Part 20

_The Author._ No. After having made you understand that the solar system which we inhabit is only a member of an immense family of other solar worlds, only a small fraction of the universe, I wished to show you by the diversity of those worlds, the facility with which nature varies the forces and the physical conditions proper to the stellar worlds, and consequently the living and inanimate types which make a portion of these different stellar worlds. Now that you understand the prodigious diversity of the solar worlds which compose the universe, I will go on to our principal object. I have not lost sight of my intention of proving to you that the universe has no limits, that in its extent it is really the Infinite. I am now approaching this great question. By the consideration of the stars, I am going to bring out into relief the immeasurable vastness of the universe. Let me speak, first, of the appalling distances which separate the stars from the earth, and the figures will show you that on that side we fall into the Infinite, and then I will speak of the numbers of the stars which people space; and on this side also the abyss of the Infinite will yawn before us. First, as to the distances which separate the stars from the earth, from whence we may logically infer the distances which separate these stars from one another. The distance between the earth and the sun is 38,000,000 leagues, and this shall be our unit, our standard of measurement, by which to estimate the distance of the stars.

I do not know, my dear Theophilus, whether you have formed an exact idea of this extent of 38,000,000 leagues, which lie between us and the sun. In general, we can only conceive prodigious distances such as astronomy deals with, by representing them by the interval of time which certain movable bodies known to us would consume in traversing them. Let us then have recourse to comparisons of this kind. A cannon-ball weighing 12 kilogrammes, exploded by 6 kilogrammes of powder, proceeding at a uniform rate of 500 metres a second, would take 10 years to travel from the earth to the sun.

Supposing sound to travel at the same rate as on the surface of the air, and at a uniform rate, it would take 15 years to accomplish this journey. If a railway were laid through space between the earth and the sun, a train travelling at express speed, 12½ leagues an hour, would not arrive at its destination until the end of 338 years. This imaginary train, if dispatched from the earth in January, 1872, would arrive at the sun in the year 2210. The light from the sun, which travels 77,000 leagues in a second, takes 7 minutes 13 seconds to reach the earth.

_Theophilus._ The distance between the earth and the sun is, then, 38,000,000 miles--that is our unit of measurement for the distances of the stars. Now let us hear about these distances.

_The Author._ I will deal first with those stars which are nearest to us. One of these is a star in the constellation of the _Swan_. This star is distant from the earth 551,000 times our unit of measurement, that is to say, that we must multiply 551,000 times the distance of the earth from the sun to represent the distance of the star which we are considering, and yet it is one of the nearest to the earth. If we wish to represent this distance by the time occupied in the transit of light, supposing this light to travel, like that of our sun, 77,000 leagues a second, it would take 9½ years to travel from the star to us.

Now, if you wish to know the distance of other stars, and remember that I only speak of the nearest, look at this table, which I found in an astronomical treatise:

DISTANCE OF CERTAIN STARS FROM THE EARTH.

_Names of the _Distances from _Time of transit Stars._ the Earth._ of light._

α Of the Swan 551,000 times 9 years and a half. α Of the Lyre 1,330,700 21 years. α Of the Great Dog 1,375,000 22 years. α Of the Great Bear 1,550,800 25 years. Polar Star 3,678,000 50 years.

Thus, the star α of the Lyre is distant from us more than 1,330,000 times as far as the earth is from the sun, and its light takes 21 years to reach us. If, by any celestial catastrophe, star α of the Lyre were to disappear, to be annihilated, we should still see it for 21 years, as its light takes that time to reach us.

_Theophilus._ It is then possible that our astronomers are now observing stars which no longer exist, and are only visible to us because the light which they omitted is still travelling towards the earth.

_The Author._ Just so. But to continue. I have begun with the stars which are nearest to the earth. There are the stars of first and second magnitude. You know, I suppose, the signification of those terms first, second, and third magnitude in astronomy?

_Theophilus._ Yes, I know that the word magnitude is only applied to the luminous appearance of the star, and not to its real bulk. A star of the first magnitude is one which forms part of the group of the most luminous stars; a star of the second magnitude is one which comes next in point of brilliancy.

