The Plurality of Worlds

CHAPTER III

1. It is not my business, nor my intention, to criticize the remarkable work of Chalmers to which I have so often referred. But I may say, that the arguments there employed by him, so far as they go upon astronomical or philosophical grounds, are of great weight; and upon the whole, such as we may both assent to, as scientifically true, and accept as rationally persuasive. I think, however, that there are other arguments, also drawn from scientific discoveries, which bear, in a very important and striking manner, upon the opinions in question, and which Chalmers has not referred to; and I conceive that there are philosophical views of another kind, which, for those who desire and who will venture to regard the Universe and its Creator in the wider and deeper relations which appear to be open to human speculation, may be a source of satisfaction. When certain positive propositions, maintained as true while they are really highly doubtful, have given rise to difficulties in the minds of religious persons, other positive propositions, combating these, propounded and supported by argument, that they may be accepted according to their evidence, may, at any rate, have force enough to break down and dissipate such loosely founded difficulties. To present to the reader's mind such speculations as I have thus indicated, is the object of the following pages. They can, of course, pretend to no charm, except for persons who are willing to have their minds occupied with such difficulties and such speculations as I have referred to. Those who are willing to be so employed, may, perhaps, find in what I have to say something which may interest them. For, of the arguments which I have to expound, some, though they appear to me both very obvious and very forcible, have never, so far as I am aware, been put forth in that religious bearing which seems to belong to them; and others, though aspiring to point out in some degree the relation of the Universe and its Creator, are of a very simple kind; that is, for minds which are prepared to deal with such subjects at all.

2. As I have said, the arguments with which we are here concerned refer both to Natural Religion and to Revealed Religion; and there is one of Chalmers' arguments, bearing especially upon the former branch of the subject, which I may begin by noticing. Among the thoughts which, it was stated, might naturally arise in men's minds, when the telescope revealed to them an innumerable multitude of worlds besides the one which we inhabit, was this: that the Governor of the Universe, who has so many worlds under his management, cannot be conceived as bestowing upon this Earth, and its various tribes of inhabitants, that care which, till then, Natural Religion had taught men that he does employ, to secure to man the possession and use of his faculties of mind and body; and to all animals the requisites of animal existence and animal enjoyment. And upon this Chalmers remarks, that just about the time when science gave rise to the suggestion of this difficulty, she also gave occasion to a remarkable reply to it. Just about the same time that the invention of the Telescope showed that there were innumerable worlds, which might have inhabitants requiring the Creator's care as much as the tribes of this earth do,—the invention of the Microscope showed that there were, in this world, innumerable tribes of animals, which had been all along enjoying the benefits of the Creator's care, as much as those kinds with which man had been familiar from the beginning. The telescope suggested that there might be dwellers in Jupiter or in Saturn, of giant size and unknown structure, who must share with us the preserving care of God. The microscope showed that there had been, close to us, inhabiting minute crevices and crannies, peopling the leaves of plants, and the bodies of other animals, animalcules of a minuteness hitherto unguessed, and of a structure hitherto unknown, who had been always sharers with us in God's preserving care. The telescope brought into view worlds as numerous as the drops of water which make up the ocean; the microscope brought into view a world in almost every drop of water. Infinity in one direction was balanced by infinity in the other. The doubts which men might feel as to what God could do, were balanced by certainties which they discovered, as to what he had always been doing. His care and goodness could not be supposed to be exhausted by the hitherto known population of the earth, for it was proved that they had not hitherto been confined to that population. The discovery of new worlds at vast distances from us, was accompanied by the discovery of new worlds close to us, even in the very substances with which we were best acquainted; and was thus rendered ineffective to disturb the belief of those who had regarded the world as having God for its governor.

