ever there is a sun, there must be a planetary tion the matter of these binary systems is, system; and wherever there is a planetary compared with that of our solar system, we system, there must be life and intelligence." have no means whatever of knowing; but This is the way in which it seems we worms even granting that each individual of the pair of the Earth feel ourselves at liberty to deal were a sun like ours, in the nature of its matewith our Almighty Creator; dogmatically in- rial, and its state of condensation, is it probasisting that every scene of existence in which ble that it resembles our Sun also in having He may have displayed His omnipotence, is planets revolving about it? A system of but a repetition of that particular one in planets revolving about, or among, a pair which we have our allotted place! As if He of Suns, which are at the same time revolving had but one pattern for Universal Creation! about one another, is so complex a scheme only one scheme for peopling and dealing with [apparently], so impossible to arrange in a infinitude! O, that the clay should think thus stable manner, that the assumption of the exof Him that fashioneth it! Forgetting, in an istence of such schemes, without a vestige of exulting moment of blindness and presump- evidence, can hardly require refutation. No tion, His own awful words: My thoughts are doubt, if we were really required to provide not as your thoughts, neither are your ways my such a binary system of Suns with attendant ways. For as the Heavens are higher than the planets, this would be best done by putting Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, the planets so near to one Sun that they and my thoughts than your thoughts! should not be sensibly affected by the other; We are now, however, about to people the and this is accordingly what has been proFixed Stars. The only proof that they are posed. For, as has been well said by Sir John the centres of planetary systems, resides in Herschell, of the supposed planets in making the assumption that these Stars are like the this proposal, "unless closely nestled under Sun; and as resembling him in their nature the protecting wing of their immediate supeand qualities, so having the same offices and rior, the sweep of the other Sun, in his periappendages, independent sources of light, helion passage round their own, might carry and thence probably of heat; therefore having them off, or whirl them into orbits utterly inattendant planets, to which they may impart consistent with the existence of their inhab such light and heat, and these planets' in- itants." "To assume the existence of the habitants living under and enjoying those inhabitants, in spite of such dangers, and to benign influences. Everything here depends provide against the dangers by placing them on this proposition, that the Stars are like the so close to one Sun as to be out of the reach Sun; and it becomes essential to examine of the other, though the whole distance of the what evidence we have of the exactness of two may not, and as we know in some cases their likeness. § In the Preface to his Second does not, exceed the dimensions of our solar Edition, the Essayist, whose scientific knowl-system, is showing them all the favor which is edge few will venture to impugn, boldly as possible. But in making this provision, it is serts that "man's knowledge of the physical overlooked that it may not be possible to keep properties of the luminaries which he discerns them in permanent orbits so near to the se in the skies, is, even now, almost nothing; "lected centre. Their sun may be a vast sphere and "such being the state of our knowledge, of luminous vapor, and the planets plunged as bearing on the doctrine of the plurality of into this atmosphere, may, instead of describworlds, the time appeared to be not inoppor- ing regular orbits, plough their way in spiral tune for a calm discussion of the question,-paths through the nebulous abyss of its cenupon which, accordingly," he adds, "I have tral nucleus."* ventured in the following pages." In the In dealing with the Single Stars, which same preface he has ably condensed into a are, like the Sun, self-luminous, can they be single paragraph his views on the nature and proved, like him, to be definite dense masses? extent of our present knowledge on the sub-His density is about that of water.] ject of the Fixed Stars. In the opening of the chapter devoted to this subject (chap. viii.), he admits "the special evidence' as to the probability of these stars containing, in themselves, or in accompanying planets, inhabitants of any kind, "is, indeed, slight, either way." As to Clustered and Double Stars, they appear to give us, he says, but little promise of inhabitants. In what degree of condensa*Pp. 164, 165. Isaiah, lv. 8, 9, Pp, vii, viii, ↑ Isaiah, xlv, 9, Or are they, or many of them, luminous masses in a far more diffused state, visually contracted to points through their immense distance? Some of those which we have the best means of examining are one-third, or even less, in mass, than he; and if Sirius, for instance, be in this diffused condition,-though that would not of itself prevent his having planets,—it would make him so unlike our Sun, as much to break the force of the presumption