance given to the earth is contrary to the analogy of
creation;--that since there are so many globes, similar to the
earth,--like her, revolving round the sun, like her, revolving on her
axes, several of them, like her, accompanied by satellites; it is
reasonable to suppose that their destination and office is the same as
hers;--that since there are so many stars, each like the sun, a source
of light, and probably of heat, it is reasonable to suppose that, like
the sun, they are the centres of systems of planets, to which their
light and heat are imparted, to uphold life:--is it thought that such a
resemblance is a strong ground for believing that the planets of our
system, and of other systems, are inhabited as the earth is? If such an
astronomical analogy be insisted on, we must again have recourse to
geology, to see what such analogy is worth. And then, we are led to
reflect, that if we were to follow such analogies, we should be led to
suppose that all the successive periods of the earth's history were
occupied with life of the same order; that as the earth, in its present
condition, is the seat of an intelligent population, so must it have
been, in all former conditions. The earth, in its former conditions, was
able and fitted to support life; even the life of creatures closely
resembling man in their bodily structure. Even of monkeys, fossil
remains have been found. But yet, in those former conditions, it did not
support human life. Even those geologists who have dwelt most on the
discovery of fossil monkeys, and other animals nearest to man, have not
dreamt that there existed, before man, a race of rational, intelligent,
and progressive creatures. As we have seen, geology and history alike
refute such a fancy. The notion, then, that one period of time in the
history of the earth must resemble another, in the character of its
population, because it resembles it in physical circumstances, is
negatived by the facts which we discover in the history of the earth.
And so, the notion that one part of the universe must resemble another
in its population, because it resembles it in physical circumstances, is
negatived as a law of creation. Analogy, further examined, affords no
support to such a notion. The analogy of time, the events of which we
know, corrects all such guesses founded on a supposed analogy of space,
the furniture of which, so far as this point is concerned, we have no
sufficient means of examining.
35. But in truth, we may go further. Not only does the analogy of
creation not point to any such entire resemblance of similar parts, as
is thus assumed, but it points in the opposite direction. Not entire
resemblance, but universal difference is what we discover; not the
repetition of exactly similar cases, but a series of cases perpetually
dissimilar, presents itself; not constancy, but change, perhaps advance;
not one permanent and pervading scheme, but preparation and completion
of successive schemes; not uniformity and a fixed type of existences,
but progression and a climax. This may be said to be the case in the
geological aspect of the world; for, without occupying ourselves with
the question, how far the monuments of animal life, which we find
preserved in the earth's strata, exhibited a gradual progression from
ruder and more imperfect forms to the types of the present terrestrial
population; from sponges and mollusks, to fish and lizards, from
cold-blooded to warm blooded animals, and so on, till we come to the
most perfect vertebrates;--a doctrine which many eminent geologists
have held, and still hold;--without discussing this question, or
assuming that the fact is so; this at least cannot be denied or doubted,
that man is incomparably the most perfect and highly-endowed creature
which ever has existed on the earth. How far previous periods of animal
existence were a necessary preparation of the earth, as the habitation
of man, or a gradual progression towards the existence of man, we need
not now inquire. But this at least we may say; that man, now that he is
here, forms a climax to all that has preceded; a term incomparably
exceeding in value all the previous parts of the series; a complex and
ornate capital to the subjacent column; a personage of vastly greater
dignity and importance than all the preceding line of the procession.
The analogy of nature, in this case at least, appears to be, that there
should be inferior, as well as superior provinces, in the universe; and
that the inferior may occupy an immensely larger portion of time than
the superior; why not then of space? The intelligent part of creation is
thrust into the compass of a few years, in the course of myriads of
ages; why not then into the compass of a few miles, in the expanse of
systems? The earth was brute and inert, compared with its present
condition, dark and chaotic, so far as the light of reason and
intelligence are concerned, for countless centuries before man was
created. Why then may not other parts of creation be still in this brute
and inert and chaotic state, while the earth is under the influence of a
higher exercise of creative power? If the earth was, for ages, a turbid
abyss of lava and of mud, why may not Mars or Saturn be so still? If the
germs of life were, gradually, and at long intervals, inserted in the
terrestrial slime, why may they not be just inserted, or not yet
inserted, in Jupiter? Or why should we assume that the condition of
those planets resembles ours, even so far as such suppositions imply?
Why may they not, some or all of them, be barren masses of stone and
metal, slag and scoriæ, dust and cinders? That some of them are composed
of such materials, we have better reason to believe, than we have to
believe anything else respecting their physical constitution, as we
shall hereafter endeavor to show. If then, the earth be the sole
inhabited spot in the work of creation, the oasis in the desert of our
system, there is nothing in this contrary to the analogy of creation.
But if, in some way which perhaps we cannot discover, the earth
obtained, for accompaniments, mere chaotic and barren masses, as
conditions of coming into its present state; as it may have required,
for accompaniments, the brute and imperfect races of former animals, as
conditions of coming into its present state, as the habitation of man;
the analogy is against, and not in favor of, the belief that they too
(the other masses, the planets, &c.) are habitations. I may hereafter
dwell more fully on such speculations; but the possibility that the
planets are such rude masses, is quite as tenable, on astronomical
grounds, as the possibility that the planets resemble the earth, in
matters of which astronomy can tell us nothing. We say, therefore, that
the example of geology refutes the argument drawn from the supposed
analogy of one part of the universe with another; and suggests a strong
suspicion that the force of analogy, better known, may tend in the
opposite direction.
36. When such possibilities are presented to the reader, he may
naturally ask, if we are thus to regard man as the climax of creation,
in space, as in time, can we point out any characters belonging to him,
which may tend to make it conceivable that the Creator should thus
distinguish him, and care for him:--should prepare his habitation if it
be so, by ages of chaotic and rudimentary life, and by accompanying
orbs of brute and barren matter. If Man be, thus, the head, the crowned
head of the creation, is he worthy to be thus elevated? Has he any
qualities which make it conceivable that, with such an array of
preparation and accompaniment, he should be placed upon the earth, his
throne? Or rather, if he be thus the chosen subject of God's care, has
he any qualities, which make it conceivable that he should be thus
selected; taken under such guardianship; admitted to such a
dispensation; graced with such favor. The question with which we began
again recurs: What is man that God should be thus mindful of him? After
the views which have been presented to us, does any answer now occur to
us?
37. The answer which we have to give, is that which we have already
repeatedly stated. Man is an intellectual, moral, religious, and
spiritual creature. If we consider these attributes, we shall see that
they are such as to give him a special relation to God, and as we
conceive, and must conceive, God to be; and may therefore be, in God,
the occasion of special guardianship, special regard, a special
dispensation towards man.
38. As an intellectual creature, he has not only an intelligence which
he can apply to practical uses, to minister to the needs of animal and
social life; but also an intellect by which he can speculate about the
relations of things, in their most general form; for instance, the
properties of space and time, the relations of finite and infinite. He
can discover truths, to which all things, existing in space and time,
must conform. These are conditions of existence to which the creation
conforms, that is, to which the Creator conforms; and man, capable of
seeing that such conditions are true and necessary, is capable, so far,
of understanding some of the conditions of the Creator's workmanship.
In this way, the mind of man has some community with the mind of God;
and however remote and imperfect this community may be, it must be real.
Since, then, man has thus, in his intellect, an element of community
with God, it is so far conceivable that he should be, in a special
manner, the object of God's care and favor. The human mind, with its
wonderful and perhaps illimitable powers, is something of which we can
believe God to be "mindful."
39. Again: man is a moral creature. He recognizes, he cannot help
recognizing, a distinction of right and wrong in his actions; and in his
internal movements which lead to action. This distinction he recognizes
as the reason, the highest and ultimate reason, for doing or for not
doing. And this law of his own reason, he is, by reflection, led to
recognize as a Law of the Supreme Reason; of the Supreme Mind which has
made him what he is. The Moral Law, he owns and feels as God's Law. By
the obligation which he feels to obey this Law, he feels himself God's
subject; placed under his government; compelled to expect his judgment,
his rewards, and punishments. By being a moral creature, then, he is, in
a special manner, the subject of God; and not only we can believe that,
in this capacity, God cares for him; but we cannot believe that he _does
not_ care for him. He cares for him, so as to approve of what he does
right, and to condemn what he does wrong. And he has given him, in his
own breast, an assurance that he will do this; and thus, God cares for
man, in a peculiar and special manner. As a moral creature, we have no
difficulty in conceiving that God may think him worthy of his regard and
government.
40. The development of man's moral nature, as we have just described it,
leads to, and involves the development of his religious nature. By
looking within himself, and seeing the Moral Law, he learns to look
upwards to God, the Author of the Law, and the Awarder of the rewards
and penalties which follow moral good and evil. But the belief of such a
dispensation carries us, or makes us long to be carried, beyond the
manifestations of this dispensation, as they appear in the ordinary
course of human life. By thinking on such things, man is led to ascribe
a wider range to the moral Government of God:--to believe in methods of
reward and punishment, which do not appear in the natural course of
events: to accept events, out of the order of nature, which announce
that God has provided such methods: to accept them, when duly
authenticated, as messages from God; and thus, when God provides the
means, to allow himself to be placed in intercourse with God. Since man
is capable of this; since, as a religious creature, this is his
tendency, his need, the craving of his heart, without which, when his
religious nature is fully unfolded, he can feel no comfort nor
satisfaction; we cannot be surprised that God should deem him a proper
object of a special fatherly care; a fit subject for a special
dispensation of his purposes, as to the consequences of human actions.
Man being this, we can believe that God is not only "mindful of him,"
but "visits him."
41. As we have said, the soul of man, regarded as the subject of God's
religious government, is especially termed his _Spirit_: the course of
human being which results from the intercourse with God, which God
permits, is a _spiritual_ existence. Man is capable, in no small degree,
of such an existence, of such an intercourse with God; and, as we are
authorized to term it, of such a life with God, and in God, even while
he continues in his present human existence. I say _authorized_, because
such expressions are used, though reverently, by the most religious
men; who are, at any rate, authority as to their own sentiments; which
are the basis of our reasoning. Whatever, then, may be the imperfection,
in this life, of such a union with God, yet since man can, when
sufficiently assisted and favored by God, enter upon such a union, we
cannot but think it most credible and most natural, that he should be
the object of God's special care and regard, even of his love and
presence.
42. That men are, only in a comparatively small number of cases,
intellectual, moral, religious, and spiritual, in the degree which I
have described, does not, by any means, deprive our argument of its
force. The capacity of man is, that he may become this; and such a
capacity may well make him a special object in the eyes of Him under
whose guidance and by whose aid, such a development and elevation of his
nature is open to him. However imperfect and degraded, however
unintellectual, immoral, irreligious, and unspiritual, a great part of
mankind may be, still they all have the germs of such an elevation of
their nature; and a large portion of them make, we cannot doubt, no
small progress in this career of advancement to a spiritual condition.
And with such capacities, and such practical exercise of those
capacities, we can have no difficulty in believing, if the evidence
directs us to believe, that that part of the creation in which man has
his present appointed place, is the special field of God's care and
love; by whatever wastes of space, and multitudes of material bodies, it
may be surrounded; by whatever races it may have been previously
occupied, of brutes that perish, and that, compared with man, can hardly
be said to have lived.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Lyell, II. 420. [6th Ed.]
[2] Cuvier.
[3] By Bishop Berkeley. See Lyell, III. 346.
[4] A recent popular writer, who has asserted the self-civilizing
tendency of man, has not been able, it would seem, to adduce any example
of the operation of this tendency, except a single tribe of North
American Indians, in whom it operated for a short time, and to a small
extent.
CHAPTER VII.
THE NEBULÆ
1. I have attempted to show that, even if we suppose the other bodies of
the universe to resemble the Earth, so far as to seem, by their
materials, forms, and motions, no less fitted than she is to be the
abodes of life; yet that, knowing what we do of man, we can believe that
the Earth is tenanted by a race who are the _special_ objects of God's
care. Even if the tendency of the analogies of creation were, to incline
us to suppose that the other planets are as well suited as our globe, to
have inhabitants, still it would require a great amount of evidence, to
make us believe that they have such inhabitants as we are; while yet
such evidence is altogether wanting. Even if we knew that the stars were
the centres of revolving systems, we should have an immense difficulty
in believing that an Earth, with such a population as ours, revolves
about any of them. If astronomy made a plurality of worlds probable, we
have strong reasonings, drawn from other subjects, to think that the
other worlds are not like ours.
2. The admirers of astronomical triumphs may perhaps be disposed to say,
that when so much has been discovered, we may be allowed to complete the
scheme by the exercise of fancy. I have attempted to show that we are
not in such a state of ignorance, when we look at other relations of
the earth and of man, as to allow us to do this. But now we may go a
little onwards in our argument; and may ask, whether Astronomy really
does what is here claimed for her:--whether she carries us so securely
to the bounds of the visible universe, that our Fancy may take up the
task, and people the space thus explored:--whether the bodies which
Astronomy has examined, be really as fitted as our Earth, to sustain a
population of living things:--whether the most distant objects in the
universe do really seem to be systems, or the beginnings of
systems:--whether Astronomy herself may not incline in favor of the
condition of man, as being the sole creature of his kind?
3. In making this inquiry, it will of course be understood, that I do so
with the highest admiration for the vast discoveries which Astronomy has
really made; and for the marvellous skill and invention of the great men
who have, in all ages of the world, and not least, in our time, been the
authors of such discoveries. From the time when Galileo first discovered
the system of Jupiter's satellites, to the last scrutiny of the
structure of a nebula by Lord Rosse's gigantic telescope, the history of
the telescopic exploration of the sky, has been a history of genius
felicitously employed in revealing wonders. In this history, the noble
labors of the first and the second Herschel relative to the distribution
of the fixed stars, the forms and classes of nebulæ, and the phenomena
of double stars, especially bear upon our present speculations; to which
we may add, the examination of the aspect of each planet, by various
observers, as Schroeter, and of the moon by others, from Huyghens to
Mädler and Beer. The achievements which are most likely to occur to the
reader's mind are those of the Earl of Rosse; as being the latest
addition to our knowledge, and the result of the greatest instrumental
powers. By the energy and ingenuity of that eminent person, an eye is
directed to the heavens, having a pupil of six feet diameter, with the
most complete optical structure, and the power of ranging about for its
objects over a great extent of sky; and thus the quantity of light which
the eye receives from any point of the heavens is augmented, it may be,
fifty thousand times. The rising Moon is seen from the Observatory in
Ireland with the same increase of size and light, as if her solid globe,
two thousand miles in diameter, retaining all its illumination, really
rested upon the summits of the Alps, to be gazed at by the naked eye. An
object which appears to the naked eye a single star, may, by this
telescope, so far as its power of seeing is concerned, be resolved into
fifty thousand stars, each of the same brightness as the obvious star.
What seems to the unassisted vision a nebula, a patch of diluted light,
in which no distinct luminous point can be detected, may, by such an
instrument, be discriminated or resolved into a number of bright dots;
as the stippled shades of an engraving are resolved into dots by the
application of a powerful magnifying glass. Similar results of the
application of great telescopic power had of course been attained long
previously; but, as the nature of scientific research is, each step adds
something to our means of knowledge; and the last addition assumes,
includes, and augments the knowledge which we possessed before. The
discussions in which we are engaged, belong to the very boundary region
of science;--to the frontier where knowledge, at least astronomical
knowledge, ends, and ignorance begins. Such discoveries, therefore, as
those made by Lord Rosse's telescope, require our special notice here.
4. We may begin, at what appears to us the outskirts of creation, the
Nebulæ. At one time it was conceived by astronomers in general, that
these patches of diffused light, which are seen by them in such
profusion in the sky, are not luminous bodies of regular terms and
definite boundaries, apparently solid, as the stars are supposed to be;
but really, as even to good telescopes many of them seem, masses of
luminous cloud or vapor, loosely held together, as clouds and vapors
are, and not capable by any powers of vision of being resolved into
distinct visible elements. This opinion was for a time so confidentially
entertained, that there was founded upon it an hypothesis, that these
were gaseous masses, out of which suns and systems might afterwards be
formed, by the concentration of these luminous vapors into a solid
central sun, more intensely luminous; while detached portions of the
mass, flying off, and cooling down so as to be no longer self-luminous,
might revolve round the central body, as planets and satellites. This is
the _Nebular Hypothesis_, suggested by the elder Herschel, and adopted
by the great mathematician Laplace.
5. But the result of the optical scrutiny of the nebulæ by more modern
observers, especially by Lord Rosse in Ireland, and Mr. Bond in America,
has been, that many celestial objects which were regarded before as
truly nebulous, have been resolved into stars; and this resolution has
been extended to so many cases of nebulæ, of such various kinds, as to
have produced a strong suspicion in the minds of astronomers that _all_
the nebulæ, however different in their appearance, may really be
resolved into stars, if they be attacked with optical powers
sufficiently great.
6. If this were to be assumed as done, and if each of the separate
points, into which the nebulæ are thus resolved, were conceived to be a
star, which looks so small only because it is so distant, and which
really is as likely to have a system of planets revolving about it, as
is a star of the first magnitude:--we should then have a view of the
immensity of the visible universe, such as I presented to the reader in
the beginning of this essay. All the distant nebulæ appear as nebulæ,
only because they are so distant; if truly seen, they are groups of
stars, of which each may be as important as our sun, being, like it, the
centre of a planetary system. And thus, a patch of the heavens, one
hundredth or one thousandth part of the visible breadth of our sun, may
contain in it more life, not only than exists in the solar system, but
in as many such systems as the unassisted eye can see stars in the
heavens, on the clearest winter night.
7. This is a stupendous view of the greatness of the creation; and, to
many persons, its very majesty, derived from magnitude and number, will
make it so striking and acceptable, that, once apprehended, they will
feel as if there were a kind of irreverence in disturbing it. But if
this view be really not tenable when more closely examined, it is, after
all, not wise to connect our feelings of religious reverence with it, so
that they shall suffer a shock when we are obliged to reject it. I may
add, that we may entertain an undoubting trust that any view of the
creation which is found to be true, will also be found to supply
material for reverential contemplation. I venture to hope that we may,
by further examination, be led to a reverence of a deeper and more
solemn character than a mere wonder at the immensity of space and
number.
8. But whatever the result may be, let us consider the evidence for this
view. It assumes that all the Nebulæ are resolvable into stars, and that
they appear as nebulæ only because they are more distant than the region
in which they can appear as stars. Are there any facts, any phenomena in
the heavens, which may help us to determine whether this is a probable
opinion?
9. It is most satisfactory for us, when we can, in such inquiries, know
the thoughts which have suggested themselves to the minds of those who
have examined the phenomena with the most complete knowledge, the
greatest care, and the best advantages; and have speculated upon these
phenomena in a way both profound and unprejudiced. Some remarks of Sir
John Herschel, recommended by these precious characters, seem to me to
bear strongly upon the question which I have just had to ask:--Do all
the nebulæ owe their nebulous appearance to their being too distant to
be seen as groups of distinct stars, though they really are such groups?
10. Herschel, in the visit which he made to the Cape of Good Hope, for
the purpose of erecting to his father the most splendid monument that
son ever erected,--the completed survey of the vault of heaven,--had
full opportunity of studying a certain pair of remarkable bright spaces
of the skies, filled with a cloudy light, which lie near the southern
pole; and which, having been unavoidably noticed by the first Antarctic
voyagers, are called the _Magellanic Clouds_. When the larger of these
two clouds is examined through powerful telescopes, it presents, we are
told, a constitution of uncommon complexity: "large patches and tracts
of nebulosity in every stage of resolution, from light, irresolvable
with eighteen inches of reflecting aperture, up to perfectly separated
stars like the Milky Way, and clustering groups sufficiently insulated
and condensed to come under the designation of irregular, and in some
cases pretty rich clusters. But besides these, there are also nebulæ in
abundance, both regular and irregular; globular clusters in every stage
of condensation, and objects of a nebulous character quite peculiar, and
which have no analogies in any other region of the heavens."[1] He goes
on to say, that these nebulæ and clusters are far more crowded in this
space than they are in any other, even the most crowded parts, of the
nebulous heavens. This _Nubecula Major_, as it is termed, is of a round
or oval form, and its diameter is about six degrees, so that it is about
twelve times the apparent diameter of the moon. The _Nubecula Minor_ is
a smaller patch of the same kind. If we suppose the space occupied by
the various objects which the nubecula major includes, to be, in a
general way, spherical, its nearest and most remote parts must (as its
angular size proves) differ in their distance from us by little more
than a tenth part of our distance from its centre. That the two nubeculæ
are thus approximately spherical spaces, is in the highest degree
probable; not only from the peculiarity of their contents, which
suggests the notion of a peculiar group of objects, collected into a
limited space; but from the barrenness, as to such objects, of the sky
in the neighborhood of these Magellanic Clouds. To suppose (the only
other possible supposition) that they are two columns of space, with
their ends turned towards us, and their lengths hundreds and thousands
of times their breadths, would be too fantastical a proceeding to be
tolerated; and would, after all, not explain the facts without further
altogether arbitrary assumptions.
11. It appears, then, that, in these groups, there are stars of various
magnitudes, clusters of various forms, nebulæ regular and irregular,
nebulous tracts and patches of peculiar character; and all so disposed,
that the most distant of them, whichever these may be, are not more than
one-tenth more distant than the nearest. If the nearest star in this
space be at nine times the distance of Sirius, the farthest nebulæ,
contained in the same space, will not be at more than ten times the
distance of Sirius. Of course, the doctrine that nebulæ are seen as
nebulæ, merely because they are so distant, requires us to assume all
nebulæ to be hundreds and thousands of times more distant than the
smallest stars. If stars of the eighth magnitude (which are hardly
visible to the naked eye) be eight times as remote as Sirius, a nebula
containing a thousand stars, which is invisible to the naked eye, must
be more than eight thousand times as remote as Sirius. And thus if, in
the whole galaxy, we reckon only the stars as far as the eighth
magnitude, and suppose all the stars of the galaxy to form a nebula,
which is visible to the spectators in a distant nebula, only as their
nebula is visible to us; we must place them at eight thousand times two
hundred thousand times the distance of the Sun; and, even so, we are
obviously vastly understating the calculation. These are the gigantic
estimates with which some astronomical speculators have been in the
habit of overwhelming the minds of their listeners; and these views have
given a kind of majesty to the aspect of the nebulæ; and have led some
persons to speak of the discovery of every new streak of nebulous light
in the starry heavens, as a discovery of new worlds, and still new
worlds. But the Magellanic Clouds show us very clearly that all these
calculations are entirely baseless. In those regions of space, there
coexists, in a limited compass, and in indiscriminate position, stars,
clusters of stars, nebulæ, regular and irregular, and nebulous streaks
and patches. These, then, are different kinds of things in themselves,
not merely different to us. There are such things as nebulæ side by side
with stars, and with clusters of stars. Nebulous matter resolvable
occurs close to nebulous matter irresolvable. The last and widest step
by which the dimensions of the universe have been expanded in the
notions of eager speculators, is checked by a completer knowledge and a
sager spirit of speculation. Whatever inference we may draw from the
resolvability of some of the nebulæ, we may not draw this
inference;--that they are more distant, and contain a larger array of
systems and of worlds, in proportion as they are difficult to resolve.
12. But indeed, if we consider this process, of the resolution of nebulæ
into luminous points, on its own ground, without looking to such facts
as I have just adduced, it will be difficult, or impossible, to assign
any reason why it should lead to such inferences as have been drawn from
it. Let us look at this matter more clearly. An astronomer, armed with a
powerful telescope, _resolves_ a nebula, discerns that a luminous cloud
is composed of shining dots:--but what are these dots? Into _what_ does
he resolve the nebula? Into _Stars_, it is commonly said. Let us not
wrangle about words. By all means let these dots be Stars, if we know
about what we are speaking: if a _Star_ merely mean a luminous dot in
the sky. But that these stars shall resemble, in their nature, stars of
the first magnitude, and that such stars shall resemble our Sun, are
surely very bold structures of assumption to build on such a basis. Some
nebulæ are resolvable; are resolvable into distinct points; certainly a
very curious, probably an important discovery. We may hereafter learn
that _all_ nebulæ are resolvable into distinct points: that would be a
still more curious discovery. But what would it amount to? What would be
the simple way of expressing it, without hypothesis, and without
assumption? Plainly this: that the substance of all nebulæ is not
continuous, but discrete;--separable, and separate into distinct
luminous elements;--nebulæ are, it would then seem, as it were, of a
curdled or granulated texture; they have run into _lumps_ of light, or
have been formed originally of such lumps. Highly curious. But what are
these lumps? How large are they? At what distances? Of what structure?
Of what use? It would seem that he must be a bold man who undertakes to
answer these questions. Certainly he must appear to ordinary thinkers to
be _very_ bold, who, in reply, says, gravely and confidently, as if he
had unquestionable authority for his teaching:--"These lumps, O man, are
Suns; they are distant from each other as far as the Dog-star is from
us; each has its system of Planets, which revolve around it; and each of
these Planets is the seat of an animal and vegetable creation. Among
these Planets, some, we do not yet know how many, are occupied by
rational and responsible creatures, like Man; and the only matter which
perplexes us, holding this belief on astronomical grounds, is, that we
do not quite see how to put our theology into its due place and form in
our system."
13. In discussing such matters as these, where our knowledge and our
ignorance are so curiously blended together, and where it is so
difficult to make men feel that so much ignorance can lie so close to so
much knowledge;--to make them believe that they have been allowed to
discover so much, and yet are not allowed to discover more:--we may be
permitted to illustrate our meaning, by supposing a case of blended
knowledge and ignorance, of real and imaginary discovery. Suppose that
there were carried from a scientific to a more ignorant nation,
excellent maps of the world, finely engraved; the mountain-ranges shaded
in the most delicate manner, and the sheet crowded with information of
all kinds, in writing large, small, and microscopic. Suppose also, that
when these maps had been studied with the naked eye, so as to establish
a profound respect for the knowledge and skill of the author of them,
some of those who perused them should be furnished with good
microscopes, so as to carry their examination further than before. They
might then find that, in several parts, what before appeared to be
merely crooked lines, was really writing, stating, it may be, the amount
of population of a province, or the date of foundation of a town. To
exhaust all the information thus contained on the maps, might be a work
of considerable time and labor. But suppose that, when this was done, a
body of resolute microscopists should insist that the information which
the map contained was not exhausted: that they should continue peering
perseveringly at the lines which formed the shading of the mountains,
maintaining that these lines also were writing, if only it might be
deciphered; and should go on increasing, with immense labor and
ingenuity, the powers of their microscopes, in order to discover the
legend contained in these unmeaning lines. We should, perhaps, have here
an image of the employment of these astronomers, who now go on looking
in nebulæ for worlds. And we may notice in passing, that several of the
arguments which are used by such astronomers, might be used, and would
be used, by our microscopists:--how improbable it was that a person so
full of knowledge, and so able to convey it, as the author of the maps
was known to be, should not have a design and purpose in every line that
he drew: what a waste of space it would be to leave any part of the
sheet blank of information; and the like. To which the reply is to us
obvious; that the design of shading the mountains was design enough; and
that the information conveyed was all that was necessary or convenient.
Nor does this illustration at all tend to show that such astronomical
scrutiny, directed intelligently, with a right selection of the points
examined, may not be highly interesting and important. If the
microscopists had examined the map with a view to determine the best way
in which mountains can be indicated by shading, they would have employed
themselves upon a question which has been the subject of multiplied and
instructive discussion in our own day.
14. But to return to the subject of Nebulæ, we may further say, with
the most complete confidence, that whether or not nebulous matter be
generally resolvable into shining dots, it cannot possibly be true that
its being, or not being so resolvable by our telescopes, depends merely
upon its smaller or greater distance from the observer. For, in the
first place, that there is matter, to the best assisted eye not
distinguishable from nebulous matter, which is not so resolvable, is
proved by several facts. The tails of Comets often resemble nebulæ; so
much so that there are several known nebulæ, which are, by the less
experienced explorers of the sky, perpetually mistaken for comets, till
they are proved not to be so, by their having no cometary motion. Such
is the nebula in Andromeda, which is visible to the naked eye.[2] But
the tails and nebulous appendages of comets, though they alter their
appearance very greatly, according to the power of the telescope with
which they are examined, have never been resolved into stars, or any
kind of dots; and seem, by all investigations, to be sheets or cylinders
or cones of luminous vapor, changing their form as they approach to or
recede from the sun, and perhaps by the influence of other causes. Yet
some of them approach very near the earth; all of them come within the
limits of our system. Here, then, we have (probably, at least,) nebulous
matter, which when brought close to the eye, compared with the stellar
nebulæ, still appears as nebulous.
15. Again, as another phenomenon, bearing upon the same question, we
have the Zodiacal Light. This is a faint cone of light[3] which, at
certain seasons, may be seen extending from the horizon obliquely
upwards, and following the course of the ecliptic, or rather, of the
sun's equator. It appears to be a lens-shaped envelope of the sun,
extending beyond the orbits of Mercury and Venus, and nearly attaining
that of the earth; and in Sir John Herschel's view, may be regarded as
placing the sun in the list of nebulous stars. No one has ever thought
that this nebulous appearance was resolvable into luminous points; but
if it were, probably not even the most sanguine of speculators on the
multitude of suns would call these points _suns_.
16. But indeed the nebulæ themselves, and especially the most remote of
the nebulæ, or at least those which most especially require the most
powerful telescopes, offer far more decisive proofs that their
resolvability or non-resolvability,--their apparent constitution as
diffused and vaporous masses,--does not depend upon their distance. A
remarkable fact in the irregular, and in some of the regular nebulæ[4]
is, that they consist of long patches and streaks, which stretch out in
various directions, and of which the form[5] and extent vary according
to the visual power which is applied to them. Many of the nebulæ and
especially of the fainter ones, entirely change their form with the
optical power of the instrument by which they are scrutinized; so that,
as seen in the mightier telescopes of modern times, the astronomer
scarcely recognizes the figures in which the earlier observers have
recorded what they saw in the same place. Parts which, before, were
separate, are connected by thin bridges of light which are now detected;
and where the nebulous space appeared to be bounded, it sends off long
tails of faint light into the surrounding space. Now, no one can suppose
that these newly-seen portions of the nebula are immensely further off
than the other parts. However little we know of the nature of the
object, we must suppose it to be one connected object, with all its
parts, as to sense, at the same distance from us. Whether therefore it
be resolvable or no, there must be some other reason, besides the
difference of distance, why the brighter parts were seen, while the
fainter parts were not. The obvious reason is, that the latter were not
seen because they were thin films which required more light to see them.
We are led, irresistibly as it seems, to regard the whole mass of such a
nebula, as an aggregation of vaporous rolls and streaks, assuming such
forms as thin volumes of smoke or vapor often assume in our atmosphere,
and assuming, like them, different shapes according to the quantity of
light which comes to us from them. If, as soon as one of these new
filaments or webs of a nebula comes into view, we should say, Here we
have a new array of suns and of worlds, we should judge as
fantastically, as any one who should combine the like imaginations with
the varying cloud-work of a summer-sky. To suppose that all the varied
streaks by which the patch of nebulous light shades off into the
surrounding darkness, and which change their form and extent with every
additional polish which we can give to a reflecting or refracting
surface, disclose, with every new streak, new worlds, is a wanton
indulgence of fancy, to which astronomy gives us no countenance.[6]
17. Undoubtedly all true astronomers, taught caution and temperance of
thought by the discipline of their magnificent science, abstain from
founding such assumptions upon their discoveries. They know how
necessary it is to be upon their guard against the tricks which fancy
plays with the senses; and if they see appearances of which they cannot
interpret the meaning, they are content that they should have no meaning
for them, till the due explanation comes. We have innumerable examples
of this wise and cautious temper, in all periods of astronomy. One has
occurred lately. Several careful astronomers, observing the stars by
day, had been surprised to see globes of light glide across the field of
view of their telescopes, often in rapid succession and in great
numbers. They did not, as may be supposed, rush to the assumption that
these globes were celestial bodies of a new kind, before unseen; and
that from the peculiarity of their appearance and movement, they were
probably inhabited by beings of a peculiar kind. They proceeded very
differently; they altered the focus of their telescopes, looked with
other glasses, made various changes and trials, and finally discovered
that these globes of light were the winged seeds of certain plants which
were wafted through the air; and which, illuminated by the sun, were
made globular by being at distances unsuited to the focus of the
telescope.[7]
18. But perhaps something more may be founded on the ramified and
straggling form which belongs to many of the nebulæ. Under the powers of
Lord Rosse's telescope, a considerable number of them assume a shape
consisting of several spiral films diverging from one centre, and
growing broader and fainter as they diverge, so as to resemble a curled
feather, or whirlpool of light.[8] This form, though generally deformed
by irregularities, more or less, is traceable in so many of the nebulæ,
that we cannot easily divest ourselves of the persuasion that there is
some general reason for such a form;--that something, in the mechanical
causes which have produced the nebulæ, has tended to give them this
shape. Now, when this thought has occurred to us, since mathematicians
have written a great deal concerning the mechanics of the universe, it
is natural to ask, whether any of the problems which they have solved
give a result like that thus presented to our eyes. Do such spirals as
we here see, occur in any of the diagrams which illustrate the possible
motions of celestial bodies? And to this, a person acquainted with
mathematical literature might reply, that in the second Book of Newton's
_Principia_, in the part which has especial reference to the Vortices
of Descartes, such spirals appear upon the page. They represent
the path which a body would describe if, acted upon by a central
force, it had to move in a medium of which the resistance was
considerable;--considerable, that is, in comparison with the other
forces which act; as for example, the forces which deflect the motion
from a straight line. Indeed, that in such a case a body would describe
a spiral, of which the general form would be more or less oval, is
evident on a little consideration. And in this way, for instance,
Encke's comet, which, if the resistance to its motion were insensible,
would go on describing an ellipse about the sun, always returning upon
the same path after every revolution; does really describe a path which,
at each revolution, falls a little within the preceding revolution, and
thus gradually converges to the centre. And if we suppose the comet to
consist of a luminous mass, or a string of masses, which should occupy
a considerable arc of such an orbit, the orbit would be marked by a
track of light, as an oval spiral. Or if such a comet were to separate
into two portions, as we have, with our own eyes, recently seen Biela's
comet do; or into a greater number; then these portions would be
distributed along such a spiral. And if we suppose a large mass of
cometic matter thus to move in a highly resisting medium, and to consist
of patches of different densities, then some would move faster and some
more slowly; but all, in spirals such as have been spoken of; and the
general aspect produced would be, that of the spiral nebulæ which I have
endeavored to describe. The luminous matter would be more diffused in
the outer and more condensed in the central parts, because to the centre
of attraction all the spirals converge.