3. This is a striking reflection, and is put by Chalmers in a very striking manner; and it is well fitted to remove the scruples to which it is especially addressed. If there be any persons to whom the astronomical discoveries which the telescope has brought to light, suggests doubts or difficulties with regard to such truths of Natural Religion as God's care for and government of the inhabitants of the earth, the discoveries of the many various forms of animalcular life which the microscope has brought to light are well fitted to remove such doubts, and to solve such difficulties. We may easily believe that the power of God to sustain and provide for animal life, animal sustenance, animal enjoyment, can suffice for innumerable worlds besides this, without being withdrawn or distracted or wearied in this earth; for we find that it does suffice for innumerable more inhabitants of this earth than we were before aware of. If we had imagined before, that, in conceiving God as able and willing to provide for the life and pleasure of all the sentient beings which we knew to exist upon the earth, we had formed an adequate notion of his power and of his goodness, these microscopical discoveries are well adapted to undeceive us. They show us that all the notions which our knowledge, hitherto, had enabled us to form of the powers and attributes of the Creator and Preserver of all living things, are vastly, are immeasurably below the real truth of the case. They show us that God, as revealed to us in the animal creation, is the Author and Giver of life, of the organization which life implies, of the contrivances by which it is conducted and sustained, of the enjoyment by which it is accompanied,—to an extent infinitely beyond what the unassisted vision of man could have suggested. The facts which are obvious to man, from which religious minds in all ages have drawn their notions and their evidence of the Divine power and goodness, care and wisdom, in providing for its creatures, require, we find, to be indefinitely extended, in virtue of the new tribes of minute creatures, and still new tribes, and still more minute, which we find existing around us. The views of our Natural Theology must be indefinitely extended on one side; and therefore we need not be startled or disturbed at having to extend them indefinitely on the other side;—at having to believe that there are, in other worlds, creatures whom God has created, whom he sustains in life, for whom he provides the pleasures of life, as he does for the long unsuspected creatures of this world.

4. This is, I say, a reflection which might quiet the mind of a person, whom astronomical discoveries had led to doubt of the ordinary doctrines of Natural Religion. But, I think, it may be questioned, whether, to produce such doubts, is a common or probable effect of an acquaintance with astronomical discoveries. Undoubtedly, by such discoveries, a person who believes in God, in his wisdom, power, and goodness, on the evidence of the natural world, is required to extend and exalt his conceptions of those Divine Attributes. He had believed God to be the Author of many forms of life;—he finds him to be the Author of still more forms of life. He had traced many contrivances in the structure of animals, for their sustentation and well-being; his new discoveries disclose to him (for that is undoubtedly among the effects of microscopic researches) still more nice contrivances. He had seen reason to think that all sentient beings have their enjoyments; he finds new fields of enjoyment of the same kind. But in all this, there is little or nothing to disturb the views and convictions of the Natural Theologian. He must, even by the evidence of facts patent to ordinary observation, have been led to believe that the Divine Wisdom and Power are not only great, but great in a degree which we cannot fathom or comprehend;—that they are, to our apprehension, infinite: his new discoveries only confirm the impression of this infinite character of the Divine Attributes. He had before believed the existence of an intelligent and wise Creator, on the evidence of the marks of design and contrivance, which the creation exhibited: of such design and contrivance he discovers new marks, new examples. He had believed that God is good, because he found those contrivances invariably had the good of the creature for their object: he finds, still, that this is the general, the universal scheme of the creation, now when his view of it is extended. He has no difficulty in expanding his religious conceptions, to correspond with his scientific discoveries, so far as the microscope is the instrument of discovery; there is no reason why he should have any more difficulty in doing the same, when the telescope is his informant. It is true, that in this case the information is more imperfect. It does not tell him, even that there are living inhabitants in the regions which it reveals; and, consequently, it does not disclose any of those examples of design which belong to the structure of living things. But if we suppose, from analogy, that there are living things in those regions, we have no difficulty in conceiving, from analogy also, that those living things are constructed with a care and wisdom such as appear in the inhabitants of earth. It will not readily or commonly occur to a speculator on such subjects, that there is any source of perplexity or unbelief, in such an assumption of inhabitants of other worlds, even if we make the assumption. It is as easy, it may well and reasonably be thought, for God to create a population for the planets as to make the planets themselves;—as easy to supply Jupiter with tenants, as with satellites;—as easy to devise the organization of an inhabitant of Saturn, as the structure and equilibrium of Saturn's ring. It is no more difficult for the Universal Creator to extend to those bodies the powers which operate in organized matter, than the powers which operate in brute matter. It is as easy for Him to establish circulation and nutrition in material structures, as cohesion and crystallization, which we must suppose the planetary masses to possess; or attraction and inertia, which we know them to possess. No doubt, to our conception, organization appears to be a step beyond cohesion; circulation of living fluids, a step beyond crystallization of dead masses:—but then, it is in tracing such steps, that we discern the peculiar character of the Creator's agency. He does not merely work with mechanical and chemical powers, as man to a certain extent can do; but with organic and vital powers, which man cannot command. The Creator, therefore, can animate the dust of each planet, as easily as make the dust itself. And when from organic life we rise to sentient life, we have still only another step in the known order of Creative Power. To create animals, in any province of the Universe, cannot be conceived as much more incomprehensible or incredible, than to create vegetables. No doubt, the addition of the living and sentient principle to the material, and even to the organic structure, is a mighty step; and one which may, perhaps, be made the occasion of some speculative suggestions, in a subsequent part of this Essay; but still, it is not likely that any one, who had formed his conceptions of the Divine Mind from its manifestations in the production and sustentation of animal, as well as vegetable life, on this earth, would have his belief in the operation of such a Mind, shaken, by any necessity which might be impressed upon him, of granting the existence of animal life on other planets, as well as on the earth, or even on innumerable such planets, and on innumerable systems of planets and worlds, system above system.