that he must have planets as he has. Again: As far * Essay, pp. 243, 244. back as our knowledge of our Sun extends, tory of our own planet, as one in which such his has been a permanent condition of bright- grand changes have been constantly going on, ness; yet many of the Fixed Stars not only the certainty that in by far the greatest part undergo changes, but periodical, and possibly of the duration of its existence it has been progressive changes, whence it may be in- tenanted by creatures entirely different from ferred; perhaps, that they are not, generally, those which give an interest, and thence a in the same permanent condition as our Sun. persuasiveness, to the belief of inhabitants in As to the evidence of their revolution on their worlds appended to each star,-the impossiaxis, this has been inferred from their having bility of which appears, in the gravest considperiodical recurrences of fainter and brighter eration of transferring to other worlds such lustre, as if revolving orbs with one side dark-interests as belong to our race in this world,— ened by spots. Of these, five only can be at all these considerations, it would seem, should present spoken of by astronomers with precision. Nothing is more probable than that these periodical changes indicate the revolution of these stellar masses on their axis,-a universal law, apparently, of all the large compact masses of the Universe, but by no means inferring their being, or having accompanying planets, inhabited. The Sun's rotation is not shown, intelligibly, connected with its having near it the inhabited Earth. In In the Dialogue, written after the first edithe meantime, in so far as these stars are peri- tion of the "Essay" had appeared, the Essayodical, they are proved to be, not like, but ist greatly strengthened the position for which unlike our Sun. The only real point of re- he had contended in it, by an important passemblance, then, is that of being self-luminous, sage containing the results of the eminent asin the highest degree ambiguous and incon-tronomer, M. Struve's recent examination of clusive, and furnishing no argument entitled double stars, and the result of his elaborate to be deemed one from analogy. Humboldt and comprehensive comparison of the whole deems the force of analogy to tend even in the opposite direction. have prevented that old and arbitrary conjecture from growing up, among a generation professing philosophical caution and scientific discipline, into a settled belief. Finally, it will be time enough to speculate about the inhabitants of the planets which belong to such systems, as soon as we shall have ascertained that there are such planets, or that there is one such.* ly twice as great. Thus the loose evidence of resemblance between our Sun and the fixed stars, becomes feebler the more it is examined; and the assumption of stellar planetary systems appears, when closely scrutinized, to dwindle away to nothing.f body of facts in stellar astronomy. Among the brighter stars, he arrives at the conclu"After all," he asks, "is the assumption sion, that every FOURTH such star is physiof satellites [attendant planets] to the Fixed cally double; and that a completed knowledge Stars so absolutely necessary? If we were to of doubled stars may prove every THIRD begin from the outer planets, Jupiter, etc., bright star to be physically double! And in analogy might seem to require that all planets the case of stars of inferior magnitude, that have satellites; yet this is not so with Mars, the number of insulated stars, though indeed Venus, Mercury," to which may now be added greater than that of such compound systems, the thirty Planetoids,-making a much greater is, nevertheless, only three times, perhaps onnumber of bodies that have not, than that have satellites. The assumption, then, that the Fixed Stars are of exactly the same nature as the Sun, was originally a bold guess; but there has not since been a vestige of any confirmatory fact, no planet, nor anything fairly indicating the existence of one revolving round a fixed star, has ever hitherto been discerned. And the subsequent discovery of nebulæ, binary systems, clusters of stars, periodical stars,-of varied and accelerating periods of such stars,—all seem to point the other way; leaving, though possibly facts small in amount, the original assumption a mere guess, The greatest and grandest truth in astronounsupported by all that three centuries of my, is the motion of the solar system, advancmost diligent, and in other respects, success- ing with all the planets and satellites in the ful research, have been able to bring to light. heavens, at the rate of fifty-seven miles a All the knowledge of times succeeding Coper- second, round some distant invisible body, in nicus, Galileo, and Kepler, who might well an orbit of such inconceivable dimensions, believe the stars to be in every sense suns, that millions of years may be required for a among other things, the disclosure of the his- single orbit. When we consider that this centre must be a sun, with attendant planets See them specified, p, 251. † Cosmos, iii. 373. Now, to so much of the foregoing facts and speculations as are contained in the Essay, from which we have faithfully and carefully extracted the substance, in order that our readers may judge for themselves, Sir David Brewster answers, in effect, and generally in words, thus: like our own, revolving in like manner round one of a binary system, on "high probabiliour sun, [?] or round their common centre of ty," from "the motion of our own system gravity, the mind rejects, almost with indig- round a distant centre."