Chapter 17
Having interrogated _sense_ and _science_, with the solution of our enigma anything but complete, we resort last of all to the argument from _analogy_. If this can illumine the obscurity, it will all be on the positive side of the inquiry. At present the question resembles a half-moon: analogy may show that the affirmative is waxing towards a full-orbed conviction. We open with Huyghens, a Dutch astronomer of note, who, while he thinks it certain "that the moon has no air or atmosphere surrounding it as we have," and "cannot imagine how any plants or animals whose whole nourishment comes from fluid bodies, can thrive in a dry, waterless, parched soil," yet asks, "What, then, shall this great ball be made for; nothing but to give us a little weak light in the night time, or to raise our tides in the sea? Shall not we plant some people there that may have the pleasure of seeing our earth turn upon its axis, presenting them sometimes with a prospect of Europe and Africa, and then of Asia and America; sometimes half and sometimes full?" [454] Ray was "persuaded that this luminary doth serve many ends and uses, especially to maintain the creatures which in all likelihood breed and inhabit there." [455] Swedenborg's _ipse dixit_ ought to convince the most incredulous; for he speaks "from what has been heard and seen." Thus he says: "That there are inhabitants in the moon is well known to spirits and angels, and in like manner that there are inhabitants in the moons or satellites which revolve about Jupiter and Saturn. They who have not seen and discoursed with spirits coming from those moons still entertain no doubt but there are men inhabiting them, because they are earths alike with the planets, and wherever an earth is, there are men inhabitants; for man is the end for which every earth was created, and nothing was made by the great Creator without an end." [456] If any are still sceptical, Sir William Herschel, an intellectual light of no mean magnitude, may reach them. He writes: "While man walks upon the ground, the birds fly in the air, and fishes swim in water, we can certainly not object to the conveniences afforded by the moon, if those that are to inhabit its regions are fitted to their conditions as well as we on this globe arc to ours. An absolute or total sameness seems rather to denote imperfections, such as nature never exposes to our view; and, on this account, I believe the analogies that have been mentioned fully sufficient to establish the high probability of the moon's being inhabited like the earth." [457] The voice of Dr. Dwight, the American theologian, will not be out of harmony here. In discoursing of the starry heavens, he says of the planets: "Of these inferior worlds, the moon is one; and to us, far the most interesting. How many important purposes which are known does this beautiful attendant of our earth continually accomplish! How many more, in all probability, which are hitherto unknown, and which hereafter may be extensively disclosed to more enlightened, virtuous, and happy generations of men! At the same time, it is most rationally concluded that intelligent beings in great multitudes inhabit her lucid regions, being far better and happier than ourselves." [458] Whewell's _Bridgewater Treatise_ will furnish us a fitting quotation. "The earth, the globular body thus covered with life, is not the only globe in the universe. There are, circling about our own sun, six others, so far as we can judge, perfectly analogous in their nature: besides our moon and other bodies analogous to it. No one can resist the temptation to conjecture, that these globes, some of them much larger than our own, are not dead and barren: --that they are, like ours, occupied with organization, life, intelligence." [459] In a most eloquent passage, Dr. Chalmers, who will always be heard with admiration, exclaims: "Who shall assign a limit to the discoveries of future ages? Who shall prescribe to science her boundaries, or restrain the active and insatiable curiosity of man within the circle of his present acquirements? We may guess with plausibility what we cannot anticipate with confidence. The day may yet be coming when our instruments of observation shall be inconceivably more powerful. They may ascertain still more decisive points of resemblance. They may resolve the same question by the evidence of sense which is now so abundantly convincing by the evidence of analogy. They may lay open to us the unquestionable vestiges of art, and industry, and intelligence. We may see summer throwing its green mantle over those mighty tracts, and we may see them left naked and colourless after the flush of vegetation has disappeared. In the progress of years or of centuries, we may trace the hand of cultivation spreading a new aspect over some portion of a planetary surface. Perhaps some large city, the metropolis of a mighty empire, may expand into a visible spot by the powers of some future telescope. Perhaps the glass of some observer, in a distant age, may enable him to construct the map of another world, and to lay down the surface of it in all its minute and topical varieties. But there is no end of conjecture; and to the men of other times we leave the full assurance of what we can assert with the highest probability, that yon planetary orbs are so many worlds, that they teem with life, and that the mighty Being who presides in high authority over this scene of grandeur and astonishment has there planted the worshippers of His glory." [460]
