Myths and Marvels of Astronomy
first painful, to conclude that on this point they had been mistaken.
Yet as we recognise the absurdity of the supposition that, because
fruits and trees grow, and were not made in a single instant as we know
them, therefore there is no Supreme Being, so may we justly reject as
absurd the same argument, enlarged in scale, employed to induce the
conclusion that because planets and solar systems have been developed to
their present condition, and were not created in their present form,
therefore there is no Creator, no God. I do not know that the argument
ever has been used in this form; but it has been used to show that those
who believe in the development of worlds and systems must of necessity
be atheists, an even more mischievous conclusion than the other; for
none who had not examined the subject would be likely to adopt the
former conclusion, but many might be willing to believe that a number of
their fellow-men hold obnoxious tenets, without inquiring closely or at
all into the reasoning on which the assertion had been based.
But it is more important to notice how our views respecting other worlds
should be affected by those circumstances in the evidence _we_ have,
which correspond with the features of the evidence on which the imagined
inhabitants of the fruit world would form their opinion. It was natural
that when men first began to reason about themselves and their home they
should reject the idea of other worlds like ours, and perhaps it was
equally natural that when first the idea was entertained that the
planets may be worlds like ours, men should conceive that all those
worlds are in the same condition as ours. But it would be, or rather it
_is_, as unreasonable for men to maintain such an opinion now, when the
laws of planetary development are understood, when the various
dimensions of the planets are known, and when the shortness of the
life-supporting period of a planet's existence compared with the entire
duration of the planet has been clearly recognised, as it would be for
the imagined inhabitants of a small fruit on a tree to suppose that all
the other fruits on the tree, though some manifestly far less advanced
in development and others far more advanced than their own, were the
abode of the same forms of life, though these forms were seen to require
those conditions, and no other, corresponding to the stage of
development through which their own world was passing.
Viewing the universe of suns and worlds in the manner here suggested, we
should adopt a theory of other worlds which would hold a position
intermediate between the Brewsterian and the Whewellite theories. (It is
not on this account that I advocate it, let me remark in passing, but
simply because it accords with the evidence, which is not the case with
the others.) Rejecting on the one hand the theory of the plurality of
worlds in the sense implying that all existing worlds are inhabited, and
on the other hand the theory of but one world, we should accept a theory
which might be entitled the Paucity of Worlds, only that relative not
absolute paucity must be understood. It is absolutely certain that this
theory is the correct one, if we admit two postulates, neither of which
can be reasonably questioned--viz., first, that the life-bearing era of
any world is short compared with the entire duration of that world; and
secondly, that there can have been no cause which set all the worlds in
existence, not simultaneously, which would be amazing enough, but (which
would be infinitely more surprising) in such a way that after passing
each through its time of preparation, longer for the large worlds and
shorter for the small worlds, they all reached at the same time the
life-bearing era. But quite apart from this antecedent probability,
amounting as it does to absolute certainty if these two highly probably
postulates are admitted, we have the actual evidence of the planets we
can examine--that evidence proving incontestably, as I have shown
elsewhere, that such planets as Jupiter and Saturn are still in the
state of preparation, still so intensely hot that no form of life could
possibly exist upon them, and that such bodies as our moon have long
since passed the life-bearing stage, and are to all intents and purposes
defunct.
But may we not go farther? Recognising in our own world, in many
instances, what to our ideas resembles waste--waste seeds, waste lives,
waste races, waste regions, waste forces--recognising superfluity and
superabundance in all the processes and in all the works of nature,
should it not appear at least possible that some, perhaps even a large
proportion, of the worlds in the multitudinous systems peopling space,
are not only not now supporting life, but never have supported life and
never will? Does this idea differ in kind, however largely to our feeble
conceptions it may seem to differ in degree, from the idea of the
imagined creatures on a fruit, that some or even many fruits excellently
fitted for the support of life might not subserve that purpose? And as
those creatures might conceive (as we _know_) that some fruits, even
many, fail to come to the full perfection of fruit life, may not we
without irreverence conceive (as higher beings than ourselves may
_know_) that a planet or a sun may fail in the making? We cannot say
that in such a case there would be a waste or loss of material, though
we may be unable to conceive how the lost sun or planet could be
utilised. Our imagined insect reasoners would be unable to imagine that
fruits plucked from their tree system were otherwise than wasted, for
they would conceive that their idea of the purpose of fruits was the
only true one; yet they would be altogether mistaken, as we may be in
supposing the main purpose of planetary existence is the support of
life.