5. The remark of Chalmers, therefore, to which I have referred, striking as it is, does not appear to bear directly upon a difficulty of any great force. If astronomy gives birth to scruples which interfere with religion, they must be found in some other quarter than in the possibility of mere animal life existing in other parts of the Universe, as well as on our earth. That possibility may require us to enlarge our idea of the Deity, but it has little or no tendency to disturb our apprehension of his attributes.

CHAPTER IV

1. We have attempted to show that if the discoveries made by the Telescope should excite in any one's mind, difficulties respecting those doctrines of Natural Religion,—the adequacy of the Creator to the support and guardianship of all the animal life which may exist in the universe,—the discoveries of the Microscope may remove such difficulties; but we have remarked also, that the train of thought which leads men to dwell upon such difficulties does not seem to be common.

But what will be the train of thought to which we shall be led, if we suppose that there are, on other planets, and in other systems, not animals only, living things, which, however different from the animals of this earth, are yet in some way analogous to them, according to the difference of circumstances; but also creatures analogous to man;—intellectual creatures, living, we must suppose, under a moral law, responsible for transgression, the subjects of a Providential Government? If we suppose that, in the other planets of our solar systems, and of other systems, there are creatures of such a kind, and under such conditions as these, how far will the religious opinions which we had previously entertained be disturbed or modified? Will any new difficulty be introduced into our views of the government of the world by such a supposition?

2. I have spoken of man as an Intellectual Creature; meaning thereby that he has a Mind;—powers of thought, by which he can contemplate the relations and properties of things in a general and abstract form; and among other relations, moral relations, the distinction of right and wrong in his actions. Those powers of thought lead him to think of a Creator and Ordainer of all things; and his perception of right and wrong leads him to regard this Creator as also the Governor and Judge of his creatures. The operation of his mind directs him to believe in a Supreme Mind: his moral nature directs him to believe that the course of human affairs, and the condition of men, both as individuals and as bodies, is determined by the providential government of God.

