Part 8

Really, said the Marchioness, with an air of deep reflection and astonishment, all this is managed with wonderful order; nature had certainly in these instances a view to the wants of living beings; this admirable disposition of light was not the effect of chance. Only the planets which are distant from the sun have been provided with moons--the Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn; for Venus did not require any; nor Mercury who already has too much light; whose nights are extremely short, and probably considered a greater blessing than even the days. But stop--I think Mars, who is farther from the sun than we, is without a moon. We cannot conceal the fact, I replied; he has none; but he doubtless has resources for the night which we are ignorant of. You have seen phosphorus; matters of that kind, whether liquid or dry, receive and imbibe the light from the sun, which they emit with some force when in the dark. Mars perhaps has high rocks of phosphorus that absorb, in the day-time, light enough to irradiate the night. You must own it would be an agreeable sight for the rocks to light up as soon as the sun was set, and without art, produce the most magnificent illuminations, that with all their radiance, would not have the inconvenience of casting any heat. In America, you know, there are birds which in the dark will afford light enough to read by: how can we tell whether Mars has not a great number of such birds, who, as soon as the night is come, disperse themselves on every side, and give an artificial day?

I am not satisfied, answered she, either with your rocks or birds. They would be pretty enough to be sure; but as nature has bestowed so many moons on Saturn and Jupiter, it shews that moons are necessary. I should have been very much pleased to find that all the worlds at a great distance from the sun had some, if Mars had not formed a disagreeable exception. Ah! replied I, if you were more deeply versed in philosophy you must accustom yourself to see exceptions to the best systems. We clearly see that some things are adapted in the most perfect manner to their end; others we accommodate as well as we can, or perhaps are obliged to content ourselves with knowing nothing about them. Let us do so with respect to Mars, since our researches are fruitless, and resolve to say no more about him.

We should be very much surprised, were we on Saturn, to see during the night a great ring, extending over our heads in a semi-circular form from one end of the horizon to the other; and by reflecting the light of the sun, would have the effect of a moon at every part of the circle. And are we not to have inhabitants in this great ring? said she, laughing. Though I am disposed to place them wherever I can, answered I, I confess I dare not tell you there are any there; this ring appears too irregular a dwelling. As for the five moons, we can't dispense with inhabitants for them. If the ring, however, were what some suppose, only a circle of moons, following each other very closely, with an equal motion, and the satellites, five of these moons escaped out of the ring, what numbers of worlds would the vortex of Saturn contain! Be that as it may, the people in Saturn are uncomfortable enough, even with the help of their ring. It gives then light, it is true; but what sort of light, at that immense distance from the sun? The sun himself, which appears to them a hundred times smaller[48] than to us, seems but a little pale star, emitting but a feeble light or heat. And could they be transported to our coldest countries, such as Greenland and Lapland, you would see them ready to expire with the heat. If water were conveyed to their planet it would no longer be water, but a polished stone, and spirits of wine which never freeze here, would become hard as diamond.

[Footnote 48: Ten times less in diameter.]

Your description of Saturn petrifies me, said the Marchioness; though just now you almost threw me into a fever in talking of Mercury. Two worlds, answered I, which are at the different extremities of an immense vortex, must be totally unlike.

Then, replied she, the people are very wise in Saturn, for you told me they were all mad in Mercury. If they are not very wise, answered I, they are at least, I suppose, very phlegmatic. Their features could not accommodate themselves to a smile; they require a day's consideration before they answer any question, and they would think Cato of Atica unmanly and frivolous.

I am thinking, said she, that all the inhabitants of Saturn are slow; all those of Mercury are quick; amongst us some belong to the former class, some to the latter; may not that be in consequence of the earth's being placed just in the middle situation and participating of both extremes? The men of our world have no determined character; some are like the inhabitants of Mercury; others resemble those of Saturn, in short we are a compound of all the other planets. That's a good idea, replied I; we form such a ludicrous assemblage that it might easily be imagined we had been brought together from a variety of worlds. We are therefore very well situated for studying character, for this is an abstract of all the planets.

At any rate, rejoined the Marchioness, the situation of our world has one great convenience; the heat is not oppressive as at Mercury or Venus, nor the cold so benumbing as at Jupiter or Saturn. And we are in a part of the earth that is not subject to the greatest degrees of heat and cold experienced even on our own globe. If a certain philosopher returned thanks to his Creator for having formed him a man, and not a beast; a Greek and not a Barbarian; I think we ought to be grateful for being born on the most temperate planet in the universe, and in one of the most temperate parts of that planet. You ought likewise, madam, said I, to be thankful for being young, and not old; young and handsome, not young and ugly; a young and handsome French woman, not a young and handsome Italian: there are many things to excite your gratitude besides the temperature of your climate.