19. This would be so, we say, if the luminous matter moved in a greatly
resisting medium. But what is the measure of _great_ resistance? It is,
as we have already said, that the resistance which opposes the motion
shall bear a considerable proportion to the force which deflects the
motion. But what is that force? Upon the theory of the universal
gravitation of matter, on which theory we here proceed, the force which
deflects the motions of the parts of each system into curves, is the
mutual attraction of the parts of the system; leaving out of the account
the action of other systems, as comparatively insignificant and
insensible. The condition, then, for the production of such spiral
figures as I have spoken of, amounts really to this; that the mutual
attraction of the parts of the luminous matter is slight; or, in other
words, that the matter itself is very thin and rare. In that case,
indeed, we can easily see that such a result would follow. A cloud of
dust, or of smoke, which was thin and light, would make but a little way
through the air, and would soon fall downwards; while a metal bullet
shot horizontally with the same velocity, might fly for miles. Just so,
a loose and vaporous mass of cometic matter would be pulled rapidly
inwards by the attraction to the centre; and supposing it also drawn
into a long train, by the different density of its different parts, it
would trace, in lines of light, a circular or elliptical spiral
converging to the centre of attraction, and resembling one of the
branches of the spiral nebulæ. And if several such cometic masses thus
travelled towards the centre, they would exhibit the wheel-like figure
with bent spokes, which is seen in the spiral nebulæ. And such a figure
would all the more resemble some of these nebulæ, as seen through Lord
Rosse's telescope, if the spirals were accompanied by exterior branches
of thinner and fainter light, which nebulous matter of smaller density
might naturally form. Perhaps too, such matter, when thin, may be
supposed to cool down more rapidly from its state of incandescence; and
thus to become less luminous. If this were so, a great optical power
would of course be required, to make the diverging branches visible at
all.
20. There is one additional remark, which we may make, as to the
resemblance of cometary[9] and nebular matter. That cometary matter is
of very small density, we have many reasons to believe:--its
transparency, which allows us to see stars through it undimmed;--the
absence of any mechanical effect, weight, inertia, impulse, or
attraction, in the nearest appulses of comets to planets and
satellites:--and the fact that, in the recent remarkable event in the
cometic history, the separation of Biela's comet into two, the two parts
did not appear to exert any perceptible attraction on each other, any
more than two volumes of dust or of smoke would do on earth. Luminous
cometary matter, then, is very light, that is, has very little weight or
inertia. And luminous nebulous matter is also very light in this sense:
if our account of the cause of spiral nebulæ has in it any truth. But
yet, if we suppose the nebulæ to be governed by the law of universal
gravitation, the attractive force of the luminous matter upon itself,
must be sufficient to bend the spirals into their forms. How are we to
reconcile this; that the matter is so loose that it falls to the centre
in rapid spirals, and yet that it attracts so strongly that there is a
centre, and an energetic central force to curve the spirals thither? To
this, the reply which we must make is, that the size of the nebular
space is such, that though its rarity is extreme, its whole mass is
considerable. One part does not perceptibly attract another, but the
whole does perceptibly attract every part. This indeed need the less
surprise us, since it is exactly the case with our earth. One stone does
not visibly attract another. It is much indeed for man, if he can make
perceptible the attraction of a mountain upon a plumb-line; or of a
stratum of rock a thousand feet thick upon the going of a pendulum; or
of large masses of metal upon a delicate balance. By such experiments
men of science have endeavored to measure that minute thing, the
attraction of one portion of terrestrial matter upon another; and thus,
to weigh the whole mass of the earth. And equally great, at least, may
be the disproportion between the mutual attraction of two parts of a
nebulous system, and the total central attraction; and thus, though the
former be insensible, the latter may be important.
21. It has been shown by Newton, that if any mass of matter be
distributed in a uniform sphere, or in uniform concentric spherical
shells, the total attraction on a point without the sphere, will be the
same as if the whole mass were collected in that single point, the
centre. Now, proceeding upon the supposition of such a distribution of
the matter in a nebula, (which is a reasonable average supposition,) we
may say, that if our sun were expanded into a nebula reaching to the
extreme bounds of the known solar system, namely, to the
newly-discovered planet Neptune, or even hundreds of times further; the
attraction on an external point would remain the same as it is, while
the attraction on points within the sphere of diffusion would be less
than it is; according to some law, depending upon the degree of
condensation of the nebular matter towards the centre; but still, in the
outer regions of the nebula, not differing much from the present solar
attraction. If we could discover a mass of luminous matter, descending
in a spiral course towards the centre of such a nebula, that is, towards
the sun, we should have a sort of element of the spiral nebulæ which
have now attracted so much of the attention of astronomers. But, by an
extraordinary coincidence, recent discoveries have presented to us such
an element. Encke's comet, of which we have just spoken, appears to be
describing such a spiral curve towards the sun. It is found that its
period is, at every revolution, shorter and shorter; the amplitude of
its sweep, at every return within the limits of our observation,
narrower and narrower; so that in the course of revolutions and ages,
however numerous, still, not such as to shake the evidence of the fact,
it will fall into the sun.
22. Here then we are irresistibly driven to calculate what degree of
resemblance there is, between the comet of Encke, and the luminous
elements of the spiral nebulæ, which have recently been found to exist
in other regions of the universe. Can we compare its density with
theirs? Can we learn whether the luminous matter in such nebulæ is more
diffused or less diffused, than that of the comet of Encke? Can we
compare the mechanical power of getting through space, as we may call
it, that is, the ratio of the inertia to the resistance, in the one
case, and in the other? If we can, the comparison cannot fail, it would
seem, to be very curious and instructive. In this comparison, as in most
others to which cosmical relations conduct us, we must expect that the
numbers to which we are led, will be of very considerable amount. It is
not equality in the density of the two luminous masses which we are to
expect to find; if we can mark their proportions by thousands of times,
we shall have made no small progress in such speculations.
23. The comet of Encke describes a spiral, gradually converging to the
sun; but at what rate converging? In how many revolutions will it reach
the sun? Of how many folds will its spire consist, before it attains the
end of its course? The answer is:--Of very many. The retardation of
Encke's Comet is very small: so small, that it has tasked the highest
powers of modern calculation to detect it. Still, however, it is there:
detected, and generally acknowledged, and confirmed by every revolution
of the comet, which brings it under our notice; that is, commonly, about
every three years. And having this fact, we must make what we can of it,
in reasoning on the condition of the universe. No accuracy of
calculation is necessary for our purpose: it is enough, if we bring into
view the kind of scale of numbers to which calculation would lead us.
24. Encke's comet revolves round the sun in 1,211 days. The period
diminishes at present, by about one-ninth of a day every revolution.
This amount of diminution will change, as the orbit narrows; but for our
purpose, it will be enough to consider it unchangeable. The orbit
therefore will cease to exist in a number of periods expressed by 9
times 1,211; that is, in something more that 10,000 revolutions; and of
course sooner than this, in consequence of its coming in contact with
the body of the sun. In 30,000 years then, it may be, this comet will
complete its spiral, and be absorbed by the central mass. This long
time, this long series of ten thousand revolutions, are long, because
the resistance is so small, compared with the inertia of the moving
mass. However thin, and rare, and unsubstantial the comet may be, the
medium which resists it is much more so.
25. But this spiral, converging to its pole so slowly that it reaches it
only after 10,000 circuits, is very different indeed from the spirals
which we see in the nebulæ of which we have spoken. In the most
conspicuous of those, there are only at most three or four circular or
oval sweeps, in each spiral, or even the spiral reaches the centre
before it has completed a single revolution round it. Now, what are we
to infer from this? How is it, that the comet has a spiral of so many
revolutions, and the nebulæ of so few? What difference of the mechanical
conditions is indicated by this striking difference of form? Why, while
the Comet thus lingers longer in the outer space, and approaches the sun
by almost imperceptible degrees, does the Nebular Element rush, as it
were, headlong to its centre, and show itself unable to circulate even
for a few revolutions?
26. Regarding the question as a mechanical problem, the answer must be
this:--It is so, because the nebula is so much more rare than the matter
of the comet, or the resisting medium so much more dense; or combining
the two suppositions, because in the case of the comet, the luminous
matter has _much_ more inertia, more mechanical reality and substance,
than the medium through which it moves; but in the nebula very _little_
more.
27. The numbers of revolutions of the spiral, in the two cases, may not
exactly represent the difference of the proportions; but, as I have
said, they may serve to show the scale of them; and thus we may say,
that if Encke's comet, approaching the centre by 10,000 revolutions, is
100,000 times as dense as the surrounding medium, the elements of the
nebula, which reach the centre in a single revolution, are only ten
times as dense as the medium through which they have to move.[10]
28. Nor does this result (that the bright element of the nebulæ is so
few times denser than the medium in which it moves) offer anything which
need surprise us: for, in truth, in a diffused nebula, since we suppose
that its parts have mechanical properties, the nebula itself is a
resisting medium. The rarer parts, which may very naturally have cooled
down in consequence of their rarity, and so, become non-luminous, will
resist the motions of the more dense and still-luminous portions. If we
recur to the supposition, which we lately made, that the Sun were
expanded into a nebulous sphere, reaching the orbit of Neptune, the
diffused matter would offer a far greater resistance to the motions of
comets than they now experience. In that case, Encke's comet might be
brought to the centre after a few revolutions; and if, while it were
thus descending, it were to be drawn out into a string of luminous
masses, as Biela's comet has begun to be, these comets, and any others,
would form separate luminous spiral tracks in the solar system; and
would convert it into a spiral nebula of many branches, like those which
are now the most recent objects of astronomical wonder.
29. It seems allowable to regard it as one of those coincidences, in the
epochs of related yet seeming unconnected discoveries, which have so
often occurred in the history of science; that we should, nearly at the
same time, have had brought to our notice, the prevalence of spiral
nebulæ, and the circumstances, in Biela's and in Encke's comets, which
seem to explain them: the one by showing the origin of luminous broken
lines, one part drifting on faster than another, according to its
different density, as is usual in incoherent masses;[11] and the other
by showing the origin of the spiral form of those lines, arising from
the motion being in a resisting medium.
30. But though I have made suppositions by which our Solar System might
become a spiral nebula, undoubtedly it is at present something very
different; and the leading points of difference are very important for
us to consider. And the main point is, that which has already been
cursorily noticed: that instead of consisting of matter all nearly of
the same density, and a great deal of it luminous, our Solar System
consists of kinds of matter immensely different in density, and of large
and regular portions which are not luminous. Instead of a diffused
nebula with vaporous comets trailing spiral tracks through a medium
little rarer than themselves; we have a central sun, and the dark globes
of the solid planets rolling round him, in a medium so rare, that in
thousands of revolutions not a vestige of retardation can be discovered
by the most subtle and persevering researches of astronomers. In the
solar system, the luminous matter is collected into the body of the sun;
the non-luminous matter, into the planets. And the comets and the
resisting medium, which offer a small exception to this account, bear a
proportion to the rest which the power of numbers scarce suffices to
express.
31. Thus with regard to the density of matter in the solar system; we
have supposed, as a mode of expression, that the density of a comet,
Encke's comet for instance, is 100,000 times that of the resisting
medium. Probably this is greatly understated; and probably also we
greatly understate the matter, when we suppose that the tail of a comet
is 100,000 times rarer than the matter of the sun.[12] And thus the
resisting medium would be, at a very low calculation, 10,000 millions of
times more rare than the substance of the sun.
32. And thus we are not, I think, going too far, when we say, that our
Solar System, compared with spiral nebulous systems, is a system
completed and finished, while they are mere confused, indiscriminate,
incoherent masses. In the Nebulæ, we have loose matter of a thin and
vaporous constitution, differing as more or less rare, more or less
luminous, in a small degree; diffused over enormous spaces, in
straggling and irregular forms; moving in devious and brief curves, with
no vestige of order or system, or even of separation of different kinds
of bodies. In the Solar System, we have the luminous separated from the
non-luminous, the hot from the cold, the dense from the rare; and all,
luminous and non-luminous, formed into globes, impressed with regular
and orderly motions, which continue the same for innumerable revolutions
and cycles.[13] The spiral nebulæ, compared with the solar system,
cannot be considered as other than a kind of chaos; and not even a
chaos, in the sense of a state preceding an orderly and stable system;
for there is no indication, in those objects, of any tendency towards
such a system. If we were to say that they appear mere shapeless masses,
flung off in the work of creating solar systems, we might perhaps
disturb those who are resolved to find everywhere worlds like ours; but
it seems difficult to suggest any other reason for not saying so.
33. The same may be said of the other very irregular nebulæ, which
spread out patches and paths of various degrees of brightness; and shoot
out, into surrounding space, faint branches which are of different form
and extent, according to the optical power with which they are seen.
These irregular forms are incapable of being permanent according to the
laws of mechanics. They are not figures of equilibrium; and, therefore,
must change by the attraction of the matter upon itself. But if the
tenuity of the matter is extreme, and the resistance of the medium in
which it floats considerable, this tendency to change and to
condensation may be almost nullified; and the bright specks may long
keep their straggling forms, as the most fantastically shaped clouds of
a summer-sky often do. It is true, it may be said that the reason why we
see no change in the form of such nebulæ, is that our observations have
not endured long enough; all visible changes in the stars requiring an
immense time, according to the gigantic scale of celestial mechanism.
But even this hypothesis (it is no more) tends to establish the extreme
tenuity of the nebulæ; for more solid systems, like our solar system,
require, for the preservation of their form, motions which are
perceptible, and indeed conspicuous, in the course of a month; namely,
the motions of the planets. All, therefore, concurs to prove the extreme
tenuity of the substance of irregular nebulæ.
34. Nebulæ which assume a regular, for instance, a circular or oval
shape, with whatever variation of luminous density from the inner to the
outer parts, may have a form of equilibrium, if their parts have a
proper gyratory motion. Still, we see no reason for supposing that these
differ so much from irregular nebulæ, as to be denser bodies, kept in
their forms by rapid motions. We are rather led to believe that, though
perhaps denser than the spiral nebulæ, they are still of extremely thin
and vaporous character. It would seem very unlikely that these vast
clouds of luminous vapor should be as dense as the tail of a comet;
since a portion of luminous matter so small as such a tail is, must have
cooled down from its most luminous condition; and must require to be
more dense than nebular matter in order to be visible at all by its own
light.
35. Thus we appear to have good reason to believe that nebulæ are vast
masses of incoherent or gaseous matter, of immense tenuity, diffused in
forms more or less irregular, but all of them destitute of any regular
system of solid moving bodies. We seem, therefore, to have made it
certain that _these_ celestial objects at least are not inhabited. No
speculators have been bold enough to place inhabitants in a comet;
except, indeed, some persons who have imagined that such a habitation,
carrying its inmates alternately into the close vicinity of the sun's
surface, and far beyond the orbit of Uranus, and thus exposing them to
the fierce extremes of heat and cold, might be the seat of penal
inflictions on those who had deserved punishment by acts done in their
life on one of the planets. But even to give coherence to this wild
imagination, we must further suppose that the tenants of such
prison-houses, though still sensible to human suffering from extreme
heat and cold, have bodies of the same vaporous and unsubstantial
character as the vehicle in which they are thus carried about the
system; for no frame of solid structure could be sustained by the
incoherent and varying volume of a comet. And probably, to people the
nebulæ with such thin and fiery forms, is a mode of providing them with
population, that the most ardent advocates of the plurality of worlds
are not prepared to adopt.
36. So far then as the Nebulæ are concerned, the improbability of their
being inhabited, appears to mount to the highest point that can be
conceived. We may, by the indulgence of fancy, people the summer-clouds,
or the beams of the aurora borealis, with living beings, of the same
kind of substance as those bright appearances themselves; and in doing
so, we are not making any bolder assumption than we are, when we stock
the Nebulæ with inhabitants, and call them in that sense, "distant
worlds."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Herschel, _Outl. of Astr._ Art. 893.
[2] Herschel, _Outl. of Astr._ Art. 874, and Plate 11, Fig. 3.
[3] Ibid. Art. 897.
[4] Hersch. 874.
[5] Ibid. 881-8.
[6] At the recent meeting of the British Association (Sept. 1853),
drawings were exhibited of the same nebulæ, as seen through Lord Rosse's
large telescope, and through a telescope of three feet aperture. With
the smaller telescopic power, all the characteristic features were lost.
The spiral structure (see next Article but one) has been almost entirely
brought to light by the large telescope.
[7] See monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dec. 13,
1850.
[8] The frontispiece to this volume represents two of these Spiral
Nebulæ; those denominated 51 Messier, and 99 Messier, as given by Lord
Rosse in the _Phil. Trans. for 1850_. The former of these two has a
lateral focus, besides the principal focus or pole.
[9] I am aware that some astronomers do not consider it as proved that
cometary matter is entirely self-luminous. Arago found that the light of
a Comet contained a portion of polarized light, thus proving that it had
been reflected (_Cosmos_, I. p. 111, and III. p. 566). But I think the
opinion that the greater part of the light is self-luminous, like the
nebulæ, generally prevails. Any other supposition is scarcely consistent
with the rapid changes of brightness which occur in a comet during its
motion to and from the Sun.
[10] We assume here that the number of revolutions to the centre is
greater in proportion as the relative density of the resisting medium is
less; which is by no means mechanically true; but the calculation may
serve, as we have said, to show the scale of the numbers involved.
[11] Humboldt, whom nothing relative to the history of science escapes,
quotes from Seneca a passage in which mention is made of a Comet which
divided into two parts; and from the Chinese Annals, a notice of three
"coupled Comets," which in the year 896 appeared, and described their
paths together. _Cosmos_, III. p. 570, and the notes.
[12] Laplace has proved that the masses of comets are very small. He
reckons their mean mass as very much less than 1-100000th of the Earth's
mass. And hence, considering their great size, we see how rare they must
be. See _Expos. du Syst. du Monde_.
[13] Humboldt repeatedly expresses his conviction that our Solar System
contains a greater variety of forms than other systems. (_Cosmos_, III.
373 and 587.)
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIXED STARS.
1. We appear, in the last chapter, to have cleared away the supposed
inhabitants of the outskirts of creation, so far as the Nebulæ are the
outskirts of creation. We must now approach a little nearer, in
appearance at least, to our own system. We must consider the Fixed
Stars; and examine any evidence which we may be able to discover, as to
the probability of their containing, in themselves or in accompanying
bodies, as planets, inhabitants of any kind. Any special evidence which
we can discern on this subject, either way, is indeed slight. On the one
side we have the asserted analogy of the parts of the universe; of which
point we have spoken, and may have more to say hereafter. Each Fixed
Star is conceived to be of the nature of our Sun; and therefore, like
him, the centre of a planetary system. On the other side, it is
extremely difficult to find any special facts relative to the nature of
the fixed stars, which may enable us in any degree to judge how far they
really are of a like nature with the Sun, and how far this resemblance
goes. We may, however, notice a few features in the starry heavens, with
which, in the absence of any stronger grounds, we may be allowed to
connect our speculations on such questions. The assiduous scrutiny of
the stars which has been pursued by the most eminent astronomers, and
the reflections which their researches have suggested to them, may have
a new interest, when discussed under this point of view.
2. Next after the Nebulæ, the cases which may most naturally engage our
attention, are Clusters of stars. The cases, indeed, in which these
clusters are the closest, and the stars the smallest, and in which,
therefore, it is only by the aid of a good telescope that they are
resolved into stars, do not differ from the resolvable nebulæ, except in
the degree of optical power which is required to resolve them. We may,
therefore, it would seem, apply to such clusters, what we have said of
resolvable nebulæ: that when they are thus, by the application of
telescopic power, resolved into bright points, it seems to be a very
bold assumption to assume, without further proof, that these bright
points are suns, distant from each other as far as we are from the
nearest stars. The boldness of such an assumption appears to be felt by
our wisest astronomers.[1] That several of the clusters which are
visible, some of them appearing as if the component stars were gathered
together in a nearly spherical form, are systems bound together by some
special force, or some common origin, we may regard, with those
astronomers, as in the highest degree probable. With respect to the
stability of the form of such a system, a curious remark has been made
by Sir John Herschel,[2] that if we suppose a globular space filled with
equal stars, uniformly dispersed through it, the particular stars might
go on forever, describing ellipses about the centre of the globe, in all
directions, and of all sizes; and all completing their revolutions in
the same time. This follows, because, as Newton has shown, in such a
case, the compound force which tends to the centre of the sphere would
be everywhere proportional to the distance from the centre; and under
the action of such a force, ellipses about the centre would be
described, all the periods being of the same amount. This kind of
symmetrical and simple systematic motion, presented by Newton as a mere
exemplification of the results of his mechanical principles, is perhaps
realized, approximately at least, in some of the globular clusters. The
motions will be swift or slow, according to the total mass of the
groups. If, for instance, our Sun were thus broken into fragments, so as
to fill the sphere girdled by the earth's orbit, all the fragments would
revolve round the centre in a year. Now, there is no symptom, in any
cluster, of its parts moving nearly so fast as this; and therefore we
have, it would seem, evidence that the groups are much less dense than
would be the space so filled with fragments of the sun. The slowness of
the motions, in this case, as in the nebulæ, is evidence of the weakness
of the forces, and therefore, of the rarity of the mass; and till we
have some gyratory motion discovered in these groups, we have nothing to
limit our supposition of the extreme tenuity of their total substance.
3. Let us then go on to the cases in which we have proof of such
gyratory motions in the stars; for such are not wanting. Fifty years
ago, Herschel the father, had already ascertained that there are certain
pairs of stars, very near each other (so near, indeed, that to the
unassisted eye they are seen as single stars only,) and which revolve
about each other. These Binary Sidereal Systems have since been examined
with immense diligence and profound skill by Herschel the son, and
others; and the number of such binary systems has been found, by such
observers, to be very considerable. The periods of their revolutions are
of various lengths, from 30 or 40 years to several hundreds of years.
Some of those pairs which have the shortest periods, have already,
since the nature of their movements was discovered, performed more than
a complete revolution;[3] thus leaving no room for doubting that their
motions are really of this gyratory kind. Not only the fact, but the law
of this orbital motion, has been investigated; and the investigations,
which naturally were commenced on the hypothesis that these distant
bodies were governed by that Law of universal Gravitation, which
prevails throughout the solar system, and so completely explains the
minutest features of its motions, have ended in establishing the reality
of that Law, for several Binary Systems, with as complete evidence as
that which carries its operations to the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.
4. Being able thus to discern, in distant regions of the universe,
bodies revolving about each other, we have the means of determining, as
we do in our own solar system, the masses of the bodies so revolving.
But for this purpose, we must know their distance from each other; which
is, to our vision, exceedingly small, requiring, as we have said, high
magnifying powers to make it visible at all. And again, to know what
linear distance this small visible distance represents, we must know the
distance of the stars from us, which is, for every star, as we know,
immensely great; and for most, we are destitute of all means of
determining how great it is. There are, however, some of these binary
systems, in which astronomers conceive that they have sufficiently
ascertained the value of both these elements, (the distance of the two
stars from each other, and from us,) to enable them to proceed with the
calculation of which I have spoken; the determination of the masses of
the revolving bodies. In the case of the star _Alpha Centauri_, the
first star in the constellation of the Centaur, the period is reckoned
to be 77 years; and as, by the same calculator, the apparent semi-axis
of the orbit described is stated at 15 seconds of space, while the
annual parallax of each star is about one second, it is evident that the
orbit must have a radius about 15 times the radius of the earth's orbit;
that is, an orbit greater than that of Saturn, and approaching to that
of Uranus. In the solar system, a revolution in such an orbit would
occupy a time greater than that of Saturn, which is 30 years, and less
than that of Uranus, which is about 80 years: it would, in fact, be
about 58 years. And since, in the binary star, the period is greater
than this, namely 77 years, the attraction which holds together its two
elements must be less than that which holds together the Sun and a
planet at the same distance; and therefore the masses of the two stars
together are considerably less than the mass of our sun.
5. A like conclusion is derived from another of these conspicuous double
stars, namely, the one termed by astronomers _61 Cygni_; of which the
annual parallax has lately been ascertained to be one-third of a second
of space, while the distance of the two stars is 15 seconds. Here
therefore we have an orbit 45 times the size of the Earth's orbit;
larger than that of the newly-discovered planet Neptune, whose orbit is
30 times as large as the earth's, and his period nearly 165 years. The
period of 61 Cygni is however, it appears, probably not short of 500
years; and hence it is calculated that the sum of the masses of the two
stars which make up this pair is about one-third of the mass of our
Sun.[4]
6. These results give some countenance to the opinion, that the quantity
of luminous matter, in other systems, does not differ very considerably
from the mass of our Sun. It differs in these cases as 1 to 3, or
thereabouts. In what degree of condensation, however, the matter of
these binary systems is, compared with that of our solar system, we have
no means whatever of knowing. Each of the two stars may have its
luminous matter diffused through a globe as large as the earth's orbit;
and in that case, would probably not be more dense than the tail of a
comet.[5] It is observed by astronomers, that in the pairs of binary
stars which we have mentioned, the two stars of each pair are of
different colors; the stars being of a high yellow, approaching to
orange color,[6] but the smaller individual being in each case of a
deeper tint. This might suggest to us the conjecture that the smaller
mass had cooled further below the point of high luminosity than the
larger; but that both these degrees of light belong to a condition still
progressive, and probably still gaseous. Without attaching any great
value to such conjectures, they appear to be at least as well authorized
as the supposition that each of these stars, thus different, is
nevertheless precisely in the condition of our sun.
7. But, even granting that each of the individuals of this pair were a
sun like ours, in the nature of its material and its state of
condensation, is it probable that it resembles our Sun also in having
planets revolving about it? A system of planets revolving around or
among a pair of suns, which are, at the same time, revolving about one
another, is so complex a scheme, so impossible to arrange in a stable
manner, that the assumption of the existence of such schemes, without a
vestige of evidence, can hardly require confutation. No doubt, if we
were really required to provide such a binary system of suns with
attendant planets, this would be best done by putting the planets so
near to one sun, that they should not be sensibly affected by the other;
and this is accordingly what has been proposed.[7] For, as has been well
said of the supposed planets, in making this proposal, "Unless closely
nestled under the protecting wing of their immediate superior, the sweep
of the other sun in his perihelion passage round their own, might carry
them off, or whirl them into orbits utterly inconsistent with the
existence of their inhabitants." To assume the existence of the
inhabitants, in spite of such dangers, and to provide against the
dangers by placing them so close to one sun as to be out of the reach of
the other, though the whole distance of the two may not, and as we have
seen, in some cases does not, exceed the dimensions of our solar system,
is showing them all the favor which is possible. But in making this
provision, it is overlooked that it may not be possible to keep them in
permanent orbits so near to the selected centre: their sun may be a vast
sphere of luminous vapor; and the planets, plunged into this atmosphere,
may, instead of describing regular orbits, plough their way in spiral
paths through the nebulous abyss to its central nucleus.
8. Clustered stars, then, and double stars, appear to give us but little
promise of inhabitants. We must next turn our attention to the single
stars, as the most hopeful cases. Indeed, it is certain that no one
would have thought of regarding the individual stars of clusters, or of
pairs, as the centres of planetary systems, if the view of insulated
stars, as the centres of such systems, had not already become familiar,
and, we may say, established. What, then, is the probability of that
view? Is there good evidence that the Fixed Stars, or some of them,
really have planets revolving round them? What is the kind of proof
which we have of this?
9. To this we must reply, that the only proof that the fixed stars are
the centres of planetary systems, resides in the assumption that those
stars are _like the Sun_;--resemble him in their qualities and nature,
and therefore, it is inferred, must have the same offices, and the same
appendages. They are, as the Sun is, independent sources of light, and
thence, probably, of heat; and therefore they must have attendant
planets, to which they can impart their light and heat; and these
planets must have inhabitants, who live under and enjoy those
influences. This is, probably, the kind of reasoning on which those
rely, who regard the fixed stars as so many worlds, or centres of
families of worlds.
10. Everything in this argument, therefore, depends upon this: that the
Stars are _like the Sun_; and we must consider, what evidence we have of
the exactness of this likeness.
11. The Stars are like the Sun in this, that they shine with an
independent light, not with a borrowed light, as the planets shine. In
this, however, the stars resemble, not only the Sun, but the nebulous
patches in the sky, and the tails of comets; for these also, in all
probability, shine with an original light. Probably it will hardly be
urged that we see, by the very appearance of the stars, that they are of
the nature of the Sun: for the appearance of luminaries in the sky is so
far from enabling us to discriminate the nature of their light, that to
a common eye, a planet and a fixed star appear alike as stars. There is
no obvious distinction between the original light of the stars and the
reflected light of the planets. The stars, then, being like the sun in
being luminous, does it follow that they are, like the sun, definite
dense masses?[8] Or are they, or many of them, luminous masses in a far
more diffused state; visually contracted to points, by the immense
distance from us at which they are?
12. We have seen that some of those stars, which we have the best means
of examining, are, in mass, one third, or less, of our Sun. If such a
mass, at the distance of the fixed stars, were diffused through a sphere
equal in radius to the earth's orbit, it would still appear to us as a
point; as is evident by this, that the fixed stars, for the most part,
have no discoverable annual parallax; that is, the earth's orbit appears
to them a point. If one of the fixed stars, Sirius, for instance, be in
this diffused condition, such a circumstance will not, mechanically
speaking, prevent his having planets revolving round him; for, as we
have said, the attraction of his whole mass, in whatever state of
spherical diffusion, will be the same as if it were collected at the
centre. But such a state of diffusion will make him so unlike our Sun,
as much to break the force of the presumption that he must have planets
because our Sun has. If the luminous matter of the stars gradually
cools, grows dark, and solidifies, such diffusion would imply that the
time of solidification is not yet begun; and therefore that the solid
planets which accompany the luminous central body are not yet brought
into being. If there be any truth in this hypothetical account of the
changes, through which the matter of the stars successively passes; and
if, by such changes, planetary systems are formed; how many of the fixed
stars may never yet have reached the planetary state! how many, for want
of some necessary mechanical condition, may never give rise to permanent
orbits at all!
13. And that the matter of the stars does go through changes, we have
evidence, in many such changes which have actually been observed;[9]
and perhaps in the different colors of different stars; which may, not
improbably, arise from their being at different stages of their
progress. That planetary systems, once formed, go through mighty
changes, we have evidence in the view which geology gives us of the
history of this earth; and in that view, we see also, how unique, and
how far elevated in its purpose, the last period of this history may be,
compared with the preceding periods; and, up to the present time at
least, how comparatively brief in its duration. If, therefore, stellar
globes can become planetary systems in the progress of ages, it will not
be at all inconsistent with what we know of the order of nature, that
only a few, or even that only one, should have yet reached that
condition. All the others, but the one, may be systems yet unformed, or
fragments struck off in the forming of the one. If any one is not
satisfied with this account of the degree of resemblance between the
fixed stars and the sun, but would make the likeness greater than this;
we have only to say, that the proof that it is so lies upon him. Such a
resemblance as we have supposed, is all that the facts suggest. That the
stars are independent luminaries, we see; but whether they are as dense
as the sun, or globes a hundred or a thousand times as rare, we have no
means whatever of knowing. And, to assume that besides these luminous
bodies which we see, there are dark bodies which we do not see,
revolving round the others in permanent orbits, which require special
mechanical conditions; and to suppose this, in order that we may build
upon this assumption a still larger one, that of living inhabitants of
these dark bodies; is a hypothetical procedure, which it seems strange
that we should have to combat, at the present stage of the history of
science, and in dealing with those whose minds have been disciplined by
the previous events in the progress of astronomy.