* The great truth of nation, the ignoble sentiment, that man is the this motion, he says the Essayist "has comonly being performing this immeasurable jour-pletely misrepresented, foreseeing its influney-and that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and ence on the mind as an argument for more Neptune, with their bright array of regal worlds than one." What the Essayist had train-bearers, are but as colossal blocks of life- said on the subject, was this:§ he speaks of less clay, encumbering the Earth as a drag," the attempt to show, that the Sun, carrying and mocking the creative majesty of Heaven. with it the whole solar system, is in motion; From the birth of man to the extinction of his and the further attempt to show the direction race [] the system to which he belongs, will of that motion;-and again, the hypothesis have described but an infinitesimal arc in that that the Sun, itself, revolves round some disgrand cosmical orbit in which it is destined to tant object in space." These minute inquiries move. This affords a new argument for the and bold conjectures, he says, cannot throw plurality of worlds. Since every fixed star any light on the question, whether any part must have planets, the fact of our system re- besides the earth be inhabited: any more than volving round a similar system of planets, fur- the investigation of the movements of the nishes a new argument from analogy; for as ocean and their laws, can prove or disprove there is at least one inhabited planet in the the existence of marine plants and animals.one system, there must for the same reason They do not, on that account, cease to be imbe one in the other, and consequently as portant and interesting objects of speculation, many as there are systems in the Universe.* but they do not belong to our subject." As Thus our system is not absolutely fixed in to the Sun's motion, we are bound to say, space, but is connected with the other systems in the Universe. The fixed Stars are suns of other systems, whose planets are invisible from their distance, as are ours from the nearest fixed star. Every single star shining by its own native light is the centre of a planetary system like our own--the lamp that lights, the stove that heats, and the power that guides in their orbits, inhabited worlds, like our own. Many are double, with a system of planets round each, or the centre of gravity of both. No one can believe, that two suns would be placed in the heavens, for no other purpose than to revolve round their common centre of gravity. It is "highly probable," that our Sun is one of a binary system, and has at present an unseen partner; and we are "entitled to conclude" that all the other binary systems have at least an inhabited planet: wherever there is a self-luminous fixed or movable Sun, there must be a planetary system; and wherever there is a planetary system, there must be life and intelligence.t 66 that the Astronomer Royal has recently declared, that " every astronomer, who has examined the matter carefully, has come to the conclusion of Sir William Herschell, that the whole solar system is moving towards a point in the constellation Hercules." Before quitting this part of the subject, we may state that the Essayist, in his second Preface, points out the insecure character of astronomical calculations, as to the amount of absolute_light ascribed to some of the fixed stars. It has been estimated that the illuminating power of Alpha Centauri is nearly double that of the sun, placed at that distance, which is two hundred thousand times as far off as is the Sun; but Sir John Herschell will not concur in more of the calculation than attributes to the star the emission of more light than our Sun.Surely the critical and precarious character of such calculations should not be lost sight of by candid inquirers, but incline them to scan somewhat closely any pretensions tinctured ́ by astronomic dogmatism. One immense step more, however-and it Apart from the assertion of his cardinal is our last, brings to "the outskirts of creaprinciple with which we are familiar, namely, tion," as the Essayist calls it-the Nebula: that since our Sun has an inhabited planet, and here we find him once more confronted all others must; and also, that all planets must by his indefatigable and implacable opponent. be inhabited; the argumentative value of We must therefore take our biggest and best these two chapters seems to lie in this, that mental telescope to behold these two Specks they annihilate on the Essayist's points of un-intellectual, so far off in infinitude, wrangling likeliness between our Sun and other Fixed about a faint cloud vastly further off than Stars, inasmuch as it, together with so many themselves. Do you see how angry one of of them, is one of a binary system; wherefore them looks, and how provokingly stolid the what is true of it, is true of them, et vice versa. other? 