Ah! replied she, let us be grateful for every thing, even the vortex in which we are placed. The happiness we enjoy is but little, we must not lose any of it; it is well to cultivate an interest in the most common things. If we are only alive to strong emotions our pleasures will be few, seldom attainable, and dearly purchased. Promise me then, said I, that when such animated pleasures are within your reach you will think of the vortices and me, and not neglect us entirely. Very well, said she: but will philosophy always afford me new enjoyments? For to-morrow, at least, answered I: I have the fixed stars in reserve for you, which surpass all that you have yet examined.

══════════════

_FIFTH EVENING._

══════════════

EVERY FIXED STAR IS A SUN, WHICH DIFFUSES LIGHT TO ITS SURROUNDING WORLDS.

══════════════

The Marchioness was very impatient to know what the fixed stars were. Are they inhabited, like the planets? said she, or are they not peopled? What can we make of them? Perhaps you would find out what they are, answered I, if you were to try. The fixed stars cannot be at less distance from the earth, than twenty-seven thousand, six hundred and sixty times[49] the earth's distance from the sun, which is thirty-three millions of leagues: perhaps some astronomers would tell you they are farther still. The space between the Sun and Saturn, the most distant planet, is only three hundred and thirty millions of leagues; that is but a trifle in comparison of the distance between the sun, or earth, and the fixed stars, in fact, we don't take the trouble to compute it. Their light, as you perceive, is brilliant: if they received it from the sun, it must be very faint after travelling such an immense journey, and by reflecting it to us it would be still more weakened. It would be impossible for light, which had twice gone such a long space, to appear so bright as that of the fixed stars. They are therefore luminous in their nature, or in other words, they are so many suns.

[Footnote 49: Or even two hundred thousand times.]

Do I mistake, cried the Marchioness, or do I see your drift? Are you not going to say "the fixed stars are all suns: our sun is the centre of a vortex which turns around him; why should not each fixed star be also the centre of a vortex, turning round it? Our sun enlightens planets; why should not every fixed star likewise enlighten planets?" I need make no other answer, replied I, than Phœdrus made to Enone: _thou hast named it_.

But, rejoined she, you are making the universe so unbounded that I feel lost in it; I don't know where I am, not what I'm about. What! are they all vortices heaped in confusion on one another? Is every fixed star the centre of a vortex, as large perhaps as ours?[50] The amazing space comprehending our sun and planets is but a little portion of the universe? An equal space, occupied by each of these vortices? The thought is fearful; overwhelming! For my part, said I, I think it very pleasing. Were the sky only a blue arch to which the stars were fixed, the universe would seem narrow and confined; there would not be room to breathe: now that we attribute an infinitely greater extent and depth to this blue firmament, by dividing it into thousands of vortices, I seem to be more at liberty; to live in a freer air; and nature appears with astonishingly encreased magnificence. Creation is boundless in treasures; lavish in endowments. How grand the idea of this immense number of vortices, the middle of each occupied by a sun, encompassed with planets which turn around him! The inhabitants of one of these numberless vortices, on every side behold the suns of surrounding vortices, although the planets belonging to them are invisible, as the light they receive from their suns cannot penetrate beyond their own vortex.

[Footnote 50: That may be the case, but we have no proof that there are planets turning round these stars.]

