A discourse concerning a new world and another planet, in two books.
London, 1640, 8vo.[171]
Cosmotheoros: or conjectures concerning the planetary worlds and their
inhabitants. Written in Latin, by Christianus Huyghens. This
translation was first published in 1698. Glasgow, 1757, 8vo. [The
original is also of 1698.][172]
The first work is by Bishop Wilkins, being the third edition, [first in
1638] of the first book, "That the Moon may be a Planet"; and the first
edition of the second work, {101} "That the Earth may be a Planet." [See
more under the reprint of 1802.] Whether other planets be inhabited or not,
that is, crowded with organisations some of them having consciousness, is
not for me to decide; but I should be much surprised if, on going to one of
them, I should find it otherwise. The whole dispute tacitly assumes that,
if the stars and planets be inhabited, it must be by things of which we can
form some idea. But for aught we know, what number of such bodies there
are, so many organisms may there be, of which we have no way of thinking
nor of speaking. This is seldom remembered. In like manner it is usually
forgotten that the _matter_ of other planets may be of different chemistry
from ours. There may be no oxygen and hydrogen in Jupiter, which may have
_gens_ of its own.[173] But this must not be said: it would limit the
omniscience of the _a priori_ school of physical inquirers, the larger half
of the whole, and would be very _unphilosophical_. Nine-tenths of my best
paradoxers come out from among this larger half, because they are just a
little more than of it at their entrance.