Scientific certainies of planetary life: or, Neptune's light as great as ours

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Contents

Preface vii

Introduction 1

Pabt I. — The Stellar Planets 7

Preface

It is not perhaps generally known that by recent improvements in the telescope, we are able to see great nnmbers of the planets that revolve around the Fixed Stars.

The only question that can be raised respecting these planets is as to whether they are opaque and luminous^ like Jupiter, or self-luminous like our Sun; and on this point, however strong the probability that there is to guide us, we have as yet no direct evidence.

The evidence, it is true, which we have of their being opaque is precisely the same as that which we have of Jupiter's being so, which is his revolving round a central body just as the planets which are known to be opaque, and his being

VIU PBEFACE.

sufficiently near to a self-luminous centre to give him his light, without its being necessary for us to multiply causes, and to suppose any other source of light for him, except that obvious one. All this is true of these stellar planets also. But we must remember that even in Jupiter's case this is only probable evidence.

We know also that Jupiter's light, long after his disc had ceased to be visible, could still be seen in a six-foot reflector, as an extremely minute point, like some of these stellar planets, from a distance at which the sun of our system could be seen by the naked eye as a star of the first or second mp.gnitude; we know this, because we know that Jupiter's diameter is but ten times less than the sun's, and that the light from each luminous point of his surface, although reflected light, cannot be so much less than that from each luminous point of the sun's surface as to make this efiect impossible in a telescope that would magnify his light 6000 times. This will become still more evident from Part II. sect. 2. But we must not allow ourselves to

PREFACE. IX

forget that the fact now mentioned yields likewise only indirect evidence: — ^that with our present knowledge^ neither in the case of Jupiter nor in that of the binary and other nvultiple stars can anjrthing less than a transit have the force of direct evidence.

The question therefore as to the opaque condition of the stellar planets that we see^ merges for the present in the general one as to whether there are or are not opaque planets around the stars; but the fact of our seeing planets there at all-— especially planets that are as likely to be opaque as Jupiter is — naturally contributes a large accession of probability for the solution of the latter question.

The object then of these pages is to explain more explicitly perhaps than has yet been done by others that the argument which makes it probable — ^the argument upon which it is generally believed — not only that the eight known planets of our system are inhabited^ but also that the stars have opaque planetary systems like ours^ is one drawn &om analogy in its

h

X PfiJBFACE.

strictest sense; aiKl oioe wholly drawn from iln-* one wholly drawn from that kind of evidence which "is to us," as Bishop Butler truly says, " the rule of life;"-^and further, with regard to the Fixed Stars, to indicate in detail all those known points of resemblance between our Sun and them which constitute in their case this analogy (Part I.); and with regard to the planets of our own system, to explain the groundlessness of all those suppositions which have been hitherto allowed to perplex, although not to obstruct, the natural inference flowing from the earth's acknowledged analogy to the other planets of our system. (Part II.)

Those who prefer to examine scientific questions without reference to their religious bearings, will not regret to learn that science alone solves wholly those before us (viz., that respecting the habitable condition of our planets and that respecting the solar condition of the stars) ; — and does this in so peremptory a manner as to leave no room whatever for the moral, metaphysical, and theological considerations which

PBEVACB. XI

it has lately been attempted to introduce into these questions. Those^ on the other hand^ who view the subject^ as so many naturally do^ with the deeper interest on account of its religious bearings^ and who have been lately startled to find the ancient belief of the first Jewish converts (Heb. i. 2), if not of the whole primeval nation^ as well as the articles of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds founded upon it^ boldly called in question upon these supposed " morale metaphysical^ and theological^' grounds^ will probably likewise learn with satisfaction^ that scientific faxsts positively declare the physical impossibility of the suppositions employed to make the new doctrine appear plausible^ and that they give an overwhelming force to the analogies upon which the old one seems to have been originally founded. For the purpose just alluded to^ an effort was made last year in an anonymous Essay^ '' Of the Plurality of Worlds/' to make it appear that the planet third in order outwards from the centre of a solar system^ is the only one of the planets of such a system that can ever possibly be inha*

J2

Xll PREFACE.

bited by beings capable of knowing God, and that but very few, if any, of the Fixed Stars, except our sun, are likely to have opaque planets of any description. This extremely curious attempt is, perhaps, the first of the kind that has ever been publicly made ; for that of Dr. Cullen, the Roman-catholic Archbishop, something to the same purpose a few years ago, seems to have been suppressed, either by the authority of his Church, as excess of zeal, or in consequence of his own discernment of its unsuitableness to the present advanced state of science in this country. The English Protestant Essay therefore being the only thing of the kind that has ever been attempted, is necessarily, for that reason more than for any other, the frequent subject of allusion in a Treatise, which had it not been for that Essay, would probably never have been written; and if these allusions are found to be exempt from the usual language of that indignation and impatience with which we naturally look upon any act of a learned and sagacious man, calculated to misguide or impede