You are directing my eye, answered she, to an interminable perspective. I see, plainly enough, the inhabitants of the earth; then you enable me to discover, with somewhat less clearness, those of the moon and other planets contained in our vortex. After all that you require me to view the people that dwell in planets belonging to other vortices. I must confess they are so much in the back ground that with all my efforts they are scarcely perceptible to me. In short do they not seem almost annihilated by the very expression you are obliged to make use of in describing them? You must call them the inhabitants of one of the planets, contained in one, out of the infinity of vortices. Surely the very idea of ourselves is as nothing when such a description is applied to us, when we are thus lost amongst millions of worlds. For my part, the earth begins to diminish into such a speck, that in future I shall hardly consider any object worthy of eager pursuit. Surely people, who form unnumbered schemes of aggrandizement, who are wearing themselves out in following up projects of ambition, are ignorant of the vortices. I think my augmentation of knowledge will encrease my idleness, and when I am reproached for being indolent I shall reply, _Ah! if you knew the history of the fixed stars!_ Alexander could not have been acquainted with it, answered I; for a certain author, who believes that the moon is inhabited, tells us very seriously that it was impossible for Aristotle to avoid receiving so rational an opinion, (could Aristotle be ignorant of any truth?) but that he never disclosed it for fear of displeasing Alexander, who would have been miserable to hear of a world that he could not subjugate. There would have been a still greater reason for keeping the vortices of the fixed stars a secret; if any body in those days had known them, they would not have thought of ingratiating themselves with the monarch by talking of them. It is unfortunate that I who am acquainted with the system should not be able to reap any benefit from it. According to your reasoning it will only be an antidote to the disquietudes of ambition; that is not my malady. The weakness I am most addicted to is an excessive admiration of beauty, and I fear the vortices will have no power to assist me in overcoming it. The immense number of worlds destroys the grandeur of this, but it does not lessen the charms of a fine pair of eyes or a beautiful mouth, _they_ retain their power in spite of all the worlds that can be created.

Love is a strange thing, said she, laughing; it escapes every corrective; there is no system that can abate its influence. But answer me seriously; have you sufficient reason for believing this system? To me it appears to rest on an uncertain foundation. A fixed star is of a luminous nature like the sun, therefore you say it must, like the sun, be a centre to a vortex containing planets which travel round the sun. Now, is that a necessary consequence?

Listen, madam, I replied; we are so naturally disposed to mingle the follies of gallantry with our gravest discussions, that mathematical reasoning partakes of the nature of love. Grant ever so little to a lover, and presently you are forced to grant him a great deal more, and so on till you don't know how to stop. In like manner admit any principle a mathematician proposes, he then draws a consequence which you are obliged to admit, and from that consequence another, and thus before you are aware he carries you so far that on a sudden you wonder where you have got to: these two characters always take more than you mean to give them. You must own that when two things are similar in all that I know of them, I may reasonably think them similar in what I am unacquainted with in respect to them. From that principle I draw the conclusion of the moon being inhabited because she resembled the earth; and the other planets, because they resemble the moon. And because the fixed stars bear a resemblance to our sun, I attribute to them all that he possesses. You have already made too many concessions to draw back, you must go on; do it therefore with a good grace. But, said she, in admitting this resemblance between the fixed stars and our sun, we must suppose that the inhabitants of another great vortex see it as a little fixed star, visible only during their nights.

That is indisputable, I replied. Our sun is so near to us in comparison of the suns belonging to other vortices that his light must be incomparably stronger to us than to them. When he is risen we can discern no other heavenly body: so, in another vortex, another sun eclipses ours, and permits it to appear only at night, with all the other suns, then visible. With them, fixed to the blue firmament, our sun forms a part of some imaginary figure. As to the planets that go round him, as they are not seen at so great a distance, they are not so much as thought of. Thus all the suns are daily luminaries to their own vortex, and nightly ones to all the other vortices. Each reigns alone in his own system; elsewhere, is but one of a great number. Nevertheless, do not these worlds differ from each other in a thousand instances, notwithstanding this equality? for a general resemblance does not exclude a vast number of dissimilarities.

Surely, answered I: but the difficulty is to find them out. For ought we know one vortex may have more planets revolving round its sun, another fewer. In one there are subaltern planets, turning round the principal planets; in another they may be all alike. Here they all collect round their sun in a circle, beyond which is an empty space which extends to the neighbouring vortices; in other parts of the universe they may have their orbits at the extremities of their vortex whilst the centre is left empty. And very likely there are some vortices without any planets; others, whose suns, not being in the centre, have a circular revolution, carrying their planets along with them; others, again, whose planets may rise and set with regard to their sun according to the change of that equilibrium which keeps them suspended--What would you have more? Surely here is enough for a person who has never been beyond one vortex.

All that is nothing, she replied, for the number of worlds. What you have been imagining would suffice but for five or six, instead of millions.

If you talk of millions now, said I, how will you count them when I tell you there are many more fixed stars than you discover; that with telescopes an endless number are seen which are invisible to the naked eye; and that in a single constellation, where we might before have counted a dozen or fifteen, there have been found as many as we were accustomed to observe throughout the heavens?[51]

[Footnote 51: I conclude, from a pretty accurate calculation, that we may perceive a hundred millions with a telescope that has an opening of four feet; I have clearly distinguished fifty thousand, and my glass is but two inches and a half in diameter.]