How fine is this outburst of the great Scotch orator! He spoke as one inspired with prophetic foreknowledge; for in less than twenty years after this utterance, Beer and Maedler published their splendid _Mappe Selenographica_, or map of the moon; and photography offered its aid to the fuller delineation of our silvery satellite. Who can tell what the last fifteen years of this eventful century may develop in the same direction? Verily these intuitions of reason seem often favoured with an apocalypse of coming disclosures; and, if we may venture to adopt with slight alteration a sentence of Shelley, we will say: "It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations; for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age." The poets of science, in their analogies, are "the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present." [461] Equally noble with the language of Chalmers is a paragraph which we have extracted from a work by that scholarly writer, Isaac Taylor. He says: "There are two facts, each of which is significant in relation to our present subject, and of which the first has long been understood, while the latter (only of late ascertained) is every day receiving new illustrations; namely, that our planet is, in no sense, of primary importance in the general system, or entitled, by its magnitude, or its position, or its constitution, to be considered as exerting any peculiar influence over others, or as the object of more regard than any others. This knowledge of our real place and value in the universe is a very important consequence of our modern astronomy, and should not be lost sight of in any of our speculations. But then it is also now ascertained that the great laws of our own planet, and of the solar system to which it belongs, prevail in all other and the most remote systems, so as to make the visible universe, in the strictest sense, ONE SYSTEM--indicating one origin and showing the presence of one Controlling Power. Thus the law of gravitation, with all the conditions it implies, and the laws of light, are demonstrated to be in operation in regions incalculably remote; and just so far as the physical constitution of the other planets of our system can be either traced, or reasonably conjectured, it appears that, amid great diversities of constitution, the same great principles prevail in all; and therefore our further conjecture concerning the existence of sentient and rational life in other worlds is borne out by every sort of analogy, abstract and physical; and this same rule of analogy impels us to suppose that rational and moral agents, in whatever world found, and whatever diversity of form may distinguish them, would be such that we should soon feel at home in their society, and able to confer with them, to communicate knowledge to them, and to receive knowledge from them. Neither truth nor virtue is local; nor can there be wisdom and goodness in one planet, which is not wisdom and goodness in every other." [462] The writer of the _Plurality of Worlds_, a little work distinct from the essay already quoted, vigorously vindicates "the deeply cherished belief of some philosophers, and of many Christians, that our world, in its present state, contains the mere embryo of intelligent, moral, and religious happiness; that the progress of man in his present state is but the initiation of an interminable career of glory; and that his most widely extended associations are a preparation for as interminably an intercourse with the whole family of an intelligent universe." [463] Dr. Arnott may add a final word, a last link in this evidential chain of analogy. He writes: "To think, as our remote forefathers did, that the wondrous array of the many planets visible from this earth serve no purpose but to adorn its nocturnal sky, would now appear absurd indeed; but whether they are inhabited by beings at all resembling the men of this earth, we have not the means of knowing. All the analogies favour the opinion that they are the abodes of life and its satisfactions. On this earth there is no place so hot or so cold, so illumined or so dark, so dry or so wet, but that it has creatures constituted to enjoy life there." [464]
Here our long list of learned authorities shall terminate. We have strung together a large number of citations, and have ourselves furnished only the string. Indeed, what more have amateurs that they can do? For, as Pope puts it,--
"Who shall decide, when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?"