14. Let us consider, however, further, how far astronomy authorizes us
to regard the Fixed Stars as being, like our Sun, the centres of systems
of Planets. Those who hold this, consider them as having a permanent
condition of brightness, as our Sun has had for an indefinite period, so
far as we have any knowledge on the subject. Yet, as we have said, no
small number of the stars undergo changes of brightness; and some of
them undergo such changes, in a manner which is not discernibly
periodical; and which must therefore be regarded as progressive. This
phenomenon countenances the opinion of such a progress from one material
condition to another; which, we have seen, is suggested by the analogy
of the probable formation of our own solar system. The very star which
is so often taken as the probable centre of a system, Sirius, has, in
the course of the last 2,000 years, changed its light from red to white.
Ptolemy notes it as a red star: in Tycho's time it was already, as it is
now, a white one.[10] The star _Eta Argus_ changes both its degree of
light and its color; ranging, in seemingly irregular intervals of time,
from the fourth to the first magnitude,[11] and from yellow to red.
Several other examples of the like kind have been observed. Mr. Hind[12]
gives an example in which he has, quite recently, observed in two years
a star change its color from very red to bluish. These variable
unperiodical stars are probably very numerous. Also, some stars,
observed of old, are now become invisible. "The lost Pleiad," by the
loss of which the cluster, called the Seven Stars, offers now only six
to the naked eye, is an example of a change of this kind already noted
in ancient times. There are several others, of which the extinction is
recognized by astronomers as proved.[13] In other cases, new stars have
appeared, and have then seemed to die away and vanish. The appearance of
a new star in the time of the Greek astronomer Hipparchus, induced him
to construct his famous Catalogue of the Stars. Others are recorded to
have appeared in the middle ages. The first which was observed by modern
astronomers was the celebrated star seen by Tycho Brahe in 1572. It
appeared suddenly in the constellation Cassiopeia, was fixed in its
place like the neighboring stars, had no nebula or tail, exceeded in
splendor all other stars, being as bright as Venus when she is nearest
the earth. It soon began to diminish in brightness, and passing through
various diminishing degrees of magnitude, vanished altogether after
seventeen months. This star also passed through various colors; being
first white, then yellow, then red. In like manner, in 1604, a new star
of great magnitude blazed forth in the constellation Serpentarius; and
was seen by Kepler. And this also, like that of 1572, after a few
months, declined and vanished.
15. These appearances led Tycho to frame an hypothesis like that which
Sir William Herschel afterwards proposed, that the stars are formed by
the condensation of luminous nebulous matter. Nor is it easy to think of
such phenomena (of which several others have been observed, though none
so conspicuous as these), without regarding them as showing that the
matter of the fixed stars, occasionally at least, passes through changes
of consistence as great as would be the condensation and extinction of a
luminous vapor. And if such changes have been but few within the
recorded period of man's observation of the stars, we must recollect how
small that period is, compared with the period during which the stars
have existed. The stars themselves give us testimony of their having
been in being for millions of years. For according to the best estimates
we can form of their distances, the time which light would employ in
reaching us from the most remote of them, would be millions of years;
and, therefore, we now see those remote stars by means of the light
emitted from them millions of years ago. And if, in the 2,000 years
during which such observations are recorded, only 200 stars have
undergone such changes in a degree visible to the earth's inhabitants;
in a million of years, change going on at the same rate, 100,000 stars
would exhibit visible progressive change, showing that they had not yet
reached a permanent condition. And how much of change may go on in any
star without its being in any degree perceptible to the most exact
astronomical scrutiny!
16. The tendency of these considerations is, to lead us to think that
the fixed stars are not generally in that permanent condition in which
our sun is; and which appears to be alone consistent with the existence
of a system such as the solar system.[14] These views, therefore, fall
in with that which we have been led to by this consideration of the
Nebulæ: that the Solar System is in a more complete and advanced state,
as a system, than many at least of the stellar systems can be; it may
be, than any other.
17. It has been alleged, as a proof of the likeness of the Fixed Stars
to our Sun, that like him, they revolve upon their axes.[15] This has
been supposed to be proved with regard to many of them, by their having
periodical recurrences of fainter and brighter lustre; as if they were
revolving orbs, with one side darkened by spots. Such facts are not very
numerous or definite in the heavens. _Omicron_[16] in the constellation
_Cetus_, is the longest known of them; and is held to revolve in 831
days. From the curious phenomena now spoken of, it has been called _Mira
Ceti_.[17] _Algol_, the second star (_Beta_) of _Perseus_, called also
_Caput Medusæ_, is another, with a period of 2 days 21 hours; and in
this case, the obscuration of the light, and the restoration of it, are
so sudden, that from the time when it was first remarked, (by Goodricke,
in 1782,) it suggested the hypothesis of an opaque body revolving round
the star. The star _Delta_, in the constellation _Cephus_, is another,
with a period of 5 days 9 hours. The star _Beta_ in the _Lyre_, has a
period of 6 days 10 hours, or perhaps 12 days 21 hours, one revolution
having been taken for two. Another such star is _Eta Aquilæ_, with a
period of 7 days 4 hours. These five are all the periodical stars of
which astronomers can speak with precision.[18] But about thirty more
are supposed to be subject to such change, though their periods, epochs,
and phases of brightness, cannot at present be given exactly.
18. That these periodical changes in certain of the fixed stars are a
curious and interesting astronomical fact, is indisputable. Nothing can
be more probable also, than that it indicates, in the stellar masses, a
revolution on their axes; which cannot surprise us, seeing that
revolution upon an axis is, so far as we know, a universal law of all
the large compact masses of matter which exist in the universe; and may
be conceived to be a result derived from their origin, and a condition
of any permanent or nearly permanent figure. But this can prove little
or nothing as to their being like the sun, in any way which implies
their having inhabitants, in themselves or in accompanying planets. The
rotation of our Sun is not, in any intelligible way, connected with its
having near it the inhabited Earth.
19. If we were to suppose some of the stars to be centres of planetary
systems, we can hardly suppose it likely that these alone rotate, and
that the others stand still. Probably all the stars rotate, more or less
regularly, according as they are permanent or variable in form; but the
most regular may still have no planets; and if they have, those planets
may be as blank of inhabitants as our moon will be proved to be.
20. The revolution of Algol seems to approach the nearest to a fact in
favor of a star being the centre of a revolving system; and from the
first, as we have said, the periodical change, and the sudden darkening
and brightening of this luminary, suggested the supposition of an opaque
body revolving about it. But this body cannot be a planet. The planets
which revolve about our Sun are not, any of them, nor all of them
together, large enough to produce a perceptible obscuration of his
light, to a spectator outside the system. But in Algol, the phenomena
are very different from this.[19] The star is usually visible as a star
of the second magnitude; but during each period of 2 days 21 hours, (or
69 hours,) it suffers a kind of eclipse, which reduces it to a star of
the fourth magnitude. During this eclipse, the star diminishes in
splendor for 3-1/2 hours; is at its lowest brightness for a quarter of
an hour; and then, in 3-1/2 hours more, is restored to its original
splendor. According to these numbers, if the obscuration be produced by
a dark body revolving round a central luminary, and describing a
circular orbit, as the regular recurrence of the obscuration implies,
the space of the orbit during which the eclipsing body is interposed
must be about one-ninth of the circumference; for the obscuration
occupies 7-1/4 hours out of 69. And therefore the space during which the
eclipsing body obscures the central one, must be about one _sixth_ of
the _diameter_ of its orbit. But in order that the revolving body may,
through this space, obscure the central one, the latter must extend over
this space, namely, one sixth of the diameter of the orbit. But we may
remark that there is no proof, in the phenomena, that the darkening body
is detached from the bright mass. The effect would be the same if the
dark mass were a part of the revolving star itself. It may be that the
star has not yet assumed a spherical form, but is an oblong nebular mass
with one part (perhaps from being thinner in texture) cooled down and
become opaque. And the amount of obscuration, reducing the star from the
second to the fourth magnitude, implies that the obscuring mass is large
(perhaps one half the diameter, or much more) compared with the luminous
mass. If this be a probable hypothesis to account for the phenomena,
they are much more against than for the supposition of the star being
the centre of seats of habitation. And even if we have a planet nearly
as large as its sun, revolving at the distance of only six of the sun's
radii, how unlike is this to the solar system!
21. In fact, all these periodical stars, in so far as they are
periodical, are proved, not to be like, but to be _unlike_ our sun. It
is true that the sun has spots, by means of which his rotation has been
determined by astronomers. But these spots, besides being so small that
they produce no perceptible alteration in his brightness, and are never,
or very rarely, visible to the naked eye, are not permanent. A star with
a permanent dark side would be very unlike our sun. The largest known of
these stars, _Mira_, as the old astronomers called it, becomes invisible
to the naked eye for 5 months during a period of 11 months. It must,
therefore, have nearly one half its surface quite dark. This is very
unlike the condition of the sun; and is a condition, it would seem, very
little fitted to make this star the centre of a planetary system like
ours.
22. But there are other remarkable phenomena respecting these periodical
stars, which have a bearing on our subject. Their periods are not quite
regular, but are subject to certain variations. Thus it has been
supposed that the period of Mira is subject to a cyclical fluctuation,
embracing 88 of its periods; that is, about 80 years. But this notion of
a cycle of so long a duration, requires confirmation; the fact of
fluctuation in the period is alone certain. In like manner, Algol's
periods are not quite uniform. All these facts agree with our
suggestion, that the periodical stars are bodies of luminous matter
which have not yet assumed a permanent form; and which, therefore, as
they revolve about their axes, and turn to us their darker and their
brighter parts, do so at intervals, and in an order somewhat variable.
And this suggestion appears to be remarkably confirmed, by a result
which recent observations have discovered relative to this star, Algol;
namely, that its periods become shorter and shorter. For if the luminous
matter, which is thus revolving, be gradually gathering into a more
condensed form;--becoming less rare, or more compact; as, for instance,
it would do, if it were collecting itself from an irregular, or
elongated, into a more spherical form; such a shortening of the period
of revolution would take place; for a mass which contracts while it is
revolving, accelerates its rate of revolution, by mechanical principles.
And thus we do appear to have, in this observed acceleration of the
periods of Algol, an evidence that that luminous mass has not yet
reached its final and permanent condition.
23. It is true, it has been conjectured, by high authority,[20] that
this accelerated rapidity of the periods of Algol will not continue; but
will gradually relax, and then be changed to an increase; like many
other cyclical combinations in astronomy. But this conjecture seems to
have little to support it. The cases in which an acceleration of motion
is retarded, checked, and restored, all belong to our Solar System; and
to assume that Algol, like the solar system, has assumed a permanent and
balanced condition, is to take for granted precisely the point in
question. We know of no such cycles among the fixed stars, at least with
any certainty; for the cycle proposed for Mira must be considered as
greatly needing confirmation; considering how long is the cycle, and how
recent the suggestion of its existence.
24. And even in the solar system, we have accelerated motions, in which
no mathematician or astronomer looks for a check or regress of the
acceleration. No one expects that Encke's comet will cease to be
accelerated, and to revolve in periods continually shorter; though all
the other motions hitherto observed in the system are cyclical. In the
case of a fixed star, we have much less reason to look for such a cycle,
than we have in Encke's comet. But further: with regard to the existence
of such a cycle of faster and slower motion in the case of Algol, the
most recent observed facts are strongly against it; for it has been
observed by Argelander, that not only there is a diminution of the
period, but that this diminution proceeds with accelerated rapidity; a
course of events which, in no instance, in the whole of the cosmical
movements, ends in a regression, retardation, and restoration of the
former rate. We are led to believe, therefore, that this remarkable
luminary will go on revolving faster and faster, till its extreme point
of condensation is attained. And in the meantime, we have very strong
reasons to believe that this mutable body is not, like the sun, a
permanent centre of a permanent system; and that any argument drawn from
its supposed likeness to the sun, in favor of the supposition that the
regions which are near it are the seats of habitation, is quite
baseless.
25. There are other phenomena of the Fixed Stars, and other conjectures
of astronomers respecting them, which I need not notice, as they do not
appear to have any bearing upon our subject. Such are the "proper
motions" of the stars, and the explanation which has been suggested of
some of them; that they arise from the stars revolving round other stars
which are dark, and therefore invisible. Such again is the attempt to
show that the Sun, carrying with it the whole Solar System, is in
motion; and the further attempt to show the direction of this motion;
and again, the hypothesis that the Sun itself revolves round some
distant body in space. These minute inquiries and bold conjectures, as
to the movements of the masses of matter which occupy the universe, do
not throw any light on the question whether any part besides the earth
is inhabited; any more than the investigation of the movements of the
ocean, and of their laws, could prove or disprove the existence of
marine plants and animals. They do not on that account cease to be
important and interesting subjects of speculation; but they do not
belong to our subject.
26. In Fontenelle's _Dialogues on the Plurality of Worlds_, a work which
may be considered as having given this subject a place in popular
literature, he illustrates his argument by a comparison, which it may be
worth while to look at for a moment. The speaker who asserts that the
moon, the planets, and the stars, are the seats of habitation, describes
the person, who denies this, as resembling a citizen of Paris, who,
seeing from the towers of Notre Dame the town of Saint Denis, (it being
supposed that no communication between the two places had ever
occurred,) denies that it is inhabited, because he cannot see the
inhabitants. Of course the conclusion is easy, if we may thus take for
granted that what he sees is a town. But we may modify this image, so as
to represent our argument more fairly. Let it be supposed that we
inhabit an island, from which innumerable other islands are visible; but
the art of navigation being quite unknown, we are ignorant whether any
of them are inhabited. In some of these islands, are seen masses more or
less resembling churches; and some of our neighbors assert that these
are churches; that churches must be surrounded by houses; and that
houses must have inhabitants. Others hold that the seeming churches are
only peculiar forms of rocks. In this state of the debate, everything
depends upon the degree of resemblance to churches which the forms
exhibit. But suppose that telescopes are invented, and employed with
diligence upon the questionable shapes. In a long course of careful and
skilful examination, no house is seen, and the rocks do not at all
become more like churches, rather the contrary. So far, it would seem,
the probability of inhabitants in the islands is lessened. But there are
other reasons brought into view. Our island is a long extinct volcano,
with a tranquil and fertile soil; but the other islands are apparently
somewhat different. Some of them are active volcanoes, the volcanic
operations covering, so far as we can discern, the whole island; others
undergo changes, such as weather or earthquakes may produce; but in none
of them can we discover such changes as show the hand of man. For these
islands, it would seem the probability of inhabitants is further
lessened. And so long as we have no better materials than these for
forming a judgment, it would, surely, be accounted rash, to assert that
the islands in general are inhabited; and unreasonable, to blame those
who deny or doubt it. Nor would such blame be justified by adducing
theological or _à priori_ arguments; as, that the analogy of island with
island makes the assumption allowable; or that it is inconsistent with
the plan of the Creator of islands to leave them uninhabited. For we
know that many islands are, or were long, uninhabited. And if ours were
an island occupied by a numerous, well-governed, moral, and religious
race, of which the history was known, and of which the relation to the
Creator was connected with its history; the assumption of a history,
more or less similar to ours, for the inhabitants of the other islands,
whose existence was utterly unproved, would, probably, be generally
deemed a fitter field for the romance-writer than for the philosopher.
It could not, at best, rise above the region of vague conjecture.
27. Fontenelle, in the agreeable book just referred to, says, very
truly, that the formula by which his view is urged on adversaries is,
_Pourquoi non_? which he holds to be a powerful figure of logic. It is,
however, a figure which has this peculiarity, that it may, in most
cases, be used with equal force on either side. When we are asked Why
the Moon, Mercury, Saturn, the system of Sirius, should _not_ be
inhabited by intelligent beings; we may ask, Why the earth in the ages
previous to man might not be so inhabited? The answer would be, that we
have proof _how_ it _was_ inhabited. And as to the fact in the other
case, I shall shortly attempt to give proof that the Moon is certainly
not, and Mercury and Saturn probably not inhabited. With regard to the
Fixed Stars, it is more difficult to reason; because we have the means
of knowing so little of their structure. But in this case also, we might
easily ask on our side, _Pourquoi non_? Why should not the Solar System
be the chief and most complete system in the universe, and the Earth the
principal planet in that System? So far as we yet know, the Sun is the
largest Sun among the stars; and we shall attempt to show, that the
Earth is the largest solid opaque globe in the solar system. Some System
must be the largest and most finished of all; why not ours? Some planet
must be the largest planet; why not the Earth?
28. It should be recollected that there must be some system which is the
most complete of all systems, some planet which is the largest of all
planets. And if that largest planet, in the most complete system, be,
after being for ages tenanted by irrational creatures, at last, and
alone of all, occupied by a rational race, that race must necessarily
have the power of asking such questions as these: Why they should be
alone rational? Why their planet should be alone thus favored? If the
case be ours, we may hope to be then able to answer these questions,
when we can explain the most certain fact which they involve; Why the
Earth was occupied so long by irrational creatures, before the rational
race was placed upon it? The mere power of asking such questions can
prove or disprove nothing; for it is a power which must equally subsist,
whether the human inhabitants of the earth be or be not the only
rational population which the universe contains. If there be a race thus
favored by the Creator, they must, at that stage of their knowledge in
which man now is, be able to doubt, as man does, of the extent and
greatness of the privilege which they enjoy.
29. The argument that the Fixed Stars are like the Sun, and therefore
the centres of inhabited systems as the Sun is, is sometimes called an
argument from Analogy; and this word _Analogy_ is urged, as giving great
force to the reasoning. But it must be recollected, that precisely the
point in question is, whether there _is_ an analogy. The stars, it is
said, are like the Sun. In what respects? We know of none, except in
being self-luminous; and this they have in common with the nebulæ,
which, as we have seen, are not centres of inhabited systems. Nor does
this quality of being self-luminous at all determine the degree of
condensation of a star. Sirius may be less than a hundredth or a
thousandth of the density of the Sun. But the Stars, it may be further
urged, are like the Sun in turning on their axes. To this we reply, that
we know this only of those stars in which, the very phenomenon which
proves their revolution, proves also that they are unlike the Sun, in
having one side darker than the other. Add to which, their revolution is
not connected with the existence of planets, still less of inhabitants
of planets, in any intelligible manner. The resemblance, therefore, so
far as it bears upon the question, is confined to one single point, in
the highest degree ambiguous and inconclusive; and any argument drawn
from this one point of resemblance, has little claim to be termed an
argument from analogy.[21]
30. On a subject on which we know so little, it is difficult to present
any view which deserves to be regarded as an analogy. We see, among the
stars, nebulæ more or less condensed, which are possibly, in some cases,
stages of a connected progress towards a definite star; and it may be,
to a star with planets in permanent orbits. We see, in our planet,
evidence of successive stages of a connected series of brute animals,
preceded perhaps by various stages of lifeless chaos. If the histories
of the Sun, and of all the stars, are governed by a common analogy, the
nebulous condensation, and the stages of animal life, may be parts of
the same continued series of events; and different stars may be at
different points of that series. But even on this supposition, but a few
of the stars may be the seats of conscious life, and none, of
intelligence. For among the stars which have condensed to a permanent
form, how many have failed in throwing off a permanent planet! How many
may be in some stage of lifeless chaos! We must needs suppose a vast
number of stages between a nebular chaos and the lowest forms of
conscious life. Perhaps as many as there are fixed stars; and far more
than there are of stars which become fertile of life: so that no two
systems may be at the same stage of the planetary progress. And if this
be so,--our system being so complicated, that we must suppose it
peculiarly developed, having the largest Sun that we know of, and our
Earth being (as we shall hereafter attempt to prove) the largest solid
planet that we know of,--this Earth may be the sole seat of the highest
stage of planetary development.
31. The assumption that there is anything of the nature of a regular law
or order of progress from nebular matter to conscious life,--a law which
extends to all the stars, or to many of them,--is in the highest degree
precarious and unsupported; but since it is sometimes employed in such
speculations as we are pursuing, we may make a remark or two connected
with it. If we suppose, on the planets of other systems, a progress in
some degree analogous to that which geology shows to have occurred on
the Earth, there may be, in those planets, creatures in some way
analogous to our vegetables and animals; but analogy also requires that
they should differ far more from the terrestrial vegetables and animals
of any epoch, than those of one epoch do from those of another; since
they belong to a different stellar system, and probably exist under very
different conditions from any that ever prevailed on the Earth. We are
forbidden, therefore, by analogy, to suppose that on any other planet
there was such an anatomical progression towards the form of man, as we
can discern (according to some eminent physiologists) among the tribes
which have occupied the Earth. Are we to conceive that the creatures on
the planets of other systems are, like the most perfect terrestrial
animals, symmetrical as to right and left, vertebrate, with fore limbs
and hind limbs, heads, organs of sense in their heads, and the like?
Every one can see how rash and fanciful it would be to make such
suppositions. Those who have, in the play of their invention, imagined
inhabitants of other planets, have tried to avoid this servile imitation
of terrestrial forms. Here is Sir Humphry Davy's account of the
inhabitants of Saturn. "I saw moving on the surface below me, immense
masses, the forms of which I find it impossible to describe. They had
systems for locomotion similar to that of the morse or sea-horse, but I
saw with great surprise that they moved from place to place by six
extremely thin membranes, which they used as wings. I saw numerous
convolutions of tubes, more analogous to the trunk of the elephant, than
to anything else I can imagine, occupying what I supposed to be the
upper parts of the body."[22] The attendant Genius informs the narrator,
that though these creatures look like zoophytes, they have a sphere of
sensibility and intellectual enjoyment far superior to that of the
inhabitants of the Earth. If we were to reason upon a work of fancy like
this, we might say, that it was just as easy to ascribe superior
sensibility and intelligence to zoophyte-formed creatures upon the
Earth, as in Saturn. Even fancy cannot aid us in giving consistent form
to the inhabitants of other planets.
32. But even if we could assent to the opinion, as probable, that there
may occur, on some other planet, progressions of organized forms
analogous in some way to that series of animal forms which has appeared
upon the earth, we should still have no ground to assume that this
series must terminate in a rational and intelligent creature like man.
For the introduction of reason and intelligence upon the Earth is no
part nor consequence of the series of animal forms. It is a fact of an
entirely new kind. The transition from brute to man does not come within
the analogy of the transition from brute to brute. The thread of
analogy, even if it could lead us so far, would break here. We may
conceive analogues to other animals, but we could have no analogue to
man, except man. Man is not merely a higher kind of animal; he is a
creature of a superior order, participating in the attributes of a
higher nature; as we have already said, and as we hope hereafter
further to show. Even, therefore, if we were to assume the general
analogy of the Stars and of the Sun, and were to join to that the
information which geology gives us of the history of our own planet;
though we might, on this precarious path, be led to think of other
planets as peopled with unimagined monsters; we should still find a
chasm in our reasoning, if we tried, in this way, to find intelligent
and rational creatures in planets which may revolve round Sirius or
Arcturus.
33. The reasonable view of the matter appears to be this. The assumption
that the Fixed Stars are of exactly the same nature as the Sun, was, at
the first, when their vast distance and probable great size were newly
ascertained, a bold guess; to be confirmed or refuted by subsequent
observations and discoveries. Any appearances, tending in any degree to
confirm this guess, would have deserved the most considerate attention.
But there has not been a vestige of any such confirmatory fact. No
planet, nor anything which can fairly be regarded as indicating the
existence of a planet, revolving about a star, has anywhere been
discerned. The discovery of nebulæ, of binary systems, of clusters of
stars, of periodical stars, of varying and accelerated periods of such
stars, all seem to point the other way. And if all these facts be held
to be but small in amount, as to the information which they convey,
about the larger, and perhaps nearer stars; still they leave the
original assumption a mere guess, unsupported by all that three
centuries of most diligent, and in other respects successful research,
has been able to bring to light. That Copernicus, that Galileo, that
Kepler, should believe the stars to be Suns, in every sense of the term,
was a natural result of the expansion of thought which their great
discoveries produced, in them and in their contemporaries. Nor are we
yet called upon to withdraw from them our sympathy; or entitled to
contradict their conjecture. But all the knowledge that the succeeding
times have given us; the extreme tenuity of much of the luminous matter
in the skies; the existence of gyratory motion among the stars, quite
different from planetary systems; the absence of any observed motions at
all resembling such systems; the appearance of changes in stars, quite
inconsistent with such permanent systems; the disclosure of the history
of our own planet, as one in which changes have constantly been going
on; the certainty that by far the greater part of the duration of its
existence, it has been tenanted by creatures entirely different from
those which give an interest, and thence, a persuasiveness, to the
belief of inhabitants in worlds appended to each star; the
impossibility, which appears, on the gravest consideration, of
transferring to other worlds such interests as belong to our own race in
this world; all these considerations should, it would seem, have
prevented that old and arbitrary conjecture from growing up, among a
generation professing philosophical caution, and scientific discipline,
into a settled belief.
34. Some of the moral and theological views which tend to encourage and
uphold this belief, may be taken under our more special consideration
hereafter: but here, where we are reasoning principally upon
astronomical grounds, we may conclude what we have to remark about the
Fixed Stars, as the centres of inhabited systems of worlds, by saying;
that it will be time enough to speculate about the inhabitants of the
planets which belong to such systems, when we have ascertained that
there are such planets, or one such planet. When that is done, we can
then apply to them any reasons which may exist, for believing that all,
or many planets, are the seats of habitation of living things. What
reasons of this kind can be adduced, and what is their force with
regard to our own solar system, we must now proceed to discuss.[23]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Herschel, 866.
[2] Ibid. 866.
[3] Herschel, 846.
[4] Herschel, 848.
[5] That these systems have not condensed to _one_ centre, appears to
imply a less complete degree of condensation than exists in those
systems which have done so.
[6] Herschel, 850.
[7] Herschel, 847.
[8] The density of the sun is about as great as the density of water.
[9] Herschel, 827-832.
[10] _Cosmos_, III. 169, 205, and 641.
[11] Ibid., III. 172 and 252.
[12] _Astron. Soc. Notices_, Dec. 13, 1850.
[13] See Grant's _Hist. of Physical Astronomy_, p. 538.
[14] I am aware of certain speculations, and especially of some recent
ones, tending to show that even our Sun is wasting away by the emission
of light and heat; but these opinions, even if established, do not much
affect our argument one way or the other.
[15] Chalmers' _Astron. Disc._ p. 39.
[16] Hersch. 820.
[17] The periodical character of this star was discovered by David
Fabricius, a parish priest in East Friesland, the father of John
Fabricius, who discovered the solar spots. (_Cosmos_, III. 234.)
[18] Hersch. 825. In Humboldt's _Cosmos_, III. 243, Argelander, who has
most carefully observed and studied these periodical stars, has given a
catalogue containing 24, with the most recent determinations of their
periods.
[19] Hersch. 821. Humboldt (_Cosmos_, III. 238 and 246,) gives the
period as 68 hours 49 minutes, and says that it is 7 or 8 hours in its
less bright state. If we could suppose the times of the warning, and of
the greatest eclipse, given by Herschel, to be exactly determined, as
3-1/2 and 1/4, that is, in the proportion of 14 to 1, the darkening body
must have its effective breadth 14/15 of that of the star. But this is
on the supposition that the orbit of the darkening body has the
spectator's eye in its plane; if this be not so, the darkening body may
be much larger.
[20] Hersch. _Outl. Astr._ 821. Another explanation of the variable
period of Algol, is that the star is moving towards us, and therefore
the light occupies less and less time to reach us.
[21] Humboldt, very justly, regards the force of analogy as tending in
the opposite direction. "After all," he asks, (_Cosmos_, III. 373,) "is
the assumption of satellites to the Fixed Stars so absolutely necessary?
If we were to begin from the outer planets, Jupiter, &c., analogy might
seem to require that all planets have satellites. But yet this is not
true for Mars, Venus, Mercury." To which we may further add the
_twenty-three_ Planetoids. In this case there is a much greater number
of bodies which have not satellites, than which have them.
[22] _Consolations in Travel_. Dial. 1.
[23] What is said in Art. 15, that in consequence of the time employed
in the transmission of visual impressions, our seeing a star is
evidence, not that it exists now, but that it existed, it may be, many
thousands of years ago; may seem, to some readers, to throw doubts upon
reasonings which we have employed. It may be said that a star which was
a mere chaos, when the light, by which we see it, set out from it, may,
in the thousands of years which have since elapsed, have grown into an
orderly world. To which bare possibility, we may oppose another
supposition at least equally possible:--that the distant stars were
sparks or fragments struck off in the formation of the Solar System,
which are really long since extinct; and survive in appearance, only by
the light which they at first emitted.
CHAPTER IX.
THE PLANETS.
1. When it was discovered, by Copernicus and Galileo, that Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, which had hitherto been regarded only as
"wandering fires, that move in mystic dance," were really, in many
circumstances, bodies resembling the Earth;--that they and the Earth
alike, were opaque globes, revolving about the Sun in orbits nearly
circular, revolving also about their own axes, and some of them
accompanied by their Satellites, as the Earth is by the Moon;--it was
inevitable that the conjecture should arise, that they too had
inhabitants, as the Earth has. Each of these bodies were seemingly
coherent and solid; furnished with an arrangement for producing day and
night, summer and winter; and might therefore, it was naturally
conceived, have inhabitants moving upon its solid surface, and reckoning
their lives and their employment by days, and months, and years. This
was an unavoidable guess. It was far less bold and sweeping than the
guess that there are inhabitants in the region of the Fixed Stars, but
still, like that, it was, for the time at least, only a guess; and like
that, it must depend upon future explorations of these bodies and their
conditions, whether the guess was confirmed or discredited. The
conjecture could not, by any moderately cautious man, be regarded as so
overwhelmingly probable, that it had no need of further proof. Its final
acceptance or rejection must depend on the subsequent progress of
astronomy, and of science in general.
2. We have to consider then how far subsequent discoveries have given
additional value to this conjecture. And, as, in the first place,
important among such discoveries, we must note the addition of several
new planets to our system. It was found, by the elder Herschel, (in
1781,) that, far beyond Saturn, there was another planet, which, for a
time, was called by the name of its sagacious discoverer; but more
recently, in order to conform the nomenclature of the planets to the
mythology with which they had been so long connected, has been termed
_Uranus_. This was a vast extension of the limits of the solar system.
The Earth is, as we have already said, nearly a hundred millions of
miles from the Sun. Jupiter is at more than five times, and Saturn
nearly at ten times this distance: but Uranus, it was found, describes
an orbit of which the radius is about nineteen times as great as that of
the Earth. But this did not terminate the extension of the solar system
which the progress of astronomy revealed. In 1846, a new planet, still
more remote, was discovered: its existence having been divined, before
it was seen, by two mathematicians, Mr. Adams, of Cambridge, and M.
Leverrier, of Paris, from the effects of its force upon Uranus. This new
planet was termed Neptune: its distance from the Sun is about thirty
times the Earth's distance. Besides these discoveries of large planets,
a great number of small planets were detected in the region of the solar
system which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. This series of
discoveries began on the first day of 1801, when Ceres was detected by
Piazzi at Palermo; and has gone on up to the present time, when
twenty-three of these small bodies have been brought to light; and
probably the group is not yet exhausted.
3. Now if we have to discuss the probability that all these bodies are
inhabited, we may begin with the outermost of them at present known,
namely Neptune. How far is it likely that this globe is occupied by
living creatures which enjoy, like the creatures on the Earth, the light
and heat of the Sun, about which the planet revolves? It is plain, in
the first place, that this light and heat must be very feeble. Since
Neptune is thirty times as far from the sun as the earth is, the
diameter of the sun as seen from Neptune will only be one-thirtieth as
large as it is, seen from the earth. It will, in fact, be reduced to a
mere star. It will be about the diameter under which Jupiter appears
when he is nearest to us. Of course its brightness will be much greater
than that of Jupiter; nearly as much indeed, as the sun is brighter than
the moon, both being nearly of the same size: but still, with our
full-moonlight reduced to the amount of illumination which we receive
from _a full Jupiter_, and our sun-light reduced in nearly the same
proportion, we should have but a dark, and also a cold world. In fact,
the light and the heat which reach Neptune, so far as they depend on the
distance of the sun, will each be about nine hundred times smaller than
they are on the earth. Now are we to conceive animals, with their vital
powers unfolded, and their vital enjoyments cherished, by this amount of
light and heat? Of course, we cannot say, with certainty, that any
feebleness of light and heat are inconsistent with the existence of
animal life: and if we had good reason to believe that Neptune is
inhabited by animals, we might try to conceive in what manner their
vital scheme is accommodated to this scanty supply of heat and light. If
it were certain that they were there, we might inquire how they could
live there, and what manner of creatures they could be. If there were
any general grounds for assuming inhabitants, we might consider what
modifications of life their particular conditions would require.
4. But is there any such general ground!? Such a ground we should have,
if we could venture to assume that _all_ the bodies of the Solar System
are inhabited;--if we could proceed upon such a principle, we might
reject or postpone the difficulties of particular cases.
