66 "I In the ninth chapter, upon the Planets, | forms to the inhabitants of Saturn, and supour author begins with disqualifying Neptune poses that they may have spheres of sensibifrom the privilege of being inhabited either lity and intellectual enjoyment far superior by man or beast. The light and heat of the to that of the inhabitants of our Earth. sun is said to be too small for man, and equal- saw," says he, "moving on the surface below ly unfit for "unfolding the vital powers," and me immense masses, the forms of which I cherishing the vital enjoyments of animals." find it impossible to describe. They had sysWe have already replied to this very silly tems for locomotion similar to that of the attempt at argument. Neptune has one morse or sea-horse, but I saw with great surmoon or satellite, and probably many more, prise that they moved from place to place by as it is a general law that the satellites in- six extremely thin membranes, which they crease in number, as we should expect them used as wings. I saw numerous convolutions to do, when more of them are required. As of tubes, more analogous to the trunk of the the sun's light in Neptune is very faint, the elephant than to anything else I can imagine, light from its moons, if reflected light, must occupying what I supposed to be the upper have the same character; but it is not ne- parts of the body." cessary that this light be reflected light. Some philosophers, and our late distinguished countryman Sir John Leslie in particular, believed that the light of the moon was not reflected, but was a phosphorescence excited by the light of the sun. On this supposition, the moons of all the distant planets may shine with a light far exceeding that which they would reflect, and may supply their primary planet at all times with a degree of light which would be sufficient even for a human eye. But as we have already stated, there is no occasion for supposing the inhabitants of other planets to have the form and structure of man, his eyes,-his ears,—or his nerves. Why may they not see by invisible radiations, which we know, from the experiments of Moser, and others, can paint pictures in the dark of the objects from which they issue? Why may they not see with the palest sunbeams, by means of an enlarged pupil, and a more sensitive retina, while they possess all the other physical attributes of man? In his Consolations in Travel, Sir Humphry Davy ventures to give unearthly * orderly world. To which bare possibility we may The moon From Neptune our author makes a sudden start to the moon, a great leap no doubt, but as great an anticlimax in argument. Finding it difficult to deal with a huge planet and its satellite, he travels, con amore, to our moon, a fit study and a suitable residence for one who holds the opinions, and invents the theories of our author. Without affecting the grand truth of a Plurality of Worlds, we might surrender the moon at discretion. The analogies between the earth and the other planets fail entirely when we reason from the condition of the earth to that of the moon, and therefore the only principle upon which we could assign her inhabitants, is similar to that which led Sir W. Herschel to believe that the sun was inhabited, the principle that large globes intended primarily to light and heat the planets might be secondarily employed to support inhabitants. has no day and night like our own globe. She has a grand purpose to answer without being the seat of life;-and it is not improbable that she may be in a state of preparation either for being occupied by animal life, or in a more advanced state for the reception of intellectual beings-or she may at this moment be inhabited. It is not true, as our author states, that all astronomers, without exception, believe that the moon is unfitted for animal or vegetable life, and no less problematical are many of the statements he makes respecting the structure of that luminary. He believes, as every astronomer believes, that her surface indicates extensive volcanic agencies-volcanoes of enormous magnitude, but now extinct. Why were these volcanoes in action? Their extinction indicates a progressive step in the moon's history, and when the time arrives, water may issue from her hidden caverns, and give to her seas We quote this passage merely to shew that if we were to yield to our fancy we might depict intellectual creatures of a variety of forms. Sir Humphry obviously had not the talent for this kind of work. and an atmosphere, as another step in her | destiny is nearly equal to that of the fluid. preparation for life. Ice is less dense than water, and yet as hard as a rock, and Tabasheer, though lighter than water, is actually composed of silex. Jupiter may therefore consist of the hardest and densest elements, and yet possess a density inferior to water. But the solid substance of Jupiter may from other causes be as hard and dense as that of our own globe. If we suppose, which is extremely probable, that the planet is hollow in its interior, and contains caverns of large dimensions, the outer portions of the planet may have the density even of gold or platina. But we have another test to apply to our author's hypothesis. If Jupiter is a sphere of water, the solar light