All this is well, so long as we view it as a bold and ingenious conjecture. On any other subject it would be so regarded; and we should consider it as reserved for the amusement and gratification of a fanciful visionary in the hour, when he gives up the reins to his imagination. But, backed as it is by a complexity of geometrical right lines and curves, and handed forth to us in large quartos, stuffed with calculations, it experiences a very dif- ferent fortune. We are told that, " by the know- ledge we derive from astronomy, our faculties are enlarged, our minds exalted, and our understandings clearly convinced, and affected with the conviction, of the existence, wisdom, power, goodness, immu- XXI.] OF ASTRONOMY. 421 tability and superintendency of the supreme being; so that, without an hyperbole^ ^ an undevout astro* nbmer is mad®.' " It is singular, how deeply I was impressed with this representation, while I was a schoolboy, and w^s so led to propose a difficulty to the wife of the master. I said, " I find that we have millions of worlds round us peopled with rational creatures. I know not that we have any decisive reason for sup- posing these creatures more exalted, than the won- derful species of which we are individuals. We are imperfect; they are imperfect. We fell; it is rea- sonable to suppose that they have fallen also. It became necessary for the second person in the trinity to take upon him our nature, and by suffer- ing for our sins to appease the wrath of his father. I am unwilling to believe that he has less commi- seration for the inhabitants of other planets. But in that case it may be supposed that since the crea- tion he has been making a circuit of the planets, and dying on the cross for the sins of rational creatures in uninterrupted succession." The lady was wiser than I, admonished me of the danger of being over-inquisitive, and said we should act more discreetly in leaving those questions to the judgment of the Almighty.
But thus far we have reasoned only on one side of the question. Our pious sentiments have led us to magnify the Lord in all his works, and, however 422 OF ASTRONOMY. [ESSAY imperfect the analogy^ and however obscure the conception we can form of the myriads of rational creatures^ all of them no doubt infinitely varied in their nature, their structure and faculties, yet to view the whole scheme with an undoubting persua- sion of its truth. It is however somewhat in oppo- tion to the ideas of piety formed by our less adven- turpus ancestors^ that we should usurp the throne of God, Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, and, by means of our telescopes and our calculations, penetrate into mysteries not originally intended for tis. According to the received Mosaic chronology we are now in the five thousand eight hundred and thirty-fifth year from the creation: the Samaritan version adds to this date. It is therefore scarcely in the spirit of a Christian, that Herschel talks to us of a lights which mustliave been two millions of years in reaching the earth. Moses describes the Qperations of the Almighty^ in one of the six days devoted to the work of creation, as being to place ^* lights in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day from the night, to be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years^ and to give light upon the earth; two great lights, the greater to rule the day, apd the lesser the night; and the stars also.** And Christ, prophesying what is to happen in the latter d^ys^ says^ ^^The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her lights and the stars shall XXlO OF AjiTRONOMY. 423 fall from heaven,'* Whatever therefore be the piety of the persons^ who talk to us of " ten thousand times ten thousand worlds^ all peopled with rational creatures," it certainly is not a piety in precise ac- cordance with the Christian scriptures.
SECTION IV.
It is also no more than just, that we should bear in mind the apparent fitness or otherwise, of these bodies, so far as we are acquainted with them, for the dwelling-place of rational creatures. Not to mention the probable extreme coldness of Jupiter and Saturn, the heat of the auhbeams in the planet Mercury is understood to be such as that water would^ unavoidably boil and be carried away^, and we can scarcely imagine any living substance that would not.be dissolved and dispersed in suc^ an atmosphere. The moon, of which, as being 50 much nearer to us, wc may naturally be supposed to know most, we are told by the astronomers has no water and no atmosphere^ or, if any, such an atmosphere as would not sustain clouds and ascending vapoun To our eye, as seen through the telescope, it ap^ pears like a metallic substance, which has been burned by fire, and so reduced into the ruined and ragged condition in which we seem to behold it. The sun appears to be still less an appropriate ha^- biJtation for rational, or for living creatures, than any of the planets. The comets, which describe an 424 OF ASTRONOMY. [esSAY orbit 80 exceedingly eccentric, and are subject to all the excessive vicissitudes of heat and cold, are, we are told, admirably adapted for a scene of eter- nal, or of lengthened punishment for those who have acquitted themselves ill in a previous state of probation. Buffon is of opinion, that all the planets in the solar system were once so many portions of our great luminary, struck off from the sun by the blow of a comet, and so having received a projectile impulse calculated to carry them forward in a right line; at the same time that the power of attrac- tion counteracts this impulse, and gives them that compound principle of motion which retains them in an orbicular course. In this sense it may be said that all the planets were suns; while on the contrary Herschel pronounces, that the sun itself is a planet, an opake body, richly stored with inha- bitants s.