5. But is such an assumption true? Is such a principle well founded? The
best chance which we have of learning whether it is so, is to endeavor
to ascertain the fact, in the body which is nearest to us; and thus, the
best placed for our closer scrutiny. This is, of course, the Moon; and
with regard to the Moon, we have, again, this advantage in beginning the
inquiry with her:--that she, at least, is in circumstances, as to light
and heat, so far as the Sun's distance affects them, which we know to be
quite consistent with animal and vegetable life. For her distance from
the Sun is not appreciably different from that of the Earth; her
revolutions round the earth do not make nearly so great a difference, in
her distance from the sun, as does the earth's different distances from
the sun in summer and in winter: the fact also being, that the earth is
considerably nearer to the sun in the winter of this our northern
hemisphere, than in the summer. The moon's distance from the sun then,
adapts her for habitation: is she inhabited?
6. The answer to this question, so far as we can answer it, may involve
something more than those mere astronomical conditions, her distance
from the sun, and the nature of her motions. But still, if we are
compelled to answer it in the negative;--if it appear, by strong
evidence, that the Moon is not inhabited; then is there an end of the
general principle, that, _all_ the bodies of the solar system are
inhabited, and that we must begin our speculations about each, with this
assumption. If the Moon be not inhabited, then, it would seem, the
belief that each special body in the system is inhabited, must depend
upon reasons specially belonging to that body; and cannot be taken for
granted without such reasons. Of the two bodies of the solar system
which alone we can examine closely, so as to know anything about them,
the Earth and the Moon, if the one be inhabited, and the other blank of
inhabitants, we have no right to assume at once, that any other body in
the solar system belongs to the former of these classes rather than to
the latter. If, even under terrestrial conditions of light and heat, we
have a total absence of the phenomenon of life, known to us only as a
terrestrial phenomenon; we are surely not entitled to assume that when
these conditions fail, we have still the phenomenon, life. We are not
entitled to _assume_ it; however it may be capable of being afterwards
proved, in any special case, by special reasons; a question afterwards
to be discussed.
7. Is, then, the Moon inhabited? From the moon's proximity to us, (she
is distant only thirty diameters of the earth, less than ten times the
earth's circumference; a railroad carriage, at its ordinary rate of
travelling, would reach her in a month,) she can be examined by the
astronomer with peculiar advantages. The present powers of the telescope
enable him to examine her mountains as distinctly as he could the Alps
at a few hundred miles distance, with the naked eye; with the additional
advantage that her mountains are much more brilliantly illuminated by
the Sun, and much more favorably placed for examination, than the Alps
are. He can map and model the inequalities of her surface, as faithfully
and exactly as he can those of the surface of Switzerland. He can trace
the streams that seem to have flowed from eruptive orifices over her
plains, as he can the streams of lava from the craters of Etna or Hecla.
8. Now, this minute examination of the Moon's surface being possible,
and having been made, by many careful and skilful astronomers, what is
the conviction which has been conveyed to their minds, with regard to
the fact of her being the seat of vegetable or animal life? Without
exception, it would seem, they have all been led to the belief, that the
Moon is not inhabited; that she is, so far as life and organization are
concerned, waste and barren, like the streams of lava or of volcanic
ashes on the earth, before any vestige of vegetation has been impressed
upon them: or like the sands of Africa, where no blade of grass finds
root. It is held, by such observers, that they can discern and examine
portions of the moon's surface as small as a square mile;[1] yet, in
their examination, they have never perceived any alteration, such as the
cycle of vegetable changes through the revolutions of seasons would
produce. Sir William Herschel did not doubt that if a change had taken
place on the visible part of the Moon, as great as the growth or the
destruction of a great city, as great, for instance, as the destruction
of London by the great fire of 1666, it would have been perceptible to
his powers of observation. Yet nothing of the kind has ever been
observed. If there were lunar astronomers, as well provided as
terrestrial ones are, with artificial helps of vision, they would
undoubtedly be able to perceive the differences which the progress of
generations brings about on the surface of our globe; the clearing of
the forests of Germany or North America; the embankment of Holland; the
change of the modes of culture which alter the color of the ground in
Europe; the establishment of great nests of manufactures which shroud
portions of the land in smoke, as those which have their centres at
Birmingham or at Manchester. However obscurely they might discern the
nature of those changes, they would still see that change was going on.
And so should we, if the like changes were going on upon the face of the
Moon. Yet no such changes have ever been noticed. Nor even have such
changes been remarked, as might occur in a mere brute mass without
life;--the formation of new streams of lava, new craters, new crevices,
new elevations. The Moon exhibits strong evidences, which strike all
telescopic observers, of an action resembling, in many respects,
volcanic action, by which its present surface has been formed.[2] But,
if it have been produced by such internal fires, the fires seem to be
extinguished; the volcanoes to be burned out. It is a mere cinder; a
collection of sheets of rigid slag, and inactive craters. And if the
Moon and the Earth were both, at first in a condition in which igneous
eruptions from their interior produced the ridges and cones which
roughen their surfaces; the Earth has had this state succeeded by a
series of states of life in innumerable forms, till at last it has
become the dwelling-place of man; while the Moon, smaller in dimensions,
has at an earlier period completely cooled down, as to its exterior at
least, without ever being judged fit or worthy by its Creator of being
the seat of life; and remains, hung in the sky, as an object on which
man may gaze, and perhaps, from which he may learn something of the
constitution of the universe; and among other lessons this; that he must
not take for granted, that all the other globes of the solar system are
tenanted, like that on which he has his appointed place.
9. It is true, that in coming to this conclusion, the astronomers of
whom I speak, have been governed by other reasons, besides those which I
have mentioned, the absence of any changes, either rapid or slow,
discoverable in the Moon's face. They have seen reason to believe that
water and air, elements so essential to terrestrial life, do not exist
in the Moon. The dark spaces on her disk, which were called _seas_ by
those who first depicted them, have an appearance inconsistent with
their being oceans of water. They are not level and smooth, as water
would be; nor uniform in their color, but marked with permanent streaks
and shades, implying a rigid form. And the absence of an atmosphere of
transparent vapor and air, surrounding the moon, as our atmosphere
surrounds the earth, is still more clearly proved, by the absence of all
the optical effects of such an atmosphere, when stars pass behind the
moon's disk, and by the phenomena which are seen in solar eclipses, when
her solid mass is masked by the Sun.[3] This absence of moisture and air
in the Moon, of course, entirely confirms our previous conclusion, of
the absence of vegetable and animal life; and leaves us, as we have
said, to examine the question for the other bodies, on their special
grounds, without any previous presumption that such life exists.
Undoubtedly the aspect of the case will be different in one feature,
when we see reason to believe that other bodies have an atmosphere; and
if there be in any planet sufficient light and heat, and clouds and
winds, and a due adjustment of the power of gravity, and the strength of
the materials of which organized frames consist, there may be, so far as
we can judge, life of some kind or other. But yet, even in those cases,
we should be led to judge also, by analogy, that the life which they
sustain is more different from the terrestrial life of the present
period of the earth, than that is from the terrestrial life of any
former geological period, in proportion as the conditions of light and
heat, and attraction and density, are more different on any other
planet, than they can have been on the earth, at any period of its
history.
10. Let us then consider the state of these elements of being in the
other planets. I have mentioned, among them, the force of gravity, and
the density of materials; because these are important elements in the
question. It may seem strange, that we are able, not only to measure the
planets, but to weigh them; yet so it is. The wonderful discovery of
universal gravitation, so firmly established, as the law which embraces
every particle of matter in the solar system, enables us to do this,
with the most perfect confidence. The revolutions of the satellites
round their primary planets, give us a measure of the force by which the
planets retain them in their orbits; and in this way, a measure of the
quantity of matter of which each planet consists. And other effects of
the same universal law, enable us to measure, though less easily and
less exactly, the masses, even of those planets which have no
satellites. And thus we can, as it were, put the Earth, and Jupiter or
Saturn, in the balance against each other; and tell the proportionate
number of pounds which they would weigh, if so poised. And again, by
another kind of experiment, we can, as we have said, weigh the earth
against a known mountain; or even against a small sphere of lead duly
adjusted for the purpose. And this has been done; and the results are
extremely curious; and very important in our speculations relative to
the constitution of the universe.
11. And in the first place, we may remark that the Earth is really much
less heavy than we should expect, from what we know of the materials of
which it consists. For, measuring the density, or specific gravity, of
materials, (that is their comparative weight in the same bulk,) by their
proportion to water, which is the usual way, the density of iron is 8,
that of lead 11, that of gold 19: the ordinary rocks at the Earth's
surface have a density of 3 or 4. Moreover, all the substances with
which we are acquainted, contract into a smaller space, and have their
density increased, by being subjected to pressure. Air does this, in an
obvious manner; and hence it is, that the lower parts of our atmosphere
are denser than the upper parts; being pressed by a greater
superincumbent weight, the weight of the superior parts of the
atmosphere itself. Air is thus obviously and eminently elastic. But all
substances, though less obviously and eminently, are still, really, and
in some degree, elastic. They all contract by compression. Water for
instance, if pressed by a column of water 100000 feet high, would be
reduced to a bulk one-tenth less than before. In the same manner iron,
compressed by a column of iron 90000 feet high, loses one-tenth of its
bulk, and of course gains so much in density. And the like takes place,
in different amounts, with all material whatever. This is the rate at
which compression produces its effect of increasing the density, in
bodies which are in the condition of those which lie around us. But if
this law were to go on at the same rate, when the compression is
greatly increased, the density of bodies deep down towards the centre of
the Earth must be immense. The Earth's radius is above 20 million feet.
At a million feet depth we should have matter subjected to the pressure
of a column of a million feet of superincumbent matter, heavier than
water; and hence we should have a compression of water 10 times as great
as we have mentioned; and, therefore, the bulk of the water would be
reduced almost to nothing, its density increased almost indefinitely:
and the same would be the case with other materials, as metals and
stones. If, therefore, this law of compression were to hold for these
great pressures, all materials whatever, contained in the depths of the
Earth's mass, must be immensely denser, and immensely specifically
heavier, than they are at the surface. And thus, the Earth consisting of
these far denser materials towards the centre, but, nearer the surface,
of lighter materials, such as rock, and metals, in their ordinary state,
must, we should expect, be, on the whole, much heavier than if it
consisted of the heaviest ordinary materials; heavier than iron, or than
lead; hundreds of times perhaps heavier than stone.
12. This, however, is not found to be so. The expectation of the great
density of the Earth, which we might have derived from the known laws of
condensation of terrestrial substances, is not confirmed. The mass of
the Earth being weighed, by means of such processes as we have already
referred to, is found to be only five times heavier than so much water:
less heavy than if it were made of iron: less than twice as heavy as if
it were made of ordinary rock. This, of course, shows us that the
condensation of the interior parts of the Earth's mass, is by no means
so great as we should have expected it to be, from what we know of the
laws of condensation here; and from considering the enormous pressure of
superincumbent materials to which those interior parts are subjected.
The laws of condensation, it would seem, do not go on operating for
these enormous pressures, by the same progression as for smaller
pressure. If a mass of a material is compressed into nine-tenths its
bulk by the weight of a column of 100000 feet high, it does not follow
that it will be again compressed into nine-tenths of its condensed bulk,
by another column of 100000 feet high. The compression and condensation
reach, or tend to, a limit; and probably, before they have gone very
far. It may be possible to compress a piece of iron by one-thousandth
part, even by such forces as we can use; and yet it may not be possible
to compress the same piece of iron into one half its bulk, even by the
weight of the whole Earth, if made to bear upon it. This appears to be
probable: and this will explain, how it is, that the materials of the
Earth are not so violently condensed as we should have supposed; and
thus, why, the Earth is so light.
13. We must avoid drawing inferences too boldly, on a subject where our
means of knowledge are so obscure as they are with regard to the
interior of the Earth; but yet, perhaps, we may be allowed to say, that
the result which we have just stated, that the Earth is so light,
suggests to us the belief that the interior consists of the same
materials as the exterior, slightly condensed by pressure.[4] We find no
encouragement to believe that there is a nucleus within, of some
material, different from what we have on the outside; some metal, for
instance, heavier than lead. If the earth were of granite, or of lava,
to the centre, it would, so far as we can judge, have much the same
weight which it now has. Such a central mass, covered with the various
layers of stone, which form the upper crust of the Earth, would
naturally make this globe of at least the weight which it really has.
And therefore, if we were to learn that a planet was much lighter than
this, as to its materials,--much less dense, taking the whole mass
together,--we should be compelled to infer that it was, throughout, or
nearly so, formed of less compact matter than metal and stone; or else,
that it had internal cavities, or some other complex structure, which it
would be absurd to assume, without positive reasons.
14. Now having decided these views from an examination of the Earth, let
us apply them to other planets, as bearing upon the question of their
being inhabited; and in the first place, to Jupiter. We can, as we have
said, easily compare the mass of Jupiter and of the Earth; for both of
them have Satellites. It is ascertained, by this means, that the mass of
weight of Jupiter is about 333 times the weight of the earth; but as his
diameter is also 11 times that of the earth, his bulk is 1331 times that
of the earth: (the _cube_ of 11 is 1331); and, therefore, the density of
Jupiter is to that of the earth, only as 333 to 1331, or about 1 to 4.
Thus the density of Jupiter, taken as a whole, is about a quarter of the
earth's density; less than that of any of the stones which form the
crust of the earth; and not much greater than the density of water.
Indeed, it is tolerably certain, that the density of Jupiter is not
greater than it would be, if his entire globe were composed of water;
making allowance for the compression which the interior parts would
suffer by the pressure of those parts superincumbent. We might,
therefore, offer it as a conjecture not quite arbitrary, that Jupiter is
a mere sphere of water.
15. But is there anything further in the appearance of Jupiter, which
may serve to contradict, or to confirm, this conjecture? There is one
circumstance in Jupiter's form, which is, to say the least, perfectly
consistent with the supposition, that he is a fluid mass; namely, that
he is not an exact sphere, but oblate, like an orange. Such a form is
produced, in a fluid sphere, by a rotation upon its axis. It is
produced, even in a sphere which is (at present at least,) partly solid
and partly fluid; and the oblateness of the earth is accounted for in
this way. But Jupiter, who, while he is much larger than the earth,
revolves much more rapidly, is much more oblate than the earth. His
polar and equatorial diameters are in the proportion of 13 to 14. Now it
is a remarkable circumstance, that this is the amount of oblateness,
which, on mechanical principles, would result from his time of
revolution, if he were entirely fluid, and of the same density
throughout.[5] So far, then, we have some confirmation at least, of his
being composed entirely of some fluid which in its density agrees with
water.
16. But there are other circumstances in the appearances of Jupiter,
which still further confirm this conjecture of his watery constitution.
His belts,--certain bands of darker and lighter color, which run
parallel to his equator, and which, in some degree, change their form,
and breadth, and place, from time to time,--have been conjectured, by
almost all astronomers, to arise from lines of cloud, alternating with
tracts comparatively clear, and having their direction determined by
currents analogous to our trade-winds, but of a much more steady and
decided character, in consequence of the great rotatory velocity.[6]
Now vapors, supplying the materials of such masses of cloud, would
naturally be raised from such a watery sphere as we have supposed, by
the action of the Sun; would form such lines; and would change their
form from slight causes of irregularity, as the belts are seen to do.
The existence of these lines of cloud does of itself show that there is
much water on Jupiter's surface, and is quite consistent with our
conjecture, that his whole mass is water.[7]
17. Perhaps some persons may be disposed to doubt whether, if Jupiter
be, as we suppose, merely or principally a mass of water and of vapor,
we are entitled to extend to him the law of universal gravitation, which
is the basis of our speculations. But this doubt may be easily
dismissed. We know that the waters of the earth are affected by
gravitation; not only towards the earth, as shown by their weight, but
towards those distant bodies, the Sun and the Moon; for this gravitation
produces the tides of the ocean. And our atmosphere also has weight, as
we know; and probably has also solar and lunar tides, though these are
marked by many other causes of diurnal change. We have, then, the same
reason for supposing that air and water, in other parts of the system,
are governed by universal gravitation, and exercise themselves the
attractive force of gravitation, which we have for making the like
suppositions with regard to the most solid bodies. Whatever argument
proves universal gravitation, proves it for all matter alike; and
Newton, in the course of his magnificent generalization of the law, took
care to demonstrate, by experiment, as well as by reasoning, that it
might be so generalized.
18. As bearing upon the question of life in Jupiter, there is another
point which requires to be considered; the force of gravity at his
surface. Though, equal bulk for equal bulk, he is lighter than the
earth, yet his bulk is so great that, as we have seen, he is altogether
much heavier than the earth. This, his greater mass, makes bodies, at
equal distances from the centres, ponderate proportionally more to him
than they would do to the earth. And though his surface is 11 times
further from his centre than the earth's is, and therefore the gravity
at the surface is thereby diminished, yet, even after this deduction,
gravity at the surface of Jupiter is nearly two and a half times that on
the earth.[8] And thus a man transferred to the surface of Jupiter would
feel a stone, carried in his hands, and would feel his own limbs also,
(for his muscular power would not be altered by the transfer,) become
2-1/2 times as heavy, as difficult to raise, as they were before. Under
such circumstances animals of large dimensions would be oppressed with
their own weight. In the smaller creatures on the earth, as in insects,
the muscular power bears a great proportion to the weight, and they
might continue to run and to leap, even if gravity were tripled or
quadrupled. But an elephant could not trot with two or three elephants
placed upon his back. A lion or tiger could not spring, with twice or
thrice his own weight hung about his neck. Such an increase of gravity
would be inconsistent then, with the present constitution and life of
the largest terrestrial animals; and if we are to suppose planets
inhabited, in which gravity is much more energetic than it is upon the
earth, we must suppose classes of animals which are adapted to such a
different mechanical condition.
19. Taking into account then, these circumstances in Jupiter's state;
his (probably) bottomless waters; his light, if any, solid materials;
the strong hand with which gravity presses down such materials as there
are; the small amount of light and heat which reaches him, at 5 times
the earth's distance from the sun; what kind of inhabitants shall we be
led to assign to him? Can they have skeletons where no substance so
dense as bone is found, at least in large masses? It would seem not
probable.[9] And it would seem they must be dwellers in the waters, for
against the existence there of solid land, we have much evidence. They
must, with so little of light and heat, have a low degree of vitality.
They must then, it would seem, be cartilaginous and glutinous masses;
peopling the waters with minute forms: perhaps also with larger
monsters; for the weight of a bulky creature, floating in the fluid,
would be much more easily sustained than on solid ground. If we are
resolved to have such a population, and that they shall live by food, we
must suppose that the waters contain at least so much solid matter as is
requisite for the sustenance of the lowest classes; for the higher
classes of animals will probably find their food in consuming the lower.
I do not know whether the advocates of peopled worlds will think such a
population as this worth contending for: but I think the only doubt can
be, between such a population, and none. If Jupiter be a mere mass of
water, with perhaps a few cinders at the centre, and an envelope of
clouds around it, it seems very possible that he may not be the seat of
life at all. But if life be there, it does not seem in any way likely,
that the living things can be anything higher in the scale of being,
than such boneless, watery, pulpy creatures as I have imagined.
20. Perhaps it may occur to some one to ask, if this planet, which
presents so glorious an aspect to our eyes, be thus the abode only of
such imperfect and embryotic lumps of vitality as I have described; to
what purpose was all that gorgeous array of satellites appended to him,
which would present, to intelligent spectators on his surface, a
spectacle far more splendid than any that our skies offer to us: four
moons, some as great, and others hardly less, than our moon, performing
their regular revolutions in the vault of heaven. To which it will
suffice, at present, to reply, that the use of those moons, under such a
supposition, would be precisely the same, as the use of our moon, during
the myriads of years which elapsed while the earth was tenanted by
corals and madrepores, shell-fish and belemnites, the cartilaginous
fishes of the Old Red Sandstone, or the Saurian monsters of the Lias;
and in short, through all the countless ages which elapsed, before the
last few thousand years: before man was placed upon the earth "to eye
the blue vault and bless the _useful_ light:" to reckon by it his months
and years: to discover by means of it, the structure of the universe,
and perhaps, the special care of his Creator for him alone of all his
creatures. The moons of Jupiter, may in this way be of use, as our own
moon is. Indeed we know that they have been turned to most important
purposes, in astronomy and navigation. And knowing this, we may be
content not to know how, either the satellites of Jupiter, or the
satellite of the Earth, tend to the advantage of the brute inhabitants
of the waters.
21. There is another point, connected with this doctrine of the watery
nature of Jupiter, which I may notice, though we have little means of
knowledge on the subject. Jupiter being thus covered with water, is the
water ever converted into ice? The planet is more than 5 times as far
from the sun as the earth is: the heat which he receives is, on that
account, 25 times less than ours. The veil of clouds which covers a
large part of his surface, must diminish the heat still further. What
effect the absence of land produces, on the freezing of the ocean, it is
not easy to say. We cannot, therefore, pronounce with any confidence
whether his waters are ever frozen or not. In the next considerable
planet, Mars, astronomers conceive that they do trace the effects of
frost; but in Mars we have also appearances of land. In Jupiter, we are
left to mere conjecture; whether continents and floating islands of ice
still further chill the fluids of the slimy tribes whom we have been led
to regard as the only possible inhabitants; or whether the watery globe
is converted into a globe of ice; retaining on its surface, of course,
as much fluid as is requisite, under the evaporating power of the sun,
to supply the currents of vapor which form the belts. In this case,
perhaps, we may think it most likely that there are no inhabitants of
these shallow pools in a planet of ice: at any rate, it is not worth
while to provide any new speculations for such a hypothesis.
22. We may turn our consideration from Jupiter to Saturn; for in many
respects the two planets are very similar. But in almost every point,
which is of force against the hypothesis of inhabitants, the case is
much stronger in Saturn than it is in Jupiter. Light and heat, at his
distance, are only one ninetieth of those at the Earth. None but a very
low degree of vitality can be sustained under such sluggish influences.
The density of his mass is hardly greater than that of cork; much less
than that of water: so that, it does not appear what supposition is left
for us, except that a large portion of the globe, which we see as his,
is vapor. That the outer part of the globe is vapor, is proved, in
Saturn as in Jupiter, by the existence of several cloudy streaks or
belts running round him parallel to his equator. Yet his mass, taken
altogether, is considerable, on account of his great size; and gravity
would be greater, at his outer surface, than it is at the earth's. For
such reasons, then, as were urged in the case of Jupiter, we must either
suppose that he has no inhabitants; or that they are aqueous, gelatinous
creatures; too sluggish, almost to be deemed alive, floating on their
ice-cold waters, shrouded forever by their humid skies.
23. Whether they have eyes or no, we cannot tell; but probably if they
had, they would never see the Sun; and therefore we need not commiserate
their lot in not seeing the host of Saturnian satellites; and the Ring,
which to an intelligent Saturnian spectator, would be so splendid a
celestial object. The Ring is a glorious object for man's view, and his
contemplation; and therefore is not altogether without its use. Still
less need we (as some appear to do) regard as a serious misfortune to
the inhabitants of certain regions of the planet, a solar eclipse of
fifteen years' duration, to which they are liable by the interposition
of the Ring between them and the Sun.[10]
24. The cases of Uranus and Neptune are similar to that of Saturn, but
of course stronger, in proportion to their smaller light and heat. For
Uranus, this is only 1-360th, for Neptune, as we have already said,
1-900th of the light and heat at the earth. Moreover, these two new
planets agree with Jupiter and with Saturn, in being of very large size
and of very small density; and also we may remark, one of them, probably
both, in revolving with great rapidity, and in nearly the same period,
namely, about 10 hours: at least, this has been the opinion of
astronomers with regard to Uranus. The arguments against the hypothesis
of these two planets being inhabited, are of course of the same kind as
in the case of Jupiter and Saturn, but much increased in strength; and
the supposition of the probably watery nature and low vitality of their
inhabitants must be commended to the consideration of those who contend
for inhabitants in those remote regions of the solar system.
25. We may now return towards the Sun, and direct our attention to the
planet Mars. Here we have some approximation to the condition of the
Earth, in circumstances, as in position. It is true, his light and heat,
so far as distance from the Sun affects them, are less than half those
at the Earth. His density appears to be nearly equal to that of the
Earth, but his mass is so much smaller, that gravity at his surface is
only one-half of what it is here. Then, as to his physical condition,
so far as we can determine it, astronomers discern in his face[11] the
outlines of continents and seas. The ruddy color by which he is
distinguished, the red and fiery aspect which he presents, arise, they
think, from the color of the land, while the seas appear greenish.
Clouds often seem to intercept the astronomer's view of the globe, which
with its continents and oceans thus revolves under his eye; and that
there is an atmosphere on which such clouds may float, appears to be
further proved, by brilliant white spots at the poles of the planet,
which are conjectured to be snow; for they disappear when they have been
long exposed to the sun, and are greatest when just emerging from the
long night of their polar winter; the snow-line then extending to about
six degrees (reckoned upon the meridian of the planet) from the pole.
Moreover, Mars agrees with the earth, in the period of his rotation;
which is about 24 hours; and in having his axis inclined to his orbit,
so as to produce a cycle of long and short days and nights, a return of
summer and winter, in every revolution of the planet.
26. We have here a number of circumstances which speak far more
persuasively for a similarity of condition, in this planet and the
Earth, than in any of the cases previously discussed. It is true, Mars
is much smaller than the earth, and has not been judged worthy of the
attendance of a satellite, although further from the Sun; but still, he
may have been judged worthy of inhabitants by his Creator. Perhaps we
are not quite certain about the existence of an atmosphere; and without
such an appendage, we can hardly accord him tenants. But if he have
inhabitants, let us consider of what kind they must be conceived to be,
according to any judgment which we can form. The force of his gravity is
so small, that we may allow his animals to be large, without fearing
that they will break down by their own weight. In a planet so dense,
they may very likely have solid skeletons. The ice about his poles will
cumber the seas, cold even for the want of solar heat, as it does in our
arctic and antarctic oceans; and we may easily imagine that these seas
are tenanted, like those, by huge creatures of the nature of whales and
seals, and by other creatures which the existence of these requires and
implies. Or rather, since, as we have said, we must suppose the
population of other planets to be more different from our existing
population, than the population of other ages of our own planet, we may
suppose the population of the seas and of the land of Mars, (if there be
any, and if we are not carrying it too high in the scale of vital
activity,) to differ from any terrestrial animals, in something of the
same way in which the great land and sea saurians, or the iguanodon and
dinotherium, differed from the animals which now live on the earth.
27. That we need not discuss the question, whether there are intelligent
beings living on the surface of Mars, perhaps the reader will allow,
till we have some better evidence that there are living things there at
all; if he calls to mind the immense proportion which, on the earth, far
better fitted for the habitation of the only intelligent creature which
we know or can conceive, the duration of unintelligent life has borne to
that of intelligent. Here, on this Earth, a few thousand years ago,
began the life of a creature who can speculate about the past and the
future, the near and the absent, the Universe and its Maker, duty and
immortality. This began a few thousand years ago, after ages and myriads
of ages, after immense varieties of lives and generations, of corals and
mollusks, saurians, iguanodons, and dinotheriums. No doubt the Creator
might place an intelligent creature upon a planet, without all this
preparation, all this preliminary life. He has not chosen to do so on
the earth, as we know; and that is by much the best evidence attainable
by us, of what His purposes are. It is also possible that He should, on
another planet, have established creatures of the nature of corals and
mollusks, saurians and iguanodons, without having yet arrived at the
period of intelligent creatures: especially if that other planet have
longer years, a colder climate, a smaller mass, and perhaps no
atmosphere. It is also possible that He should have put that smaller
planet near the Earth, resembling it in some respects, as the Moon does,
but without any inhabitants, as she has none; and that Mars may be such
a planet. The probability against such a belief can hardly be considered
as strong, if the arguments already offered be regarded as effective
against the opinion of inhabitants in the other planets, and in the
Moon.
28. The numerous tribe of small bodies, which revolve between Jupiter
and Mars, do not admit of much of the kind of reasoning, which we have
applied to the larger planets. They have, with perhaps one exception
(Vesta) no disk of visible magnitude; they are mere dots, and we do not
even know that their form is spherical. The near coincidence of their
orbits has suggested, to astronomers, the conjecture that they have
resulted from the explosion of a larger body, and from its fracture into
fragments. Perhaps the general phenomena of the universe suggest rather
the notion of a collapse of portions of sidereal matter, than of a
sudden disruption and dispersion of any portion of it; and these small
bodies may be the results of some imperfectly effected concentration of
the elements of our system; which, if it had gone on more completely and
regularly, might have produced another planet, like Mars or Venus.
Perhaps they are only the larger masses, among a great number of smaller
ones, resulting from such a process: and it is very conceivable, that
the meteoric stones which, from time to time, have fallen upon the
earth's surface, are other results of the like process:--bits of planets
which have failed in the making, and lost their way, till arrested by
the resistance of the earth's atmosphere. A remarkable circumstance in
these bodies is, that though thus coming apparently from some remote
part of the system, they contain no elements but such as had already
been found to exist in the mass of the earth; although some substances,
as nickel and chrome, which are somewhat rare in the earth's materials,
are common parts of the composition of meteoric stones. Also they are of
crystalline structure, and exhibit some peculiarities in their
crystallization. Such as these strange visitors are, they seem to show
that the other parts of the solar system contain the same elementary
substances, and are subject to the same laws of chemical synthesis and
crystalline force, which obtain in the terrestrial region. The smallness
of these specimens is a necessary condition of their reaching us; for if
they had been more massive, they would have followed out the path of
their orbits round the sun, however eccentric these might be. The great
eccentricity of the smaller planets, their great deviation from the
zodiacal path, which is the highway of the large planets, their great
number, probably by no means yet exhausted by the discoveries of
astronomers; all fall in with the supposition that there are, in the
solar system, a vast multitude of such abnormal planetoidal lumps. As I
have said, we do not even know that they are approximately spherical;
and if they are of the nature of meteoric stones, they are mere crude
and irregularly crystallized masses of metal and earth. It will
therefore, probably, be deemed unnecessary to give other reasons why
these planetoids are not inhabited. But if it be granted that they are
not, we have here, in addition to the moon, a large array of examples,
to prove how baseless is the assumption, that all the bodies of the
solar system are the seats of life.
29. We have thus performed our journey from the extremest verge of the
Universe, so far as we have any knowledge of it, to the orbit of our own
planet; and have found, till we came into our own most immediate
vicinity, strong reasons for rejecting the assumption of inhabited
worlds like our own; and indeed, of the habitation of worlds in any
sense. And even if Mars, in his present condition, may be some image of
the Earth, in some of its remote geological periods, it is at least
equally possible that he may be an image of the Earth, in the still
remoter geological period before life began. Of peculiar fitnesses which
make the earth suited to the sustentation of life, as we know that it
is, we shall speak hereafter; and at present pass on to the other
planets, Venus and Mercury. But of these, there is, in our point of
view, very little to say. Venus, which, when nearest to us, fills a
larger angle than any other celestial body, except the Sun and the Moon,
might be expected to be the one of which we know most. Yet she is really
one of the most difficult to scrutinize with our telescopes. Astronomers
cannot discover in her, as in Mars, any traces of continents and seas,
mountains and valleys; at least with any certainty.[12] Her illuminated
part shines with an intense lustre which dazzles the sight;[13] yet she
is of herself perfectly dark; and it was the discovery, that she
presented the phases of the Moon, made by the telescope of Galileo,
which gave the first impulse to planetary research. She is almost as
large as the earth; almost as heavy. The light and heat which she
receives from the Sun must be about double those which come to the
earth. We discern no traces of a gaseous or watery atmosphere
surrounding her. Perhaps if we could see her better, we might find that
she had a surface like the moon; or perhaps, in the nearer neighborhood
of the sun, she may have cooled more slowly and quietly, like a glass
which is annealed in the fire; and hence, may have a smooth surface,
instead of the furrowed and pimpled visage which the Moon presents to
us. With this ignorance of her conditions, it is hard to say what kind
of animals we could place in her, if we were disposed to people her
surface; except perhaps the microscopic creatures, with siliceous
coverings, which, as modern explorers assert, are almost indestructible
by heat. To believe that she has a surface like the earth, and tribes of
animals, like terrestrial animals, and like man, is an exercise of
imagination, which not only is quite gratuitous, but contrary to all the
information which the telescope gives us; and with this remark, we may
dismiss the hypothesis.
30. Of Mercury we know still less. He receives seven times as much light
and heat as the Earth; is much smaller than the earth, but perhaps more
dense; and has not, so far as we can tell, any of the conditions which
make animal existence conceivable. If it is so difficult to find
suitable inhabitants for Venus, the difficulty for Mercury is immensely
greater.
31. So far then, we have traversed the Solar System, and have found even
here, the strongest grounds that there can be no animal existence, like
that which alone we can conceive as animal existence, except in the
planet next beyond the earth, Mars; and there, not without great
modifications. But we may make some further remarks on the condition of
the several planets, with regard to what appears to us to be the
necessary elements of animal life.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] More recently, at the meeting of the British Association in
September, 1853, Professor Phillips has declared, that astronomers can
discern the shape of a spot on the Moon's surface, which is a few
hundred feet in breadth.
[2] A person visiting the Eifel, a region of extinct volcanoes, west of
the Rhine, can hardly fail to be struck with the resemblance of the
craters there, to those seen in the moon through a telescope.
[3] Bessel has discussed and refuted (it was hardly necessary) the
conjecture of some persons (he describes them as "the feeling hearts who
would find sympathy even in the Moon") that there may be in the Moon's
valleys air enough to support life, though it does not rise above the
hills.--_Populäre Vorlesungen_, p. 78.