Besides, astronomy is no child's play, nor are its abstruse problems to be mastered by superficial meddlers. "Its intricacy," as Narrien reminds us, "in the higher departments, is such as to render the processes unintelligible to all but the few distinguished persons who, by nature and profound application to the subject, are qualified for such researches." [465] But if professionals must be summoned as witnesses, ordinary men may sit as jurors. This function we have wished to fufil; and we avow ourselves considerably perplexed, though not in despair. We hoped that after a somewhat exhaustive examination, we might be able to state the result with an emphasis of conviction. This we find impossible; but we can affirm on which side the evidence appears to preponderate, and whither, we rest assured, further light will lead our willing feet. The conclusion, therefore, of the whole matter is: we cannot see any living creatures on the moon, however long we strain our eyes. No instrument has yet been constructed that will reveal the slightest vestige of inhabitation. Consequently, the actual evidence of sense is all against us, and we resign it without demur. This point, being settled, is dismissed.
Next, we reconsider the results of scientific study, and are strongly inclined to think the weight of testimony favours the existence of a thin atmosphere, at least some water, and a measure of light and shade in succession. These conditions must enable vegetables and animals to exist upon its surface, though their constitution is in all probability not analogous with that of those which are found upon our earth. But to deny the being of inhabitants of some kind, even in the absence of these conditions, we submit would be unphilosophical, seeing that the Power which adapted terrestrial life to terrestrial environments could also adapt lunar life to the environments in the moon. We are seeking no shelter in the miraculous, nor do we run from a dilemma to the refuges of religion. Apart from our theological belief in the potency of the Creator and Controller of all worlds, we simply regard it as illogical and inconclusive to argue that because organization, life, and intelligence obtain within one sphere under one order of circumstances, _therefore_ the same order obtains in every other sphere throughout the system to which that one belongs. The unity of nature is as clear to us as the unity of God; but unity is not uniformity. We view the whole creation as we view this world; the entire empire as we view this single province,
"Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree."
And, finally, as analogy is unreservedly on the side of the occupation of every domain in creation, by some creatures who have the dominion, we cannot admit the probability that the earth is the only tenement with tenants: we must be confirmed in our judgment that the sun and the planets, with their moons, ours of course included, are neither blank nor barren, but abodes of variously organized beings, fitted to fulfil the chief end of all noble existence: the enjoyment of life, the effluence of love, the good of all around and the glory of God above.
This article, that the moon is inhabited, may therefore form a clause of our scientific creed; not to be held at any hazard, as a matter of life or death, or a test of communion, but to be maintained subject to corrections such as future elucidation may require. We believe that we are justified by science, reason, and analogy; and confidently look to be further justified by verification. We accept many things as matters of faith, which we have not fully ascertained to be matters of fact; but "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen." By double entry the books of science are kept, by reasoning and demonstration: when future auditors shall examine the accounts of the moon's inhabitation, we are persuaded that the result of our reckoning will be found to be correct.
If any would charge us with a wish to be wise above what is written, we merely reply: There are unwritten revelations which are nevertheless true. Besides, we are not sure that at least an intimation of other races than those of the earth is not already on record. Not to prove any position, but to check obstructive criticism, we refer to the divine who is said to have witnessed in magnificent apocalypse some closing scenes of the human drama. If he also heard in sublime oratorio a prelude of this widely extended glory, our vision may not be a "baseless fabric." After the quartettes of earth, and the interludes of angels, came the grand finale, when every creature which is in heaven, as well as on the earth, was heard ascribing "Blessing and honour and glory and power to Him who sitteth upon the throne." Assuredly, our conception of a choir worthy to render that chorus is not of an elect handful of "saints," or contracted souls, embraced within any Calvinistic covenant, but of an innumerable multitude of ennobled, purified, and expanded beings, convoked from every satellite and planet, every sun and star, and overflowing with gratitude and love to that universal Father of lights, with whom is no parallax, nor descension, and who kindled every spark of life and beauty that in their individual and combined lustre He might reflect and repeat His own ineffable blessedness.
APPENDIX.
_Literature of the Lunar Man_.
_Vide_ p. 8.
1. _The Man in the Moone_. Telling Strange Fortunes. London, 1609.
