MORE WORLDS THAN ONE. INTRODUCTION. THERE is no subject within the whole range of knowledge so universally interesting as that of a Plurality of Worlds. It commands the sympathies, and appeals to the judgment of men of all nations, of all creeds, and of all times; and no sooner do we comprehend the few simple facts on which it rests, than the mind rushes instinctively to embrace it. Before the great truths of Astronomy were demonstrated-before the dimensions and motions of the planets were ascertained, and the fixed stars placed at inconceivable distances from the system to which we belong, philosophers and poets descried in the celestial spheres the abodes of the blest; but it was not till the form and size and motions of A the earth were known, and till the condition of the other planets was found to be the same, that analogy compelled us to believe that these planets must be inhabited like our own. Although this opinion was maintained incidentally by various writers both on astronomy and natural religion, yet M. Fontenelle, Secretary to the Academy of Sciences in Paris, was the first individual who wrote a work expressly on the subject. It was published in 1686, the year before Sir Isaac Newton gave his immortal work, the Principia, to the world. It was entitled Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, and consisted of five chapters with the following titles. 1. The Earth is a planet which turns round its own axis and also round the sun. 2. The Moon is a habitable world. 3. Particulars concerning the world in the Moon, and that the other planets are also inhabited. 4. Particulars of the worlds of Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. 5. The Fixed Stars are as many Suns, each of which illuminates a world. In another edition of the work published in 1719, Fontenelle added a sixth chapter, entitled, 6. New thoughts which confirm those in the preceding conversations. The latest discoveries which have been made in the heavens. This singular work, written by a man of great genius, and with a sufficient knowledge of astronomy, excited a high degree of interest, both from the nature of the subject and the vivacity and humour with which it is written. The conversations are carried on with the Marchioness of G, with whom the author is supposed to be residing. The lady is, of course, distinguished by youth, beauty, and talent, and the share which she takes in the dialogue is not less interesting than the more scientific part assumed by the philosopher. The Plurality of Worlds, as the work was called, was read with unexampled avidity, and was speedily circulated through every part of Europe. It was translated into all the languages of the Continent, and was honoured by annotations from the pen of the celebrated astronomer La Lande, and of M. Gottsched, one of its German editors. No fewer than three English translations of it were published, and one of these, we believe the first, had run through six editions so early as the year 1737. Wherever it was read it was admired, and though one hundred and sixty-seven years have elapsed since its publication, we have not been able to learn that any attempt has been made, during that long period, either to ridicule or controvert the fascinating doctrines which it taught. A few years after the publication of Fontenelle's work, the celebrated philosopher Christian Huygens, the contemporary of Newton, and the discoverer of the ring and the satellites of Saturn, composed a work on the Plurality of Worlds, under the title of the Theory of the Universe, or Conjectures concerning the Celestial Bodies and their Inhabitants.1 This interesting treatise, as large as that of Fontenelle, has never been translated into English. It was written at the of sixty-seven, a short time before the author's death, and so great was the interest which he felt in its publication, that he earnestly besought his brother to carry his wishes into effect. He age 1 Cosmotheoros sive de Terris Celestibus, earumque ornatu conjecturæ, ad Constantinum Hugenium Fratrem, Gulielmo iii. Magnæ Britanniæ Regi a Secretis. Hugenii Opera, tom. ii. pp. 645-722. mentions the great pleasure he had derived from the composition of it, and from the communication of his views to his friends. About to enter the world of the future, the philosopher who had added new planets to our system, and discovered the most magnificent and incomprehensible of its bodies, looked forward with interest to a solution of the mysteries which it had been the business and the happiness of his life to contemplate. He was anxious that his fellow-men should derive the same pleasure from viewing the planets as the seat of intellectual life, and he left them his Theory of the Universe-a legacy worthy of his name. The Cosmotheoros is a work essentially different from that of Fontenelle. It is didactic and dispassionate, deducing by analogical reasoning a variety of views respecting the plants and animals in the planets, and the general nature and condition of their inhabitants. The work is to some extent a popular Treatise on Astronomy, and contains all that was at that time known respecting the primary and secondary planets of the solar system. We are not acquainted with any other work |