The modem astronomers go on to account to us for the total disappearance of a star in certain cases, which, they say, may be in reality the destruc- tion of a system, such as that of our sun and its attendant planets, while the appearance of a new star may, in like manner, be the occasional creation of a new system of planets. *^ We ought perhaps," says Herschel, " to look upon certain clusters of stars, and the destruction of a star now and then in some thousands of ages, as the very means by which the whole is preserved and renewed. These clusters ' Philosophical Transactions for 1 795> p. 6S.
XXI.] OF ASTRONOMY. 425 inay be the laboratories of the universe, wherein the most salutary remedies for the decay of the whole are prepared^."
All this must appear to a sober mind, unbitten by the rage which grows out of the heat of these new discoverers, to be nothing less than astronomy run mad. This occasional creation of new systems and worlds, is in little accordance with the Christian scriptures, or, I believe, with any sober speculation upon the attributes of the creator. The astronomer seizes upon some hint so fine as scarcely by any ingenuity to be arrested, immediately launches forth into infinite space, and in an instant returns, and presents us with millions of worlds, each of them peopled with ten thousand times ten thousand inhabitants.
We spoke a while since of the apparent unfitness of many of the heavenly bodies for the reception of living inhabitants. But for all this these discoverers have a remedy. They remind us how unlike these inhabitants may be to ourselves, having other organs than ours, and being able to live in a very different temperature. " The great heat in the planet Mer- cury is no argument against its being inhabited; since the Almighty could as easily suit the bodies and constitutions of its inhabitants to the heat of their dwelling, as he has done ours to the tempera- ture of our earth. And it is very probable that the people there have such an opinion of us, as we have 426 OF ASTRONOMY. [£SSAY of the inhabitants of Jupiter and Saturn; namely^ that we must be intolerably cold^ and have very little light at so great a distance from the sun.** These are the remarks of Ferguson ^ One of our latest astronomers expresses himself to the same purpose.
^^ We have no argument against the planets being inhabited by rational beings^ and consequently by witnesses of the creator s power^ magnificence and benevolence^ unless it be said that some are much nearer the sun than the earth is, and therefore must be uninhabitable from heat, and those more distant from cold. Whatever objection this may be against their being inhabited by rational beings, of an or* ganisation similar to those on the earth, it can have little force, when urged with respect to rational beings in general.
^^But we may examine without indulging too much in conjecture, whether it be not possible that the planets may be possessed by rational beings, and contain animals and vegetables, even little different from those with which we are familiar.
^^ Is the sun the principal cause of the tempera* ture of the earth? We have reason to suppose that it is not. The mean temperature of the earth, at a smaU depth from the surface, seems constant in summer and in winter, and is probably coeval with its first formation.
*^ At the planet Mercury, the direct heat of the ' Astronomy, § 22.
XXI.] OF ASTRONOMY. 427 sun, or its power of causing heat, is six times greater than with us. If we suppose the mean tem- perature of Mercury to be the same as of the earth, and the planet to be surrounded with an atmosphere, denser than that of the earth, less capable of trans* mitting heat, or rather the influence of the sun to extricate heat, and at the same time more readily ' conducting it to keep up an evenness of tempera- ture, inay we not suppose the planet Mercury fit for the habitation of men, and the production of vegetables similar to our own?