reflected from his surface, when he is in his quadratures, must contain, what it does not, a visible portion of polarized light, and if his crust is composed of mountains of ice, some of whose faces may reflect the incident light at nearly the polarizing angle, the fact would be distinctly indicated, as it is not, by a very large quantity of polarized light. Enjoying something like a triumph over the moon, he next carries us to Jupiter, and, after some preliminary speculations, on the internal condition of our earth, he applies the results of these speculations to "the question of the planets being inhabited," that is, he is willing to reason analogically from the supposed structure of the earth to the structure of Jupiter, while he refuses to reason analogically from the actual occupation of the earth by inhabitants to the probable occupation of Jupiter by inhabitants. By such a process "he offers it as a conjecture, not quite arbitrary, that Jupiter is a mere sphere of water!" and he afterwards kindly contributes a few cinders for its centre,-though how anything could be reduced to cinders upon a sphere wholly composed of water, neither our author nor our chemistry can inform us. Ye students of the planets, who under the exhalations of the night have observed their motions, or by the midnight lamp have investigated their laws, behold Jupiter In the same summary manner does our the sovereign of the throng careering a wet- author banish inhabitants from Saturn, Urated cinder, a huge tear dropped by Saturn nus, and Neptune, and consign them to a over the misconduct of his brethren. Ye watery grave. The densities of these planets minstrels who have sung "the poetry of hea- are much less than that of water, and upon ven," and have read " in its bright leaves the the same principle that Jupiter is turned into fate of men and of empires," shall you meet water, these planets should be turned into with the muses in these marshes of light, the alcohol, naphtha, or gas, or some substance abodes of tadpoles and of lizards? Helicon corresponding with their levity. is there frozen, the Pierian spring is stalactite of ice, and Mount Parnassus a gigantic and perennial glacier. Shade of Galileo-is the glory of having added four moons to the Inonarch planet to be thus suddenly and ignobly quenched? A philosopher can know little of the combinations of matter when he asserts that Jupiter must be made of water, because his *Our author is extremely puzzled with the objection that his water planet must be really one of ice, in such a low temperature as that of Jupiter. No difficulty, however, perplexes him. He has a theory for anything or everything. "The space," says he, "near to Jupiter, if an absolute vacuum, in which there is no matter to receive and retain heat emitted from the sun, MAY PERHAPS BE NO COLDER THAN IT IS NEARER THE SUN." By suppositions like these we could answer all our author's objections against a plurality of worlds; but without insisting upon this point, may we not prefer the probable ice to the possible water, and give the inhabitants of Jupiter very comfortable quarters, in huts of snow and houses of crystal. We have, even in our own globe, mountains of ice and continents of ice, and bridges of ice, and palaces of ice inhabited by prin ces. We have inhabitants, too, in our icy regions, and also vegetable and animal life. Why should they not be in Jupiter? If not, what is the final cause of his moons? Is it to look at their reflection from his watery surface? crea In advancing towards the sun our theorist thinks it possible that Mars may have “ tures of the nature of corals and molluscs, sautians, and iguanodons," but no inhabitants; and he makes light work of the twenty-nine asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. йe describes them as produced by a collapse of portions of sidereal matter, or as the result of some imperfectly effected concentration of the elements of our system, which, if it had gone on more completely and regularly, might have produced another planet like Mars and Venus,* and therefore it would be a baseless assumption to suppose them inhabited. Venus and Mercury share the same fate. "Seeing it is difficult," he says, "to find inhabitants for Venus, the difficulty for Mercury is immensely greater." In the next chapter, on the Theory of the Solar System, we are met by speculations of the wildest character, offensive to science, and, in our judgment, incompatible with a superintending Providence. The theory which we are called to examine, is the Nebular hypo *We have here the doctrine of the author of the Vestiges of Creation, who may boast of our theorist as a distinguished disciple. We regret that in a system of worlds so nicely adjusted, a bungled planet should have been found. gious dignity belonging to it; and though he fears it will appear rash and fanciful, and almost irreverent, yet he invents it to explain a great variety of the phenomena which have hitherto baffled philosophy. In this new cosmogony, the fire-mist, or sidereal mattercomposed of fire and water, have during the performance of their planet-making functions, been separated, the aqueous and gaseous vapour receding to the outward half of our system, and forming the watery planets, Mars, (of