Have pity on me, cried she; I yield; you have overwhelmed me with worlds and vortices. Ah! said I, but I must add something more still; you see that white part of the sky, called the milky-way. Can you guess what it is?--An infinity of little stars, invisible to our eyes on account of their smallness, and placed so close to each other that they seem but a stream of light. I wish I had a telescope here to shew you this cluster of worlds. In some measure, they resemble the Maldivia Isles, those twelve thousand little islands or banks of sand, separated only by narrow canals of the sea which one might almost leap over. The little vortices of the milky-way must be so close, that from one world to another the people might converse or shake hands. The birds, at least, I think, can go from one world to another; and pigeons may be taught to carry letters as they do in our Levant from one town to another. These little worlds must deviate from the general rule by which the sun of any vortex effaces, at its rising, all the other suns. In one of the little vortices contained in the milky-way the sun of that particular vortex can hardly appear closer to its planets, or more brilliant, than a hundred thousand other suns, in the neighbouring vortices. The sky, then, is filled with a countless quantity of fires almost close to each other. When they lose sight of their own sun, they have thousands still remaining; and the night is not less enlightened than the day; at least the difference is so trifling that we may say there is no night. The inhabitants of those worlds, accustomed as they are to perpetual light, would be very much astonished to hear of miserable creatures who spend half their time in profound darkness; and who, even during the light of day, see but one sun. They would think we had fallen under the displeasure of nature, and shudder at our condition.

I don't ask you, said the Marchioness, whether they have any moons in the milky-way; they could be of no use to the principal planets, since they have no nights, and besides that, move in so small a space that they could not be encumbered with subaltern planets. But, continued she, by multiplying worlds so liberally, you give rise to a great difficulty. The vortices, of which we see the suns, touch our vortex: the vortices you say are round; can so many circles touch this single one? I can't understand how it is.

It shews a great deal of sense, answered I, to discover this difficulty, and even to be unable to solve it, for it is in itself well founded, and in the way you conceive it, unanswerable; therefore there would be but little proof of wisdom in finding an answer to what was incapable of any. If our vortex were in the figure of a die, it would have six flat sides, which is very far from a circle; on each of these sides might then be placed a vortex of the same shape. If instead of six, it had twenty, fifty, or a thousand, flat sides, an equal number of vortices might come in contact with it, each resting against one of these sides. You know the greater number of flat sides a body has, the nearer it approaches in form to a circle; so that a diamond cut into a great number of facets, if they were extremely small, would be nearly as round as a pearl of the same size. The vortices are only circular in this manner. They have an amazing number of flat sides, each of which is close to another vortex. These sides are very unequal; some larger, some smaller. The smallest correspond to those of the milky-way. If two vortices leave any space between, which must often be the case, nature, to make the most of the extent, fills up the vacancy by one or two, or perhaps a thousand, little vortices, which without incommoding any of the others, form one, two, or a thousand more systems of worlds; so there may be many more worlds than our vortex has sides; and I dare say, though these little vortices are formed merely to fill up spare corners of the universe that would otherwise have been useless; though they may be overlooked by the neighbouring vortices, yet they are quite satisfied with themselves. It is probably such little vortices whose suns we cannot discover without telescopes, of which there is a prodigious number. In short all these vortices are adjusted in the best order imaginable; and as each of them must turn round its sun without changing place, it is formed to move in the most easy and commodious manner for that purpose. They, as it were, catch hold of each other, like the wheels of a watch, and mutually assist the motion. It is likewise true that in a sense they counteract one another: each vortex if it had no external pressure would extend itself; but when it attempts to swell it is repelled by the surrounding vortices, which forces it to shrink back; then it extends again, and so on:[52] some philosophers think that the fixed stars give such a sparkling, intermittent light in consequence of this alternate expansion and contraction of the vortices.

[Footnote 52: The preservation of the starry system is more satisfactorily explained by attraction; they are all kept in equilibrium by their mutual attraction.]

There is something agreeable, said the Marchioness, in the idea of such a combat among the worlds, and the reciprocal emission of light produced by it, which apparently is the only communication carried on between them.

No, no, I replied, that is not the only one. The neighbouring worlds sometimes send us visitors, who come, in a very magnificent style. These visitors are comets,[53] ornamented with brilliant flowing hair, a venerable beard, or a majestic train.

[Footnote 53: It is indisputably proved that the comets belong to our solar system.]