*^ At the Georgium Sidus, the direct influence of the sun is 360 times less than at the earth, and the sun is there seen at an angle not much greater than that under which we behold Venus, when nearest. Yet may not the mean temperature of the Georgium Sidus be ne^ly the same as that of the earth? May not its atmosphere more easily transmit the influ-> ence of the sun, and may not the matter of heat be more copiously combined, and more readily extri-« cated, than with us? Whence changes of season similar to our own may take place. Even in the comets we may suppose no great change of tempe^ rature takes place, as we know of no cause which will deprive them of their mean temperature, and particularly if we suppose, that on their approach towards the sun, there is a provision for their atmo- sphere becoming denser. The tails they exhibit, when in the neighbourhood of the sun, seem in some measure to countenance this idea.
428 OF ASTRONOMY. [ESSAY ** We can hardly suppose the sun, a body three hundred times larger than all the planets together^ was created only to preserve the periodic motions^ and give light and heat to the planets. Many as- tronomers have thought that its atmosphere only is luminous, and its body opake, and probably of the same constitution as the planets. Allowing therefore that its luminous atmosphere only extri- cates heat, we see no reason why the sun itself should not be inhabited'^."
There is certainly no end to the suppositions that may be made by an ingenious astronomer. May we not suppose that we might do nearly as well alto- gether without the sun, which it appears is at pre- sent of little use to us as to warmth and heat? As to light, the great creator might, for aught we know, find a substitute; feelers, for example, en- dued with a certain acuteness of sense: or, at aU events, the least imaginable degree of light might answer every purpose to organs adapted to this kind of twilight. In that way the inhabitants of the Georgium Sidus are already sufficiently provided for; they appear to have as little benefit of the light as of the heat of the sun. How the satellites of the distant planets are supplied with light is a mystery, since their principals have scarcely any. Unless indeed, like the sun, they have a luminous atmo- sphere, competent to enlighten a whole system, themselves being opake. But in truth light in a ^ Brinkley, Elements of Astronomy^ Chap. IX.
XXI.] OF ASTRONOMY^ 429 greater or less degree seems scarcely worthy of a thought^ since the inhabitants of the planet Mer- cury have not their eyes put out by a light, scarcely inferior in radiance to that which is reflected by those plates of burning brass, with which tyrants in some ages were accustomed to extinguish the sense of vision in their unfortunate victims. The comets also must be a delectable residence; that of 1680 completing its orbit in 575 years, and being at its greatest distance about eleven thousand two hundred millions of miles from the sun, and at its least within less than a third part of the sun's semi* diameter from its surfaced They must therefore have delightful vicissitudes of light and the con- trary; for, as to heat, that is already provided for. Archdeacon Brinkley*s postulate is, that these bo- dies are ^^ possessed by rational beings, and contain animals and vegetables, little difierent from those with which we are familiar," Now the only reason we have to believe in these extraordinary propositions, is the knowledge we possess of the divine attributes. From the force of this consideration it is argued that God will not leave any sensible area of matter unoccupied, and therefore that it is impossible that such vast orbs as we believe surround us even to the extent of in- finite space, should not be "richly stored with rational beings, the capable witnesses of his power, magnificence and benevolence/' All difficulties * Ferguson^ § 93.
430 OF ASTRONOMY. [essAT arising from the considerations of lights and faeat^ and a thousand other obstacles^ are to give way to the perfect insight we have as to how the deity will conduct himself in every case that can be proposed. I am not persuaded that this is agreeable to religion; and I am still less convinced that it is compatible with the sobriety and sedateness of common sense.
It is with some degree of satisfaction that I per^ ceive lord Brougham, the reputed author of the Preliminary Discourse to the Library of Usefol Knowledge, at the same time that he states the di^ mensiohs and distances of the heavenly bodies in the usual way, says not a word of their inhabitants.