[4] The doctrine that the interior nucleus of the Earth is fluid,
whether accepted or rejected, does not materially affect this argument.
It appears, that in some cases, at least, the melting of substances is
prevented, by their being subjected to extreme pressure; but the
density, the element from which we reason, is measured by methods quite
independent of such questions.
[5] Herschel, 512. Bessel, however, holds that the oblateness of Jupiter
proves that his interior is somewhat denser than his exterior. _Pop.
Vorles._ p. 91.
[6] Herschel, 513.
[7] A difficulty may be raised, founded on what we may suppose to be the
fact, as to the extreme cold of those regions of the Solar System. It
may be supposed that water under such a temperature could exist in no
other form than ice. And that the cold must there be intense, according
to our notion, there is strong reason to believe. Even in the outer
regions of our atmosphere, the cold is probably very many degrees below
freezing, and in the blank and airless void beyond, it may be colder
still. It has been calculated by physical philosophers, on grounds which
seem to be solid, that the cold of the space beyond our atmosphere is
100° below zero. The space near to Jupiter, if an absolute vacuum, in
which there is no matter to receive and retain heat emitted from the
Sun, may, perhaps, be no colder than it is nearer the Sun. And as to the
effect the great cold would produce on Jupiter's watery material, we may
remark, that if there be a free surface, there will be vapor produced by
the Sun's heat; and if there be air, there will be clouds. We may add,
that so far as we have reason to believe, below the freezing point, no
accession of cold produces any material change in ice. Even in the
expeditions of our Arctic navigators, a cold of 40° below zero was
experienced, and ice was still but ice, and there were vapors and clouds
as in our climate. It is quite an arbitrary assumption, to suppose that
any cold which may exist in Jupiter would prevent the state of things
which we suppose.
[8] Herschel, 508.
[9] It may be thought fanciful to suppose that because there is little
or no solid matter (of any kind known to us) in Jupiter, his animals are
not likely to have solid skeletons. The analogy is not very strong; but
also, the weight assigned to it in the argument is small. _Valeat
quantum valere debet._
[10] Herschel, 522.
[11] Herschel, 510.
[12] According to Bessel, Schroeter _once_ saw one bright point on the
dark ground, near the boundary of light in Venus. This was taken as
proving a mountain, estimated at 60,000 feet high. _Pop. Vorles._ p. 86.
[13] Herschel, 509.
CHAPTER X.
THEORY OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM.
1. We have given our views respecting the various planets which
constitute the Solar System;--views established, it would seem, by all
that we know, of the laws of heat and moisture, density and attraction,
organization and life. We have examined and reasoned upon the cases of
the different planets separately. But it may serve to confirm this view,
and to establish it in the reader's mind, if we give a description of
the system which shall combine and connect the views which we have
presented, of the constitution and peculiarities, as to physical
circumstances, of each of the planets. It will help us in our
speculations, if we can regard the planets not only as a collection, but
as a scheme;--if we can give, not an enumeration only, but a theory. Now
such a scheme, such a theory, appears to offer itself to us.
2. The planets exterior to Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn especially, as the
best known of them, appear, by the best judgment which we can form, to
be spheres of water, and of aqueous vapor, combined, it may be, with
atmospheric air, in which their cloudy belts float over their deep
oceans. Mars seems to have some portion at least of aqueous atmosphere;
the earth, we know, has a considerable atmosphere of air, and of vapor;
but the Moon, so near to her mistress, has none. On Venus and Mercury,
we see nothing of a gaseous or aqueous atmosphere; and they, and Mars,
do not differ much in their density from the Earth. Now, does not this
look as if the water and the vapor, which belong to the solar system,
were driven off into the outer regions of its vast circuit; while the
solid masses which are nearest to the focus of heat, are all
approximately of the same nature? And if this be so, what is the
peculiar physical condition which we are led to ascribe to the Earth?
Plainly this: that she is situated just in that region of the system,
where the existence of matter, both in a solid, a fluid, and a gaseous
condition, is possible. Outside the Earth's orbit, or at least outside
Mars and the small Planetoids, there is, in the planets, apparently, no
solid matter; or rather, if there be, there is a vast preponderance of
watery and vaporous matter. Inside the Earth's orbit, we see, in the
planets, no traces of water or vapor, or gas; but solid matter, about
the density of terrestrial matter. The Earth, alone, is placed at the
border where the conditions of life are combined; ground to stand upon;
air to breathe; water to nourish vegetables, and thus, animals; and
solid matter to supply the materials for their more solid parts; and
with this, a due supply of light and heat, a due energy of the force of
weight. All these conditions are, in our conception, requisite for life:
that all these conditions meet, elsewhere than in the neighborhood of
the Earth's orbit, we see strong reasons to disbelieve. The Earth, then,
it would seem, is the abode of life, not because all the globes which
revolve round the Sun may be assumed to be the abodes of life; but
because the Earth is fitted to be so, by a curious and complex
combination of properties and relations, which do not at all apply to
the others. That the Earth is inhabited, is not a reason for believing
that the other Planets are so, but for believing that they are not so.
3. Can we see any physical reason, for the fact which appears to us so
probable, that all the water and vapor of the system is gathered in its
outward parts? It would seem that we can. Water and aqueous vapor are
driven from the Sun to the outer parts of the solar system, or are
allowed to be permanent there only, as they are driven off and retained
at a distance by any other source of heat;--to use a homely
illustration, as they are driven from wet objects placed near the
kitchen-fire: as they are driven from the hot sands of Egypt into the
upper air: as they are driven from the tropics to the poles. In this
latter case, and generally, in all cases, in which vapor is thus driven
from a hotter region, when it comes into a colder, it may again be
condensed in water, and fall in rain. So the cold of the air in the
temperate zone condenses the aqueous vapors which flow from the tropics;
and so, we have our clouds and our showers. And as there is this rainy
region, indistinctly defined, between the torrid and the frigid zones on
the earth; so is there a region of clouds and rain, of air and water,
much more precisely defined, in the solar system, between the central
torrid zone and the external frigid zone which surrounds the Sun at a
greater distance.
4. _The Earth's Orbit is the Temperate Zone of the Solar System._ In
that Zone only is the play of Hot and Cold, of Moist and Dry, possible.
The Torrid Zone of the Earth is not free from moisture; it has its
rains, for it has its upper colder atmosphere. But how much hotter are
Venus and Mercury than the Torrid Zone? There, no vapors can linger;
they are expelled by the fierce solar energy; and there is no cool
stratum to catch them and return them. If they were there, they must fly
to the outer regions; to the cold abodes of Jupiter and Saturn, if on
their way, the Earth did not with cold and airy finger outstretched
afar, catch a few drops of their treasures, for the use of plant, and
beast, and man. The solid stone only, and the metallic ore which can be
fused and solidified with little loss of substance, can bear the
continual force of the near solar fire, and be the material of permanent
solid planets in that region. But the lava pavement of the Inner Planets
bears no superstructure of life; for all life would be scorched away
along with water, its first element. On the Earth first, can this
superstructure be raised; and there, through we know not what graduation
of forms, the waters were made to bring forth abundantly things that had
life; plants, and animals nourished by plants, and conspiring with them,
to feed on their respective appointed elements, in the air which
surrounded them. And so, nourished by the influences of air and water,
plants and animals lived and died, and were entombed in the scourings of
the land, which the descending streams carried to the bottom of the
waters. And then, these beds of dead generations were raised into
mountain ranges; perhaps by the yet unextinguished forces of
subterraneous fires. And then a new creation of plants and animals
succeeded; still living under the fostering influence of the united
pair, Air and Water, which never ceased to brood over the World of Life,
their Nurseling; and then, perhaps, a new change of the limits of land
and water, and a new creation again: till at last, Man was placed upon
the Earth; with far higher powers, and far different purposes, from any
of the preceding tribes of creatures: and with this, for one of his
offices;--that there might be an intelligent being to learn how
wonderfully the scheme of creation had been carried on, and to admire,
and to worship the Creator.
5. But we have a few more remarks to make on the structure of the Solar
System, in this point of view. When we say that the water and vapor of
the System were driven to the outer parts, or retained there, by the
central heat of the Sun, perhaps it might be supposed to be most simple
and natural, that the aqueous vapor, and the water, should assume its
place in a distinct circle, or rather a spherical shell, of which the
Sun was the centre; thus making an elemental sphere about the centre,
such as the ancients imagined in their schemes of the Universe. Nor will
we venture to say that such an arrangement of elements might not be;
though perhaps it might be shown that no stable equilibrium of the
system would be, in this way, mechanically possible. But this at least
we may say; that a rotatory motion of all the parts of the universe
appears to be a universal law prevalent in it, so far as our observation
can reach: and that, by such rotation of the separate masses, the whole
is put in a condition which is everywhere one of stable equilibrium. It
was, then, agreeable to the general scheme, that the excess of water and
vapor, which must necessarily be carried away, or stored up, in the
outer regions of the System, should be put into shapes in which it
should have a permanent place and form. And thus, it is suitable to the
general economy of creation, that this water and vapor should be packed
into rotating masses, such as are Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus and
Neptune. When once collected in such rotating masses, the attraction of
its parts would gather it into spheroidal forms; oblate by the effect of
rotation, as Jupiter, or perhaps into annular forms, like the Ring of
Saturn;[1] for such also is a mechanically possible form of equilibrium,
for a fluid mass. And these spheroids once formed, the water would form
a central nucleus, over which would hang a cover of vapor, raised by
the evaporating power of the Sun, and forming clouds, where the rarity
of the upper strata of vapor allowed the cold of the external space to
act; and these clouds, spun into belts by the rotation of the sphere.
And thus, the vapor, which would otherwise have wandered loose about the
atmosphere, was neatly wound into balls; which, again, were kept in
their due place, by being made to revolve in nearly circular orbits
about the Sun.
6. And thus, according to our view, water and gases, clouds and vapors,
form mainly the planets in the outer part of the solar system; while
masses such as result from the fusion of the most solid materials, lie
nearer the sun, and are found principally within the orbit of
Jupiter.[2] To conceive planetary systems as formed by the gradual
contraction of a nebular mass, and by the solidification of some of its
parts, is a favorite notion of several speculators. If we adopt this
notion, we shall, I think, find additional proofs in favor of our view
of the system. For, in the first place, we have the zodiacal light, a
nebulous appendage to the Sun, as Herschel conceives, extending beyond
the orbits of Mercury and Venus. These planets, then, have not yet fully
emerged from the atmosphere in which they had their origin:--the
_mother-light_ and _mother-fire_, in which they began to crystallize, as
crystals do in their mother-water. Though they are already opaque, they
are still immersed in luminous vapor: and bearing such traces of their
chaotic state being not yet ended, we need not wonder, if we find no
evidence of their having inhabitants, and some evidence to the contrary.
They are within a nebular region, which may easily be conceived to be
uninhabitable. And where this nebular region, marked by the zodiacal
light, terminates, the world of life begins, namely at the Earth.
7. But further, outside this region of the Earth, what do we find in the
solar system? Of solid matter, if our views are right, we find nothing
but an immense number of small bodies; namely, first, Mars, who, as we
have said, is only about one-eighth the earth in mass: the twenty-six
small planetoids, (or whatever number may have been discovered when
these pages meet the reader's eye,[3]) between Mars and Jupiter; the
four satellites of Jupiter; the eight satellites of Saturn; the six (if
that be the true number,) satellites of Uranus; and the one satellite of
Neptune, already detected. It is very remarkable, that all this array of
small bodies begins to be found just outside the Earth's orbit.
Supposing, as we have found so much reason to suppose, that Jupiter, and
the other exterior planets, are not solid bodies, but masses of water
and of vapor; the existence of great solid planetary masses, such as
exist in the region of the Earth's orbit, is succeeded externally by the
existence of a vast number of smaller bodies. The real quantity of
matter in these smaller bodies we cannot in general determine. Perhaps
the largest of them, (after Mars,) may be Jupiter's third satellite;
which[4] is reckoned, by Laplace, to have a mass less than 1-10,000th of
that of Jupiter himself; and thus, since Jupiter, as we have seen, has a
mass 333 times that of the Earth, the satellite would be above 1-30th of
the Earth's mass.[5] That none but masses of this size, and many far
below this, are found outside of Mars, appears to indicate, that the
_planet-making_ powers which were efficacious to this distance from the
sun, and which produced the great globe of the Earth, were, beyond this
point, feebler; so that they could only give birth to smaller masses; to
planetoids, to satellites, and to meteoric stones. Perhaps we may
describe this want of energy in the planet-making power, by saying, that
at so great a distance from the central fire, there was not heat enough
to melt together these smaller fragments into a larger globe;[6] or
rather, when they existed in a nebular, perhaps in a gaseous state, that
there was not heat enough to keep them in that state, till the
attraction of the parts of all of them had drawn them into one mass,
which might afterwards solidify into a single globe. The tendency of
nebular matter to separate into distinct portions, which may afterwards
be more and more detached from each other, so as to break the nebulous
light into patches and specks, appears to be seen in the structure of
the resolvable nebulæ, as we have already had occasion to notice. And
according to the view we are now taking, we may conceive such patches,
by further cooling and concentration, to remain luminous as comets, and
perhaps shooting stars; or to become opaque as planets, planetoids,
satellites, or meteoric stones. And here we may call to mind what we
have already said, that the meteoric stones consist of the same elements
as those of the earth, combined by the same laws; and thus appear to
bring us a message from the other solid planets, that they also have the
same elements and the same chemical forces as the earth has.
8. It has already been supposed, by many astronomers, that shooting
stars, and meteoric stones, are bodies of connected nature and origin;
and that they are cosmical, not terrestrial bodies;--parts of the solar
system, not merely appendages to the earth. It has been conceived, that
the luminous masses, which appear as shooting stars, when they are
without the sphere of terrestrial influences, may, when they reach our
atmosphere, collapse into such solid lumps as have from time to time
fallen upon the earth's surface: many of them, with such sudden
manifestations of light and heat, as implied some rapid change taking
place in their chemical constitution and consistence. If shooting stars
are of this nature, then, in those cases in which a great number of them
appear in close succession, we have evidence that there is a region in
which there is a large collection of matter of a nebulous kind,
collected already into small clouds, and ready, by any additional touch
of the powers that hover round the earth, to be further consolidated
into planetary matter. That the earth's orbit carries her through such
regions, in her annual course, we have evidence, in the curious fact,
now so repeatedly observed, of showers of shooting stars, seen at
particular seasons of every year; especially about the 13th of November,
and the 10th of August. This phenomenon has been held, most reasonably,
to imply that at those periods of the year, the earth passes through a
crowd of such meteor-planets, which form a ring round the sun; and
revolving round him, like the other planets, retain their place in the
system from year to year.[7] It may be that the orbits of these
meteor-planets are very elliptical. That they are to a certain extent
elliptical, appears to be shown, by our falling in with them only once a
year, not every half year, as we should do, if their orbit, being nearly
circular, met the earth's orbit in two opposite points. That the
shooting stars, thus seen in great numbers when the earth is at certain
points of her orbit, are really planetoidal bodies, appears to be
further proved by this;--that they all seem to move nearly in the same
direction.[8] They are, each of them, visible for a short time only,
(indeed commonly only for a few seconds), while they are nearest the
earth; much in the same way in which a comet is visible only for a small
portion of its path: and this portion is described in a short time,
because they move near the earth. They are so small that a little change
of distance removes them beyond our vision.
9. Perhaps these revolving specks of nebulæ are the outriders of the
zodiacal light; portions of it, which, being external to the permanently
nebulous central mass, have broken into patches, and are seen as stars
for the moment that we are near to them. And if this be true, we have to
correct, in a certain way, what we have previously said of the zodiacal
light;--that no one had thought of resolving it into stars: for it would
thus appear, that in its outer region, it resolves itself into stars,
visible, though but for a moment, to the naked eye.
10. And thus, all these phenomena concur in making it appear probable,
that the Earth is placed in that region of the solar system in which the
planet-forming powers are most vigorous and potent;--between the region
of permanent nebulous vapor, and the region of mere shreds and specks of
planetary matter, such as are the satellites and the planetoidal group.
And from these views, finally it follows, that the Earth is really the
largest planetary body in the Solar System. The vast globes of Jupiter
and Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, which roll far above her, are still only
huge masses of cloud and vapor, water and air; which, from their
enormous size, are ponderous enough to retain round them a body of
small satellites, perhaps, in some degree at least, solid; and which
have perhaps a small lump, or a few similar lumps, of planetary matter
at the centre of their watery globe. The Earth is really the domestic
hearth of this Solar System; adjusted between the hot and fiery haze on
one side, the cold and watery vapor on the other. This region only is
fit to be a domestic hearth, a seat of habitation; and in this region is
placed the largest solid globe of our system; and on this globe, by a
series of creative operations, entirely different from any of those
which separated the solid from the vaporous, the cold from the hot, the
moist from the dry, have been established, in succession, plants, and
animals, and man. So that the habitation has been occupied; the domestic
hearth has been surrounded by its family; the fitnesses so wonderfully
combined have been employed; and the Earth alone, of all the parts of
the frame which revolves round the Sun, has become a World.
11. Perhaps it may tend still further to illustrate, and to fix in the
reader's mind, the view of the constitution of the solar system here
given, if we remark an analogy which exists, in this respect, between
the Earth in particular, and the Solar System in general. The earth,
like the central parts of the system, is warmed by the sun; and hence,
drives off watery vapors into the circumambient space, where they are
condensed by the cold. The upper regions of the atmosphere, like the
outer regions of the solar system, form the vapors thus raised into
clouds, which are really only water in minute drops; while in the solar
system, the cold of the outer regions, and the rotation of the masses
themselves, maintain the water, and the vapor, in immense spheres. But
Jupiter and Saturn may be regarded as, in many respects, immense clouds;
the continuous water being collected at their centres, while the more
airy and looser parts circulate above. They are the permanent
receptacles of the superfluous water and air of the system. What is not
wanted on the Earth, is stored up there, and hangs above us, far removed
from our atmosphere; but yet, like the clouds in our atmosphere, an
example, what glorious objects accumulations of vapor and water,
illuminated by the rays of the sun, may become in our eyes.
12. These views are so different from those hitherto generally
entertained, and considered as having a sort of religious dignity
belonging to them, that we may fear, at first at least, they will appear
to many, rash and fanciful, and almost, as we have said, irreverent. On
the question of reverence we may hereafter say a few words; but as to
the rashness of these views, we would beg the reader, calmly and
dispassionately, to consider the very extraordinary number of points in
the solar system, hitherto unexplained, which they account for, or, at
least reduce into consistency and connection, in a manner which seems
wonderful. The Theory, as we may perhaps venture to call it, brings
together all these known phenomena;--the great size and small density of
the exterior planets;--their belts and streaks;--Saturn's
ring;--Jupiter's oblateness;--the great number of satellites of the
exterior planets;--the numerous group of planetoid bodies between
Jupiter and Mars;--the appearance of definite shapes of land and water
on Mars;--the showers of shooting stars which appear at certain periods
of the year;--the Zodiacal Light;--the appearance of Venus as different
from Mars;--and finally, the material composition of meteoric stones.
13. Perhaps there are other phenomena which more readily find an
explanation in this theory, than in any other: for instance, the recent
discovery of a dim half-transparent ring, as an appendage to the
luminous ring of Saturn, which has hitherto alone been observed. Perhaps
this is the ring of vapor which may naturally be expected to accompany
the ring of water. It is the annular atmosphere of the aqueous annulus.
But, the discovery of this faint ring being so new, and hitherto not
fully unfolded, we shall not further press the argument, which,
hereafter, perhaps, may be more confidently derived from its existence.
14. There are some other facts in the Solar System, which, we can hardly
doubt, must have a bearing upon the views which we have urged; though we
cannot yet undertake to explain that bearing fully. Not only do all the
planetary bodies of the solar system, as well as the Sun himself,
revolve upon their axes; but there is a very curious fact relative to
these revolutions, which appears to point out a further connection among
them. So far as has yet been ascertained, all those which we, in our
theory, regard as solid bodies, Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars,
revolve in very nearly the same time: namely, in about twenty-four
hours. All those larger masses, on the other hand, which we, in our
theory, hold to be watery planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, revolve, not
in a longer time, as would perhaps have been expected, from their
greater size, but in a shorter time; in less than half the time; in
about ten hours. The near agreement of the times of revolution in each
of these two groups, is an extremely curious fact; and cannot fail to
lead our thoughts to the probability of some common original cause of
these motions. But no such common cause has been suggested, by any
speculator on these subjects. If, in this blank, even of hypotheses, one
might be admitted, as at least a mode of connecting the facts, we might
say, that the compound collection of solid materials, water, and air, of
which the solar system consists, and of which our earth alone, perhaps,
retains the combination, being, by whatever means, set a spinning round
an axis, at the rate of one revolution in 24 hours, the solid masses
which were detached from it, not being liable to much contraction,
retained their rate of revolution; while the vaporous masses which were
detached from the fluid and airy part, contracting much, when they came
into a colder region, increased their rate of revolution on account of
their contraction. That such an acceleration of the rate of revolution
would be the result of contraction, is known from mechanical principles;
and indeed, is evident: for the contraction of a circular ring of such
matter into a narrower compass, would not diminish the linear velocity
of its elements, while it would give them a smaller path to describe in
their revolutions. Such an hypothesis would account, therefore, both for
the nearly equal times of revolution of all the solid planets, and for
the smaller period of rotation, which the larger planets show.
15. In what manner, however, portions are to be detached from such a
rotating mass, so as to form solid planets on the one side, and watery
planets on the other, and how these planets, so detached, are to be made
to revolve round the Sun, in orbits nearly circular, we have no
hypothesis ready to explain. And perhaps we may say, that no
satisfactory, or even plausible, hypothesis to explain these facts, has
been proposed: for the Nebular Hypothesis, the only one which is likely
to be considered as worthy any notice on this subject, is too
imperfectly worked out, as yet, to enable us to know, what it will or
will not account for. According to that hypothesis, the nebular matter
of a system, having originally a rotatory motion, gradually contracts;
and separating, at various distances from the centre, forms rings; which
again, breaking at some point of their circumference, are, by the mutual
attraction of their parts, gathered up into one mass; which, when
cooled down, so as to be opaque, becomes a planet; still revolving round
the luminous mass which remains at the centre. That such a process, if
we suppose the consistency, and other properties, of the nebulous matter
to be such as to render it possible, would produce planetary masses
revolving round a sun in nearly circular orbits, and rotating about
their own axes, seems most likely; though it does not appear that it has
been very clearly shown.[9] But no successful attempt has been made to
deduce any laws of the distances from the centre, times of rotation, or
other properties of such planets; and therefore, we cannot say that the
nebular hypothesis is yet in any degree confirmed.
16. The Theory which we have ventured to propose, of the Solar System,
agrees with the Nebular Hypothesis, so far as that hypothesis goes; if
we suppose that there is, at the centre of the exterior planets,
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, a solid nucleus, probably small,
of the same nature as the other planets. Such an addition to our theory
is, perhaps, on all accounts, probable: for that circumstance would seem
to determine, to particular points, the accumulation of water and
vapors, to which we hold that those planets owe the greater part of
their bulk. Those planets then, Jupiter, Saturn, and the others, are
really small solid planets, with enormous oceans and atmospheres. The
Nebular Hypothesis, in that case, is that part of our Hypothesis, which
relates to the condensation of luminous nebular matter; while _we_
consider, further, the causes which, scorching the inner planets, and
driving the vapors to the outer orbs, would make the region of the earth
the only habitable part of the system.
17. The belief that other planets, as well as our own, are the seats of
habitation of living things, has been entertained, in general, not in
consequence of physical reasons, but in spite of physical reasons; and
because there were conceived to be other reasons, of another kind,
theological or philosophical, for such a belief. It was held that Venus,
or that Saturn, was inhabited, not because any one could devise, with
any degree of probability, any organized structure which would be
suitable to animal existence on the surfaces of those planets; but
because it was conceived that the greatness or goodness of the Creator,
or His wisdom, or some other of His attributes, would be manifestly
imperfect, if these planets were not tenanted by living creatures. The
evidences of design, of which we can trace so many, and such striking
examples, in our own sphere, the sphere of life, must, it was assumed,
exist, in the like form, in every other part of the universe. The
disposition to regard the Universe in this point of view, is very
general; the disinclination to accept any change in our belief which
seems, for a time, to interfere with this view, is very strong; and the
attempt to establish the necessity of new views discrepant from these
has, in many eyes, an appearance as if it were unfriendly to the best
established doctrines of Natural Theology. All these apprehensions will,
we trust, be shown, in the sequel, to be utterly unfounded: and in order
that any such repugnance to the doctrines here urged, may not linger in
the reader's mind, we shall next proceed to contemplate the phenomena of
the universe in their bearing upon such speculations.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Other speculators also have regarded Saturn's Ring as a ring of
cloud or water. See _Cosmos_, III. 527 and 553.
[2] Humboldt has already remarked _(Cosmos_, I. 95, and III. 427), that
the inner planets as far as Mars, and the outer ones beginning with
Jupiter, form two groups having different properties. Also Encke. (See
Humboldt's Note.)
[3] Printed Oct. 19, 1853.
[4] Herschel, 540.
[5] It is probable, from the small density of Jupiter's satellites, that
they also consist in a great measure of water and vapor. Only one of
them is denser than Jupiter himself.--_Cosmos_.
[6] It has, in our own day, even in the present year, been regarded as a
great achievement of man to direct the fiery influences which he can
command, so as to cast a colossal statue in a single piece, instead of
casting it in several portions.
[7] Herschel, 900-905.
[8] Herschel, 901.
[9] Besides the curious relation of the times of rotation of the
planets, just noticed, there is another curious relation, of their
distance from the Sun, which any one, wishing to frame an hypothesis on
the origin of our Solar System, ought by all means to try to account
for.
The distances from the Sun, of the planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,
the Planetoids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, are nearly as the numbers,
4, 7, 10, 16, 28, 52, 100, 196:
now the excesses of each of these numbers above the first are,
3, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96:
a series in which each term (after the first,) is double of the
preceding one. Hence, the distances of the planets conform to a series
following this law, (_Bode's law_, as it is termed.) And though the law
is by no means exact, yet it was so far considered a probable expression
of a general fact, that the deviation from this law, in the interval
between Mars and Jupiter, was the principal cause which led first to the
suspicion of a planet interposed in the seemingly vacant space; and thus
led to the discovery of the planetoids, which really occupy that region.
It is true, that the law is found not to hold, in the case of the
newly-discovered planet Neptune; for his distance from the Sun, which
according to this law, should be 388, is really only 300, 30 times the
Earth's distance, instead of 39 times. Still, Bode's law has a
comprehensive approximate reality in the Solar System, sufficient to
make it a strong recommendation of any hypothesis of the origin of the
system, that it shall account for this law. This, however, the nebular
hypothesis does not.
CHAPTER XI.
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN.
1. There is no more worthy or suitable employment of the human mind,
than to trace the evidences of Design and Purpose in the Creator, which
are visible in many parts of the Creation. The conviction thus obtained,
that man was formed by the wisdom, and is governed by the providence, of
an intelligent and benevolent Being, is the basis of Natural Religion,
and thus, of all Religion. We trust that some new lights will be thrown
upon the traces of Design which the Universe offers, even in the work
now before the reader; and as our views, regarding the plan of such
Design, are different, in some respects, and especially as relates to
the Planets and Stars, from those which have of late been generally
entertained, it will be proper to make some general remarks, mainly
tending to show, that the argument remains undisturbed, though the
physical theory is changed.
2. It cannot surprise any one who has attended to the history of
science, to find that the views, even of the most philosophical minds,
with regard to the plan of the universe, alter, as man advances from
falsehood to truth: or rather, from very imperfect truth to truth less
imperfect. But yet such a one will not be disposed to look, with any
other feeling than profound respect, upon the reasonings by which the
wisest men of former times ascended from their erroneous views of nature
to the truth of Natural Religion. It cannot seem strange to us that man
at any point, and perhaps at every point, of his intellectual progress,
should have an imperfect insight into the plan of the Universe; but, in
the most imperfect condition of such knowledge, he has light enough from
it, to see vestiges of the Wisdom and Benevolence of the Creating Deity;
and at the highest point of his scientific progress, he can probably
discover little more, by the light which physical science supplies. We
can hardly hope, therefore, that any new truths with regard to the
material universe, which may now be attainable, will add very much to
the evidence of creative design; but we may be confident, also, that
they will not, when rightly understood, shake or weaken such evidence.
It has indeed happened, in the history of mankind, that new views of the
constitution of the universe, brought to the light by scientific
researches, and established beyond doubt, in the conviction of impartial
persons, have disturbed the thoughts of religious men; because they did
not fall in with the view then entertained, of the mode in which God
effects his purpose in the universe. But in these cases, it soon came to
be seen, after a season of controversy, reproach, and alarm, that the
old argument for design was capable of being translated into the
language of the new theory, with no loss of force; and the minds of men
were gradually tranquillized and pacified. It may be hoped that the
world is now so much wiser than it was two or three centuries ago, that
if any modification of the current arguments for the Divine Attributes,
drawn from the aspect of the universe, become necessary, in consequence
of the rectification of received errors, it will take place without
producing pain, fear, or anger. To promote this purpose, we proceed to
make a few remarks.
3. The proof of Design, as shown in the works of Creation, is seen most
clearly, not in mere physical arrangement, but in the structure of
organized things;--in the constitution of plants and animals. In those
parts of nature, the evidences of intelligent purpose, of wise
adaptation, of skilful selection of means to ends, of provident
contrivance, are, in many instances, of the most striking kind. Such,
for example, are the structure of the human eye, so curiously adapted
for its office of seeing; the muscles, cords, and pullies by which the
limbs of animals are moved, exceeding far the mechanical ingenuity shown
in human inventions; the provisions which exist, before the birth of
offspring, for its sustenance and well-being when it shall have been
born;--these are lucid and convincing proofs of an intelligent Creator,
to which no ordinary mind can refuse its conviction. Nor is the
evidence, which we here recognize, deprived of its force, when we see
that many parts of the structure of animals, though adapted for
particular purposes, are yet framed as a portion of a system which does
not seem, in its general form, to have any bearing on such purposes.[1]
The beautiful contrivances which exist in the skeleton of man, and the
contrivances, possessing the same kind of beauty, in the skeleton of a
sparrow, do not appear to any reasonable person less beautiful, because
the skeleton of a man, and of a sparrow, have an agreement, bone for
bone, for which we see no reason, and which appears to us to answer no
purpose. The way in which the human hand and arm are made capable of
their infinite variety of use, by the play of the radius and ulna, the
bones of the wrist and the fingers, is not the less admirable, because
we can trace the representatives and rudiments of each of these bones,
in cases where they answer no such ends;--in the foreleg of the pig, the
ox, the horse, or the seal. The provision for feeding the young
creature, which is made, with such bounteous liberality, and such
opportune punctuality, by the breasts of the mother, has not any doubt
thrown upon its reality, by the teats of male animals and the paps of
man, which answer no such purpose. That in these cases there is
manifested a wider plan, which does not show any reference to the needs
of particular cases; as well as peculiar contrivances for the particular
cases, does not disturb our impression of design in each case. Why
should so large a portion of the animal kingdom, intended, as it seems,
for such different fields of life and modes of living;--beasts, birds,
fishes;--still have a skeleton of the same plan, and even of the same
parts, bone for bone; though many of the parts, in special cases, appear
to be altogether useless (namely, the vertebrate plan)? We cannot tell.
Our naturalists and comparative anatomists, it would seem, cannot point
out any definite end, which is answered by making so many classes of
animals on this one vertebrate plan. And since they cannot do this, and
since we cannot tell why animals are so made, we must be content to say
that we do not know; and therefore, to leave this feature in the
structure of animals out of our argument for design. Hence we do not say
that the making of beasts, birds, and fishes, on the same vertebrate
plan, proves design in the Creator, in any way in which we can
understand design. That plan is not of itself a proof of design; it is
something in addition to the proofs of design; a general law of the
animal creation, established, it may be, for some other reason. But
this common plan being given, we can discern and admire, in every kind
of animal, the manner in which the common plan is adapted to the
particular purpose which the animal's kind of life involves.[2] The
general law is not all; there is also, in every instance, a special care
for the species. The general law may seem, in many cases, to remove
further from us the proof of providential care; by showing that the
elements of the benevolent contrivance are not provided in the cases
alone where they are needed, but in others also. But yet this seeming,
this obscuration of the evidence of design, by interposing the form of
general law, cannot last long. If the general law supplies the elements,
still a special adaptation is needed to make the elements answer such a
purpose; and what is this adaptation, but design? The radius and ulna,
the carpal and metacarpal bones, are all in the general type of the
vertebrate skeleton. But does this fact make it the less wonderful, that
man's arm and hand and fingers should be constructed so that he can make
and use the spade, the plow, the loom, the pen, the pencil, the chisel,
the lute, the telescope, the microscope, and all other instruments? Is
it not, rather, very wonderful that the bones which are to be found
rudimentally, in the leg-bone of a horse, or the hoof of an ox, should
be capable of such a curious and fertile development and modification?