2. "_The Man in the Moone_, discovering a world of Knavery under the Sunne; both in the _Parliament_, the _Councel_ of _State_, the _Army_, the _City_, and the _Country_." Dated, "Die Lunae, From Nov. 14 to Wednesday Novemb. 21 1649." _Periodical Publications, London_. British Museum. Another Edition, "Printed for Charles Tyns, at the Three Cups on London Bridge, 1657."
3. "SELENARCHIA, _or the Government of the World in the Moon_." A comical history written by Cyrano Bergerac, and done into English by Tho. St. Serf. London 1659."
The same, Englished by A. Lovell, A.M., London, 1687.
4. "_The Man in the Moon, or Travels into the Lunar Regions_," by W. Thomson, London, 1783.
In this lucubration the Man in the Moon shows the Man of the People (Charles Fox), many eminent contemporaries, by means of a magical glass.
5. "_The Man in the Moon_, consisting of Essays and Critiques." London, 1804. Of no value. After shining feebly like a rushlight for about two months, it went out in smoke.
6. _The Man in the Moon_. London, 1820. A Political Squib.
7. _The Loyal Man in the Moon_, 1820, is a Political Satire, with thirteen cuts.
8. _The Man in the Moon_, London, 1827(?). A Poem. _N.B._ The word _poem_ has many meanings.
9. _The Man in the Moon_. Edinburgh, 1832. A small sheet, sold for political purposes, at the high price of a penny. The Lunar Man pledges himself to "do as I like, and not to care one straw for the opinion of any person on earth."
10. _The Man in the Moon_. London, 1847. This is a comical serial, edited by Albert Smith and Angus B. Reach; and is rich, racy, and now rare.
11. _The Moon's Histories_. By a Lady. London, 1848.
_The Mirror of Pythagoras_
_Vide_ p. 147.
"In laying thus the blame upon the moone, Thou imitat'st subtill _Pythagoras_, Who, what he would the people should beleeve, The same be wrote with blood upon a glasse, And turn'd it opposite 'gainst the new moone Whose beames reflecting on it with full force, Shew'd all those lynes, to them that stood behinde, Most playnly writ in circle of the moone; And then he said, Not I, but the new moone Fair _Cynthia_, perswades you this and that."
_Summer to Sol_, in _A Pleasant Comedie, called Summer's Last Will and Testament_. Written by Thomas Nash. London, 1600.
_The East Coast of Greenland_.
_Vide_ p. 171.
"When an eclipse of the moon takes place, they attribute it to the moon's going into their houses, and peeping into every nook and corner, in search of skins and eatables, and on such occasions accordingly, they conceal all they can, and make as much noise as possible, in order to frighten away their unbidden guest." --_Narrative of an Expedition to the East Coast of Greenland_: Capt. W. A. Graah, of the Danish Roy. Navy. London, 1837, p. 124.
_Lord Iddesleigh on the Moon_.
_Vide_ p. 189.
Speaking at a political meeting in Aberdeen, on the 22nd of September, 1885, the Earl of Iddesleigh approved the superannuated notion of lunar influence, and likened the leading opponents of his party to the old and new moon. "What signs of bad weather are there which sometimes you notice when storms are coming on? It always seems to me that the worst sign of bad weather is when you see what is called the new moon with the old moon in its arms. I have no doubt that many of you Aberdeen men have read the fine old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens, who was drowned some twenty or thirty miles off the coast of Aberdeen. In that ballad he was cautioned not to go to sea, because his faithful and weatherwise attendant had noticed the new moon with the old moon in its lap. I think myself that that is a very dangerous sign, and when I see Mr. Chamberlain, the new moon, with Mr. Gladstone, the old one, in his arms, I think it is time to look out for squally weather."--_The Standard_, London, Sept. 23rd, 1885.
The Scottish ballad of Sir Patrick Spens, which is given in the collections of Thomas Percy, Sir Walter Scott, William Motherwell, and others, is supposed by Scott to refer to a voyage that may really have taken place for the purpose of bringing back the Maid of Norway, Margaret, daughter of Alexander III., to her own kingdom of Scotland. Finlay regards it as of more modern date. Chambers suspects Lady Wardlaw of the authorship. While William Allingham counsels his readers to cease troubling themselves with the historical connection of this and all other ballads, and to enjoy rather than investigate. Coleridge calls Sir Patrick Spens a "grand old ballad."