It is somewhat remarkable that, since the eom^ mencement of the present century, four new planets have been added to those formerly contained in the enumeration of the solar system. They lie he* tween the planets Mars and Jupiter, and have been named Vesta, Juno, Ceres and Pallas. Brinkley speaks of them in this manner. ^^ The very small magnitudes of the new planets Ceres and Pallas, and their nearly equal distances from the sun, in- duced Dr. Olbers, who discovered Pallas in 1802, nearly in the same place where he had observed Ceres a few months before, to conjecture that they were fragments of a larger planet, which had by some unknown cause been broken to pieces. It follows from the law of gravity, by which the planets are retained in their orbits, that each frag- ment would again, after every revolution about the XXI.] OF ASTRONOMY. 431 san, pass neiurly through the place in which the planet was when the catastrophe happened^ and hesides the orbit of each fragment would intersect the continuation of the line joining this place and the sun. Thence it was easy to ascertain the two particular regions of the heavens through which all these fragments would pass. Also, by carefully noting the small stars thereabout^ and examining them from time to time^ it might be expected that miore of the fragments would be discovered.—- M. Harding discovered the planet Juno in one of these regions; and Dr. Olbers himself also, by care- fully examining them [the small stars] from time to time, discovered Vesta," These additions certainly afford us a new epoch in the annals of the solar system, and of astronomy itself. It is somewhat remarkable, that Her^chel^ who in the course of his observations traced certain nebulae, the light from which must have been two- millions of years in reaching the earth, should never have remarked these planets, which, so to speak, lay at his feet. It reminds one of Esop*s astrologer, who, to the amusement of his ignorant countrymen, while he was wholly occupied in sur^ veying the heavens, suddenly found himself plunged in a pit. These new planets also we are told are fragments of a larger planet: how came this larger planet never to have been discovered?
Till HerscheFs time we were content with six planets and the sun, making up the cabalistical 432 OF ASTRONOMY. [ESSAY number seven. He added another. But these four new ones entirely derange the scheme. The astro- nomers have not yet had opportunity to digest them into their places, and form new worlds of them. This is all unpleasant. They are, it seems, " frag- ments of a larger planet, which had by some un- known cause been broken to pieces.** They there- fore are probably not inhabited. How does this correspond with the goodness of God, which will su£Per no mass of matter in his creation to remain unoccupied? Herschel talks at his ease of whole systems, suns with all their attendant planets, being consigned to destruction. But here we have a catastrophe happening before our eyes, and cannot avoid being shocked by it. " God does nothing in vain.** For which of his lofty purposes has this planet been broken to pieces, and its fragments left to deform the system of which we are inhabitants; at least to humble the pride of man, and laugh to scorn his presumption? Still they perform their revolutions, and obey the projectile and gravitating forces, which have induced us to people ten thou- sand times ten thousand worlds. It is time, that we should learn modesty, to revere in silence the great cause to which the universe is indebted for its magnificence, its beauty and harmony, and to acknowledge that we do not possess the key that should unlock the mysteries of creation.
One of the most important lessons that can be impressed on the human mind, is that of self-know-^; XXI.] OF ASTRONOMY. 433 ledge and a just apprehension of what it is that we are competent to achieve. We can do much. W^ are capable of much knowledge and much virtue* We have patience, perseverance and subtlety. We can put forth considerable energies, and nerve our- » selves to resist great obstacles and much suffering. Our ingenuity is various and considerable. We can form machines, and erect mighty structures. The invention of man for the ease of human life, and for procuring it a multitude of pleasures and accom- modations, is truly astonishing. We can dissect the human frame, and anatomise the mind. We can study the scene of our social existence, and make extraordinary improvements in the administration of justice^ and in securing to ourselves that germ of all our noblest virtues, civil and political liberty* We can study the earth, its strata^ its soil, its ani^ mals, and its productions, " from the cedar that if in Lebanon, to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall."
But man is not omnipotent. If he aspires to he worthy of honour^ it is necessary that he should compute his powers, and what it is they are comr* petent to achieve. The globe of earth, with ^^ all that is therein,'' is our estate and our empire. Lei lis be content with that which we have. It were a pitiful thing to see so noble a creature struggling in a field, where it is impossible for him to dis- jtinguish himself, or to effect any thing real. There is no. situation in which any one can appear more 2r 434 OF ASTRONOMY. [bssAT little and ludicrous, than when he engages in vain essays, and seeks to accomplish that, which a mo- ment's sober thought would teach him was utterly hopeless.