_The Author._ You must bear in mind that the word _magnitude_ signifies in astronomy the opposite of that which it expresses. The more luminous a star appears to us, the nearer it is to us; the paler and less visible, the farther it is away. The brilliance diminishes in proportion as the figure increases. This is an introversion of terms, sufficiently exceptional to be taken note of, and it ought to be remembered, for fear of mistakes. Hitherto we have considered only stars of the first and second magnitudes. Those of the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth, lead us to the contemplation of such immense distances, that the unit which we have adopted, enormous as it is, is no longer of use. The instruments of celestial observation which may be applied to the examination and measurement of stars of the first and second magnitudes, do not serve for stars of the third and following magnitudes, and, because the small visible diameter of those stars make them appear mere specks of light, measuring instruments are equally inapplicable to them. In estimating the distances of the stars after the third magnitude, a method of comparison, based on the amplifying power of the telescopes successively used, is employed. I cannot enter into details of this method, which we owe to Sir William Herschel, but must content myself with explaining its results, which are as follows in the case of stars of the sixth magnitude. From certain stars of that class, light would take 1042 years to reach us: from others it would take 2700. After the sixth magnitude, the stars can only be discerned by the aid of the telescope, and their distances become perfectly stupefying in immensity. Certain of these telescopic stars are so far from the earth, that their light can only reach us in 5000, and even 10,000 years after it leaves the luminous centre. From the stars of the last category (fourteenth magnitude), light would take 100,000 years to reach the earth, supposing it to travel at the same rate as the light of our sun, _i.e._, 77,000 leagues per second.

_Theophilus._ But, if we are to accept the results of the labours of recent naturalists, man exists on the earth only within 100,000 years, and some of those stars may have been extinct during all that time, so that the human race may have been contemplating stars no longer in being for 100,000 years. To what strange consequences does such a science lead us!

_The Author._ Yes, the luminous rays which these stars send us from the deepest depths of space may perhaps be emanations from solar systems no longer in existence. The present shows us only the past. There may be stars so profoundly lost in immensity, that their light has not yet had time to reach us. They exist, but we cannot see them, not because the telescope could not discover them, but because thousands of centuries are required for the journey of their luminous rays to our earth, and those thousands of centuries have not yet elapsed; so that this grand spectacle is reserved, in that awfully remote future, for our descendants.

And now, my friend, will you not acknowledge with me, that the universe, considered merely by the distances which separate us from the stars, and the stars from each other, is truly the Infinite?

_Theophilus._ Yes, it is the Infinite which unfolds itself before my eyes. Let me breathe a moment.

_The Author._ If we contemplate the number of the stars, we shall also have the perspective of the Infinite. It is easy to reckon those of the first magnitude, _i.e._, the nearest to us. They are 20. Those of the second magnitude are 65; of the third, 170. The number of the stars increases as their visibility diminishes, in a very rapid proportion. The number of stars of each class of visibility, in apparent magnitude, is three times greater than that of the stars of the preceding class. There are 500 stars of the fourth, 1500 of the fifth, 4500 of the sixth magnitudes. The stars visible by the naked eye are 6000 in number. A practised eye can succeed in counting the 6000 stars in the two hemispheres.

But the telescope enables us to push the numbering of the suns much farther: it opens up to us the depths of the heavens. Instead of the small number of stars which our eyes can see, it shows us a myriad of others, so thickly thronged together that they seem to cover the sky with fine silver sand. Here, for instance (fig. 6), is the aspect which one corner of the constellation of Gemini presents to the naked eye. And here is the same portion of the sky seen by the telescope. By the aid of this wonderful instrument stars of the thirteenth and fourteenth magnitudes have been distinguished. The number of stars of the twelfth magnitude is 9,556,000, which, joined to the number of the same stars proper to the preceding categories, gives a total of more than 14,000,000. In the third magnitude, a total number of 42,000,000 of stars is counted. Thus, reckoning those visible to the naked eye, and by the telescope, we have 56,000,000 of suns, and we stop at this number only because the telescope does not enable us to see smaller stars than those of the fourteenth magnitude. But, let the telescope be brought to greater perfection, and the whole region of the sky will be seen to be covered with this silver sand, with this diamond dust, of which each grain is a sun. And such will be the accumulation of these suns, in the depths of space, that nothing will be seen on the field of the telescope but a luminous network, formed by the agglomeration of the suns, which will appear to touch each other.

_Theophilus._ The Infinite is beginning again. Let me shut my eyes.

_The Author._ Wait, I have not said all, I have only begun. I am coming to the nebulæ. Here, indeed, you may expect to grow giddy. The telescope has dispersed all the theories on which the different explanations of the nebulæ were built, and has shown us that they are collections of stars, which, in consequence of their excessive number, and their closeness to each other, appear to form a whole, a single vague and continuous brightness. But, when their dimensions and distances are amplified by the telescope, this diffused light transforms itself into a brilliant point, analogous to that presented by the sky, tapestried with small stars, in the same telescope. These nebulæ are groups of enormous numbers of stars, and even their nearness to each other is only in appearance. They are, in reality, separated by enormous distances, and it must not be supposed that they are all in the same plane; they belong, on the contrary, to very unequal depths in space, and it is only an optical effect which gathers them together on the field of the telescope in the same apparent plane.

The nebula of the _Centaur_ is one of the most wonderful. To the naked eye it is but a dimly-lighted point in the sky; but, looked at through a good telescope, it takes the aspect represented by figure 8.