And is not such development and modification a work, and a proof, of
design and intention in the Creator? And so in other cases. The teats of
male animals, the nipples of man, may arise from this, that the general
plan of the animal frame includes paps, as portions of it; and that the
frame is so far moulded in the embryo, before the sex of the offspring
is determined. Be it so. Yet still this provision of paps in the animal
form in general, has reference to offspring; and the development of
that part of the frame, when the sex is determined, is evidence of
design, as clear as it is possible to conceive in the works of nature.
The general law is moulded to the special purpose, at the proper stage;
and this play of general laws, and special contrivances, into each
other's provinces, though it may make the phenomena a little more
complex, and modify our notion as to the mode of the Creator's working,
will not, in philosophical minds, disturb the conviction that there is
design in the special adaptations: besides which, some other feature of
the operation of the Creative Mind may be suggested by the prevalence of
general laws in the Creation.
4. There is, however, one caution suggested by this view. Since,
besides, and mixed with the examples of Design which the creation
offers, there are also results of General Laws, in which we cannot trace
the purpose and object of the law; we may fall into error, if we fasten
upon something which is a result of such mere general laws, and imagine
that we can discern its object and purpose. Thus, for instance, we might
possibly persuade ourselves that we had discovered the use and purpose
of the teats of male animals; or of the trace of separation into parts
which the leg-bone of a horse offers; or of the false toes of a pig: all
which are, as we have seen, the rudiments of a plan more general than is
developed in the particular case. And if, when we had made such a
fancied discovery, it were found that the uses and purposes which we had
imagined to belong to these parts or features, were not really served by
them; at first, perhaps, we might be somewhat disturbed, as having lost
one of the evidences of the design of the Creator, all which are,
precious to a reverent mind. But it is not likely that any disturbance
of a reverent mind on such grounds as this, would continue long, or go
far. We should soon come to recollect, how light and precarious,
perhaps how arbitrary and ill-supported by our real knowledge, were the
grounds on which we had assigned such uses to such parts. We should turn
back from them to the more solid and certain evidences, not shaken, nor
likely to be shaken, by any change in prevalent zoological or anatomical
doctrines, which those who love to contemplate such subjects habitually
dwell upon; and, holding ourselves ready to entertain any speculations
by which the bearing of those general Laws upon Natural Religion could
be shown, in such a way as to convince our reason, we should rest in the
confident and tranquil persuasion that no success or failure in such
speculations could vitally affect our belief in a wise and benevolent
Deity:--that though additional illustrations of his attributes might be
interesting and welcome, no change of our scientific point of view could
make his being or action doubtful.
5. This is, it would seem, the manner in which a reasonable and reverent
man would regard the proof of a Supreme Creator and Governor, which is
derived from Design, as seen in the organic creation; and the mode in
which such proof would be affected by changes in the knowledge which we
may acquire of the general laws by which the organic creation is
constituted and governed. And hence, if it should be found to be
established by the researches of the most comprehensive and exact
philosophy, that there are, in any province of the universe,
resemblances, gradations, general laws, indications of the mode in which
one form approaches to another, and seems to pass into and generate
another, which tend to obliterate distinctions which at first appeared
broad and conspicuous; still the argument, from the design which appears
in the parts of which we most clearly see the purpose, would not lose
its force. If, for instance, it should be made apparent, by geological
investigations of the extinct fossil creation, that the animal forms
which have inhabited the earth, have gradually approached to that type
in which the human form is included, passing from the rudest and most
imperfect animal organizations, mollusks, or even organic monads, to
vertebrate animals, to warm-blooded animals, to monkeys, and to men;
still, the evidences of design in the anatomy of man are not less
striking than they were, when no such gradation was thought of. And what
is more to the purpose of our argument, the evidences of the peculiar
nature and destination of man, as shown in other characters than his
anatomy,--his moral and intellectual nature, his history and
capacities,--stand where they stood before; nor is the vast chasm which
separates man, as a being with such characters as these latter, from all
other animals, at all filled up or bridged over.
6. The evidence of design in the inorganic world,--in the relation of
earth, air, water, heat and light,--is, to most persons, less striking
and impressive, than it is in the organic creation. But even among these
mere physical elements of the world, when we consider them with
reference to living things, we find many arrangements which, on a
reflective view, excite our admiration, by the beneficial effect, and
seemingly beneficent purpose. Our condition is furnished with the solid
earth, on which we stand, and in which we find the materials of man's
handiworks; stone and metal, clay and sand;--with the atmosphere which
we breathe, and which is the vehicle of oral intercourse between man and
man;--with revolutions of the sun, by which are brought round the
successions of day and night, through all their varying lengths, and of
summer and winter;--with the clouds above us, which pour upon the earth
their fertilizing showers. All this furniture of the earth, so
marvellously adapting it for the abode of living creatures, and
especially of man, may well be regarded as a collection of provisions
for his benefit:--as _intended_ to do him the good, which they do. Nor
would this impression be removed, or even weakened, if we were to
discover that some of these arrangements, instead of being produced by a
machinery confined to that single purpose, were only partial results of
a more general plan. For instance; we learn that the varying lengths of
days and nights through the year, and the varying declination of the
sun, are produced, not, as was at first supposed, by the sun moving
round the earth, in a complex diurnal and annual path, but by the earth
revolving in an annual orbit round the sun; while at the same time she
has a diurnal rotation about her own axis, which axis, by the laws of
mechanics, remains always parallel to itself. When we learn that this is
so, we see that the effect is produced by a mechanical arrangement far
more simple than any which the imagination of man had devised; but in
this case, the effect is plainly rather an increased admiration at the
simplicity of the mechanism, than a wavering belief in the reality of
the purpose. In like manner when, instead of supposing water to exist in
a continuous reservoir in a firmament above the earth, and to fall in
the earlier and in the latter rain, by some special agency for that
purpose; men learnt to see that the water in the upper regions of the
air must exist in clouds and in vapors only, and must fall in showers by
the condensing influence of cold currents of air; they needed not to
cease to admire the kindness of the Creator, in providing the rain to
water the earth, and the wind to dry it; although the mechanism by which
the effect was produced was of a larger kind than they had before
imagined. And even if this mechanism extend through the solar system: if
the arrangement by which the Earth's atmosphere is the special region in
which there are winds hot and cold, clouds compact or dissolving,--be
an arrangement which extends its influence to other planets, as well as
to ours;--if this mixed atmosphere be placed, not only at the meeting
point of clear aqueous vapor above, and warmer airs below, but also at
the meeting point of a hot central region surrounding the Sun, and a
cold exterior zone in which water and vapor can exist in immense
collected masses, such as are Jupiter and Saturn;--still it would not
appear, to a reasonable view, that this larger expansion of the
machinery by which the effect is produced, makes the machinery less
remarkable; or can at all tend to diminish the belief that it was
_intended_ to produce the effect which it does produce. Hot and cold,
moist and dry, are constantly mixed together for the support of
vegetable and animal life; and not the less so, if we believe that,
though elements of this kind pervade the whole solar system, it is only
at the Earth that they are combined so as to foster and nourish living
things.
7. But it will perhaps be said, that to suppose the whole Solar System
to be a machine merely operating for the benefit of the Earth and its
population, is to give to the Earth and its population an importance in
the scheme of creation which is quite extravagant and improbable:--it is
to make the greater orbs, Jupiter and Saturn, minister to the less;
instead of having their own purpose, and their own population, which
their size naturally leads us to expect. To this we reply, that, in the
first place, we have shown good reason for believing that the Earth is
really the largest dense solid globe which exists in the solar system,
and that the size of Jupiter and Saturn arises from their being composed
mainly of water and vapor. And with regard to the difficulty of the
greater ministering to the less;--if by _greater_, mere size and extent
be understood, it appears to be the universal law of creation, that the
greater, in that sense, _should_ minister to the less, when the less
includes living things. Even if the planets be all inhabited, the sun,
which is greater far than all of them together, ministers light and heat
to all of them. Even on this supposition, the vast spaces by which the
planets are separated have no use, that we can discern, except to place
them at suitable distances from the sun. Even on this supposition, their
solid globes within, their atmospheres without are all merely
subservient to the benefit of a thin and scattered population on the
surface. The space occupied by men and animals on the earth's surface,
even taking into account the highest buildings and the deepest seas, is
only a few hundreds, or a thousand feet. The benefit of this minute
shell, interrupted in many places for vast distances, everywhere loosely
and sparsely filled, is ministered to by the solidity and attraction of
a mass below it 20 millions of feet deep; by the influence of an
atmosphere above it 200 thousand feet high at least, and it may be, much
more. And this being so, if we increase the depth of the centre 20
thousand times; if we carry the extreme verge of air and vapor to thirty
times the radius of the earth's orbit from us, how does the construction
of the machine become more improbable, or the disproportion of its size
to its purpose more incongruous? Is mere size,--extent of brute matter
or blank space,--so majestic a thing? Is not infinite space large enough
to admit of machines of any size without grudging? But if we thus move
the centre of the Earth's peopled surface 20 thousand times further off,
we reach the Sun. If we carry the limit of air and vapor to the distance
of 30 times the radius of the Earth's orbit we arrive at Neptune. Are
these new numbers monstrous, while the old ones were accepted without
scruple? Is number such an alarming feature in the description of the
Universe? Does not the description of every part and every aspect of it,
present us with numbers so large, that wonder and repugnance, on that
ground are long ago exhausted? Surely this is so: and if the evidence
really tend to prove to us that all the solar system ministers to the
earth's population; the mere size of the system, compared with the space
occupied by the population, will not long stand in the way of the
reception of such a doctrine.
8. But the objection will perhaps be urged in another form. It will be
said that the other Planets have so many points of resemblance with the
Earth, that we must suppose their nature and purpose the same. They,
like the Earth, revolve in circles round the sun, rotate on their own
axes, have, several of them, satellites, are opaque bodies, deriving
light and probably heat from the sun. To an external spectator of the
Solar System, they would not be distinguishable from the Earth. Such a
spectator would never be tempted to guess that the Earth alone, of all
these, neither the greatest nor the least, neither the one with the most
satellites, nor the fewest, neither the innermost nor the outermost of
the planets, is the only one inhabited; or at any rate the only one
inhabited by an intelligent population. And to this we reply; that the
largest of the other planets, if we judge rightly, are _not_ like the
Earth in one most essential respect, their density; and none of them, in
having a surface consisting of land and water; except perhaps Mars: that
if the supposed external spectator could see that this was so, he might
see that the earth was different from the rest; and he might be able to
see the vaporous nature of the outer planets, so that he would no more
think of peopling them, than we do, of peopling the grand Alpine ridges
and vallies which we see in the clouds of a summer-sky.
9. But even if the supposed spectator attended only to the obvious and
superficial resemblances between one of the planets and another, he
might still, if he were acquainted with the general economy of the
Universe, have great hesitation in inferring that, if one of them were
inhabited, the others also must be inhabited. For, as we have said, in
the plan of creation, we have a profusion of examples, where similar
visible structures do not answer a similar purpose; where, so far as we
can see, the structure answers no purpose in many cases; but exists, as
we may say, for the sake of similarity: the similarity being a general
Law, the result, it would seem, of a creative energy, which is wider in
its operation than the particular purpose. Such examples are, as we have
said, the finger-bones which are packed into the hoofs of a horse, or
the paps and nipples of a male animal. Now the spectator, recollecting
such cases might say: I know that the earth is inhabited; no doubt Mars
and Jupiter are a good deal like the Earth; but are they inhabited? They
look like the terrestrial breast of Nature: but are they really nursing
breasts? Do they, like that, give food to living offspring? Or are they
mere images of such breasts? male teats, dry of all nutritive power?
sports, or rather overworks of nature; marks of a wider law than the
needs of Mother Earth require? many sketches of a design, of which only
one was to be executed? many specimens of the preparatory process of
making a Planet, of which only one was to be carried out into the making
of a World? Such questions might naturally occur to a person acquainted
with the course of creation in general; even before he remarked the
features which tend to show that Jupiter and Saturn, that Venus and
Mercury, have not been developed into peopled worlds, like our Earth.
10. Perhaps it may be said, that to hold this, is to make Nature work in
vain; to waste her powers; to suppose her to produce the frame work, and
not to build; to make the skeleton, and not to clothe it with living
flesh; to delude us with appearances of analogy and promises of
fertility, which are fallacious. What can we reply to this?
11. We reply, that to work in vain, in the sense of producing means of
life which are not used, embryos which are never vivified, germs which
are not developed; is so far from being contrary to the usual
proceedings of nature, that it is an operation which is constantly going
on, in every part of nature. Of the vegetable seeds which are produced,
what an infinitely small proportion ever grow into plants! Of animal
ova, how exceedingly few become animals, in proportion to those that do
not; and that are wasted, if this be waste! It is an old calculation,
which used to be repeated as a wonderful thing, that a single female
fish contains in its body 200 millions of ova, and thus, might, of
itself alone, replenish the seas, if all these were fostered into life.
But in truth, this, though it may excite wonder, cannot excite wonder as
anything uncommon. It is only one example of what occurs everywhere.
Every tree, every plant, produces innumerable flowers, the flowers
innumerable seeds, which drop to the earth, or are carried abroad by the
winds, and perish, without having their powers unfolded. When we see a
field of thistles shed its downy seeds upon the wind, so that they roll
away like a cloud, what a vast host of possible thistles are there! Yet
very probably none of them become actual thistles. Few are able to take
hold of the ground at all; and those that do, die for lack of congenial
nutriment, or are crushed by external causes before they are grown. The
like is the case with every tribe of plants.[3] The like with every
tribe of animals. The possible fertility of some kinds of insects is as
portentous as anything of this kind can be. If allowed to proceed
unchecked, if the possible life were not perpetually extinguished, the
multiplying energies perpetually frustrated, they would gain dominion
over the largest animals, and occupy the earth. And the same is the
case, in different degrees, in the larger animals. The female is stocked
with innumerable ovules, capable of becoming living things: of which
incomparably the greatest number end as they began, mere ovules;--marks
of mere possibility, of vitality frustrated. The universe is so full of
such rudiments of things, that they far outnumber the things which
outgrow their rudiments. The marks of possibility are much more numerous
than the tale of actuality. The vitality which is frustrated is far more
copious than the vitality which is consummated. So far, then, as this
analogy goes, if the earth alone, of all the planetary harvest, has been
a fertile seed of creation;--if the terrestrial embryo have alone been
evolved into life, while all the other masses have remained barren and
dead:--we have, in this, nothing which we need regard as an
unprecedented waste, an improbable prodigality, an unusual failure in
the operations of nature: but on the contrary, such a single case of
success among many of failure, is exactly the order of nature in the
production of life. It is quite agreeable to analogy, that the Solar
System, of which the _flowers_ are not many, should have borne but one
_fertile_ flower. One in eight, or in twice eight, reared into such
wondrous fertility as belongs to the Earth, is an abundant produce,
compared with the result in the most fertile provinces of Nature. And
even if any number of the Fixed Stars were also found to be barren
flowers of the sky; objects, however beautiful, yet not sources of life
or development, we need not think the powers of creation wasted or
frustrated, thrown away or perverted. One such fertile result as the
Earth, with all its hosts of plants and animals, and especially with
Man, an intelligent being, to stand at the head of those hosts, is a
worthy and sufficient produce, so far as we can judge of the Creator's
ways by analogy, of all the Universal Scheme.
12. But when we follow this analogy, so far as to speak of the mere
material mass of a planet as an _embryo world_;--a barren flower;--a
seed which has never been developed into a plant;--we are in danger of
allowing the analogy to mislead us. For a planet, as to its brute mass,
has really nothing in common with a seed or an embryo. It has no
organization, or tendency to organization; no principle of life, however
obscure. So far as we can judge, no progress of time, or operation of
mere natural influence, would clothe a brute mass with vegetables, or
stock it with animals. No species of living thing would have its place
upon the surface; by the mere order of unintelligent nature. So much is
this so, according to all that our best knowledge teaches, that those
geologists who must most have desired, for the sake of giving
completeness and consistency to their systems, to make the production of
vegetable and animal species from brute matter, a part of the order of
nature, (inasmuch as they have explained everything else by the order of
nature,) have not ventured to do so. They allow, generally at least,
each separate species to require a special act of creative power, to
bring it into being. They make the peopling of the earth, with its
successive races of inhabitants, a series of events altogether different
from the operation of physical laws in the sustentation of existing
species. The creation of life is, they allow, something out of the
range of the ordinary laws of nature. And therefore, when we speak of
uninhabited planets, as cases in which vital tendencies have been
defeated; in which their apparent destiny, as worlds of life, has been
frustrated; we really do injustice to our argument. The planets had no
vital tendencies: they could have had such given, only by an additional
act, or a series of additional acts, of Creative power. As mere inert
globes, they had no settled destiny to be seats of life: they could have
such a destiny, only by the appointment of Him who creates living
things, and puts them in the places which he chooses for them. If, when
a planetary mass had come into being, (in virtue of the same general
physical law, suppose, which produced the earth,) the Creator placed a
host of living things upon the earth, and none upon the other planet;
there was still no violation of analogy, no seeming change of purpose,
no unfinished plan. In the solar system, we can see what seem to be good
reasons why he did this; but if we could not see such reasons, still we
should be yet further from being able to see reasons why he necessarily
must place inhabitants upon the other planet.
13. It is sometimes said, that it is agreeable to the goodness of God,
that all parts of the creation should swarm with life; that life is
enjoyment; and that the benevolence of the Supreme Being is shown in the
diffusion of such enjoyment into every quarter of the universe. To leave
a planet without inhabitants, would, it is thought, be to throw away an
opportunity of producing happiness. Now we shall not here dwell upon the
consideration, that the enjoyment thus spoken of, is, in a great degree,
the enjoyment which the mere life of the lower tribes of animals
implies;--the enjoyment of madrepores and oysters, cuttle-fish and
sharks, tortoises and serpents; but we reply more broadly, that it is
not the rule followed by the Creator, to fill all places with living
things. To say nothing of the vast intervals between planet and planet,
which, it is presumed, no one supposes to be occupied by living things;
how large a portion of the surface of the earth is uninhabited, or
inhabited only in the scantiest manner. Vast desert tracts exist in
Africa and in Asia, where the barren sand nourishes neither animal nor
vegetable life. The highest regions of mountain-ranges, clothed with
perpetual snow, and with far-reaching sheets of glacier ice, are
untenanted, except by the chamois at their outskirts. There are many
uninhabited islands; and were formerly many more. The ocean, covering
nearly three-fourths of the globe, is no seat of habitation for land
animals or for man; and though it has a large population of the fishy
tribes, is probably peopled in smaller numbers than if it were land, as
well as by inferior orders. We see, in the Earth then, which is the only
seat of life of which we really know anything, nothing to support the
belief that every field in the material universe is tenanted by living
inhabitants.
14. That vegetables and animals, being once placed upon the earth, have
multiplied or are multiplying, so as to occupy every part of the land
and water which is suited for their habitation, we can see much reason
to believe. Philosophical natural-historians have been generally led to
the conviction that each species has had an original centre of
dispersion, where it was first native, and that from this centre it has
been diffused in all directions, as far as the circumstances of climate
and soil were favorable to its production. But we can see also much
reason to believe that this general diffusion of vegetable and animal
life from centres, is a part of the order of nature which may often be
made to give way to other and higher purposes;--to the diffusion, over
the whole surface of the earth, of a race of intelligent, moral agents.
This process may often interfere with the general law of diffusion: as
for instance, when man exterminates noxious animals. And whatever may be
the laws which tend to replenish the earth, on which such centres of the
diffusion of life exist for animals and plants; according to all
analogy, these laws can have no force on any other planet, till such
origins and centres of life are established on their surfaces. And even
if any of the species which have ever tenanted the earth were so
established on any other planet, we have the strongest reason to believe
that they could not survive to a second generation.
15. Perhaps it may be said that we unjustifiably limit the power and
skill of the Supreme Creator, if we deny that he could frame creatures
fitted to live on any of the other planets, as well as in the
Earth:--that the wonderful variety, and unexpected resource, of the ways
in which animals are adapted for all kinds of climates, habitations, and
conditions, upon the earth, may give us confidence that, under
conditions still more extended, in habitations still further removed, in
climates going beyond the terrestrial extremes, still the same wisdom
and skill may well be supposed to have devised possible modes of animal
life.
16. To this we reply, that we are so far from saying that the Creator
could not place inhabitants in the other planets, that we have attempted
to show what kind of inhabitants would be most likely to be placed
there, by considering the way in which animals are accommodated to
special conditions in their habitation. In judging of such modes of
accommodating animals to an abode on other planets, as well as the
earth, we have reasoned from what we know, of the mode in which animals
are accommodated to their different habitations on the earth. We believe
this to be the only safe and philosophical way of treating the question.
If we are to reason at all about the possibility of animal life, we
must suppose that heat and light, gravity and buoyancy, materials and
affinities, air and moisture, produce the same effect, require the same
adaptations, in Jupiter or in Venus, as they do on the Earth. If we do
not suppose this, we run into the error which so long prevented many
from accepting the Newtonian system:--the error of thinking that matter
in the heavens is governed by quite different laws from matter on the
earth. We must adopt that belief, if we hold that animals may live under
relations of heat and moisture, materials and affinities, in Jupiter or
Venus, under which they could not live on our planet. And that belief,
as we have said, appears to us contrary to all the teaching which the
history of science offers us.
17. And not only is it contrary to the teaching of the history of
science, to suppose the laws, which connect elemental and organic
nature, to be different in the other planets from what they are on ours;
but moreover the supposition would not at all answer the purpose, of
making it probable that the planets are inhabited. For if we begin to
imagine new and unknown laws of nature for those abodes, what is there
to limit or determine our assumptions in any degree? What extravagant
mixtures of the attributes and properties of mind and matter may we not
then accept as probable truths? We know how difficult the poets have
found it to describe, with any degree of consistency, the actions and
events of a world of angels, or of evil spirits, souls or shades,
embodied in forms so as to admit of description, and yet not subject to
the laws of human bodies. Virgil, Tasso, Milton, Klopstock, and many
others, have struggled with this difficulty:--no one of them, it will be
probably agreed, with any great success; at least, regarding his
representation as a hypothesis of a possible form of life, different
from all the forms which we know. Yet if we are to reject the laws
which govern the known forms of life, in order that we may be able to
maintain the possibility of some unknown form in a different planet, we
must accept some of these hypotheses, or find a better. We must suppose
that weight and cohesion, wounds and mutilations, wings and plumage,
would have, either the effect which the poets represent them as having,
or some different effect: and in either case it will be impossible to
give any sufficient reason why we should confine the population to the
surface of a planet. If gravity have not, upon any set of beings, the
effect which it has upon us, such beings may live upon the surface of
Saturn, though it be mere vapor: but then, on that supposition, they may
equally well live in the vast space between Saturn and Jupiter, without
needing any planet for their mansion. If we are ready to suppose that
there are, in the solar system, conscious beings, not subject to the
ordinary laws of life, we may go on to imagine creatures constituted of
vaporous elements, floating in the fiery haze of a nebula, or close to
the body of a sun; and cloudy forms which soar as vapors in the region
of vapor. But such imaginations, besides being rather fitted for the
employment of poets than of philosophers, will not, as we have said,
find a population for the planets; since such forms may just as easily
be conceived swimming round the sun in empty space, or darting from star
to star, as confining themselves to the neighborhood of any of the solid
globes which revolve about the central sun.
18. We should not, then add anything to the probability of inhabitants
on the other planets of our system, even if we were arbitrarily to
assume unlimited changes in the laws of nature, when we pass from our
region to theirs. But probably, all readers will be of opinion that such
assumptions are contrary to the whole scheme and spirit of such
speculations as we are here presuming:--that if we speculate on such
subjects at all, it must be done by supposing that the same laws of
nature operate in the same manner, in planetary, as in terrestrial
spaces;--and that as we suppose, and prove, gravity and attraction,
inertia and momentum, to follow the same rules, and produce the same
effects, on brute matter there, which they do here; so, both these
forces, and others, as light and heat, moisture and air, if, in the
planets, they go beyond the extremes which limit them here, yet must
imply, in any organized beings which exist in the planets, changes,
though greater in amount, of the same kind as those which occur in
approaching the terrestrial extremes of those elementary agents. And
what kind of a population that would lead us to suppose in Jupiter or
Saturn, Mars or Venus, the reader has already seen our attempt to
determine; and may thence judge whether, when we go so far beyond the
terrestrial extremes of heat and cold, light and dimness, vapor and
water, air and airlessness, any population at all is probable.
19. Perhaps some persons, even if they cannot resist the force of these
reasons, may still yield to them with regret; and may feel as if, having
hitherto believed that the planets were inhabited, and having now to
give up that belief, their view of the solar system, as one of the
provinces of God's creation, were made narrower and poorer than it was
before. And this feeling may be still further increased, if they are led
to believe also that many of the fixed stars are not the centres of
inhabited systems; or that very few, or none are. It may seem to them,
as if, by such a change of belief, the field of God's greatness,
benevolence, and government, were narrowed and impoverished, to an
extent painful and shocking;--as if, instead of being the Maker and
Governor of innumerable worlds, of the most varied constitution, we were
called upon to regard him as merely the Master of the single world in
which we live:--as if, instead of being the object of reverence and
adoration to the intelligent population of these thousand spheres, he
was recognized and worshipped on one only, and on that, how scantily and
imperfectly!
20. It is not to be denied that there may be such a regret and
disturbance naturally felt at having to give up our belief that the
planets and the stars probably contain servants and worshippers of God.
It must always be a matter of pain and trouble, to be urged with
tenderness, and to be performed in time, to untwine our reverential
religious sentiments from erroneous views of the constitution of the
universe with which they have been involved. But the change once made,
it is found that religion is uninjured, and reverence undiminished. And
therefore we trust that the reader will receive with candor and patience
the argument which we have to offer with reference to this view, or
rather, this sentiment.
21. We remark, in the first place, that however repugnant it may be to
us to believe a state of any part of the universe in which there are not
creatures who can know, obey and worship God; we are compelled, by
geological evidence, to admit that such a state of things has existed
upon the earth, during a far longer period than the whole duration of
man's race. If we suppose that the human race, if not by their actual
knowledge, obedience, and worship of God, yet at least by their
faculties for knowing, obeying, and worshipping, are a sufficient reason
why there should be such a province in God's empire; still in fact, this
race has existed only for a few thousand years, out of the, perhaps,
millions of years of the earth's existence; and during all the previous
period, the earth, if tenanted, was tenanted by brute creatures, fishes
and lizards, beasts and birds, of which none had any faculty,
intellectual, moral, or religious. By the same analogy, therefore, on
which we have already insisted, we may argue that there is reason to
believe, that if other planets, and other stars, are the seats of
habitation, it is rather of such habitation as has prevailed upon the
earth during the millions, than during the six thousand years; and that
if we have, in consequence of physical reasons, to give up the belief of
a population in the other planets, or in the stars; we are giving up,
not anything with which we might dwell with religious pleasure--hosts of
fellow-servants and fellow-worshippers of the Divine Author of all:--but
the mere brute tribes, of the land and of the water, things that creep
and crawl, prowl and spring;--none that can lift its visage to the sky,
with a feeling that it is looking for its Maker and Master. There have
not existed upon the Earth, during the immense ages of its præhuman
existence, beings who could recognize and think of the Creator of the
world: and if astronomy introduces us, as geology has done, to a new
order of material structures, thus barren of an intelligent and
religious population, we must learn to accept the prospect, in the one
case, as in the other. Nor need we fear that on a further contemplation
of the universe, we shall find every part of it ministering, though
perhaps not in the way our first thoughts had guessed, to sentiments of
reverence and adoration towards the Maker of the universe.
22. The truth is, as the slightest recollection of the course of opinion
about the stars may satisfy us, that men have had repeatedly to give up
the notions which they had adopted, of the manner in which the material
heavens, the stars and the skies, are to minister to man's feeling of
reverence for the Creator. It was long ago said, that the heavens
declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork: that
day and night, sun and moon, clouds and stars, unite in impressing upon
us this sentiment. And this language still finds a sympathetic echo, in
the breasts of all religious persons. Nor will it ever cease to do so,
however our opinions of the structure and nature of the heavenly bodies
may alter. When the new aspects of things become familiar, they will
show us the handiwork of God, and declare his glory, as plainly as the
old ones. But in the progress of opinions, man has often had to resign
what seemed to him, at the time, visions so beautiful, sublime, and
glorious, that they could not be dismissed without regret. The Universal
Lord was at one time conceived as directing the motions of all the
spheres by means of Ruling Angels, appointed to preside over each. The
prevalence of proportion and number, in the dimensions of these spheres,
was assumed to point to the existence of harmonious sounds, accompanying
their movements, though unheard by man; as proportion and number had
been found to be the accompaniments and conditions of harmony upon
earth. The time came, when these opinions were no longer consistent with
man's knowledge of the heavenly motions, and of the wide-spreading
causes by which they are produced. Then "Ruling Angels from their
spheres were hurled," as a matter of belief; though still the poets
loved to refer to imagery in which so many lofty and reverent thoughts
had so long been clothed. The aspect of the stars was most naturally
turned to a lesson of cheerful and thoughtful piety, by the adoption of
such a view of their nature and office; and thus, the midnight
contemplator of an Italian sky teaches his companion concerning the
starry host;
Sit, Jessica; look how the floor of heav'n
Is thick inlaid with patterns of bright gold.
There's not the meanest orb, which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims;
Such harmony is in immortal souls.
meaning, apparently, the harmony between the immortal spirits that
govern each star, and the cherubims that sing before the throne of God.
But however beautiful and sublime may be this representation, the
philosopher has had to abandon it in its literal sense. He may have
adopted, instead, the opinion that each of the stars is the seat, or the
centre of a group of seats, of choirs of worshippers; but this again, is
still to suppose the nature of those orbs to be entirely different from
that of this earth; though in many respects, we know that they are
governed by the same laws. And if he will be content to know no more
than he has the means of knowing, or even to know only according to his
best means of knowing, he must be prepared, if the force of proof so
requires, to give up this belief also; at least for the present.
23. Indeed, those who have not been content with this, and have sought
to combine with the visible splendor of the skies, some scheme, founded
upon astronomical views, which shall people them with intelligent beings
and worshippers, have drawn upon their fancy quite as much as Lorenzo in
his lesson to Jessica; or rather, they have done what he and those from
whom his love was derived, had done before. They have taken the truths
which astronomers have discovered and taught, and made the objects and
regions so revealed, the scenes and occasions of such sentiments of
piety as they themselves have, or feel that they ought to have. Even in
Shakspeare, the stars are already _orbs_, each orb has his _motion_, and
in his motion produces the music of the spheres. More recent preachers,
following sounder views of the nature of these orbs and motions, have
been equally poetical when they come to their religious reflection. When
the poet of the _Night Thoughts_ says,
"Each of these stars is a religious house;
I saw their altars smoke, their incense rise,
And heard hosannas ring through every sphere."
he is no less imaginative than the poet of that _Midsummer Night's
Dream_, which we have in the _Merchant of Venice_. And we are compelled,
by all the evidence which we can discern, to say the same of the
preacher who speaks, from the pulpit, of these orbs of worlds, and tells
us of the stars which "give animation to other systems[4];" when he
says[5] "worlds roll in these distant regions; and these worlds must be
the centres of life and intelligence;" when he speaks of the earth[6] as
"the humblest of the provinces of God's empire." But then we must
recollect that these thoughts still prove the religious nature of man;
they show how he is impelled to endeavor to elevate his mind to God by
every part of the universe; and it is not too much to say, that through
the faculties of man, thus regarding the starry heavens, every star does
really testify to the greatness of God, and minister to His worship.
24. We may trust that this mere material magnificence does not require
inhabitants, to make it lift man's heart towards the Universal Creator,
and to make him accept it as a sublime evidence of His greatness. The
grandest objects in nature are blank and void of life;--the
mountain-peaks that stand, ridge beyond ridge, serene in the region of
perpetual snow;--the summer-clouds, images of such mountain tracts, even
upon a grander scale, and tinted with more gorgeous colors;--the
thunder-cloud with its dazzling bolt;--the stormy ocean with its
mountainous waves;--the Aurora Borealis, with its mysterious pillars of
fire;--all these are sublime; all these elevate the soul, and make it
acknowledge a mighty Worker in the elements, in spite of any teaching of
a material philosophy. And if we have to regard the planets as merely
parts of the same great spectacle of nature, we shall not the less
regard them with an admiration which ministers to pious awe. Even merely
as a spectacle, Saturn made visible in his real shape, only by a vast
exertion of human skill, yet shining like a star, in form so curiously
complex, symmetrical and seemingly artificial, will never cease to be an
object of the ardent and contemplative gaze of all who catch a sight of
him. And however much the philosopher may teach that he is merely a mass
of water and vapor, ice and snow, he must be far more interesting to the
eye than the Alps, or the clouds that crown them, or the ocean with its
icebergs; where the same elements occur in forms comparatively shapeless
and lawless, irregular and chaotic.