Even astronomy is to a certain degree our own* We can measure the course of the sun, and the orbits of the planets. We can calculate eclipses. We can number the stars, assign to them their places, and form them into what we call constella- tions. But, when we pretend to measure millions of miles in the heavens, and to make ourselves ac* quainted with the inhabitants of ten thousand times ten thousand worlds and the accommodations which the creator has provided for their comfort and fe- licity, we probably engage in something more fruit- less and idle, than the pigmy who should undertake to bend the bow of Ulysses, or strut and perform the office of a warrior clad in the armour of Achilles.
How beautiful i^ the '^ firmament; this majestical roof fretted with golden fire!" Let us beware how we mar the magnificent scene with our interpola- tions and commentaries! Simplicity is of the essence of the truly great. Let us look at the ope- rations of that mighty power from which we our- selves derive our existence, with humility and reve- rential awe! It may well become us. Let us not '5 presume into the heaven of heavens," unbidden, unauthorised guests! Let us adopt the counsel of the apostle, and allow no man to '^ spoil us through vain philosophy." The business of human life liB XXI.] OF ASTRONOMY. 435 serious; the useful investigations in which we may engage are multiplied. It is excellent to see a ra- tional being conscious of his genuine province, and not idly wasting powers adapted for the noblest uses in unmeasured essays and ill-concocted at- tempts.
2 f2 436 OF THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE. [essAT ESSAY XXII.
OF THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE.
In the preceding Essay I have referred to the theory of Berkeley^ whose opinion is that there is no such thing as matter in the sense in which it is under- stood by the writers on natural philosophy, and that the whole of our experience in that respect is the result of a system of accidents without an in- telligible subject, by means of which antecedents and consequents flow on for ever in a train, the past succession of which man is able to record, and the future in many cases he is qualified to predict and to act upon.
An argument more palpable and popular than that of Berkeley in favour of the same hypothesis, might be deduced from the points recapitulated in that Essay as delivered by Locke and Newton. If what are vulgarly denominated the secondary qua- lities of matter are in reality nothing but sensations existing in the human mind, then at any rate matter is a very different thing from what it is ordinarily apprehended to be. To which I add, in the second place, that, if matter, as is stated by Newton, con- sists in so much greater a degree of pores than solid parts, that the absolute particles contained in th^ solar system might, for aught we know, be con- XXll.} of THE MATERIAI^ UNIVERSE^ 437 tained in a nutshell % and that no two ever touched each other^ or approached so near that they might not be brought nearer, provided a sufficient force could be applied for that purpose, — ^and if, as Priestley teaches, all that we observe is the result of successive spheres of attraction and repulsion, the centre of which is a mathematical point only, we then certainly come very near to a conclusion, which should banish matter out of the theatre of real existences^.
But the extreme subtleties of human intellect ar^ perhaps of little further use, than to afford an amusement to persons of curious speculation, and whose condition in human society procures them leisure for such enquiries. The same thing happens here, as in the subject of my Twelfth Essay, on the Liberty of Human Actions. The speculator in his closet is one man: the same person, when he comes out of his retirement, and mixes in intercourse with his fellow-creatures, is another man» The necessa- rian, when he reasons on the everlasting concatena- tion of antecedents and consequents, proves to his own apprehension irrefragably, that he is a passive instrument, acted upon, and acting upon other things, in turn, and that he can never disengage him- self from the operation of the omnipotent laws of physical nature, and the impulses of other men with whom he is united in the ties of society. But no sooner does this acute and ingenious reasoner come 438 OF THE MATERIAL UKilVERSB, [fiBSAY into active life and the intercourse of his fellow-* men, than all these fine-drawn specalations vanish from his recollection. He regards himself and other men as beings endowed with a liberty of action,, as possessed of a proper initiative power, and free to do a thing or not to do it, without being subject to the absolute and irresistible constraint of motives. It is from this internal and indefeasible sense of liberty, that we draw all our moral energies and enthusiasm, that we persevere heroically in defiance of obstacles and discouragements, that we praise or blame the actions of others, and admire the elevated virtues of the best of our contemporaries, and of those whose achievements adorn the page of hi^ story.