On examination of this figure, it will be seen that a nebula is not the result of a collection of stars simply spread out upon a level in space, but of that of an assemblage of stars all placed at unequal distances, and forming almost a sphere. In fact the stars are crowded towards the centre, and are, on the contrary, more and more distant from one another as the outer edge is approached. If a spherical assemblage of stars were observed from a distance, it would present a similar aspect. This leads us to believe that the nebula of the _Centaur_, like the greater number of agglomerations of this kind, is spherical.

Is it possible to reckon the stars which form a nebula? Only approximately. Arago estimates the number of stars which form a nebula no larger than the tenth part of the apparent disc of the moon, at twenty thousand, at least. This result may give us an idea of the swarms of suns contained in the nebulæ, for these stellar masses are very numerous in the sky. In the depths of the nebulæ there are luminous points whose nature is as yet unrevealed by the telescope, which cannot be resolved into stars; but analogy leads us to believe that they are other and still more distant nebulæ, which, by reason of their apparent littleness, elude the scope of our instruments. But the time will come, when, thanks to the perfection which our telescopes shall have attained, this theory will be confirmed, and we shall thus see deeper and farther into immensity.

The stars which form the nebulæ are sometimes grouped so as to form regular shapes, spheres, or more or less lengthened ellipses. Sometimes the sphere is hollow in the centre, and so forms a ring. Nothing more varied, nothing more strange can be imagined than the forms of those nebulæ which have hitherto been examined, and which already number more than a million, of which no two are precisely alike. Certain nebulæ seem to be double, or joined. Others are lengthened out, like serpents, as in that of the _Shield of Sobieski_, represented in figure 9.

Lord Rosse was the first to discover that curious disposition of the nebulæ called _spiral_.

Such a form is inexplicable, but it is certain that the suns which compose the nebulæ are often grouped, not around a centre, not in shapeless heaps, but in regular curves, on a system which seems to reveal the existence of some mysterious force acting upon those stars, which are distributed along lines representing spirals of different diameter.

In speaking of the stars, I have said that there are coloured stars or suns. I will add here that nebulæ are observed coloured red, green, and yellow, which is an additional proof that they are only agglomerations of stars. That immense semi-luminous band which traverses the celestial vault, girding it with a silver belt, is not, as it was long supposed to be, a diffused quantity of luminous matter. The telescopic analysis of the Milky Way shows that it consists of a long series of nebulæ. The length of the Milky Way is from 700 to 800 times the distance from Sirius to the sun, a distance which is 1,373,000 times that from the earth to the sun.[27]

_Theophilus._ Can any idea be formed of the number of stars comprised in the Milky Way?

_The Author._ Herschel, having examined the sky of the southern hemisphere from the Cape of Good Hope, in applying his observations to the whole extent of the Milky Way, estimated the number of suns comprised in that immense nebulæ at 18 millions. I have just told you the length of the Milky Way. A ray of light emitted from a star at one of its extremities, and reaching the other, would take 15,000 years to accomplish the transit. So that, when we are looking through the telescope at one of the suns of this nebula, we receive the impression of a ray of light emitted from that star 7000 or 8000 years ago, _i.e._, long before the dawn of the historic ages.[28] The measurement of the Milky Way enables us therefore to measure the extent of other nebulæ, still more distant from us. There are, as I have already said, masses of diffused light in the midst of nebulæ which telescopic analysis has resolved into stars, which are probably much more distant nebulæ. The real distance of these luminous masses can be fixed. If it were asked, to what distance the Milky Way should be removed in order to offer us the aspect of an ordinary nebula, Arago would answer that according to his researches, the Milky Way ought to be removed to a distance equal to 334 times its length. According to this the Milky Way would be seen from the earth at an angle of 10°, and its light would take 5,010,000 years to travel that distance. Thus, light would take _more than five millions of years_ to travel from one of the telescopic nebulæ to our earth. Such are the intervals which exist in the universe, and which our instruments can appreciate. It seems to me that we are now on the borders of the Infinite.

_Theophilus._ We are indeed.

_The Author._ When we know that those terrible distances, which appal the imagination, are only the results of observations made by our telescopes, and capable of any amount of extension; when we reflect that the innumerable worlds thus revealed to us continue farther and farther, that ever new agglomerations of suns, planetary earths and their satellites add themselves to those which we can measure, without limit and without end, that the imagination cannot err in following them to the uttermost limits of its powers; then, my dear Theophilus, we comprehend that the universe is truly infinite. And if you consider that these endless ranks of solar systems have all their following of planets and satellites, filled with living beings, plants, animals, men, and superhuman creatures, that flaming comets traverse the orbit of each world at intervals and plunge into the burning furnace of its sun; that these milliards of suns are endlessly various, and that all the complicated motions of these different systems are accomplished with perfect order, without any mutual disturbance, you will find that the universe is not only the infinite in extent, but, also in order, harmony, equilibrium of motion, and laws!