course the twenty-nine asteroids also,) Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, while the fire or heat has formed the solid masses, and "Venus, near its focus, "these planets having not yet fully emerged from the mother light and mother fire, in which they began to crystallize, as crystals do in their mother water!" "The earth's orbit," he says, "is the temperate zone of the solar system, and in that zone only is the play of hot and cold, of moist and dry possible!" The earth is therefore placed in that region of the solar system in which the planet-forming powers are most vigorous and potent, between the region of permanent nebulous vapour, and the region of mere shreds of planetary matter, such as are the satellites and the planetoidal group. And from these views, it possibly follows, that the earth is really the largest planetary body in the solar system!-its "domestic hearth adjusted between the hot and fiery haze on one side, and the cold and watery vapour on the other!" thesis of the author of the Vestiges of Crea- | different kind, and he wisely obeys it. On tion, a hypothesis which, in a previous article,* the nebular hypothesis, as a basis, he erects a we have fully described, and the absurdity and strange superstructure a scheme-a theory impossibility of which we think we have de--which he regards as having a sort of relimonstrated. The Creator of the universe fills all space with attenuated matter, the fire-mist of the hypothesis, and having laid down certain laws of attraction and of motion, he leaves every thing to their operation and superintendence. The particles of the firemist, somewhere in space, attract one another, and form a nucleus of matter, which revolves upon its axis-the germ of an infant sun. The surrounding mass of fire-mist is put into motion, throws off rings, which cool into solid revolving planets, and by a similar process, these planets manufacture their satellites, and Saturn a ring into the bargain. All this takes place according to the primordial law God is not in the heavens, and hence planets are bungled by his apprentices,-portions of sidereal matter erroneously "collapse,"" the elements of our system are imperfectly concentrated," and what in the original design was intended for a planet between Mars and Jupiter, to perfect Bode's beautiful law of planetary distances, has been marred by some evil spirit, doubtless, and results in twentynine asteroids with showers of meteoric stones, -"bits of planets," as our author calls them, "which have failed in making, and lost their way, till" they tumble on the earth. The author of the Vestiges, with the boldness of an anonymous writer, pursues his theory to its legitimate consequences. The Creator in the beginning laid down his law. He did not rest on the seventh day. He rested the whole week, and still rests. Man and beast sprung from the law, and not from God's hand; and all the events of the sublunary world, physical and moral-the formation of the earth, the creation of man, the inspiration of his soul, were the necessary consequences of the original fiat of the Almighty. All this is very consistent, and is maintained with ingenuity and eloquence; but our author, who is, doubtless,a quasi divine, cannot allow himself to go so far. He goes as far as he thinks the path safe, but when he comes to the millions of years during which our earth is preparing for man -to the creation and extinction of animal life-to the disappearance of old species, and the creation of new ones, he is stricken dumb. We hear no more of the rebellion of fire-mist against law, or of its erroneous collapse when indurated in the earth's bosom. The author's speculations are now amenable to a law of a See our review of the Vestiges, &c. and the Explanations, &c., vol. iv. f This theory of meteoric stones is not the author's. It was published by us forty years ago, but not as the consequence of a mistake in creation. It would be an insult to science and to reason to submit to their stern ordeal such ridiculous opinions. How can we deal with a writer who blows hot and cold with the same breath-who finds that the outer region of our system is too cold for animal and vegetable life, and yet so warm that its waters are not capable of freezing. How can we reach a mind who places the earth in the happy sphere where life springs from the right mixture of hot and cold, of moist and dry, and yet consigns the moon, its companion, to the other zone of burnt and volcanic worlds! The eleventh chapter of the work before us is entitled, the argument from design. It is a chapter of omniscience, composed of innumerable bits of those that preceded it, and tending to show that the proofs of design are less clearly seen in mere physical arrangements, in the relations of earth, air, water, heat, and light-than in the structure of plants and animals. A planet, he alleges, is nothing in importance with a seed or embryo. It has no principle of life however obscure;' 66 and hence he concludes, as it is chiefly from the structure of organized bodies that striking proofs of design can be obtained, that we may dispense altogether with admiring the wisdom of the mute masses of water and of fire which occupy our system, and the laws which govern