_Greeting the New Moon in Fiji_.
_Vide_ p. 212.
"There is, I find, in Colo ('the devil's country' as it is called), in the mountainous interior of Viti Levu, the largest island of Fiji, a very curious method of greeting the new moon, that may not, as few Europeans have visited this wild part, have been noticed. The native, on seeing the thin crescent rise above the hills, salutes it with a prolonged 'Ah!' at the same time quickly tapping his open mouth with his hand, thus producing a rapid vibratory sound. I inquired of a chief in the town the meaning and origin of this custom, and my interpreter told me that he said, 'We always look and hunt for the moon in the sky, and when it comes we do so to show our pleasure at finding it again. I don't know the meaning of it; our fathers always did so.'"--Alfred St. Johnston, in _Notes and Queries_ for July 23rd, 1881, p. 67. See also Mr. St. Johnston's _Camping Among Cannibals_, London, 1883, p. 283.
_Lunar Influence on Dreams_.
_Vide_ p. 214.
Arnason says that in Iceland "there are great differences between a dream dreamt in a crescent moon, and one dreamt when the moon is waning. Dreams that are dreamt before full moon are but a short while in coming true; those dreamt later take a longer time for their fulfilment."--_Icelandic Legends_, Introductory Essay, p. lxxxvii.
NOTES.
1 _The Martyrs of Science_, by Sir David Brewster, K.H., D.C.L. London, 1867, p. 21.
2 _The Marvels of the Heavens_, by Camile Flammarion. London, 1870, p. 238.
3 _The Jest Book_. Arranged by Mark Lemon. London, 1864, p. 310.
4 _Timon_, a Play. Edited by the Rev. A. Dyce. London (Shakespeare Society), 1842, Act iv. Scene iii.
5 _The Man in the Moon drinks Claret_, as it was lately sung at the Court in Holy-well. _Bagford Ballads_, Folio Collection in the British Museum, vol. ii. No. 119.
6 _Conceits, Clinches, Flashes, and Whimzies_. Edited by J. O. Halliwell, F.R.S. London, 1860, p. 41.
7 _The Man in the Moon_, by C. Sloman. London, 1848, Music by E. J. Loder.
8 _Ancient Songs and Ballads_, by Joseph Ritson. London, 1877, p. 58.
9 _On the Religions of India_. Hibbert Lectures for 1878. London, p. 132.
10 _An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language_, by John Jamieson, D.D. Paisley, 1880, iii. 299.
11 _Sir Thomas Browne's Works_. Edited by Simon Wilkin, F.L.S., London, 1835, iii. 157.
12 _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_. Hazlitt's Edition. London, 1870, ii. 275.
13 _Asgard and the Gods_. Adapted from the work of Dr. Waegner, by M.W. Macdowall; and edited by W. S. Anson. London, 1884, p. 30.
14 _An Introduction to the Science of Comparative Mythology and Folk Lore_, by the Rev. Sir George W. Cox, Bart., M.A. London, 1881, p. 12.
15 _Plutarch's Morals_. Translated by p. Holland. London, 1603, p. 1160.
16 _Myths and Marvels of Astronomy_, by R. A. Proctor. London, 1878, p. 245. See also, _As Pretty as Seven and other German Tales_, by Ludwig Bechstein. London, p. 111.
17 _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, by S. Baring-Gould, M.A. London, 1877, p. 193.
18 _Northern Mythology_, by Benjamin Thorpe. London, 1851, iii. 57.
19 _Notes and Queries_. First Series, 1852, vol. vi. p. 232. The entire text of this poem is given in Bunsen's _God in History_. London, 1868, ii. 495.
20 Thorpe's _Mythology_, i. 6.
21 _Ibid.,_ 143.
22 _Curious Myths_, pp. 201-203.