'Tis all about the nature of that same He bases his proposition, viz., that our Sun is More Worlds than One, ch. vi., passim. * More Worlds than One, p. 164. Essay, p. 257. cloud, or Nebula; and if we could only hear and suggest modes of calculating their tenuity. what they said, we might catch a chord or and showing how extreme it is. "It is probatwo of the music of the spheres! The Essayist ble," said Lord Rosse, in a paper which we is required, by his brother speck, to believe, ourselves heard him read not long ago, from that the faintly-luminous patch at which they the chair of the Royal Society, "that in the are gazing a thousandth part of the visible Nebular systems, motion exists. If we see a breadth of our Sun-contains in it more life system with a distinct spiral arrangement, all than exists in as many such systems as the analogy leads us to conclude that there has unassisted eye can see stars in the heavens, been motion; and that if there has been moon the clearest winter night :—a view of the tion, that motion still continues.”. . . . .“ Among greatness of creation so stupendous, that the the Nebula," he says, " there are vast numbers astounded speck, the Essayist, asks for a mo- much too faint to be sketched or measured ment's time to consider the matter. with any prospect of advantage: the most "We are entitled to draw the conclusion," powerful instruments we possess showing in says the other, "that these Nebula are clus- them nothing of an organized structure, but ters of stars, at such an immense distance from merely a confused mass of nebulosity, of varyour own system, that each star of which they ing brightness." * The Essayist makes powerare composed is the sun or centre of a system ful use, moreover, of Sir John Herschell's of planets; and that these planets are inhabit- celebrated observation of the Magellanic ed-like our Earth, the seat of vegetable, Clouds, lying near the South Pole; exhibitanimal, and intellectual life:" that all the ing the coexistence, in a limited compass, and Nebulæ are resolvable into stars; and appear in indiscriminate position, of stars, clusters of as Nebula only because they are more dis- stars, nebulæ regular and irregular, and netant than the region in which they can appear bular streaks and patches, things different not as stars. The conclusion, however, at which merely to us, but in themselves: nebulæ, side the Essayist arrives, after an elaborate exam- by side with stars and clusters of stars; neination of evidence, and especially of the latest bulous matter resolvable close to nebulous discoveries in this dim and distant region by matter irresolvable; the last and widest Sir John Herschell and the Earl of Rosse, step by which the dimensions of the Universe is that "Nebulæ are vast masses of incolerent 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. So far, then," he concludes, as these Nebula are concerned, the improbability of their being inhabited appears to amount to the highest point that can be conceived. We may, by the indulgence of fancy, people the summer clouds, or the In alluding to the Nebulæ, as subjects of beams of the aurora borealis, with living be- our most powerful telescopic observation, the ings of the same kind of substance as those Essayist speaks in a tone of sarcasm concernbright appearances themselves; and in doing ing the "shining dots,”—the "lumps of light' so, we are not making any bolder assertion which are rendered apparent amidst them: than when we stock the Nebula with inhabi- asking, what are these lumps? (1.) How tants, and call them, in that sense, inhabited large? (2.) At what distances? (3.) Of what worlds." + The Essayist contends that the structure? (4.) Of what use?-adding, he argument for the vastness of the scheme of the must be a bold man who undertakes to anUniverse, suggested by the resolution of the swer the question, that each is a Sun, with Nebula, is found to be untenable inasmuch attendant systems of planets. Sir David, exas the greatest astronomers now agree in be- ceedingly irate, says, "We accept the challieving Nebula to have distances of the same lenge, and appeal to our readers: "-(1.) The order as Fixed Stars. Their filmy appearance size of the dot, or lump, is large enough to be is a true indication of a highly attenuated sub- a Sun. (2.) He cannot answer this, for want stance: so attenuated as to destroy all proba- of knowing the apparent distance between bility of their being inhabited worlds. With the centres of the dots.' (3.) Like our Sunthis opinion as to the tenuity of Nebula It will consist of a luminous envelope, enclos agrees the absence of all observed motion among ing a dark nucleus.' (4.) Of no conceivable their parts; while the extraordinary spiral arrangement of many of them, prove that nevertheless many of them really have motion, .... have been expanded, in the notions of eager speculators, being checked by a completer knowledge, and a sager spirit of speculation. t In discussing such matters as these, he finally observes-"It is difficult to make men feel that so much ignorance can lie 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." use, but to give light to planets, or to the solid thesis? The Essayist, he observes, is silent;*| Jupiter and Saturn-appear spheres of water, but