25. But perhaps there is in the minds of many persons, a sentiment
connected with this regular and symmetrical form of the heavenly bodies;
that being thus beautifully formed and finished they must have been the
objects of especial care to the Creator. These regular globes, these
nearly circular orbits, these families of satellites, they too so
regular in their movements; this ring of Saturn; all the adjustments by
which the planetary motions are secured from going wrong, as the
profoundest researches into the mechanics of the universe show;--all
these things seem to indicate a peculiar attention bestowed by the Maker
on each part of the machine. So much of law and order, of symmetry and
beauty in every part, implies, it may be thought, that every part has
been framed with a view to some use;--that its symmetry and its beauty
are the marks of some noble purpose.
26. To reply to this argument, so far as it is requisite for us to do
so, we must recur to what we have already said; that though we see in
many parts of the universe, inorganic as well as organic, marks which we
cannot mistake, of design and purpose; yet that this design and purpose
are often effected by laws which are of a much wider sweep than the
design, so far as we can trace its bearing. These laws, besides
answering the purpose, produce many other effects, in which we can see
no purpose. We have now to observe further that these laws, thus ranging
widely through the universe, and working everywhere, as if the Creator
delighted in the generality of the law, independently of its special
application, do often produce innumerable results of beauty and
symmetry, as if the Creator delighted in beauty and symmetry,
independently of the purpose answered.
27. Thus, to exemplify this reflection: the powers of aggregation and
cohesion, which hold together the parts of solid bodies, as metals and
stones, salts and ice,--which solidify matter, in short,--we can easily
see, to be necessary, in order to the formation and preservation of
solid terrestrial bodies. They are requisite, in order that man may have
the firm earth to stand upon, and firm materials to use. But let us
observe, what a wonderful and beautiful variety of phenomena grows out
of this law, with no apparent bearing upon that which seems to us its
main purpose. The power of aggregation of solid bodies is, in fact, the
force of crystallization. It binds together the particles of bodies by
molecular forces, which not only hold the particles together, but are
exerted in special directions, which form triangles, squares, hexagons,
and the like. And hence we have all the variety of crystalline forms
which sparkle in gems, ores, earths, pyrites, blendes; and which, when
examined by the crystallographers, are found to be an inexhaustible
field of the play of symmetrical complexity. The diamond, the emerald,
the topaz, have got each its peculiar kind of symmetry. Gold and other
metals have, for the basis of their forms, the cube, but run from this
into a vastly greater variety of regular solids than ever geometer
dreamt of. Some single species of minerals, as calc-spar, present
hundreds of forms, all rigorously regular, and have been alone the
subject of volumes. Ice crystallizes by the same laws as other solid
bodies; and our Arctic voyagers have sometimes relieved the weariness of
their sojourn in those regions, by collecting some of the innumerable
forms, resembling an endless collection of hexagonal flowers, sporting
into different shapes, which are assumed by flakes of snow[7]. In these
and many other ways, the power of crystallization produces an
inexhaustible supply of examples of symmetrical beauty. And what are we
to conceive to be the object and purpose of this? As we have said, that
part of the purpose which is intelligible to us is, that we have here a
force holding together the particles of bodies, so as to make them
solid. But all these pretty shapes add nothing to this intelligible use.
Why then are they there? They are there, it would seem, for their own
sake;--because they are pretty;--symmetry and beauty are there on their
own account; or because they are universal adjuncts of the general laws
by which the creator works. Or rather we may say, combining different
branches of our knowledge, that crystallization is the mark and
accompaniment of chemical composition: and that as chemical composition
takes place according to definite numbers, so crystalline aggregation
takes place according to definite forms. The symmetrical relations of
space in crystals correspond to the simple relations of number in
synthesis; and thus, because there is rule, there is regularity, and
regularity assumes the form of beauty.
28. This, which thus shows itself throughout the mineral kingdom, or,
speaking more widely and truly, throughout the whole range of chemical
composition, is still more manifest in the vegetable domain. All the
vast array of flowers, so infinitely various, and so beautiful in their
variety, are the results of a few general laws; and show, in the degree
of their symmetry, the alternate operation of one law and another. The
rose, the lily, the cowslip, the violet, differ in something of the same
way, in which the crystalline forms of the several gems differ. Their
parts are arranged in fives or in threes, in pentagons or in hexagons,
and in these regular forms, one part or another is expanded or
contracted, rendered conspicuous by color or by shape, so as to produce
all the multiplicity of beauty which the florist admires. Or rather, in
the eye of the philosophical botanist, the whole of the structure of
plants, with all their array of stems and leaves, blossoms and fruits,
is but the manifestation of one Law; and all these members of the
vegetable form, are, in their natures, the same, developed more or less
in this way or in that. The daisy consists of a close cluster of flowers
of which each has, in its form, the rudiments of the valerian. The
peablossom is a rose, with some of its petals expanded into
butterfly-like wings. Even without changing the species, this general
law leads to endless changes. The garden-rose is the common hedge-rose
with innumerable filaments changed into glowing petals. By the addition
of whorl to whorl, of vegetable coronet over coronet, green and colored,
broad and narrow, filmy and rigid, every plant is generated, and the
glory of the field and of the garden, of the jungle and of the forest,
is brought forth in all its magnificence. Here, then, we have an
immeasurable wealth of beauty and regularity, brought to view by the
operation of a single law. And to what use? What purpose do these
beauties answer? What is the object for which the lilies of the field
are clothed so gaily and gorgeously? Some plants, indeed, are
subservient to the use of animals and of man: but how small is the
number in which we can trace this, as an intelligent purpose of their
existence! And does it not, in fact, better express the impression which
the survey of this province of nature suggests to us, to say, that they
grow because the Creator willed that they should grow? Their vegetable
life was an object of His care and contrivance, as well as animal and
human life. And they are beautiful, also because He willed that they
should be so:--because He delights in producing beauty;--and, as we have
further tried to make it appear, because He acts by general law, and law
produces beauty. Is not such a tendency here apparent, as a part of the
general scheme of Creation?
29. We have already attempted to show, that in the structure of animals,
especially that large class best known to us, vertebrate animals, there
is also a general plan which, so far as we can see, goes beyond the
circuit of the special adaptation of each animal to its mode of living:
and is a rule of creative action, in addition to the rule that the parts
shall be subservient to an intelligible purpose of animal life. We have
noticed several phenomena in the animal kingdom, where parts and
features appear, rudimentary and inert, discharging no office in their
economy, and speaking to us, not of purpose, but of law:--consistent
with an end which is visible, but seemingly the results of a rule whose
end is in itself.
30. And do we not, in innumerable cases, see beauties of color and form,
texture and lustre, which suggests to us irresistibly the belief that
beauty and regular form are rules of the Creative agency, even when they
seem to us, looking at the creation for uses only, idle and wanton
expenditure of beauty and regularity. To what purpose are the host of
splendid circles which decorate the tail of the peacock, more beautiful,
each of them, than Saturn with his rings? To what purpose the exquisite
textures of microscopic objects, more curiously regular than anything
which the telescope discloses? To what purpose the gorgeous colors of
tropical birds and insects, that live and die where human eye never
approaches to admire them? To what purpose the thousands of species of
butterflies with the gay and varied embroidery of their microscopic
plumage, of which one in millions, if seen at all, only draws the
admiration of the wandering schoolboy? To what purpose the delicate and
brilliant markings of shells, which live, generation after generation,
in the sunless and sightless depths of the ocean? Do not all these
examples, to which we might add countless others, (for the world, so far
as human eye has scanned it, is full of them,) prove that beauty and
regularity are universal features of the work of Creation, in all its
parts, small and great: and that we judge in a way contrary to a vast
range of analogy, which runs through the whole of the Universe, when we
infer that, because the objects which are presented to our contemplation
are beautiful in aspect and regular in form, they must, in each case, be
means for some special end, of those which we commonly fix upon, as the
main ends of the Creation, the support and advantage of animals or of
man?
31. If this be so, then the beautiful and regular objects which the
telescope reveals to us; Jupiter and his Moons, Saturn and his Rings,
the most regular of the Double Stars, Clusters and Nebulæ; cannot
reasonably be inferred, because they are beautiful and regular, to be
also fields of life, or scenes of thought. They may be, as to the poet's
eye they often appear, the gems of the robe of Night, the flowers of the
celestial fields. Like gems and like flowers, they are beautiful and
regular, because they are brought into being by vast and general laws.
These laws, although, in the mind of the Creator, they have their
sufficient reason, as far as they extend, may have, in no other region
than that which we inhabit, the reason which we seek to discover
everywhere, the sustentation of a life like ours. That we should connect
with the existence of such laws, the existence of Mind like our own
mind, is most natural; and, as we might easily show, is justifiable,
reasonable, even necessary. But that we should suppose the result of
such laws are so connected with Mind, that wherever the laws gather
matter into globes, and whirl it round the central body, _there_ is also
a local seat of minds like ours; is an assumption altogether
unwarranted; and is, without strong evidence, of which we have as yet no
particle, quite visionary.
32. But finally, it may be said that by this our view of the universe,
we diminish the greatness of the work of creation, and the majesty of
the Creator. Such a view appears to represent the other planets as mere
fragments, which have flown off in the fabrication of this our earth,
and of the mechanism by which it answers its purpose. Instead of a vast
array of completed worlds, we have one world, surrounded by abortive
worlds and inert masses. Instead of perfection everywhere, we have
imperfection everywhere, except at one spot; if even there the
workmanship be perfect.
33. To this, the reply is contained in what we have already said: but we
may add, that it cannot be wise or right, to prop up our notions of
God's greatness, by physical doctrines which will not bear discussion.
God's greatness has no need of man's inventions for its support. The
very conviction that the Creation must be such as to confirm our belief
in the greatness of God, shows that such a belief is more deeply seated
than any special views of the structure of the universe, and will
triumphantly survive the removal of error in such views. We may add,
that till within a few thousand years, this earth, compared with what it
now is, having upon it no intelligent beings, might be regarded as an
abortive world; that all the parts of the solar system which we can best
scrutinize, the moon, and meteoric stones, are inert masses; and
further, that there is everywhere the perfection which results from the
operation of law, and that _that_ seems to be the perfection with which
the Creator is contented.
34. And perhaps, when the view of the universe which we here present has
become familiar, we may be led to think that the aspect which it gives
to the mode of working of the Creator, is sufficiently grand and
majestic. Instead of manufacturing a multitude of worlds on patterns
more or less similar, He has been employed in one great work, which we
cannot call imperfect, since it includes and suggests all that we can
conceive of perfection. It may be that all the other bodies, which we
can discover in the universe, show the greatness of this work, and are
rolled into forms of symmetry and order, into masses of light and
splendor, by the vast whirl which the original creative energy imparted
to the luminous element. The planets and the stars are the lumps which
have flown from the potter's wheel of the Great Worker;--the shred-coils
which, in the working, sprang from His mighty lathe:--the sparks which
darted from His awful anvil when the solar system lay incandescent
thereon;--the curls of vapor which rose from the great cauldron of
creation when its elements were separated. If even these superfluous
portions of the material are marked with universal traces of regularity
and order, this shows that universal rules are his implements, and that
Order is the first and universal Law of the heavenly work.
35. And, that we may see the full dignity of this work, we must always
recollect that Man is a part of it, and the crowning part. The
workmanship which is employed on mere matter is, after all, of small
account, in the eyes of intellectual and moral creatures, when compared
with the creation and government of intellectual and moral creatures.
The majesty of God does not reside in planets and stars, in orbs and
systems; which are, after all, only stone and vapor, materials and
means. If, as we believe, God has not only made the material world, but
has made and governs man, we need not regret to have to depress any
portion of the material world below the place which we had previously
assigned to it; for, when all is done, the material world _must_ be put
in an inferior place, compared with the world of mind. If there be a
World of Mind, _that_, according to all that we can conceive, must have
been better worth creating, must be more worthy to exist, as an object
of care in the eyes of the Creator, than thousands and millions of stars
and planets, even if they were occupied by a myriad times as many
species of brute animals as have lived upon the earth since its
vivification. In saying this, we are only echoing the common voice of
mankind, uttered, as so often it is, by the tongues of poets. One such
speaks thus of stellar systems:
Behold this midnight splendor, worlds on worlds;
Ten thousand add and twice ten thousand more,
Then weigh the whole: one soul outweighs them all,
And calls the seeming vast magnificence
Of unintelligent creation, poor.
And as this is true of intelligence, with the suggestion which that
faculty so naturally offers, of the inextinguishable nature of mind, so
is it true of the moral nature of man. No accumulation of material
grandeur, even if it fill the universe, has any dignity in our eyes,
compared with moral grandeur: as poetry has also expressed:
Look then abroad through nature, to the range
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres,
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense,
And speak, O man! Can this capacious scene
With half that kindling majesty exalt
Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate
Amid the band of patriots; and his arm
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove
When guilt calls down the thunder, call'd aloud
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel,
And bade the Father of his Country, Hail!
For lo! the tyrant prostrate in the dust,
And Rome again is free.
This action being taken, as it is here meant to be conceived, for one of
the highest examples of moral greatness. And however we may judge of
this action, we must allow that the characters which are implied in this
praise of it,--the loftiest kinds of moral excellence,--are more
suitable to the highest idea of the object and purpose of a Deity
creating worlds, than would be any mere material structure of planets
and suns, whether kept in their places by adamantine spheres, wheeling
unshaken through the void immense, or themselves wheeling unshaken by
the power of a universal law. The thoughts of Rights and Obligations,
Duty and Virtue, of Law and Liberty, of Country and Constitution, of the
Glory of our Ancestors, the Elevation of our Fellow-Citizens, the
Freedom and Happiness and Dignity of Posterity,--are thoughts which
belong to a world, a race, a body of beings, of which any one
individual, with the capacities which such thoughts imply, is more
worthy of account, than millions of millions of mollusks and belemnites,
lizards and fishes, sloths and pachyderms, diffused through myriads of
worlds.
36. We might illustrate this argument further, by taking actions of the
moral character of which there will be less doubt. If we look at the
great acts which render Greece illustrious and interesting in our
eyes,--such as the death of Socrates, for instance, the triumph of a
reverence for Law and a love of country;--can we think it any real
diminution of the glory of the universe, if we are reduced to the
necessity of rejecting the belief in a multitude of worlds, which
though, it may be, peopled with lower animals, contain none endowed with
any higher principle than hunger and thirst?
37. That the human race possesses a worth in the eyes of Reason beyond
that which any material structure, or any brute population can possess,
might be maintained on still higher and stronger grounds; namely, on
religious grounds: but we do not intend here to dwell on that part of
the subject. If man be, not merely (and he alone of all animals) capable
of Virtue and Duty, of Universal Love and Self-Devotion, but be also
immortal; if his being be of infinite duration, his soul created never
to die; then, indeed, we may well say that one soul outweighs the whole
unintelligent creation. And if the Earth have been the scene of an
action of Love and Self-Devotion for the incalculable benefit of the
whole human race, in comparison with which the death of Socrates fades
into a mere act of cheerful resignation to the common lot of humanity;
and if this action, and its consequences to the whole race of man, in
his temporal and eternal destiny, and in his history on earth before and
after it, were the main object for which man was created, the cardinal
point round which the capacities and the fortunes of the race were to
turn; then indeed we see that the Earth has a pre-eminence in the scheme
of creation, which may well reconcile us to regard all the material
splendor which surrounds it, all the array of mere visible luminaries
and masses which accompany it, as no unfitting appendages to such a
drama. The elevation of millions of intellectual, moral, religious,
spiritual creatures, to a destiny so prepared, consummated, and
developed, is no unworthy occupation of all the capacities of space,
time, and matter. And, so far as any one has yet shown, to regard this
great scheme as other than the central point of the divine plan; to
consider it as one part among other parts, similar, co-ordinate, or
superior; involves those who so speculate, in difficulties, even with
regard to the plan itself, which they strive in vain to reconcile; while
the assumption of the subjects of such a plan, in other regions of the
universe, is at variance with all which we, looking at the analogies of
space and time, of earth and stars, of life in brutes and in man, have
found reason to deem in any degree probable.
38. And thus that conjecture of the Plurality of Worlds, to which a wide
and careful examination of the physical constitution of the Universe
supplied no confirmation, derives also little support from a
contemplation of the Design which the Creator may be supposed to have
had in the work of the Creation; when such Design is regarded in a
comprehensive manner, and in all its bearings. Such a survey seems to
speak rather in favor of the Unity of the World, than of a Plurality of
Worlds. A further consideration of the intellectual, moral, and
religious nature of man may still further illustrate this view; and with
that object, we shall make a few additional remarks.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The greatest anatomists, and especially Mr. Owen, have recently
expressed their conviction, that researches on the structure of animals
must be guided by the principle of _unity of composition_ as well as the
principle of _final causes_. See Owen _On the Nature of Limbs_.
[2] This has been termed by physiologists _The Law of the Development
from the General to the Special_.
[3] Every reader of physiological works knows how easy it would be to
multiply examples of this kind to any extent. Thus it is held by
physiologists, that the sporules of fungi are universally diffused
through the atmosphere, ready to vegetate whenever an opportunity
presents itself: and that a single individual produces not less than ten
millions of germs. It is held also that innumerable seeds of plants
still capable of vegetation, lie in strata far below the earth's
surface, finding the occasion to vegetate only by the rarest and most
exceptional occurrences.--Carpenter, _Manual of Physiology_. 1851, Art.
44.
[4] Chalmers, p. 35.
[5] Ibid. p. 21
[6] Ibid. p. 119.
[7] Dr. Scoresby, in his _Account of the Arctic Regions_ (1820) Vol. II.
has given figures of 96 such forms, selected for their eminent
regularity from many more.
CHAPTER XII.
THE UNITY OF THE WORLD.
1. The two doctrines which we have here to weigh against each other are
the Plurality of Worlds, and the Unity of the World. In so saying, we
include in our present view, a necessary part of the conception of a
_World_, a collection of intelligent creatures: for even if the
suppositions to which we have been led, respecting the kind of
unintelligent living things which may inhabit other parts of the
Universe, be conceived to be probable; such a belief will have little
interest for most persons, compared with the belief of other worlds,
where reside intelligence, perception of truth, recognition of moral
Law, and reverence for a Divine Creator and Governor. In looking
outwards at the Universe, there are certain aspects which suggest to
man, at first sight, a conjecture that there may be other bodies like
the Earth, tenanted by other creatures like man. This conjecture,
however, receives no confirmation from a closer inquiry, with increased
means of observation. Let us now look inwards, at the constitution of
man; and consider some characters of his nature, which seem to remove or
lessen the difficulties which we may at first feel, in regarding the
Earth as, in a unique and special manner, the field of God's Providence
and Government.
2. In the first place, the Earth, as the abode of man, the intellectual
creature, contains a being, whose mind is, in some measure, of the same
nature as the Divine Mind of the Creator. The Laws which man discovers
in the Creation must be Laws known to God. The truths,--for instance the
truths of geometry,--which man sees to be true, God also must see to be
true. That there were, from the beginning, in the Creative Mind,
Creative Thoughts, is a doctrine involved in every intelligent view of
Creation.
3. This doctrine was presented by the ancients in various forms; and the
most recent scientific discoveries have supplied new illustrations of
it. The mode in which Plato expressed the doctrine which we are here
urging was, that there were in the Divine Mind, before or during the
work of creation, certain archetypal Ideas, certain exemplars or
patterns of the world and its parts, according to which the work was
performed: so that these Ideas or Exemplars existed in the objects
around us being in so many cases discernible by man, and being the
proper objects of human reason. If a mere metaphysician were to attempt
to revive this mode of expressing the doctrine, probably his
speculations would be disregarded, or treated as a pedantic
resuscitation of obsolete Platonic dreams. But the adoption of such
language must needs be received in a very different manner, when it
proceeds from a great discoverer in the field of natural knowledge: when
it is, as it were, forced upon _him_, as the obvious and appropriate
expression of the result of the most profound and comprehensive
researches into the frame of the whole animal creation. The recent works
of Mr. Owen, and especially one work, _On the Nature of Limbs_, are full
of the most energetic and striking passages, inculcating the doctrine
which we have been endeavoring to maintain. We may take the liberty of
enriching our pages with one passage bearing upon the present part of
the subject.
"If the world were made by any antecedent Mind or Understanding, that
is by a Deity, then there must needs be an Idea and Exemplar of the
whole world before it was made, and consequently actual knowledge, both
in the order of Time and Nature, before Things. But conceiving of
knowledge as it was got by their own finite minds, and ignorant of any
evidence of an ideal Archetype for the world or any part of it, they
[the Democritic Philosophers who denied a Divine Creative Mind] affirmed
that there was none, and concluded that there could be no knowledge or
mind before the world was, as its cause." Plato's assertion of
Archetypal Ideas was a protest against this doctrine, but was rather a
guess, suggested by the nature of mathematical demonstration, than a
doctrine derived from a contemplation of the external world.
"Now however," Mr. Owen continues, "the recognition of an ideal exemplar
for the vertebrated animals proves that the knowledge of such a being as
Man must have existed before Man appeared. For the Divine Mind which
planned the Archetypal also foreknew all its modifications. The
Archetypal Idea was manifested in the flesh under divers modifications
upon this planet, long prior to the existence of those animal species
which actually exemplify it. To what natural or secondary causes the
orderly succession and progression of such organic phenomena may have
been committed, we are as yet ignorant. But if without derogation to the
Divine Power, we may conceive such ministers and personify them by the
term _Nature_, we learn from the past history of our globe that she has
advanced with slow and stately steps, guided by the archetypal light
amidst the wreck of worlds, from the first embodiment of the vertebrate
idea, under its old ichthyic vestment, until it became arrayed in the
glorious garb of the human form."
4. Law implies a Lawgiver, even when we do not see the object of the
Law; even as Design implies a Designer, when we do not see the object of
the Design. The Laws of Nature are the indications of the operation of
the Divine Mind; and are revealed to us, as such, by the operations of
our minds, by which we come to discover them. They are the utterances of
the Creator, delivered in language which we can understand; and being
thus Language, they are the utterances of an Intelligent Spirit.
5. It may seem to some persons too bold a view, to identify, so far as
we thus do, certain truths as seen by man, and as seen by God:[1]--to
make the Divine Mind thus cognizant of the truths of geometry, for
instance. If any one has such a scruple, we may remark that truth, when
of so luminous and stable a kind as are the truths of geometry, must be
alike _Truth_ for all minds, even for the highest. The mode of arriving
at the knowledge of such truths, may be very different, even for
different human minds;--deduction for some;--intuition for others. But
the intuitive apprehension of necessary truth is an act so purely
intellectual, that even in the Supreme Intellect, we may suppose that it
has its place. Can we conceive otherwise, than that God does contemplate
the universe as existing in space, since it really does so;--and subject
to the relations of space, since these are as real as space itself? We
are well aware that the Supreme Being must contemplate the world under
many other aspects than this;--even man does so. But that does not
prevent the truths, which belong to the aspect of the world,
contemplated as existing in space, from being truths, regarded as such,
even by the Divine Mind.
6. If these reflections are well founded, as we trust they will, on
consideration, be seen to be, we may adopt many of the expressions by
which philosophers heretofore have attempted to convey similar views;
for in fact, this view, in its general bearing at least, is by no means
new. The Mind of Man is a partaker of the thoughts of the Divine Mind.
The Intellect of Man is a spark of the Light by which the world was
created. The Ideas according to which man builds up his knowledge, are
emanations of the archetypal Ideas according to which the work of
creation was planned and executed. These, and many the like expressions,
have been often used; and we now see, we may trust, that there is a
great philosophical truth, which they all tend to convey; and this truth
shows at the same time, how man may have some knowledge respecting the
Laws of Nature, and how this knowledge may, in some cases, seem to be a
knowledge of necessary relations, as in the case of space.[2]
7. Now, the views to which we have been led, bear very strongly upon
that argument. For if man, when he attains to a knowledge of such laws,
is really admitted, in some degree, to the view with which the Creator
himself beholds his creation;--if we can gather, from the conditions of
such knowledge, that his intellect partakes of the Nature of the Supreme
Intellect;--if his Mind, in its clearest and largest contemplations,
harmonizes with the Divine Mind;--we have, in this, a reason which may
well seem to us very powerful, why, even if the Earth alone be the
habitation of intelligent beings, still, the great work of Creation is
not wasted. If God have placed upon the earth a creature who can so far
sympathize with Him, if we may venture upon the expression;--who can
raise his intellect into some accordance with the Creative Intellect;
and that, not once only, nor by few steps, but through an indefinite
gradation of discoveries, more and more comprehensive, more and more
profound; each, an advance, however slight, towards a Divine
Insight;--then, so far as intellect alone (and we are here speaking of
intellect alone) can make Man a worthy object of all the vast
magnificence of Creative Power, we can hardly shrink from believing that
he is so.
8. We may remark further, that this view of God, as the Author of the
Laws of the Universe, leads to a view of all the phenomena and objects
of the world, as the work of God; not a work made, and laid out of hand,
but a field of his present activity and energy. And such a view cannot
fail to give an aspect of dignity to all that is great in creation, and
of beauty to all that is symmetrical, which otherwise they could not
have. Accordingly, it is by calling to their thoughts the presence of
God as suggested by scenes of grandeur or splendor, that poets often
reach the sympathies of their readers. And this dignity and sublimity
appear especially to belong to the larger objects, which are destitute
of conscious life; as the mountain, the glacier, the pine-forest, the
ocean; since in these, we are, as it were, alone with God, and the only
present witnesses of His mysterious working.
9. Now if this reflection be true, the vast bodies which hang in the
sky, at such immense distances from us, and roll on their courses, and
spin round their axles with such exceeding rapidity; Jupiter and his
array of Moons, Saturn with his still larger host of Satellites, and
with his wonderful Ring, and the other large and distant Planets, will
lose nothing of their majesty, in our eyes, by being uninhabited; any
more than the summer-clouds, which perhaps are formed of the same
materials, lose their dignity from the same cause;--any more than our
Moon, one of the tribe of satellites, loses her soft and tender beauty,
when we have ascertained that she is more barren of inhabitants than the
top of Mount Blanc. However destitute the planets and moons and rings
may be of inhabitants, they are _at least vast scenes of God's
presence,_ and of the activity with which he carries into effect,
everywhere, the laws of nature. The light which comes to us from them is
transmitted according to laws which He has established, by an energy
which He maintains. The remotest planet is not devoid of life, for God
lives there. At each stage which we make, from planet to planet, from
star to star, into the regions of infinity, we may say, with the
patriarch, "Surely God is here, and I knew it not." And when those who
question the habitability of the remote planets and stars are reproached
as presenting a view of the universe, which takes something from the
magnificence hitherto ascribed to it, as the scene of God's glory, shown
in the things which He has created; they may reply, that they do not at
all disturb that glory of the creation which arises from its being, not
only the product, but the constant field of God's activity and thought,
wisdom and power; and they may perhaps ask, in return, whether the
dignity of the Moon would be greatly augmented if her surface were
ascertained to be abundantly peopled with lizards; or whether Mount
Blanc would be more sublime, if millions of frogs were known to live in
the crevasses of its glaciers.
10. Again: the Earth is a scene of Moral Trial. Man is subject to a
Moral Law; and this Moral Law is a Law of which God is the Legislator.
It is a law which man has the power of discovering, by the use of the
faculties which God has given him. By considering the nature and
consequences of actions, man is able to discern, in a great measure,
what is right and what is wrong;--what he ought and what he ought not to
do;--what his duty and virtue, what his crime and vice. Man has a Law on
such subjects, written on his heart, as the Apostle Paul says. He has a
conscience which accuses or excuses him; and thus, recognizes his acts
as worthy of condemnation or approval. And thus, man is, and knows
himself to be, the subject of Divine Law, commanding and prohibiting;
and is here, in a state of probation, as to how far he will obey or
disobey this Law. He has impulses, springs of action, which urge him to
the violation of this Law. Appetite, Desire, Anger, Lust, Greediness,
Envy, Malice, impel him to courses which are vicious. But these impulses
he is capable of resisting and controlling;--of avoiding the vices and
practising the opposite virtues;--and of rising from one stage of Virtue
to another, by a gradual and successive purification and elevation of
the desires, affections and habits, in a degree, so far as we know,
without limit.
11. Now in considering the bearing of this view upon our original
subject, we have, in the first place, to make this remark: that the
existence of a body of creatures, capable of such a Law, of such a
Trial, and of such an Elevation as this, is, according to all that we
can conceive, an object infinitely more worthy of the exertion of the
Divine Power and Wisdom, in the Creation of the universe, than any
number of planets occupied by creatures having no such lot, no such law,
no such capacities, and no such responsibilities. However imperfectly
the moral law be obeyed; however ill the greater part of mankind may
respond to the appointment which places them here in a state of moral
probation; however few those may be who use the capacities and means of
their moral purification and elevation;--still, that there is such a
plan in the creation, and that any respond to its appointments,--is
really a view of the Universe which we can conceive to be suitable to
the nature of God, because we can approve of it, in virtue of the moral
nature which He has given us. One school of moral discipline, one
theatre of moral action, one arena of moral contests for the highest
prizes, is a sufficient centre for innumerable hosts of stars and
planets, globes of fire and earth, water and air, whether or not
tenanted by corals and madrepores, fishes and creeping things. So great
and majestic are those names of _Right_ and _Good_, _Duty_ and _Virtue_,
that all mere material or animal existence is worthless in the
comparison.
12. But further: let us consider what is this moral progress of which we
have spoken;--this purification and elevation of man's inner being.
Man's intellectual progress, his advance in the knowledge of the general
laws of the Universe, we found reason to believe that we were not
describing unfitly, when we spoke of it as bringing us nearer to
God;--as making our thoughts, in some degree, resemble His thoughts;--as
enabling us to see things as He sees them. And on that account, we held
that the placing man, with his intellectual powers, in a condition in
which he was impelled, and enabled, to seek such knowledge, was of
itself a great thing, and tended much to give to the Creation a worthy
end. Now the moral elevation of man's being is the elevation of his
sentiments and affections towards a standard or idea, which God, by his
Law, has indicated as that point towards which man ought to tend. We do
not ascribe _Virtue_ to God, adapting to Him our notions taken from
man's attributes, as we do when we ascribe Knowledge to God: for Virtue
implies the control and direction of human springs of action;--implies
human efforts and human habits. But we ascribe to God infinite Goodness,
Justice, and Truth, as well as infinite Wisdom and Power; and Goodness,
Justice, Truth, form elements of the character at which man also is, by
the Moral Law, directed to aim. So far, therefore, man's moral progress
is a progress towards a likeness with God; and such a progress, even
more than a progress towards an intellectual likeness with God, may be
conceived as making the soul of man fit to endure forever with God; and
therefore, as making this earth a prefatory stage of human souls, to fit
them for eternity;--a nursery of plants which are to be fully unfolded
in a celestial garden.
13. And to this, we must add that, on other accounts also, as well as on
account of the capacity of the human soul for moral and intellectual
progress, thoughtful men have always been disposed, on grounds supplied
by the light of nature, to believe in the existence of human souls after
this present earthly life is past. Such a belief has been cherished in
all ages and nations, as the mode in which we naturally conceive that
which is apparently imperfect and deficient in the moral government of
the world, to be completed and perfected. And if this mortal life be
thus really only the commencement of an infinite Divine Plan, beginning
upon earth and destined to endure for endless ages after our earthly
life; we need no array of other worlds in the universe to give
sufficient dignity and majesty to the scheme of the Creation.
14. We may make another remark which may have an important bearing upon
our estimate of the value of the moral scheme of the world which
occupies the earth. If, by any act of the Divine Government, the number
of those men should be much increased, who raise themselves towards the
moral standard which God has appointed, and thus, towards a likeness to
God, and a prospect of a future eternal union with him;--such an act of
Divine Government would do far more towards making the Universe a scene
in which God's goodness and greatness were largely displayed, than could
be done by any amount of peopling of planets with creatures who were
incapable of moral agency; or with creatures whose capacity for the
development of their moral faculties was small, and would continue to be
small till such an act of Divine Government were performed. The
Interposition of God, in the history of man, to remedy man's feebleness
in moral and spiritual tasks, and to enable those who profit by the
Interposition, to ascend towards a union with God, is an event entirely
out of the range of those natural courses of events which belong to our
subject; and to such an Interposition, therefore, we must refer with
great reserve; using great caution that we do not mix up speculations
and conjectures of our own, with what has been revealed to man
concerning such an Interposition. But this, it would seem, we may
say:--that such a Divine Interposition for the moral and spiritual
elevation of the human race, and for the encouragement and aid of those
who seek the purification and elevation of their nature, and an eternal
union with God, is far more suitable to the Idea of a God of Infinite
Goodness, Purity, and Greatness, than any supposed multiplication of a
population, (on our planet or on any other,) not provided with such
means of moral and spiritual progress.
15. And if we were, instead of such a supposition, to imagine to
ourselves, in other regions of the Universe, a moral population purified
and elevated without the aid or need of any such Divine Interposition;
the supposed possibility of such a moral race would make the sin and
misery, which deform and sadden the aspect of our earth, appear more
dark and dismal still. We should therefore, it would seem, find no
theological congruity, and no religious consolation, in the assumption
of a Plurality of Worlds of Moral Beings: while, to place the seats of
such worlds in the Stars and the Planets, would be, as we have already
shown, a step discountenanced by physical reasons; and discountenanced
the more, the more the light of science is thrown upon it.
