CHAPTER XV.

THE END OF THE WORLD.

Perhaps the most anxious question that has been asked of the astronomer is when the world is to come to an end. It is a question which, of course, he has no power to answer with truth; but it is also one that has often been answered in good faith. It has perhaps been somewhat natural to ask such a question of an astronomer, partly because his science naturally deals with the structure of the universe, which might give some light as to its future, and partly because of his connection with astrology, whose province it was supposed to be to open the destiny of all things. Yet the question has been answered by others than by astronomers, on grounds connected with their faith. In the early ages of the Church, the belief in the rapid approach of the end of the world was universally spread amongst Christians. The Apocalypse of St. John and the Acts of the Apostles seemed to announce its coming before that generation passed away. Afterwards, it was expected at the year 1000; and though these beliefs did not rest in any way on astronomical grounds, yet to that science was recourse had for encouragement or discouragement of the idea. The middle ages, fall of simple faith and superstitious credulity, were filled with fear of this terrible catastrophe.

As the year 1000 approached, the warnings became frequent and very pressing. Thus, for example, Bernard of Thuringia, about 960, began to announce publicly that the world was about to end, declaring that he had had a particular revelation of the fact. He took for his text the enigmatical words of the Apocalypse: "At the end of one thousand years, Satan shall be loosed from his prison, and shall seduce the people that are in the four quarters of the earth. The book of life shall be open, and the sea shall give up her dead." He fixed the day when the Annunciation of the Virgin should coincide with Good Friday as the end of all things. This happened in 992, but nothing extraordinary happened.

During the tenth century the royal proclamations opened by this characteristic phrase: _Whereas the end of the world is approaching_....

In 1186 the astrologers frightened Europe by announcing a conjunction of all the planets. Rigord, a writer of that period, says in his _Life of Philip Augustus_: "The astrologers of the East, Jews, Saracens, and even Christians, sent letters all over the world, in which they predicted, with perfect assurance, that in the month of September there would be great tempests, earthquakes, mortality among men, seditions and discords, revolutions in kingdoms, and the destruction of all things. But," he adds, "the event very soon belied their predictions."

Some years after, in 1198, another alarm of the end of the world was raised, but this time it was not dependent on celestial phenomena. It was said that Antichrist was born in Babylon, and therefore all the human race would be destroyed.

It would be a curious list to make of all the years in which it was said that Antichrist was born; they might be counted by hundreds, to say nothing of the future.

At the commencement of the fourteenth century, the alchemist Arnault of Villeneuve announced the end of the world for 1335. In his treatise _De Sigillis_ he applies the influence of the stars to alchemy, and expounds the mystical formula by which demons are to be conjured.

St. Vincent Ferrier, a famous Spanish preacher, gave to the world as many years' duration as there were verses in the Psalms--about 2537.

The sixteenth century produced a very plentiful crop of predictions of the final catastrophe. Simon Goulart, for example, gave the world an appalling account of terrible sights seen in Assyria--where a mountain opened and showed a scroll with letters of Greek--"The end of the world is coming." This was in 1532; but after that year had passed in safety, Leovitius, a famous astrologer, predicted it again for 1584. Louis Gayon reports that the fright at this time was great. The churches could not hold those who sought a refuge in them, and a great number made their wills, without reflecting that there was no use in it if the whole world was to finish.

One of the most famous mathematicians of Europe, named Stoffler, who flourished in the 16th century, and who worked for a long time at the reform of the calendar proposed by the Council of Constance, predicted a universal deluge for 1524. This deluge was to happen in the month of February, because Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars were then together in the sign of the Fishes. Everyone in Europe, Asia, and Africa, to whom these tidings came, was in a state of consternation. They expected a deluge, in spite of the rainbow. Many contemporary authors report that the inhabitants of the maritime provinces of Germany sold their lands for a mere trifle to those who had more money and less credulity. Each built himself a boat like an ark. A doctor of Toulouse, named Auriol, made a very large ark for himself, his family, and his friends, and the same precautions were taken by a great many people in Italy. At last the month of February came, and not a drop of rain fell. Never was a drier month or a more puzzled set of astrologers. Nevertheless they were not discouraged nor neglected for all that, and Stoffler himself, associated with the celebrated Regiomontanus, predicted once more that the end of the world would come in 1588, or at least that there would be frightful events which would overturn the earth.