in his Essay, he had said, distinctly enough, or aqueous vapor. The Earth has a conside"Let us not wrangle about words. By all rable atmosphere of air and of vapor; while means let these dots be stars, if we know on Venus or Mercury— -so close to the sunabout what we are speaking; if a star mean, we see nothing of a gaseous or aqueous atmerely, a luminous dot in the sky. But that mosphere; they and Mars differing little in these stars shall resemble, in their nature, density from the earth. Stars of the first magnitude, and that such THE EARTH'S ORBIT, according to the Esstars shall resemble Our Sun, are surely very sayist's theory, IS THE TEMPERATE ZONE OF bold structures of assumption, to build on such THE SOLAR SYSTEM, where only the play of a basis. Some nebulæ are resolvable into dis- hot and cold, moist and dry, is possible. Water tinct points: but what would it amount to? and gases, clouds and vapors, form, mainly, the That the substance of all nebulæ is not con- the planets in the outer part of the solar systinuous; separate, and separable into distinct tem; while masses, such as result from the fuluminous elements:- nebulæ are, it would sion of the most solid materials, lie nearer the then seem, as it were of a curdled or granu- Sun, and are found principally within the orbit lated texture; they have run into lumps of of Jupiter. After a further exposition of his light, or been formed originally of such lumps."" theory," the Essayist observes that it agrees And then follow some very ingenious and re- with the nebular hypothesis, SO FAR as it apfined speculations, into which we have not plies to the Solar System; exactly, and very space to enter; and indeed we may be well sternly, repudiating that hypothesis as it apcontent with what we have done, having trav- plies to the Universe in general.* elled from a tolerable depth in the crust of our allow ourselves," says he, "to speculate at all own little planet, past planet after planet, star on physical grounds respecting the origin of after star, till we reached the nebulous "out- the Earth, the hypothesis, that it has passed skirts of creation;" accompanied by two Men-through a fluid and a gaseous condition, does tors of Infinitude,-whispering into our car-not appear more extravagant than any other one, that life, animal, intellectual, moral, was cosmogonical hypothesis: not even if we supswarming around us at ever step; the other, that pose that the other bodies of the Solar System that life ceased with our own Earth, as far as have shared in the like changes. But, that all we were able to detect its existence, and giv- the stars and the nebula have gone, or are ing us very solemn and mysterious reasons why it should be so. "If we going through, a series of changes such as those by which the Solar System has been formed, the nebular hypothesis, as it applies to the Universe in general, is precisely the doctrine which I here reject, giving my reasons."t Our Essayist, however, is not exhausted by the efforts he has made in his destructive career. If he be a "proud setter down" of cosmological systems, he determines, in turn, to be a "putter up: " and so presents us with The whole of the Chapter devoted to "the his own Theory of the Solar System; and an Theory of the Solar System," is distinguished explanation of the mode in which all appear- by remarkable ingenuity and originality. It ances in the Universe beyond may be recon- is, however, that entitled the Argument from ciled with it. "It may serve" he says, "to Design, which independently of all connection confirm his argument, if he give a description with the speculations of the author as already of the system which shall continue and con- laid before our readers, is worthiest of considnect his views of the constitution and pecu-eration, by all interested in Natural Theology. liarities as to physical circumstances of each It touches many topics which must have occuof the planets. It will help us in our specula-pied the profoundest thoughts of mankind, tion, if we can regard the planets as not only and touches them with the utmost caution and collection, but a scheme;-if we can give delicacy. In the 34th Section will be found a not an Enunciation only, but a Theory. passage of singular boldness and imaginative Now, such a SCHEME, such a THEORY ap- eloquence; but liable, in our opinion, to seripears to offer itself to us." The scope of ous misconception, and susceptible of misrepthis scheme, or theory, is, as we some time ago resentation-by those, at least, who are either saw, to make our earth, in point of astronomi- unable, or indisposed, to weigh the entire cal fact and reality, the largest Planetary chapter, and ascertain its real value and tenBody in the solar system; its domestic hearth; dency. Some expressions have startled us the only part of the frame revolving round the not a little, when reflecting that they relate to Sun which has become a "WORLD." We the possible mode of action of Omniscient must, however, make short work of it. Omnipotence; and we shall be gratified by The planets exterior to Mars-especially seeing them vindicated or explained in the next edition of his "Essay." * More Worlds than One, p. 215, † Essay, p. 298. *More Worlds than One, p. 815, and note. † Ibid., p. 315. |