16. Perhaps it may be said, that all which we have urged to show that
other animals, in comparison with man, are less worthy objects of
creative design, may be used as an argument to prove that other planets
are tenanted by men, or by moral and intellectual creatures like man;
since, if the creation of _one_ world of such creatures exalts so highly
our views of the dignity and importance of the plan of creation, the
belief in _many_ such worlds must elevate still more our sentiments of
admiration and reverence of the greatness and goodness of the Creator;
and must be a belief, on that account, to be accepted and cherished by
pious minds.
17. To this we reply, that we cannot think ourselves authorized to
assert cosmological doctrines, selected arbitrarily by ourselves, on the
ground of their exalting our sentiments of admiration and reverence for
the Deity, _when the weight of all the evidence which we can obtain
respecting the constitution of the universe is against them_. It appears
to us, that to discern one great scheme of moral and religious
government, which is the spiritual centre of the universe, may well
suffice for the religious sentiments of men in the present age; as in
former ages such a view of creation was sufficient to overwhelm men with
feelings of awe, and gratitude, and love; and to make them confess, in
the most emphatic language, that all such feelings were an inadequate
response to the view of the scheme of Providence which was revealed to
them. The thousands of millions of inhabitants of the Earth to whom the
effects of the Divine Plan extend, will not seem, to the greater part of
religious persons, to need the addition of more, to fill our minds with
sufficiently vast and affecting contemplations, so far as we are capable
of pursuing such contemplations. The possible extension of God's
spiritual kingdom upon the earth will probably appear to them a far more
interesting field of devout meditation, than the possible addition to it
of the inhabitants of distant stars, connected in some inscrutable
manner with the Divine Plan.
18. To justify our saying that the weight of the evidence is against
such cosmological doctrines, we must recall to the reader's recollection
the whole course of the argument which we have been pursuing.
It is a possible conjecture, at first, that there may be other Worlds,
having, as this has, their moral and intellectual attributes, and their
relations to the Creator. It is also a possible conjecture, that this
World, having such attributes, and such relations, may, on that account,
be necessarily unique and incapable of repetition, peculiar, and
spiritually central. These two opposite possibilities may be placed, at
first, front to front, as balancing each other. We must then weigh such
evidence and such analogies as we can find on the one side or on the
other. We see much in the intellectual and moral nature of man, and in
his history, to confirm the opinion that the human race is thus unique,
peculiar and central. In the views which Religion presents, we find much
more, tending the same way, and involving the opposite supposition in
great difficulties. We find, in our knowledge of what we ourselves are,
reasons to believe that if there be, in any other planet, intellectual
and moral beings, they must not only be _like_ men, but must _be_ men,
in all the attributes which we can conceive as belonging to such beings.
And yet to suppose other groups of the human species, in other parts of
the universe, must be allowed to be a very bold hypothesis, to be
justified only by some positive evidence in its favor. When from these
views, drawn from the attributes and relations of man, we turn to the
evidence drawn from physical conditions, we find very strong reason to
believe that, so far as the Solar System is concerned, the Earth _is_,
with regard to the conditions of life, in a peculiar and central
position; so that the conditions of any life approaching at all to human
life, exist on the Earth alone. As to other systems which may circle
other suns, the possibility of their being inhabited by men, remains, as
at first, a mere conjecture, without any trace of confirmatory evidence.
It was suggested at first by the supposed analogy of other stars to our
sun; but this analogy has not been verified in any instance; and has
been, we conceive, shown in many cases, to vanish altogether. And that
there may be such a plan of creation,--one in which the moral and
intelligent race of man is the climax and central point to which
innumerable races of mere unintelligent species tend,--we have the most
striking evidence, in the history of our own earth, as disclosed by
geology. We are left, therefore, with nothing to cling to, on one side,
but the bare possibility that some of the stars are the centres of
systems like the Solar System;--an opinion founded upon the single
fact, shown to be highly ambiguous, of those stars being self-luminous;
and to this possibility, we oppose all the considerations, flowing from
moral, historical, and religious views, which represent the human race
as unique and peculiar. The force of these considerations will, of
course, be different in different minds, according to the importance
which each person attaches to such moral, historical, and religious
views; but whatever the weight of them may be deemed, it is to be
recollected that we have on the other side a bare possibility, a mere
conjecture; which, though suggested at first by astronomical
discoveries, all more recent astronomical researches have failed to
confirm in the smallest degree. In this state of our knowledge, and with
such grounds of belief, to dwell upon the Plurality of Worlds of
intellectual and moral creatures, as a highly probable doctrine, must,
we think, be held to be eminently rash and unphilosophical.
19. On such a subject, where the evidences are so imperfect, and our
power of estimating analogies so small, far be it from us to speak
positively and dogmatically. And if any one holds the opinion, on
whatever evidence, that there are other spheres of the Divine Government
than this earth,--other regions in which God has subjects and
servants,--other beings who do his will, and who, it may be, are
connected with the moral and religious interests of man;--we do not
breathe a syllable against such a belief; but, on the contrary, regard
it with a ready and respectful sympathy. It is a belief which finds an
echo in pious and reverent hearts;[3] and it is, of itself, an evidence
of that religious and spiritual character in man, which is one of the
points of our argument. But the discussion of such a belief does not
belong to the present occasion, any further than to observe, that it
would be very rash and unadvised,--a proceeding unwarranted, we think,
by Religion, and certainly at variance with all that Science
teaches,--to place those other, extra-human spheres of Divine
Government, in the Planets and in the Stars. With regard to the planets
and the stars, if we reason at all, we must reason on physical grounds;
we must suppose, as to a great extent we can prove that the laws and
properties of terrestrial matter and motion apply to them also. On such
grounds, it is as improbable that visitants from Jupiter or from Sirius
can come to the Earth, as that men can pass to those stars: as unlikely
that inhabitants of those stars know and take an interest in human
affairs, as that we can learn what they are doing. A belief in the
Divine Government of other races of spiritual creatures besides the
human race, and in Divine Ministrations committed to such beings, cannot
be connected with our physical and astronomical views of the nature of
the stars and the planets, without making a mixture altogether
incongruous and incoherent; a mixture of what is material and what is
spiritual, adverse alike to sound religion and to sound philosophy.
20. Perhaps again, it may be said, that in speaking of the shortness of
the time during which man has occupied the earth, in comparison with the
previous ages of irrational life, and of blank matter, we are taking man
at his present period of existence on the earth:--that we do not know
that the race may not be destined to continue upon the earth for as many
ages as preceded the creation of man. And to this we reply, that in
reasoning, as we must do, at the present period, we can only proceed
upon that which has happened up to the present period. If we do not
know how long man will continue to inhabit the earth, we cannot reason
as if we did know that he will inhabit it longer than any other species
has done. We may not dwell upon a mere possibility, which, it is
assumed, may at some indefinitely future period, alter the aspect of the
facts now before us. For it would be as easy to assume possibilities
which may come hereafter to alter the aspect of the facts, in favor of
the one side, as of the other.[4] What the future destinies of our race,
and of the earth, may be, is a subject which is, for us, shrouded in
deep darkness. It would be very rash to assume that they will be such as
to alter the impression derived from what we now know, and to alter it
in a certain preconceived manner. But yet it is natural to form
conjectures on this subject; and perhaps we may be allowed to consider
for a moment what kind of conjectures the existing stage of our
knowledge suggests, when we allow ourselves the license of conjecturing.
The next Chapter contains some remarks bearing upon such conjectures.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Among the most recent expositors of this doctrine we may place M.
Henri Martin, whose _Philosophie Spiritualiste de la Nature_ is full of
striking views of the universe in its relation to God. (Paris. 1849.)
[2] Most readers who have given any attention to speculations of this
kind, will recollect Newton's remarkable expressions concerning the
Deity: "Æternus est et infinitus, omnipotens et omnisciens; id est,
durat ab æterno in æternum, et adest ab infinito in infinitum.... Non
est æternitas et infinitas, sed æternus et infinitus; non est duratio et
spatium, sed durat et adest. Durat semper et adest ubique, et existendo
semper et ubique durationem et spatium constituit."
To say that God by existing always and everywhere _constitutes duration
and space_, appears to be a form of expression better avoided. Besides
that it approaches too near to the opinion, which the writer rejects,
that He _is_ duration and space, it assumes a knowledge of the nature of
the Divine existence, beyond our means of knowing, and therefore rashly.
It appears to be safer, and more in conformity with what we really know,
to say, not that the existence of God constitutes time and space; but
that God has constituted _man_, so that _he_ can apprehend the works of
creation, only as existing in time and space. That God has constituted
time and space as conditions of man's knowledge of the creation, is
certain: that God has constituted time and space as results of his own
existence in any other way, _we_ cannot know.
[3]
"For doubt not that in other worlds above
There must be other offices of love,
That other tasks and ministries there are,
Since it is promised that His servants, there,
Shall serve Him still."--TRENCH.
[4] For instance, we may assume that in two or three hundred years, by
the improvement of telescopes, or by other means, it may be ascertained
that the other planets of the Solar System are not inhabited, and that
the other Stars are not the centres of regular systems.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE FUTURE.
1. We proceed then to a few reflections to which we cannot but feel
ourselves invited by the views which we have already presented in these
pages. What will be the future history of the human race, and what the
future destination of each individual, most persons will, and most
wisely, judge on far other grounds than the analogies which physical
science can supply. Analogies derived from such a quarter can throw
little light on those grave and lofty questions. Yet perhaps a few
thoughts on this subject, even if they serve only to show how little the
light thus attainable really is, may not be an unfit conclusion to what
has been said; and the more so, if these analogies of science, so far as
they have any specific tendency, tend to confirm some of the
convictions, with regard to those weighty and solemn points,--the
destiny of Man, and of Mankind,--which we derive from other and higher
sources of knowledge.
2. Man is capable of looking back upon the past history of himself, his
Race, the Earth, and the Universe. So far as he has the means of doing
so, and so far as his reflective powers are unfolded, he cannot refrain
from such a retrospect. As we have seen, man has occupied his thoughts
with such contemplations, and has been led to convictions thereupon, of
the most remarkable and striking kind. Man is also capable of looking
forwards to the future probable or possible history of himself, his
race, the earth, and the universe. He is irresistibly tempted to do
this, and to endeavor to shape his conjectures on the Future, by what he
knows of the Past. He attempts to discern what future change and
progress may be imagined or expected, by the analogy of past change and
progress, which have been ascertained. Such analogies may be necessarily
very vague and loose; but they are the peculiar ground of speculation,
with which we have here to deal. Perhaps man cannot discover with
certainty any fixed and permanent laws which have regulated those past
changes which have modified the surface and population of the earth;
still less, any laws which have produced a visible progression in the
constitution of the rest of the universe. He cannot, therefore, avail
himself of any close analogies, to help him to conjecture the future
course of events, on the earth or in the universe; still less can he
apply any known laws, which may enable him to predict the future
configurations of the elements of the world; as he can predict the
future configurations of the planets for indefinite periods. He can
foresee the astronomical revolutions of the heavens, so long as the
known laws subsist. He cannot foresee the future geological revolutions
of the earth, even if they are to be produced by the same causes which
have produced the past revolutions, of which he has learnt the series
and order. Still less can he foresee the future revolutions which may
take place in the condition of man, of society, of philosophy, of
religion; still less, again, the course which the Divine Government of
the world will take, or the state of things to which, even as now
conducted, it will lead.
3. All these subjects are covered with a veil of mystery, which science
and philosophy can do little in raising. Yet these are subjects to
which the mind turns, with a far more eager curiosity, than that which
it feels with regard to mere geological or astronomical revolutions. Man
is naturally, and reasonably, the greatest object of interest to man.
What shall happen to the human race, after thousands of years, is a far
dearer concern to him, than what shall happen to Jupiter or Sirius; and
even, than what shall happen to the continents and oceans of the globe
on which he lives, except so far as the changes of his domicile affect
himself. If our knowledge of the earth and of the heavens, of animals
and of man, of the past condition and present laws of the world, is
quite barren of all suggestion of what may or may not hereafter be the
lot of man, such knowledge will lose the charm which would have made it
most precious and attractive in the eyes of mankind in general. And if,
on such subjects, any conjectures, however dubious,--any analogies,
however loose,--can be collected from what we know, they will probably
be received as acceptable, in spite of their insecurity; and will be
deemed a fit offering from the scientific faculty, to those hopes and
expectations,--to that curiosity and desire of all knowledge,--which
gladly receive their nutriment and gratification from every province of
man's being.
4. Now if we ask, what is likely to be the future condition of the
population of the earth as compared with the present; we are naturally
led to recollect, what has been the past condition of that population as
compared with the present. And here, our thoughts are at once struck by
that great fact, to which we have so often referred; which we conceive
to be established by irrefragable geological evidence, and of which the
importance cannot be overrated:--namely, the fact that the existence of
man upon the earth has been for only a few thousand years:--that for
thousands, and myriads, and it may be for millions of years, previous
to that period, the earth was tenanted, entirely and solely, by brute
creatures, destitute of reason, incapable of progress, and guided merely
by animal instincts, in the preservation and continuation of their
races. After this period of mere brute existence, in innumerable forms,
had endured for a vast series of cycles, there appeared upon the earth a
creature, even in his organization, superior far to all; but still more
superior, in his possession of peculiar endowments;--reason, language,
the power of indefinite progress, and of raising his thoughts towards
his Creator and Governor: in short, to use terms already employed, an
intellectual, moral, religious, and spiritual creature. After the ages
of intellectual darkness, there took place this creation of intellectual
light. After the long-continued play of mere appetite and sensual life,
there came the operation of thought, reflection, invention, art,
science, moral sentiments, religious belief and hope; and thus, life and
being, in a far higher sense than had ever existed, even in the highest
degree, in the long ages of the earth's previous existence.
5. Now, this great and capital fact cannot fail to excite in us many
reflections, which, however vaguely and dimly, carry us to the prospect
of the future. The present being _so_ related to the past, how may we
suppose that the future will be related to the present?
In the first place, _this_ is a natural reflection. The terrestrial
world having made this advance from brute to human life, can we think it
at all likely, that the present condition of the earth's inhabitants is
a final condition? Has the vast step from animal to human life,
exhausted the progressive powers of nature? or to speak more reverently
and justly, has it completed the progressive plan of the Creator? After
the great revolution by which man became what he is, can and will
nothing be done, to bring into being something better than now is;
however that future creature may be related to man? We leave out of
consideration any supposed progression, which may have taken place in
the animal creation previous to man's existence; any progression by
which the animal organization was made to approximate, gradually or by
sudden steps, to the human organization; partly, because such successive
approximation is questioned by some geologists; and is, at any rate,
obscure and perplexed: but much more, because it is not really to our
purpose. Similarity of organization is not the point in question. The
endowments and capacities of man, by which he is Man, are the great
distinction, which places all other animals at an immeasurable distance
below him. The closest approximation of form or organs, does nothing to
obliterate this distinction. It does not bring the monkey nearer to man,
that his tongue has the same muscular apparatus as man's, so long as he
cannot talk; and so long as he has not the thought and idea which
language implies, and which are unfolded indefinitely in the use of
language. The step, then, by which the earth became, a _human_
habitation, was an immeasurable advance on all that existed before; and
therefore there is a question which we are, it seems, irresistibly
prompted to ask, Is this the last such step? Is there nothing beyond it?
Man is the head of creation, in his present condition; but is that
condition the final result and ultimate goal of the progress of creation
in the plan of the Creator? As there was found and produced something so
far beyond animals, as man is, may there not also, in some course of the
revolutions of the world, be produced something far beyond what man is?
The question is put, as implying a difficulty in believing that it
should be so; and this difficulty must be very generally felt.
Considering how vast the resources of the Creative Power have been shown
to be, it is difficult to suppose they are exhausted. Considering how
great things have been done, in the progress of the work of creation, we
naturally think that even greater things than these, still remain to be
done.
6. But then, on the other hand, there is an immense difficulty in
supposing, even in imagining, any further change, at all commensurate in
kind and degree, with the step which carried the world from a mere brute
population, to a human population. In a proportion in which the two
first terms are _brute_ and _man_, what can be the third term? In the
progress from mere Instinct to Reason, we have a progress from blindness
to sight; and what can we do more than see? When pure Intellect is
evolved in man, he approaches to the nature of the Supreme Mind: how can
a creature rise higher? When mere impulse, appetite, and passion are
placed under the control and direction of duty and virtue, man is put
under Divine Government: what greater lot can any created being have?
7. And the difficulty of conceiving any ulterior step at all analogous
to the last and most wonderful of the revolutions which have taken place
in the condition of the earth's inhabitants, will be found to grow upon
us, as it is more closely examined. For it may truly be said, the change
which occurred when man was placed on the earth, was not one which could
have been imagined and constructed beforehand, by a speculator merely
looking at the endowments and capacities of the creatures which were
previously living. Even in the way of organization, could any
intelligent spectator, contemplating anything which then existed in the
animal world, have guessed the wonderful new and powerful purposes to
which it was to be made subservient in man? Could such a spectator, from
seeing the _rudiments of a Hand_, in the horse or the cow, or even from
seeing the hand of a quadrumanous animal, have conjectured, that the
Hand was, in man, to be made an instrument by which infinite numbers of
new instruments were to be constructed, subduing the elements to man's
uses, giving him a command over nature which might seem supernatural,
taming or conquering all other animals, enabling him to scrutinize the
farthest regions of the universe, and the subtlest combinations of
material things?
8. Or again; could such a spectator, by dissecting the tongues of
animals, have divined that the Tongue, in man, was to be the means of
communicating the finest movements of thought and feeling; of giving one
man, weak and feeble, an unbounded ascendency over robust and angry
multitudes; and, assisted by the (writing) hand, of influencing the
intimate thoughts, laws, and habits of the most remote posterity?
9. And again, could such a spectator, seeing animals entirely occupied
by their appetites and desires, and the objects subservient to their
individual gratification, have ever dreamt that there should appear on
earth a creature who should desire to know, and should know, the
distances and motions of the stars, future as well as present; the
causes of their motions, the history of the earth, and his own history;
and even should know truths by which all possible objects and events not
only are, but must be regulated?
10. And yet again, could such a spectator, seeing that animals obeyed
their appetites with no restraint but external fear, and knew of no
difference of good and bad except the sensual difference, ever have
imagined that there should be a creature acknowledging a difference of
right and wrong, as a distinction supreme over what was good or bad to
the sense; and a rule of duty which might forbid and prevent
gratification by an internal prohibition?
11. And finally, could such a spectator, seeing nothing but animals
with all their faculties thus entirely immersed in the elements of their
bodily being, have supposed that a creature should come, who should
raise his thoughts to his Creator, acknowledge Him as his Master and
Governor, look to His Judgment, and aspire to live eternally in His
presence?
12. If it would have been impossible for a spectator of the præhuman
creation, however intelligent, imaginative, bold and inventive, to have
conjectured beforehand the endowments of such a creature as Man, taking
only those which we have thus indicated; it may well be thought, that if
there is to be a creature which is to succeed man, as man has succeeded
the animals, it must be equally impossible for us to conjecture
beforehand, what kind of creature _that_ must be, and what will be _his_
endowments and privileges.
13. Thus a spectator who should thus have studied the præhuman creation,
and who should have had nothing else to help him in his conjectures and
conceptions, (of course, by the supposition of a præhuman period, not
any knowledge of the operation of intelligence, though a most active
intelligence would be necessary for such speculations,) would not have
been able to divine the future appearance of a creature, so excellent as
Man; or to guess at his endowments and privileges, or his relation to
the previous animal creation; and just as little able may we be, even if
there is to exist at some time, a creature more excellent and glorious
than man, to divine what kind of creature he will be, and how related to
man. And here, therefore, it would perhaps be best, that we should quit
the subject; and not offer conjectures which we thus acknowledge to have
no value. Perhaps, however, the few brief remarks which we have still to
make, put forwards, as they are, merely as suggestions to be weighed by
others, can not reasonably give offence, or trouble even the most
reverent thinker.
14. To suppose a higher development of endowments which already exist in
man, is a natural mode of rising to the imagination of a being nobler
than man is; but we shall find that such hypotheses do not lead us to
any satisfactory result. Looking at the first of those features of the
superiority of man over brutes, which we have just pointed out, the
Human Hand, we can imagine this superiority carried further. Indeed, in
the course of human progress, and especially in recent times, and in our
own country, man employs instead of, or in addition to the hand,
innumerable instruments to make nature serve his needs and do his will.
He works by Tools and Machinery, derivative hands, which increase a
hundred-fold the power of the natural hand. Shall we try to ascend to a
New Period, to imagine a New Creature, by supposing this power increased
hundreds and thousands of times more, so that nature should obey man,
and minister to his needs, in an incomparably greater degree than she
now does? We may imagine this carried so far, that all need for manual
labor shall be superseded; and thus, abundant time shall be left to the
creature thus gifted, for developing the intellectual and moral powers
which must be the higher part of its nature. But still, that higher
nature of the creature itself, and not its command over external
material nature, must be the quarter in which we are to find anything
which shall elevate the creature above man, as man is elevated above
brutes.
15. Or, looking at the second of the features of human superiority,
shall we suppose that the means of Communication of their thoughts to
each other, which exist for the human race, are to be immensely
increased, and that this is to be the leading feature of a New Period?
Already, in addition to the use of the tongue, other means of
communication have vastly multiplied man's original means of carrying on
the intercourse of thought:--writing, employed in epistles, books,
newspapers; roads, horses and posting establishments; ships; railways;
and, as the last and most notable step, made in our time, electric
telegraphs, extending across continents and even oceans. We can imagine
this facility and activity of communication, in which man so
immeasurably exceeds all animals, still further increased, and more
widely extended. But yet so long as what is thus communicated is nothing
greater or better than what is now communicated among men;--such news,
such thoughts, such questions and answers, as now dart along our
roads;--we could hardly think that the creature, whatever wonderful
means of intercourse with its fellow-creatures it might possess, was
elevated above man, so as to be of a higher nature than man is.
16. Thus, such improved endowments as we have now spoken of, increased
power over materials, and increased means of motion and communication,
arising from improved mechanism, do little, and we may say, nothing, to
satisfy our idea of a more excellent condition than that of man. For
such extensions of man's present powers are consistent with the absence
of all intellectual and moral improvement. Men might be able to dart
from place to place, and even from planet to planet, and from star to
star, on wings, such as we ascribe to angels in our imagination: they
might be able to make the elements obey them at a beck; and yet they
might not be better, nor even wiser, than they are. It is not found
generally, that the improvement of machinery, and of means of
locomotion, among men, produces an improvement in morality, nor even an
improvement in intelligence, except as to particular points. We must
therefore look somewhat further, in order to find possible characters,
which may enable us to imagine a creature more excellent than man.
17. Among the distinctions which elevate man above brutes, there is one
which we have not mentioned, but which is really one of the most
eminent. We mean, his faculty and habit of forming himself into
Societies, united by laws and language for some common object, the
furtherance of which requires such union. The most general and primary
kind of such societies, is that Civil Society which is bound together by
Law and Government, and which secures to men the Rights of property,
person, family, external peace, and the like. That this kind of society
may be conceived, as taking a more excellent character than it now
possesses, we can easily see: for not only does it often very
imperfectly attain its direct object, the preservation of Rights, but it
becomes the means and source of wrong. Not only does it often fail to
secure peace with strangers, but it acts as if its main object were to
enable men to make wars with strangers. If we were to conceive a
Universal and Perpetual Peace to be established among the nations of the
earth; (for instance by some general agreement for that purpose;) and if
we were to suppose, further, that those nations should employ all their
powers and means in fully unfolding the intellectual and moral
capacities of their members, by early education, constant teaching, and
ready help in all ways; we might then, perhaps, look forwards to a state
of the earth in which it should be inhabited, not indeed by a being
exalted above Man, but by Man exalted above himself as he now is.
18. That by such combinations of communities of men, even with their
present powers, results may be obtained, which at present appear
impossible, or inconceivable, we may find good reason to believe;
looking at what has already been done, or planned as attainable by such
means, in the promotion of knowledge, and the extension of man's
intellectual empire. The greatest discovery ever made, the discovery, by
Newton, of the laws which regulate the motions of the cosmical system,
has been earned to its present state of completeness, only by the united
efforts of all the most intellectual nations upon earth; in addition to
vast labors of individuals, and of smaller societies, voluntarily
associated for the purpose. Astronomical observatories have been
established in every land; scientific voyages, and expeditions for the
purpose of observation, wherever they could throw light upon the theory,
have been sent forth; costly instruments have been constructed,
achievements of discovery have been rewarded; and all nations have shown
a ready sympathy with every attempt to forward this part of knowledge.
Yet the largest and wisest plans for the extension of human knowledge in
other provinces of science by the like means, have remained hitherto
almost entirely unexecuted, and have been treated as mere dreams. The
exhortations of Francis Bacon to men, to seek, by such means, an
elevation of their intellectual condition, have been assented to in
words; but his plans of a methodical and organized combination of
society for this purpose, it has never been even attempted to realize.
If the nations of the earth were to employ, for the promotion of human
knowledge, a small fraction only of the means, the wealth, the
ingenuity, the energy, the combination, which they have employed in
every age, for the destruction of human life and of human means of
enjoyment; we might soon find that what we hitherto knew, is little
compared with what man has the power of knowing.
19. But there is another kind of Society, or another object of Society
among men, which in a still more important manner aims at the elevation
of their nature. Man sympathizes with man, not only in his intellectual
aspirations, but in his moral sentiments, in his religious beliefs and
hopes, in his efforts after spiritual life. Society, even Civil Society,
has generally recognized this sympathy, in a greater or less degree; and
has included Morality and Religion, among the objects which it
endeavored to uphold and promote. But any one who has any deep and
comprehensive perception of man's capacities and aspirations, on such
subjects, must feel that what has commonly, or indeed ever, been done by
nations for such a purpose, has been far below that which the full
development of man's moral, religious, and spiritual nature requires.
Can we not conceive a Society among men, which should have for its
purpose, to promote this development, far more than any human society
has yet done?--a Body selected from all nations, or rather, including
all nations, the purpose of which should be to bind men together by a
universal feeling of kindness and mutual regard, to associate them in
the acknowledgment of a common Divine Lawgiver, Governor, and
Father;--to unite them in their efforts to divest themselves of the evil
of their human nature, and to bring themselves nearer and nearer to a
conformity with the Divine Idea; and finally, a Society which should
unite them in the hope of such a union with God that the parts of their
nature which seem to claim immortality, the Mind, the Soul, and the
Spirit, should endure forever in a state of happiness arising from their
exalted and perfected condition? And if we can suppose such a Society;
fully established and fully operative, would not this be a condition, as
far elevated above the ordinary earthly condition of man, as that of man
is elevated above the beasts that perish?
20. Yet one more question; though we hesitate to mix such suggestions
from analogy, with trains of thought and belief, which have their proper
nutriment from other quarters. We know, even from the evidence of
natural science, that God _has_ interposed in the history of this Earth,
in order to place Man upon it. In that case, there was a clear, and, in
the strongest sense of the term, a _supernatural interposition_ of the
Divine Creative Power. God interposed to place upon the earth, Man, the
social and rational being. God thus directly instituted Human Society;
gave man his privileges and his prospects in such society; placed him
far above the previously existing creation; and endowed him with the
means of an elevation of nature entirely unlike anything which had
previously appeared. Would it then be a violation of analogy, if God
were to interpose again, to institute a Divine Society, such as we have
attempted to describe; to give to its members their privileges; to
assure to them their prospects; to supply to them his aid in pursuing
the objects of such a union with each other; and thus, to draw them, as
they aspire to be drawn, to a spiritual union with Him?
It would seem that those who believe, as the records of the earth's
history seem to show, that the establishment of Man, and of Human
Society, or of the germ of human society, upon the earth, was an
interposition of Creative Power beyond the ordinary course of nature;
may also readily believe that another supernatural Interposition of
Divine Power might take place, in order to plant upon the earth the Germ
of a more Divine Society; and to introduce a period in which the earth
should be tenanted by a more excellent creature than at present.
21. But though we may thus prepare ourselves to assent to the
possibility, or even probability, of such a Divine Interposition,
exercised for the purpose of establishing upon earth a Divine Society:
it would be a rash and unauthorized step,--especially taking into
account the vast differences between material and spiritual things,--to
assume that such an Interposition would have any resemblance to the
commencement of a New Period in the earth's history, analogous to the
Periods by which that history has already been marked. What the manner
and the operation of such a Divine Interposition would be, Philosophy
would attempt in vain to conjecture. It is conceivable that such an
event should produce its effect, not at once, by a general and
simultaneous change in the aspect of terrestrial things, but gradually,
by an almost imperceptible progression. It is possible also that there
may be such an Interposition, which is only one step in the Divine
Plan;--a preparation for some other subsequent Interposition, by which
the change in the Earth's inhabitants is to be consummated. Or it is
possible that such a Divine Interposition in the history of man, as we
have hinted at, may be a preparation, not for a new form of terrestrial
life, but for a new form of human life;--not for a new peopling of the
Earth, but for a new existence of Man. These possibilities are so vague
and doubtful, so far as any scientific analogies lead, that it would be
most unwise to attempt to claim for them any value, as points in which
Science supplies support to Religion. Those persons who most deeply feel
the value of religion, and are most strongly convinced of its truths,
will be the most willing to declare, that religious belief is, and ought
to be, independent of any such support, and must be, and may be, firmly
established on its own proper basis.
22. We find no encouragement, then, for any attempt to obtain, from
Science, by the light of the analogy of the past, any definite view of a
future condition of the Creation. And that this is so, we cannot, for
reasons which have been given, feel any surprise. Yet the reasonings
which we have, in various parts of this Essay, pursued, will not have
been without profit, even in their influence upon our religious
thoughts, if they have left upon our minds these convictions:--That if
the analogy of science proves anything, it proves that the Creator of
man can make a Creator as far superior to Man, as Man, when most
intellectual, moral, religious, and spiritual, is superior to the
brutes:--and again, That Man's Intellect is of a divine, and therefore
of an immortal nature. Those persons who can, on any basis of belief,
combine these two convictions, so as to feel that they have a personal
interest in both of them;--those who have such grounds as Religion,
happily appealed to, can furnish, for hoping that their imperishable
element may, hereafter, be clothed with a new and more glorious apparel
by the hand of its Almighty Maker;--may be well content to acknowledge
that Science and Philosophy could not give them this combined
conviction, in any manner in which it could minister that consolation,
and that trust in the Divine Power and Goodness, which human nature, in
its present condition, requires.
THE END.
Transcriber's Notes.
Spelling irregularities where there was no obviously preferred version
were left as is. Variants include: "embedded" and "imbedded;" "a
hypothesis" and "an hypothesis;" "inexhausted" and "unexhausted;"
"volcanos" and "volcanoes."
Changed "intelligencies" to "intelligences" on page xvi: "may be
rational intelligences."
Changed "familar" to "familiar" on page 43: "had been familiar."
Changed "Chalmer's" to "Chalmers'" on page 67: "Chalmers' reasonings."
Inserted missing period after "live in the sea" on page 78.
Changed "disapear" to "disappear" on page 82: "at last they disappear."
Changed "natturally" to "naturally" on page 84: "we may naturally ask."
Changed "planets" to "plants" on page 91: "plants and animals."
Changed "intelligenee" to "intelligence" on page 125: "intelligence,
morality, religion."
Changed "crystaline" to "crystalline" on page 126: "of crystalline
powers."
Changed "dissimiliar" to "dissimilar" on page 128: "perpetually
dissimilar."
Changed "words" to "worlds" on page 135: "plurality of worlds."
Changed "insignificent" to "insignificant" on page 151: "insignificant
and insensible."
Changed "tales" to "tails" on page 170: "tails of comets."
Changed "Chambers'" to "Chalmers'" in the footnote on page 175:
"Chalmers' Astron. Disc."
In the footnote on page 177, "the times of the warning" might be a
typographic error for "the times of the waning," but was not changed.
Changed "disaprove" to "disprove" on page 185: "prove or disprove."
Changed "one-thirteenth" to "one-thirtieth" on page 194: "be
one-thirtieth as large."
Changed "skeletous" to "skeletons" on page 208: "Can they have
skeletons."
In the footnote from page 217, "Schroeter" appears with the oe-ligature;
elsewhere it does not. The ligature was replaced by the two separate
characters in the footnote.
Changed "how-however" to "however" in the footnote from page 233: "This,
however."
Changed "hisorians" to "historians" on page 253: "natural-historians."
Changed "Meaning" to "meaning" at the beginning of page 261, since it's
not a new sentence.
Changed "crystalizes" to "crystallizes" and "crystaline" to
"crystalline" on page 265: "Ice crystallizes;" "crystalline aggregation."
Changed "Artic" to "Arctic" in the footnote from page 265: "Account of
the Arctic Regions."
Changed "kingdon" to "kingdom" on page 267: "the animal kingdom."
Changed "splendour" to "splendor" on page 273: "the material splendor."
Changed "hightest" to "highest" on page 295: "the highest degree."
Changed "deely" to "deeply" on page 305: "who most deeply feel."
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William Whewell and Edward Hitchcock
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