The Plurality of Worlds

58

Humboldt has already remarked (Cosmos, i. 95, and iii. 427), that the inner planets as far as Mars, and the outer ones beginning with Jupiter, form two groups having different properties. Also Encke. (See Humboldt's Note.)

59

Printed Oct. 19, 1853.

60

Herschel, 540.

61

It is probable, from the small density of Jupiter's satellites, that they also consist in a great measure of water and vapor. Only one of them is denser than Jupiter himself.—Cosmos.

62

It has, in our own day, even in the present year, been regarded as a great achievement of man to direct the fiery influences which he can command, so as to cast a colossal statue in a single piece, instead of casting it in several portions.

63

Herschel, 900-905.

64

Herschel, 901.

65

Besides the curious relation of the times of rotation of the planets, just noticed, there is another curious relation, of their distance from the Sun, which any one, wishing to frame an hypothesis on the origin of our Solar System, ought by all means to try to account for.

The distances from the Sun, of the planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, the Planetoids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, are nearly as the numbers,

4, 7, 10, 16, 28, 52, 100, 196:

now the excesses of each of these numbers above the first are,

3, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96:

a series in which each term (after the first,) is double of the preceding one. Hence, the distances of the planets conform to a series following this law, (Bode's law, as it is termed.) And though the law is by no means exact, yet it was so far considered a probable expression of a general fact, that the deviation from this law, in the interval between Mars and Jupiter, was the principal cause which led first to the suspicion of a planet interposed in the seemingly vacant space; and thus led to the discovery of the planetoids, which really occupy that region. It is true, that the law is found not to hold, in the case of the newly-discovered planet Neptune; for his distance from the Sun, which according to this law, should be 388, is really only 300, 30 times the Earth's distance, instead of 39 times. Still, Bode's law has a comprehensive approximate reality in the Solar System, sufficient to make it a strong recommendation of any hypothesis of the origin of the system, that it shall account for this law. This, however, the nebular hypothesis does not.

66

The greatest anatomists, and especially Mr. Owen, have recently expressed their conviction, that researches on the structure of animals must be guided by the principle of unity of composition as well as the principle of final causes. See Owen On the Nature of Limbs.

67

This has been termed by physiologists The Law of the Development from the General to the Special.

68

Every reader of physiological works knows how easy it would be to multiply examples of this kind to any extent. Thus it is held by physiologists, that the sporules of fungi are universally diffused through the atmosphere, ready to vegetate whenever an opportunity presents itself: and that a single individual produces not less than ten millions of germs. It is held also that innumerable seeds of plants still capable of vegetation, lie in strata far below the earth's surface, finding the occasion to vegetate only by the rarest and most exceptional occurrences.—Carpenter, Manual of Physiology. 1851, Art. 44.

69

Chalmers, p. 35.

70

Ibid. p. 21

71

Ibid. p. 119.

72

Dr. Scoresby, in his Account of the Arctic Regions (1820) Vol. II. has given figures of 96 such forms, selected for their eminent regularity from many more.

73

Among the most recent expositors of this doctrine we may place M. Henri Martin, whose Philosophie Spiritualiste de la Nature is full of striking views of the universe in its relation to God. (Paris. 1849.)

74

Most readers who have given any attention to speculations of this kind, will recollect Newton's remarkable expressions concerning the Deity: "Æternus est et infinitus, omnipotens et omnisciens; id est, durat ab æterno in æternum, et adest ab infinito in infinitum.... Non est æternitas et infinitas, sed æternus et infinitus; non est duratio et spatium, sed durat et adest. Durat semper et adest ubique, et existendo semper et ubique durationem et spatium constituit."

To say that God by existing always and everywhere constitutes duration and space, appears to be a form of expression better avoided. Besides that it approaches too near to the opinion, which the writer rejects, that He is duration and space, it assumes a knowledge of the nature of the Divine existence, beyond our means of knowing, and therefore rashly. It appears to be safer, and more in conformity with what we really know, to say, not that the existence of God constitutes time and space; but that God has constituted man, so that he can apprehend the works of creation, only as existing in time and space. That God has constituted time and space as conditions of man's knowledge of the creation, is certain: that God has constituted time and space as results of his own existence in any other way, we cannot know.

75

"For doubt not that in other worlds above
There must be other offices of love,
That other tasks and ministries there are,
Since it is promised that His servants, there,
Shall serve Him still."—Trench.

76

For instance, we may assume that in two or three hundred years, by the improvement of telescopes, or by other means, it may be ascertained that the other planets of the Solar System are not inhabited, and that the other Stars are not the centres of regular systems.