In like manner, when we pass in imagination beyond the limits of our
own system, we may learn a useful lesson from the imagined creatures'
reasoning about other tree systems than that to which their world
belonged. Astronomers have been apt to generalise too daringly
respecting remote stars and star systems, as though our solar system
were a true picture of all solar systems, the system of stars to which
our sun belongs a true picture of all star systems. They have been apt
to forget that, as every world in our own system has its period of life,
short by comparison with the entire duration of the world, so each solar
system, each system of such systems, may have its own life-bearing
season, infinitely long according to our conceptions, but very short
indeed compared with the entire duration of which the life-bearing
season would be only a single era.
Lastly, though men may daringly overleap the limits of time and space
within which their lives are cast, though they may learn to recognise
the development of their own world and of others like it even from the
blossom of nebulosity, they seem unable to rise to the conception that
the mighty tree which during remote aeons bore those nebulous blossoms
sprang itself from cosmical germs. We are unable to conceive the nature
of such germs; the processes of development affecting them belong to
other orders than any processes we know of, and required periods
compared with which the inconceivable, nay, the inexpressible periods
required for the development of the parts of our universe, are as mere
instants. Yet have we every reason which analogy can afford to believe
that even the development of a whole universe such as ours should be
regarded as but a minute local phenomenon of a universe infinitely
higher in order, that universe in turn but a single member of a system
of such universes, and so on, even _ad infinitum_. To reject the belief
that this is possible is to share the folly of beings such as we have
conceived regarding their tiny world as a fit centre whence to measure
the universe, while yet, from such a stand-point, this little earth on
which we live would be many degrees beyond the limits where for them the
inconceivable would begin. To reject the belief that this is not only
possible, but real, is to regard the few short steps by which man has
advanced towards the unknown as a measurable approach towards limits of
space, towards the beginning and the end of all things. Until it can be
shown that space is bounded by limits beyond which neither matter nor
void exists, that time had a beginning before which it was not and tends
to an end after which it will exist no more, we may confidently accept
the belief that the history of our earth is as evanescent in time as the
earth itself is evanescent in space, and that nothing we can possibly
learn about our earth, or about the system it belongs to, or about
systems of such systems, can either prove or disprove aught respecting
the scheme and mode of government of the universe itself. It is true now
as it was in days of yore, and it will remain true as long as the earth
and those who dwell on it endure, that what men know is nothing, the
unknown infinite.
VI.
_SUNS IN FLAMES._
In November 1876 news arrived of a catastrophe the effects of which must
in all probability have been disastrous, not to a district, or a
country, or a continent, or even a world, but to a whole system of
worlds. The catastrophe happened many years ago--probably at least a
hundred--yet the messenger who brought the news has not been idle on his
way, but has sped along at a rate which would suffice to circle this
earth eight times in the course of a second. That messenger has had,
however, to traverse millions of millions of miles, and only reached our
earth November 1876. The news he brought was that a sun like our own was
in conflagration; and on a closer study of his message something was
learned as to the nature of the conflagration, and a few facts tending
to throw light on the question (somewhat interesting to ourselves)
whether our own sun is likely to undergo a similar mishap at any time.
What would happen if he did, we know already. The sun which has just met
with this disaster--that is, which so suffered a few generations
ago--blazed out for a time with several hundred times its former lustre.
If our sun were to increase as greatly in light and heat, the creatures
on the side of our earth turned towards him at the time would be
destroyed in an instant. Those on the dark or night hemisphere would not
have to wait for their turn till the earth, by rotating, carried them
into view of the destroying sun. In much briefer space the effect of his
new fires would be felt all over the earth's surface. The heavens would
be dissolved and the elements would melt with fervent heat. In fact no
description of such a catastrophe, as affecting the night half of the
earth, could possibly be more effective and poetical than St. Peter's
account of the day of the Lord, coming 'as a thief in the night; in the
which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are
therein being burned up;' though I imagine the apostle would have been
scarce prepared to admit that the earth was in danger from a solar
conflagration. Indeed, according to another account, the sun was to be
turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before that great and
notable day of the Lord came--a description corresponding well with
solar and lunar eclipses, the most noteworthy 'signs in the heavens,'
but agreeing very ill with the outburst of a great solar conflagration.
Before proceeding to inquire into the singular and significant
circumstances of the recent outburst, it may be found interesting to
examine briefly the records which astronomy has preserved of similar
catastrophes in former years. These may be compared to the records of