them, and content ourselves with the proud satisfaction, that the great Creator "instead of manufacturing a multitude of worlds on patterns more or less similar, has been employed on one great work," including and suggesting all that we can conceive of perfection." From the assertions and speculations of eleven chapters, we are now to learn the great corollary to which they lead-the unity of the world, the title of the twelfth chapter. A collection of intelligent creatures, being, as we are told, a necessary part of the conception of a world, it follows that there is only one world, and that world is the Earth, because the weight of all the evidence which we can obtain respecting the constitution of the universe, is against the idea of the planets being inhabited. Thus vanquished by our author, he endeavours to console us by the strange if not impertinent remark, that the remotest planet is not devoid of life, for God lives there! And where, may we ask, does he not live? He lived on the collapsed portion of sidereal matter. He lived, but slumbered, on the bungled planet. He lived on the bits of planets, but guided them not when they lost their way! If there is then not more than one inhabited planet in our solar system, we are all agreed that there is certainly one. Nobody has ventured to maintain that ours is the only system of the universe. There are thousands, as every astronomer believes, and a system without one inhabited planet would be an anomaly in creation. Every system must therefore possess one world, and consequently in the universe there is a plurality of worlds. We regret that our waning limits will not permit us to examine more minutely the strange sentiments which these latter chapters contain. We must pass rapidly to the Future, the title of the last chapter of the book, without any expectation of being enlightened by We consign to a note the following description of the planetary system minus the earth. We cannot find language to express the feeling with which we read it. "The planets and the stars are the lumps which have flown from the potter's wheel of the great worker; the shred-coils which in his working sprung from his mighty lathe; the sparks which darted from his awful anvil when the solar system lay incandescent thereon; the curls of vapour which rose from the great caldron of creation, when its elements were separated," p. 243. The earth was the clay on the wheel-the wood on the lathe the iron on the anvil-the precipitate in the boiler ! a writer who has thrown such a cloud over the past. The future is indeed an object of deep interest. In youth it is scarcely descried as a visible point. In manhood it appears and disappears like a variable star, showing in painful succession its spots of light and of shade. In age it looms largely to the eye, pregnant with hope and with fear. Amid the studies of nature the youth and the man are sometimes constrained to consider it. The death of the seed, and the resurrection of the plant, startle them in the race of fame. The butterfly and its chrysalis suggest the change that may overtake them. But it is in the study of the heavens that the future swells most largely to the view, and gives us an interest in worlds and system of worlds, in life without limits, as well as in life without end. On eagles' wings we soar to the zenith, and fly to the horizon of space, without reaching their distant bourne; and in the infinity of space, and amid the infinity of life, we descry the home and the companions of the future. That home and these companions have been denied to us by the author of the work before us. His future of creation is but the future of the earth, the social, the intellectual, and the spiritual progress of man. But though thus limited it challenges all our sympathies. It is the foreground of the great panorama of eternity-the arena in which we have to struggle with the tempter-the_gymnasium in which we are to be taught the secrets of nature, and the elements of social progress, and it is from its remotest shore that we are to embark on the ocean of eternity. In What this future is we can gather only from the history of the past. It is by the impression of the foot, and the length of the step, that we can judge of the direction, the velocity, and the purpose of the mover. his physical aspect, and in his intellectual manifestations, man has made no advance to a more elevated station. His hand and his head are still the hand and the head of his primitive race, but by the skill of the one and the energy of the other, he has achieved, and has yet to achieve, a more exalted condition, In the development, however, of his spiritual nature, strenuous exertions have yet to be made. Nations have put forth their highest powers in the holy cause. The temple and the mosque have opened wide their portals in every land. Orders of men have been set aside to reclaim from ignorance and vice, and to teach the great truths of the spiritual world; and the prison and the penitentiary have been called to their aid to protect the community from turbulence and crime. Civil society, however, has reaped but little fruit from exertions so active, and institutions so complete, and till universal peace blesses the dreams. The exhortations of