design, that the moons of the remoter planets have been provided for the
express purpose of making up for the small amount of sunlight which
reaches those planets. Jupiter receives only about one twenty-seventh
part of the light which we receive from the sun; but then, has he not
four moons to make his nights glorious? Saturn is yet farther away from
the sun, and receives only the ninetieth part of the light we get from
the sun; but then he has eight moons and his rings, and the nocturnal
glory of his skies must go far to compensate the Saturnians for the
small quantity of sunlight they receive. The Saturnian spirits who
visited Swedenborg were manifestly indoctrinated with these ideas. For
they informed him that the nocturnal light of Saturn is so great that
some Saturnians worship it, calling it the Lord. These wicked spirits
are separated from the rest, and are not tolerated by them. 'The
nocturnal light,' say the spirits, 'comes from the immense ring which at
a distance encircles that earth, and from the moons which are called the
satellites of Saturn.' And again, being questioned further 'concerning
the great ring which appears from our earth to rise above the horizon of
that planet, and to vary its situations, they said that it does not
appear to them as a ring, but only as a snow-white substance in heaven
in various directions.' Unfortunately for our faith in the veracity of
these spirits, it is certain that the moons of Saturn cannot give nearly
so much light as ours, while the rings are much more effective as
darkeners than as illuminators. One can readily calculate the apparent
size of each of the moons as seen from Saturn, and thence show that the
eight discs of the moons together are larger than our moon's disc in
about the proportion of forty-five to eight. So that if they were all
shining as brightly as our full moon and all full at the same time,
their combined light would exceed hers in that degree. But they are not
illuminated as our moon is. They are illuminated by the same remote sun
which illuminates Saturn, while our moon is illuminated by a sun giving
her as much light as we ourselves receive. Our moon then is illuminated
ninety times more brightly than the moons of Saturn, and as her disc is
less than all theirs together, not as one to ninety, but as sixteen to
ninety, it follows that all the Saturnian moons, if full at the same
time, would reflect to Saturn one-sixteenth part of the light which we
receive from the full moon.[29] As regards the rings of Saturn, nothing
can be more certain than that they tend much more to deprive Saturn of
light then to make up by reflection for the small amount of light which
Saturn receives directly from the sun. The part of the ring which lies
between the planet and the sun casts a black shadow upon Saturn, this
shadow sometimes covering an extent of surface many times exceeding the
entire surface of our earth. The shadow thus thrown upon the planet
creeps slowly, first one way, then another, northwards and southwards
over the illuminated hemisphere of the planet (as pictured in the 13th
plate of my treatise on Saturn), requiring for its passage from the
arctic to the antarctic regions and back again to the arctic regions of
the planet, a period nearly equal to that of a generation of terrestrial
men. Nearly thirty of our years the process lasts, during half of which
time the northern hemisphere suffers, and during the other half the
southern. The shadow band, which be it remembered stretches right
athwart the planet from the extreme eastern to the extreme western side
of the illuminated hemisphere, is so broad during the greater part of
the time that in some regions (those corresponding to our temperate
zones) the shadow takes two years in passing, during which time the sun
cannot be seen at all, unless for a few moments through some chinks in
the rings, which are known to be not solid bodies, but made up of
closely crowded small moons. And the slow passage of this fearful
shadow, which advances at the average rate of some twenty miles a day,
but yet hangs for years over the regions athwart which it sweeps, occurs
in the very season when the sun's small direct supply of heat would
require to be most freely compensated by nocturnal light--in the winter
season, namely, of the planet. Moreover, not only during the time of the
shadow's passage, but during the entire winter half of the Saturnian
year, the ring reflects no light during the night time, the sun being on
the other or summer side of the ring's plane.[30] The only nocturnal
effect which would be observable would be the obliteration of the stars
covered by the ring system. It is strange that, this being so, the
spirits from Saturn should have made no mention of the circumstance;
and even more strange that these spirits and others should have asserted
that the moons and rings of Saturn compensate for the small amount of
light directly received from the sun. Most certainly a Swedenborg of our
own time would find the spirits from Saturn more veracious and more
communicative about these matters, though even what _he_ would hear from
the spirits would doubtless appear to sceptics of the twenty-first
century to be no more than he could have inferred from the known facts
of the science of his day.
