There is a class of hypothetical creations which do not belong to my
subject, because they are _acknowledged_ to be fictions, as those of
Lucian,[177] Rabelais,[178] Swift, Francis {103} Godwin,[179] Voltaire,
etc. All who have more positive notions as to either the composition or
organization of other worlds, than the reasonable conclusion that our
Architect must be quite able to construct millions of other buildings on
millions of other plans, ought to rank with the writers just mentioned, in
all but self-knowledge. Of every one of their systems I say, as the Irish
Bishop said of Gulliver's book,--I don't believe half of it. Huyghens had
been preceded by Fontenelle,[180] who attracted more attention. Huyghens is
very fanciful and very positive; but he gives a true account of his method.
"But since there's no hopes of a Mercury to carry us such a journey, we
shall e'en be contented with what's in our power: we shall suppose
ourselves there...." And yet he says, "We have proved that they live in
societies, have hands and feet...." Kircher[181] had gone to the stars
before him, but would not find any life in them, either animal or
vegetable.
The question of the inhabitants of a particular planet is one which has
truth on one side or the other: either there are some inhabitants, or there
are none. Fortunately, it is of no consequence which is true. But there are
many cases where the balance is equally one of truth and falsehood, in
which the choice is a matter of importance. My work selects, for the most
part, sins against demonstration: but the world is full of questions of
fact or opinion, in which a struggling minority will become a majority, or
else will {104} be gradually annihilated: and each of the cases subdivides
into results of good, and results of evil. What is to be done?
"Periculosum est credere et non credere;
Hippolitus obiit quia novercae creditum est;
Cassandrae quia non creditum ruit Ilium:
Ergo exploranda est veritas multum prius
Quam stulta prove judicet sententia."[182]
Nova Demonstratio immobilitatis terrae petita ex virtute magnetica. By
Jacobus Grandamicus. Flexiae (La Fleche), 1645, 4to.[183]
No magnetic body can move about its poles: the earth is a magnetic body,
therefore, etc. The iron and its magnetism are typical of two natures in
one person; so it is said, "Si exaltatus fuero a terra, omnia traham ad me
ipsum."[184]