PEEFACE. XIU

the advancement of those who are less learned or less sagacious than himself^ it is from no wish to disclaim this indignation that the expression of it finds no place here. Those who, while they acknowledge the evil done, experience this feeling less than others, do so from no very creditable cause ; but those who express it less, may do so because they see less danger from the act than others see; and this is my case. The author .of the Essay, probably under some delusion or mistaken hope of doing good, has, it is true, as every learne^l and skilfiil man has more or less the power of doing for a time, placed the drag upon the chariot- wheels of human progress ; but happily the impediment in this case seems but to have given impetuosity to the onward course, and discontent is silenced by the gratifying probability, which starts up on every side, that the immediate result of this unhappy attempt will be rather to make people acquainted with the grounds of their belief in other worlds of moral beings, than to disturb it, and thus to accelerate rather than to retard our human progress, —

XIV PKBFACE.

our onward course towards that more intimate and exact acquaintance with the works of the Almighty after which we all strive.

As to the arguments of this author to the effect that all astronomical research that tends to the extension of planetary life beyond the brute creation, favours the views of the Arians and Socinians, by necessitating, it is supposed, the sacrificial sufferings of an Uncreated Being in or for each of these moral worlds — ^asupposition attended, we are told, with grave and perplexing diiBSculties — ^as well as to the effect that such research is at variance both with the exclusive presence of brute fossils in all those portions gf the lower strata of our own planet that have yet been examined, and with the ordinary known usages of an uneconomising Providence, — I abstain in this volume from all discussion of these matters, — confining myself solely to those astronomical facts and the analogies founded on them, that are thus declared to be incompatible with other facts equally well attested, and with other analogies equally strong.

SEEPAGE. XV

It will be shown on a future occasion^ if requisite^ that there is none of tiiis alleged incom* patibility. It will be shown, if requisite, that Bjeither geology, nor the course of nature, nor Revelation, nor any other department of our knowledge, is at variance with astronomical research; but it does not seem credible that any considerable portion of the reading public will ever need such explanations.

For instance: —

That there is nothing inconsistent with any form of the Christian Faith in our supposing that all the planets of all the stars are inhabited by intellectual, moral, and religious beings, and not, as this author supposes, by brutes only, is what almost any sincere Christian can prove for himself, provided he approach the subject with a firm belief, or ^f he fail in that, at least, argumenti caus&, with an unqualified philosophical assent that the Creator of all these worlds is reaUy omnipotent-^that He is really '^mindftd'* even of each blade of grass without its costing Him exertion-*' that each tiny insect has really His ^^ unique and

XVI P£EFAC£.

special care''— as much so as if it were an angel — exactly as much so as if He had nothing else to bestow care upon; and there must be^ besides^ a preliminary admission that beside much that we are petmitted and intended to understand in these " unique'' visitings, and in this " unique" care^ there is necessarily much that we cannot and that we are not permitted to understand. Such a Christian— one who is neither a believer (like Paine) in degrees of omnipotence, nor a disbeliever (like Voltaire) in everything that is incomprehensible — will find no inconsistency either in the scientific or theological mysteries of existence, and will see but a poor solution of any of these myrterieB in the aesertion that his Maker's stupendous universe of radiant worlds is in all human probability a universe of brutes, —a universe in which there is but one very small world capable of anything like religion. " A belief in the Divine Government of other races of spiritual creatures beside the human race, and in Divine Ministrations committed to such beings, cannot," says the Essayist, " be connected with

PREFACE. XVU

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/* — (Chap. xii. 19.) A universe of ''creatures of the nature of corals and molluscs^ saurians and iguanodons/* ''microscopic creatures with silicious coverings almost indestructible by heat/* " sluggish monsters/* some "watery/* some "pulpy/* others " glutinous/* many " boneless/* countless worlds of brutes^ (and such brutes !) — more congruous with sound religion and sound philosophy than countless worlds of moral agents for whom it is life and happiness to love their God ! Well may we exclaim with the Essayist himself on another occasion^ " Highly curious !** Who can wonder, however, that there should be some who receive such levity with indignation rather than with a smile? Who is there that does not feel how different this writer*s "sound philosoph}^** and " sound religion** are from all that reason, or

XYUl PREFACE.