This new prediction was a new deception; nothing extraordinary occurred in 1588. The year 1572, however, witnessed a strange phenomenon, capable of justifying all their fears. An unknown star came suddenly into view in the constellation of Cassiopeia, so brilliant that it was visible even in full daylight, and the astrologers calculated that it was the star of the Magi which had returned, and that it announced the second coming of Jesus Christ.

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were filled with new predictions of great variety.

Even our own century has not been without such. A religious work, published in 1826, by the Count Sallmard Montfort, demonstrated perfectly that the world had no more than ten years to exist. "The world," he said, "is old, and its time of ending is near, and I believe that the epoch of that terrible event is not far off. Jacob, the chief of the twelve tribes of Israel, and consequently of the ancient Church, was born in 2168 of the world, _i.e._, 1836 B.C. The ancient Church, which was the figure of the new, lasted 1836 years. Hence the new one will only last till 1836 A.D."

Similar prophecies by persons of various nations have in like manner been made, without being fulfilled. Indeed, we have had our own prophets; but they have proved themselves incredulous of their own predictions, by taking leases that should _commence_ in the year of the world's destruction.

But we have one in store for us yet. In 1840, Pierre Louis of Paris calculated that the end would be in 1900, and he calculated in this way:--The Apocalypse says the Gentiles shall occupy the holy city for forty-two months. The holy city was taken by Omar in 636. Forty-two months of years is 1260, which brings the return of the Jews to 1896, which will precede by a few years the final catastrophe. Daniel also announces the arrival of Antichrist 2,300 days after the establishment of Artaxerxes on the throne of Persia, 400 B.C., which again brings us to 1900.

Some again have put it at 2000 A.D., which will make 6,000 years, as they think, from the creation; these are the days of work; then comes the 1,000 years of millennial sabbath.

We are led far away by these vain speculations from the wholesome study of astronomy; they are useful only in showing how by a little latitude that science may wind itself into all the questions that in any way affect the earth.

Indeed, since the world began, the world will doubtless end, and astronomers are still asked how could it be brought about?

Certainly it is not an impossible event, and there are only too many ways in which it has been imagined it might occur.

The question is one that stands on a very different footing from that it occupied before the days of Galileo and Copernicus. _Then_ the earth was believed to be the centre of the universe, and all the heavens and stars created for it. _Then_ the commencement of the world was the commencement of the universe, its destruction would be the destruction of all. _Now_, thanks to the revolution in feeling that has been accomplished by the progress of astronomy, we have learned our own insignificance, and that amongst the infinite number of stars, each supporting their own system of inhabited planets, our earth occupies an infinitesimally small portion, and the destruction of it would make no difference whatever--still less its becoming uninhabitable. It is an event which must have happened and be happening to other worlds, without affecting the infinite life of the universe in any marked degree.

Nevertheless, for ourselves, the question remains as interesting as if we were the all in all, but must be approached in a different manner.

Numerous hypotheses have been put forth on the question but they may mostly be dismissed as vain.

Buffon calculated that it had taken 74,832 years for the earth to cool down to its present temperature, and that it will take 93,291 years more before it would be too cold for men to live upon it. But Sir William Thomson has shown that the internal heat of the earth, supposed to be due to its cooling from fusion, cannot have seriously modified climate for a long series of years, and that life depends essentially on the heat of the sun.

Another hypothesis, the most ancient of all, is that which supposes the earth will be destroyed by fire. It comes down from Zoroaster and the Jews; and on the improbable supposition of the thin crust of the earth over a molten mass, this is thought possible. However, as the tendency in the past has been all the other way, namely, to make the effect of the inner heat of the earth less marked on the surface, we have no reason to expect a reversal.

A third theory would make the earth die more gradually and more surely. It is known that by the wearing down of the surface by the rains and rivers, there is a tendency to reduce mountains and all high parts of the earth to a uniform level, a tendency which is only counteracted by some elevating force within the earth. If these elevating forces be supposed to be due to the internal heat--a hypothesis which cannot be proved--then with the cooling of the earth the elevating forces would cease, and, finally, the whole of the continent would be brought beneath the sea and terrestrial life perish.