Francis Bacon to men, to seek, by such means, an elevation of their intellectual condition, have been assented to in words; but his plans of a methodical and organized combination of society for this purpose it has never even been attempted to realize. If the nations of the earth were to employ for the promo tion of human knowledge a small fraction only of the means, the wealth, the ingenuity, the combination, which they have employed in every age for the destruction of human life, and of human means of enjoyment, we might soon find that what we hitherto know, is little compared with what man has the power of knowing." energy, the nations of the earth, the citizens of the world | unexecuted, and have been treated as mere -the apostles of a universal philanthropy, cannot combine their exertions for social advancement. War is the inexorable foe of all progress, intellectual, social, and spiritual. The man who can slay his brother, or who encourages another to slay him, renounces his godlike character, and returns to the community of the hyæna and the tiger. Civilization stands still when armies take the field: It retrogrades when they leave it. Humanity shrieks at the trumpet note of battle; and religion stoops abashed, in presence of the warrior with red hands, and the sovereign with a bloody heart. That these are the views of the author of the work before us, is evident from the following just and noble sentence, which we quote with unmingled pleasure: "That civil society, namely, that which secures to men the rights of property, person, family, external peace, and the like, may be conceived as taking a more excellent character than it now possesses, we can easily see, for not only does it often very imperfectly attain its direct object, the preservation of rights, but it becomes the means and source of wrong. Not only does it often fail to secure peace with strangers, but it acts as if its main object was to enable men to make wars with strangers. If we were to conceive a universal and perpetual peace to be established among the nations of the earth, (for instance, by some general agreement for that purpose,) and if we were to suppose, farther, that those nations should employ all their powers and means in fully unfolding the intellectual and moral capacities of their members, by early education, constant teaching, and ready help in all ways; we might then, perhaps, look forward to a state of the earth in which it should be inhabited, not indeed by a being exalted above man, but by man exalted above himself as he now is.”—Pp. 274, 275. But our author is not satisfied with the mere promotion of knowledge and the extension of man's intellectual empire. He contemplates still loftier purposes, and we look eagerly along with him to the "full development of man's moral, religious, and spiritual nature." "Can we not conceive says he, "a society among men which should have for its purpose to. promote this development, far more than any human society has yet done?-a body selected from all nations, or rather including all nations, the purpose of which should be to bind men together by universal feeling of kindness and mutual regard, to associate them in the acknowledge. ment of a common Divine Lawgiver, Governor, vest themselves of the evil of their human nature, and Father;-to unite them in their efforts to diand to bring themselves nearer and nearer to a conformity to the Divine idea; and, finally, a society which should unite them in the hope of such a union with God, that the parts of their nature which seem to claim immortality, the Mind, the Soul, and the Spirit, should continue for ever in a state of happiness arising from their exalted and perfected condition? and if we can suppose such a society fully established and fully operative, would not this be a condition as far elevated above the ordinary earthly condition of man, as that of man is elevated above the beasts that perish?"-Pp. 276, 277. In concluding a review marked with so much censure, it is pleasing to ourselves, and must be equally so to such of our readers as share in our views, that we have found at the close of our author's work, sentiments so noble, aspirations so lofty, and suggestions so valuable for the advancement of society. How ardently do we wish that the rest of his volume had been such as to excite the same admiration! A mind so highly gifted with the power and expression of thought-so copiously endowed with the best treasures of knowledge-so capable of enriching science "Astronomical observatories," he adds, "have been established in every land; scientific voyages and expeditions for the purpose of observation, wherever they could throw light upon the theory, have been sent forth; costly instruments have been constructed, achievements of discovery have been rewarded; and all nations have shewn a ready sympathy with every attempt to forward Our readers will find in this interesting pasthis part of knowledge. Yet the largest and sage the same views which, during the last ten wisest plans for the extension of human know-years, we have, in this Journal, embraced every ledge in other provinces of science by the like opportunity of pressing upon the notice of the means, have remained hitherto almost entirely public. |