3. With regard to the bearing of a merely intellectual nature on such questions, it does not appear that any considerable difficulty would be at once occasioned in our religious views, by supposing such a nature to belong to other creatures, the inhabitants of other planets, as well as to man. The existence of our own minds directs us, as I have said, to a Supreme Mind; and the nature of Mind is conceived to be, in all its manifestations, so much the same, that we can conceive minds to be multiplied indefinitely, without fear of confusion, interference, or exhaustion. There may be, in Jupiter, creatures endowed with an intellect which enables them to discover and demonstrate the relations of space; and if so, they cannot have discovered and demonstrated anything of that kind as true, which is not true for us also: their Geometry must coincide with ours, as far as each goes:—thus showing how absurdly, as Plato long ago observed, we give to the science which deals with the relations of space, a name (geometry), borrowed from the art of measuring the earth. The earth with its properties is no more the special basis of geometry, than are Jupiter or Saturn, or, so far as we can judge, Sirius or Arcturus and their systems, with their properties. Wherever pure intellect is, we are compelled to conceive that, when employed upon the same objects, its results and conclusions are the same. If there be intelligent inhabitants of the Moon, they may, like us, have employed their intelligence in reasoning upon the properties of lines and angles and triangles; and must, so far as they have gone, have arrived, in their thoughts, at the same properties of lines and angles and triangles, at which we have arrived. They must, like us, have had to distinguish between right angles and oblique angles. They may have come to know, as some of the inhabitants of the earth came to know, four thousand years ago, that, in a right-angled triangle, the square on the larger side is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. We can conceive occurrences which would give us evidence that the Moon, as well as the Earth, contains geometers. If we were to see, on the face of the full moon, a figure gradually becoming visible, representing a right-angled triangle with a square constructed on each of its three sides as a base; we should regard it as the work of intelligent creatures there, who might be thus making a signal to the inhabitants of the earth, that they possessed such knowledge, and were desirous of making known to their nearest neighbors in the solar system, their existence and their speculations. In such an event, curious and striking as it would be, we should see nothing but what we could understand and accept, without unsettling our belief in the Supreme and Divine Intelligence. On the contrary, we could hardly fail to receive such a manifestation as a fresh evidence that the Divine Mind had imparted to the inhabitants of the Moon, as he has to us, a power of apprehending, in a very general and abstract form, the relations of that space in which he performs his works. We should judge, that having been led so far in their speculations, they must, in all probability, have been led also to a conception of the Universe, as the field of action of a universal and Divine Mind; that having thus become geometers, they must have ascended to the Idea of a God who works by geometry.

4. But yet, by such a supposition, on further consideration, we find ourselves introduced to views entirely different from those to which we are led by the supposition of mere animal life, existing in other worlds than the earth. For, not to dwell here upon any speculations as to how far the operations of our minds may resemble the operations of the Divine Mind;—a subject which we shall hereafter endeavor to discuss;—we know that the advance to such truths as those of geometry has been, among the inhabitants of the earth, gradual and progressive. Though the human mind have had the same powers and faculties, from the beginning of the existence of the race up to the present time, (as we cannot but suppose,) the results of the exercise of these powers and faculties have been very different in different ages; and have gradually grown up, from small beginnings, to the vast and complex body of knowledge concerning the scheme and relations of the Universe, which is at present accessible to the minds of human speculators. It is, as we have said, probably about four thousand years, since the first steps in such knowledge were made. Geometry is said to have had its origin in Egypt; but it assumed its abstract and speculative character first among the Greeks. Pythagoras is related to have been the first who saw, in the clear light of demonstration, the property of the right-angled triangle, of which we have spoken. The Greeks, from the time of Socrates, stimulated especially by Plato, pursued, with wonderful success, the investigation of this kind of truths. They saw that such truths had their application in the heavens, far more extensively than on the earth. They were enabled, by such speculations, to unravel, in a great degree, the scheme of the universe, before so seemingly entangled and perplexed. They determined, to a very considerable extent, the relative motions of the planets and of the stars. And in modern times, after a long interval, in which such knowledge was nearly stationary, the progress again began; and further advances were successively made in man's knowledge of the scheme and structure of the visible heavens; till at length the intellect of man was led to those views of the extent of the Universe and the nature of the stars, which are the basis of the discussions in which we are now engaged. And thus man, having probably been, in the earliest ages of the existence of the species, entirely ignorant of abstract truth, and of the relations which, by the knowledge of such truth, we can trace in nature, (as the barbarous tribes which occupy the greater part of the earth's surface still are;) has, by a long series of progressive steps, come into the possession of knowledge, which we cannot regard without wonder and admiration; and which seems to elevate him in no inconsiderable degree, towards a community of thought with that Divine Mind, into the nature and scheme of whose works he is thus permitted to penetrate.