_Theophilus._ The mind loses itself in such thoughts; for the idea of the infinite is not made for our feeble intelligence. Let us go no farther, or our reason will fail us.

_The Author._ Nevertheless, I must pursue my long argument to the end. I must add that in the midst of this boundless space, above this immense cortége of stars, which are the dwelling places of living creatures and sentient souls, there exists the Supreme Author, the Sovereign Ordainer, from Whom, as their sacred source, all that our eyes behold, our souls feel, and our intelligence admires, is derived. He, whom I bless with all the gratitude of my heart--God!

_Theophilus._ Thus, then, you have reached the true object of your discourse. This journey through space is undertaken to prove that God, being infinite in moral perfections, may be placed in that infinitude in extent, called the universe. It only remains now to say in what precise spot you place the sojourn of the Divinity, for I do not see how there can be a centre to the Infinite, seeing it has neither beginning nor end.

_The Author._ I am about to explain myself on this point. The absolute fixity of the sun and the stars was an astronomical principle, which, in the time of Newton, appeared to be indubitable. But science never stands still. Observations made in the present century have proved that the fixity, the immobility of the sun is only relative. The truth is that the sun, and with him the entire system of planets, asteroïds, satellites, and comets, which he carries, in his train, change their places, very slightly no doubt, but still appreciably. Our sun appears to advance slowly, with all the planetary family, towards that part of the sky in which the constellation of _Hercules_ is situated, at the rate of 62,000,000 of leagues each year, or two leagues each second, describing an orbit which comprehends millions of centuries. That which is the case with our sun is equally the case with the other suns, that is to say, the stars. This general motion of translation must be common to all the stellar systems, and it is indubitable that the countless millions of solar systems suspended in infinite space, are moving more or less quickly towards an unknown point in the sky. Now, there is nothing to forbid the supposition that all these circles or ellipses traced by myriads of solar systems, have a common centre of attraction, towards which our system and all the others gravitate. Thus, all these celestial bodies, without exception, all this ant-hill of worlds which we have enumerated, may be turning round one point, one centre of attraction. What forbids us to believe that God dwells at this centre of attraction for all the worlds which fill infinite space?

_Theophilus._ Now I understand your thought, and I am struck by its grandeur. This God, placed at the mathematical centre of the worlds which compose the universe, this infinite intelligence, throned in the centre of the infinite universe, and presiding over the movements of all the innumerable phalanxes of heavenly bodies which our imagination can conceive, responds to the idea which we form of God, if we venture to face the awful personality of His Omnipotence. You have done well to develop this theory in your work. It will be in harmony with the kind of religious spirit which animates it, and which is, besides, the expression of the desires, and the aspirations of the men of our time.

In the present day a deep and profound need of belief in Providence makes itself felt. Men want to render homage to God, in whom they feel there is truth, peace, and safety for the present and in the future. But the established religions leave many minds in cruel uncertainty. In "The Day after Death" you have endeavoured to lay the foundations of _the religion of science and of nature_. These principles respond, as I believe, to the prevalent wishes of mankind. They satisfy the mind and the heart, sentiment and reason; they console and strengthen; in short, they consecrate the idea of God, without laying aside either the universe or nature.

_The Author._ So be it!

THE END.

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD

FOOTNOTES:

[23] Arago. "_Astronomie Populaire_," Vol. I., pp. 372-376.

[24] Arago. "_Astronomie Populaire_," Vol. I., pp. 376-380.

[25] Flammarion. "_Pluralité des Mondes habités_," page 195.

[26] See the Author's work: "_The Earth before the Deluge_," pp. 402-440.

[27] Flammarion. "_Pluralité des Mondes Habités_," page 203.

[28] Flammarion. "_Pluralité des Mondes Habités_," page 203.

MACMILLAN'S LIBRARY OF ENGLISH CLASSICS

EDITED BY A. W. POLLARD.

A Series of Reprints of Standard Works in Library Form.

_Demy 8vo. Cloth elegant. Price 3s. 6d. net per volume. Also in Roxburgh Binding. Specially suitable for Presentation. Green Morocco Backs, Cloth Sides, and Gilt Tops. Price 5s. net per volume._

=BACON'S ESSAYS: Colours of Good and Evil; and Advancement of Learning= 1 vol.

=SHERIDAN'S PLAYS= 1 vol.

=MALORY'S MORTE D'ARTHUR= 2 vols.

=STERNE'S TRISTRAM SHANDY and SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY= 2 vols.

=BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON= 3 vols.

=CARLYLE'S FRENCH REVOLUTION= 2 vols.