It is in a manner of precisely the same sort as that which prevails in the philosophical doctrines of liberty and necessity, that, we find ourselves im^ pelled to feel on the question of the existence of the material universe. Berkeley, and as many per- sons as are persuaded by his or similar reasonings, feel satisfied in speculation that there is no such thing as matter in the sense in which it is under- stood by the writers on natural philosophy, and that all our notions of the external and actual exr istence of the table, the chair, and the other mate- rial substances with which we conceive ourselves tp be surrounded, of woods, and mountains, and rivers, and seas, are mere prejudice and misconception. All this is very well in the closet, and as long as we XXIU] OF THfi MAT£iLIAL UNIVERW. 439 are involved in meditation^ and remain abstracted from action, business, and the exertion of our limbs and corporal faculties. But it is too fine for the realities of life. Berkeley, and the most strenuous and spiritualised of his followers, no sooner descend from the high tower of their speculations, submit to the necessities of their nature, and mix in the busi- ness of the world, than they become impelled, as strongly as the necessarian in the question of the liberty of human actions, not only to act like other men, but even to feel just in the same manner as if they had never been acquainted with these abstrac- tions. A table then becomes absolutely a table, and a chair a chair: they are " fed with the same food, hurt by the same weapons, and warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter," as other men; and they make use of the refreshments which na- ture requires, with as true an orthodoxy, and as credulous a temper, as he who was never assailed with such refinements. Nature is too strong, to be prevailed on to retire, and give way to the authority of definitions and syllogistical deduction.
But, when we have granted all this, it is, however a mistake to say, that these '^ subtleties of human intellect are of little further use, than to afford an amusement to persons of curious speculation^.'* We have seen, in the case of the doctrine of philo- sophical necessity^, that, though it can never form a rule for the intercourse between man and man, it 440 OF THE MAT£RIAL UNIVER9B. [essAY amy nevertheless be turned to no mean advantage. It is calculated to inspire us with temperance and toleration. It tends impressively to evince to ns, that this scene of things is but like the shadows which pass before us in a magic lanthom^ and that, after all, men are but the tools, not the masters, of their fate. It corrects the illusions of life, much after the same manner as the spectator of a poppet-- shew is enlightened, who should be taken within the curtain, and shewn how the wires are pulled by the master, which produce all the turmoil and strife that before riveted our attention. It is good for him who would arrive at all the improvement of which our nature is capable, at one time to take his place among the literal beholders of the drama, and at another to go behind the scenes, and remark the deceptions in their original elements, and the actors in their proper and natural costume.
And, as in the question of the liberty of human iactions, so in that of the reality of the material universe, it is a privilege not to be despised, that we are so formed as to be able to dissect the sub- ject that is submitted to our examination, and to strip the elements of which this sublunary scene is composed, of the disguise in which they present themselves to the vulgar spectator. It is little, after all, that we are capable to know; and the man of heroic mhid and generous enterprise, will not refuse the discoveries that are placed within his reach. The subtleties of grammar are as the porch, which leads XXII.] OF THB MAT£R(AL UNIVERSE. 441 from the knowledge of words to the knowledge of things. The subtleties^ of mathematics defecate the grossness of onr apprehension^ and supply the ele-* ments of a sounder and severer logic. And in the same manner the faculty which removes the illusions of external appearance, and enables us to ^Mook into the seeds of time/' is one which we are bound to ^timate at its genuine value. The more we refine our faculties, other things equal, the wiser we grow: we are the more raised above the thickness of the atmosphere that envelops our fellow-mortals, and are made partakers of a nature superhuman and divine.
There is a curious question that has risen out of this proposition of Berkeley, of the supposed illu- sion we suffer in our conceptions of the material universe. It has been said, ^' Well then, I am satis- fied that the chairs, the tables, and the other mate- rial substances with which I conceive myself to be surrounded, are not what they appear to be, but are merely an eternal chain of antecedents and conse* quents, going on according to what Leibnitz calls a ^ preestablished harmony,' and thus furnishing the ground of the speculations which mortals cherish, and the motives of their proceeding. But, if thus, in the ordinary process of human aflairs, we believe in matter, when in reality there is no such thing as matter, how shall we pronounce of mind, and the things which happen to us in our seeming inter** course with our fellow-men, and in the complexities 443 OF THE MATERIAL UNIVEAU. [ESSAY •