Revelation^ or science teaches us ? In this great question let the humble Christian stand by his scientific facts. These are gifts from Him hj whom they might have been withheld. Let him stand by his rational inferences. These are gifts also. Let him not seek to help his understanding by denying such things, and by rudely puUing as it were into ruins at his feet, the universe appointed for his instruction. Let us say what we may of it, this is but one form of impiety. " Truths physical/' it is well observed by Sir David Brewster, " have an origin as divine as truths religious.^' Whatever is incomprehensible (as much undoubtedly is) let it remain so. It ought not to be incomprehensible to us that our Maker should be able to do incomprehensible things. Let it remain among our researches as a residual phenomenon (we have many such), to be comprehensible later, if it is not so now ; but let it not be denied merely because it is incomprehensible. In the case in question, however, what is there that is incomprehensible? The Essayist has stated

PREFACE. XIX

nothing. His own theological titieoiy— or rather this strange brute hypothesis of his alone is so.

As to what he speaks of as his geological difficulty^ we concede to him the remarkable fact that no human remains have been yet discovered of a date anterior to the Creation which Moses has recorded, and that we have therefore as yet no evidence of this kind that this little globe of ours had been previously inhabited by moral creatures; but we deny that this affords any reasonable grounds, or any imaginable grounds at all, for the preposterous supposition that in all human probability, therefore, none but brute animals of various orders inhabit, at this hour, the myriads and myriads of other worlds in the nniverse. Even if our geological evidence were positive instead of negative — and demonstrative instead of probable, — even if we had ransacked every portion of every stratum of our earth to the very innermost without finding human remains to antedate our Scriptures, while brute remains presented themselves in every portion of every stratum, and with undisputed evidence

XX PREFACE.

of its being physically impossible for such strata to have resulted from the operation of the Mosaic incidents, we could not even then follow this writer to his wild conclusion. To say nothing of the other very obvious explanations which would in such a case suggest themselves, the sincere Christian, looking forward to a resurrection of the body in his own case, would read in the immense fact now supposed, a grander lesson than that this earth is the centre of a whole universe of brutes. Yet we have supposed a stronger case for the Essayist than he himself pretends to.

Finally, there cannot be many who will think that because of all the millions and millions of thistle seeds that floated over our fields last year, it is not probable that more than a very small number — ^say ten thousand — have taken root and grown to maturity, it therefore follows that of all the millions and millions of stars, launched into space, it is not probcible that more than three or four have '^produced^^ opaqae planets, or probable that, if opaque planets sur-

PBEFACE. XXI

rounded all those stars^ of all the opaque planets thus pervading space^ more than three or four are at all likely to have any other but brute animals inhabiting them. — (Chapter xi. 11.) Even if there were no concision and inaccuracy in such dialectics as these^ — even if ten thousand successful in one case logically implied only three or four successful in the other^ are we to take no account of the very close relation in which the vegetable and the brute creations manifestly stand to man? Are we to draw no distinction between those acts of the Almighty over which man is allowed control and those over which he is allowed none — ^no distinction between the unfailing sunrise and the failing plant ? Is it^ after all^ to be supposed that it is from any want of thistle-making or fish-making powers^ that every thistle seed and every fish-spawn is not productive? Does it, after all, require so much discernment to see that the waste of these things has a reference to man, and that the supposed waste of stars and planets could have none? How many thistle-seeds would fitil if

XXU PREPACB.

man took care of them? How many stars or planets could his care save from failure? Let us hope that there are not many persons inca<* pable of making such distinctions. Let us hope that there are many who are convinced that the carelessness (shall we use that word?) as well as the carefulness of God are alike intended and alike adapted to exercise the moral and intellectual faculties of man^ and that to assume this want of care where man^s care could effect nothing (such as in wasted suns and wasted planets) is gratuitous assumption. Is it not much worse than merely gratuitous ? But even if our theology is of so low an order, do not the '^ possible thistles'^ and the ^^ possible planets^^ of the Essay present to our convictions a very considerable number of actual ones — a much greater number of actual thistles and actual planets than the Essayist could have intended that his illustration should have furnished ?

I repeat, that I much doubt whether the impression produced by the Essay alluded to will render explanations* or discussions upon such

PREFACE. XXIU

matters necessary. At all events, for the present I offer none, but proceed at once to examine upon what astronomical grounds this Essayist pretends that there is no analogy for believing that the stellar planets are opaque bodies, although there is for believing all the exterior planets of our own system to be so, nor any analogy for believing that there are opaque stellar planets generally around the stars; also upon what astronomical grounds he pretends that moral agents could not subsist upon any of the planets of any system, except upon that which is the third in order outwards from the sun of each system.