Another interesting but groundless hypothesis is that of Adhemar on the periodicity of deluges. This theory depends on the fact of the unequal length of the seasons in the two hemispheres. Our autumn and our winter last 179 days. In the southern hemisphere they last 186 days. These seven days, or 168 hours, of difference, increase each year the coldness of the pole. During 10,500 years the ice accumulates at one pole and melts at the other, thereby displacing the earth's centre of gravity. Now a time will arrive when, after the maximum of elevation of temperature on one side, a catastrophe will happen, which will bring back the centre of gravity to the centre of figure, and cause an immense deluge. The deluge of the north pole was 4,200 years ago, therefore the next will be 6,300 hence. It is very obvious to ask on this--_Why_ should there be a _catastrophe_? and why should not the centre of gravity return _gradually_ as it was gradually displaced?

Another theory has been that it would perish by a comet. That it will not be by the shock we have already seen from the light weight of the comet and from experience; but it has been suggested that the gas may combine with the air, and an explosion take place that would destroy us all; but is not that also contradicted by experience?

Another idea is that we shall finally fall into the sun by the resistance of the ether to our motion. Encke's comet loses in thirty-three years a thousandth part of its velocity. It appears then that we should have to wait millions of centuries before we came too near the sun.

In reality, however, we are simply dependent on our sun, and our destiny depends upon that.

In the first place, in its voyage through space it might encounter or come within the range of some dark body we at present know nothing of, and the attraction might put out of harmony all our solar system with calamitous results. Or since we are aware that the sun is a radiating body giving out its heat on all sides, and therefore growing colder, it may one day happen that it will be too cold to sustain life on the earth. It is, we know, a variable star, and stars have been seen to disappear, or even to have a catastrophe happen to them, as the kindling of enormous quantities of gas. A catastrophe in the sun will be our own end.

Fontenelle has amusingly described in verse the result of the sun growing cold, which may be thus Englished:--

"Of this, though, I haven't a doubt, One day when there isn't much light, The poor little sun will go out And bid us politely--good-night. Look out from the stars up on high, Some other to help you to see; I can't shine any longer, not I, Since shining don't benefit me.

"Then down on our poor habitation What numberless evils will fall, When the heavens demand liquidation, Why all will go smash, and then all Society come to an end. Soon out of the sleepy affair His way will each traveller wend, No testament leaving, nor heir."

The cooling of the sun must, however, take place very gradually, as no cooling has been perceived during the existence of man; and the growth of plants in the earliest geological ages, and the life of animals, prove that for so long a time it has been within the limits within which life has been possible--and we may look forward to as long in the future.

It is not of course the time when the sun will become a dark ball, surrounded by illuminated planets, that we must reckon as the end of the earth. Life would have ceased long before that stage--no man will witness the death of the sun.

The diminution of the sun's heat would have for its natural effect the enlargement of the glacial zones! the sea and the land in those parts of the earth would cease to support life, which would gradually be drawn closer to the equatorial belt. Man, who by his nature and his intelligence is best fitted to withstand cold climates, would remain among the last of the inhabitants, reduced to the most miserable nourishment. Drawn together round the equator, the last of the sons of earth would wage a last combat with death, and exactly as the shades approached, would the human genius, fortified by all the acquirements of ages past--give out its brightest light, and attempt in vain to throw off the fatal cover that was destined to engulf him. At last, the earth, fading, dry, and sterile, would become an immense cemetery. And it would be the same with the other planets. The sun, already become red, would at last become black, and the planetary system would be an assemblage of black balls revolving round a larger black ball.

Of course this is all imaginary, and cannot affect ourselves, but the very idea of it is melancholy, and enough to justify the words of Campbell:--

"For this hath science searched on weary wing By shore and sea--each mute and living thing, Or round the cope her living chariot driven And wheeled in triumph through the signs of heaven. Oh, star-eyed science, hast thou wandered there To waft us home the message of despair?"

In reality, as we know nothing of the origin, so we know nothing of the end of the world; and where so much has been accomplished, there are obviously infinite possibilities enough to satisfy the hopes of every one.

While some stars may be fading, others may be rising into their place, and man need not be identified with one earth alone, but may rest content in the idea that the life universal is eternal.

THE END.

LONDON: P. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.

2. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest paragraph break.

3. The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations, for example, [Greek: a] represents first Greek letter alpha.

3. The original text includes certain symbols for planets and zodiac signs. For this text version these symbols are replaced by text name of the corresponding symbol. For example, [symbol: sun] replaces the symbolic representation of sun.

4. In this text version, fractions are represented using hyphen and forward slash. For example, 3-1/2 stands for three and a half.

5. Certain words use oe ligature in the original.

6. Obvious errors in punctuation and a few misprints have been silently corrected.

7. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in hyphenation and ligature usage have been retained.