What there is, upon these points, scientifically certain in our belief of Planetary Life, is here placed before the public ; and the more important portions of this matter now appear for the first time.

SCIENTIFIC CERTAINTIES

OF

Ulawtarj! fife.

Introduction

We are not called upon to prove either the long standing or the reality of the popular conviction respecting the presence of intellectual creatures with material bodies^like human beings^ in the orbs of heaven. It is admitted on all hands that this is and has long been the familiar and established view of all earnest minds, even of those who are without evidence of any definite kind connected with it. The only question that can arise respecting this involuntary prepossession of mankind^^the only question that it at all now concerns us to consider is, as to whether scientific research corroborates it or contradicts it. That scientific research, however, coiroboratee it, is at once

B proved by the fact that all the most profound astronomers of modem times recognise the perfect reasonableness of the belief^ and the extreme probability of its truths while no astronomer at any period has ever held the contrary opinion. Research^ indeed^ makes a distinction unknown to the uninstructed. It is not so much to the stars as to the planets around each of them^ that the astronomer assigns the inhabitants^ and not so much to the secondary planets as to the primaries. But the belief of all is the same. Life^ intelligence^ and worship belong to every individual star. . " For what purpose are we to suppose such magnificent bodies scattered through the abyss of space ?^' asks the exact and enlightened Herschel of our own day. * * * " He must have studied astronomy to little purpose who can suppose man to be the only object of his Creator's care, or who does not see in the vast and wonderful apparatus around us provision for other races of animated beings. * * * These doubtless, then, are themselves suns.'' "Divided from our. firmament and from each other,'' says the eloquent Dr. Nichol, "by measureless intervals, numerous

INTRODUCTION. O

firmaments^ glorions as oiirs^ float through immensity^ doubtless forming one stupendous system, bound together by fine relationships. ^ - - One offhese, perhaps tiie most bi liant, is in the constellation Hercules. After aU, how easy the belief to its in-dwellers, that a mass thus surpassingly gorgeous, is infinite. What wonder although the inhabitant of a planet revolving around one of its central suns should have mistaken his own magnificent heavens for the universe, and have needed the distant and dim vision of our firmament, appearing to his telescope as a sWry speck, to remove the veil from his mind, and give him juster notions of the Majesty of Creation/'

Let us, then, examine what grounds there are for this unanimity of the astronomers. No less than eight separate questions may be enumerated in connexion with it — ^viz.,

1. Are all the fixed stars (or most of them) inhabited?

2. Are their planetary systems inhabited?

3. Is our sun inhabited ?

4. Are all the eight primaries of our system inhabited?

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% INTEODUCnON.

5. Are the comets inhabited?

6. Are the planetoids inhabited?

7. Are secondary planets inhabited?

8. Is our own secondary inhabited?

The first of these questions depends upon the thirds and the seventh upon the eighth^ while the fifth depends to a very great extent upon the same probabilities or improbabilities as the sixth. These six of the questions^ however^ we propose to put aside for the present^ as referring to bodies that bear but a partial analogy to the only one known by experience to be inhabited^ and as therefore requiring arguments of a totally different nature &om that analogy^ by the aid of which alone, to the exclusion of all other considerations^ it is' proposed to conduct the following investigations.

The second of the above questions depends upon exactly the same pure analogy as the fourth, and is therefore true in whatever sense, and to whatever extent, the fourth is true, provided it can be shown that the stars have opaque planetary systems like ours. If our telescope or our reason teaches us that all the fixed stars, or most of them, have such systems, it

INTEODtJCTION. 5

would be little short of absurd (it is admitted on all hands) to assume that none of these systems^ or but very few of them^ were inhabited as ours is. The pointy therefore^ which needs discussion with regard to Question i, is not as to whether the opaque planets of the stars are inhabited by creatures like ourselves in intellectual and moral faculties^ but as to whether the points of resemblance which are found to exist between the stars and our sun are numerous enough^ in the absence of any known difference, to justify the astronomers in believing that they also resemble him in the opacity of their large luminous planets recently discovered, whose light reaches us even here (so much larger are these than our own luminous Jupiter or Saturn), or at least in having smaller opaque luminous planets round them, which on account of the distance we cannot yet see at all.

Thus the strictly analogical portion of this investigation becomes narrowed to two questions, — ^viz.

I. Can we detect through the scientific discoveries of modem times, any such resemblance between the other fixed stars and our sun as to

6 INTEODUCTION.

render it at all likely — ^more likely we mean than unlikely — ^upon analogical principles that they may resemble him also in having opaque planetary systems such as he has ?

II. Can we detect by this same light of science any such resemblance between the other seven primary planets of onr system and the earthy aa to render it at all probable that they may perhaps likewise resemble the earth in having inhabitants capable of knowing God ; — which^ after all^ are the only sort of inhabitants whose existence can create much interest^ or be said to be that intended in the general impression of mankind ?

Part I. The Stellar Planets

The probability is imcontested that if the fixed stars have opaque planetary systems^ these systems are much in the same predicament as ours is with respect to inhabitants. The main question^ therefore^ as far as science is concerned^ respecting the extentof extra-terrene life throughout the universe^ depends upon the probability or improbabiUty of the fixed stars having such sjrstems; or^ to state the point more explicitly^ upon the proof or disproof of the fact^ firsts that our sun is one of the fixed stars^ and^ secondly^ that there is no such known kind of difference between any two of the fixed stars as to make it probable that one of the two has opaque planets and the other not. If these two points be fiilly established^ it is admitted on all hands that it is in the highest degree probable^ from analogy^ that all the fixed stars^ without any exception that we can indicate^ have these opaque planets, and that therefore at least some portion of each planetary arrangement contains the inhabitants in question ; which at once presents us with innumerable worlds, — ^more, infinitely more, than even the popular belief originally extended to.

What then are the reasons for supposing our siin to be one of the fixed stars? Whatever establishes this fact, whatever establishes the stellar nature of our sun, establishes with equal force the solar nature of the stars, and nothing less than the proved unfitness of any given star can in tiiat case constitute it an exception to this general analogy. In what points then, in what number and kind of points is the likeness between him and them known to exist ? These we must fiilly appreciate before we suppose the likeness to extend to points in which we do not know that it exists.

There are but few particulars that can be seen that are common to all the fixed stars. In these, however, the stars are se^n to be like each other. They are diiefly tiiree — 1. The independence of their light. 2. Their insulation in

STATE OF THE QUESTION. 9

•

space. S. The permanence of these two proper* ties. Such are perhaps the only three of the characteristics as yet known to be uniyersal which can be said to be seen and not inferred.

The iiif erred characteristics of all the stars^ those in which they are unanimously inferred to be all like each other^ are more numerous. They are the ten following: — 1. Force of gravity. 2. Elementary materials. 8. Their great (or solar) mass. 4. Periodical regularity. 5. Spherical shape. 6. Brightness. 7. Heat. 8. Density. 9. Botation on their axis. 10. Their origin. Unless we have special proof to the contrary^ in any given case^ it is inferred that all these ten properties of the stars are the same in all of them.

The third class of these stellar characteristics are such as belong to individual stars^ and are some of them inferred, some of them seen, but not all of them such as could be universally present, nor any of them such as are yet universally inferred to be so. Of these we may enumerate the following seven, as being the only ones yet known that are capable of being united in one and the same star. 1. Their dark spots. 2. Their

12 THE STELLAB PLAITETS.

of the extent to which this circumstance augments the likeness that otherwise exists between the stars and our sun^ we need only reflect upon the way in which our opinion of this likeness would infallibly be affected^ if it were ascertained that the stars shone with borrowed light. Thid would^ it is true^ be no ground for supposing that they had not planetary systems^ for we know that opaque bodies can have these as well as those that are not opaque. It is not pretended that even their being known to be self-luminous is ground for supposing that they have these systems; but their being self-luminous proves them to be like our sun, — ^the only question just now before us ; and this is important, for the dissimilarity between an opaque fixed sta^ and a self-luminous one like our sun, would greatly detract from the analogy here indicated. It is necessary, before we proceed any fiirther, to examine a criticism offered upon their similarity in this respect by a recent essayist of considerable distinction; and this is the more necessary as the criticism, if just, applies with equal force to aU the other properties in which the sun and stars resemble one another, • the

SELF-LUlflNOUSNESS OF STAB AND SUN. 13

result of it being that a sort of formula is proposed as a test of likeness^ calculated^ it is believed by its author^ to give general satisfaction in the discussion of this and all the other properties that are in common between our sun and the rest of those orbs that are its companions in our firmament.

The essentials of the test thus proposed are :

1. That the property or nature in which the stars are like the sun should not be found in objects that are unlike the sun.