But Swedenborg was not content merely to receive visits from the
inhabitants of other planets in the solar system. He was visited also by
the spirits of earths in the starry heaven; nay, he was enabled to visit
those earths himself. For man, even while living in the world, 'is a
spirit as to his interiors, the body which he carries about in the world
only serving him for performing functions in this natural or terrestrial
sphere, which is the lowest.' And to certain men it is granted not only
to converse as a spirit with angels and spirits, but to traverse in a
spiritual way the vast distances which separate world from world and
system from system, all the while remaining in the body. Swedenborg was
one of these. 'The interiors of my spirit,' he says, 'are opened by the
Lord, so that while I am in the body I can at the same time be with
angels in heaven, and not only converse with them, but behold the
wonderful things which are there and describe them, that henceforth it
may no more be said, "Who ever came from heaven to assure us it exists
and tell us what is there?" He who is unacquainted with the arcana of
heaven cannot believe that man can see earths so remote, and give any
account of them from sensible experience. But let him know that spaces
and distances, and consequently progressions, existing in the natural
world, in their origin and first causes are changes of the state of the
interiors; that with angels and spirits progressions appear according to
changes of state; and that by changes of state they may be apparently
translated from one place to another, and from one earth to another,
even to earths at the boundaries of the universe; so likewise may man as
to his spirit, his body still remaining in its place. This has been the
case with me.'
Before describing his visits to earths in the starry heavens, Swedenborg
is careful to indicate the probability that such earths exist. 'It is
well known to the learned world,' he says, 'that every star is a sun in
its place, remaining fixed like the sun of our earth.' The proper
motions of the stars had, alas! not been discovered in Swedenborg's day,
nor does he seem to have been aware what a wild chase he was really
entering upon in his spiritual progressions. Conceive the pursuit of
Sirius or Vega as either sun rushed through space with a velocity of
thirty or forty miles in every second of time! To resume, however, the
account which Swedenborg gives of the ideas of the learned world of his
day. 'It is the distance which makes a star appear in a small form;
consequently' (the logical necessity is not manifest, however) 'each
star, like the sun of our system, has around it planets which are
earths; and the reason these are not visible to us is because of their
immense distance and their having no light but from their own star,
which light cannot be reflected so far as to reach us.' 'To what other
end,' proceeds this most convincing reasoning, 'can be so immense a
heaven with such a multitude of stars? For man is the end for which the
universe was created. It has been ascertained by calculation that
supposing there were in the universe a million earths, and on every
earth three hundred millions of men and two hundred generations within
six thousand years, and that to every man or spirit was allotted a space
of three cubic ells, the collective number of men or spirits could not
occupy a space equal to a thousandth part of this earth, thus not more
than that occupied by one of the satellites of Jupiter or Saturn; a
space on the universe almost undiscernible, for a satellite is hardly
visible to the naked eye. What would this be for the Creator of the
universe, to whom the whole universe filled with earths could not be
enough' (for what?), 'seeing that he is infinite.' However, it is not on
this reasoning alone that Swedenborg relies. He tells us, honestly
beyond all doubt, that he knows the truth of what he relates. 'The
information I am about to give,' he says, 'respecting the earths in the
starry heaven is from experimental testimony; from which it will
likewise appear how I was translated thither as to my spirit, the body
remaining in its place.'
His progress in his first star-hunt was to the right, and continued for
about two hours. He found the boundary of our solar system marked first
by a white but thick cloud, next by a fiery smoke ascending from a great
chasm. Here some guards appeared, who stopped some of the company,
because these had not, like Swedenborg and the rest, received permission
to pass. They not only stopped those unfortunates, but tortured them,
conduct for which terrestrial analogues might possibly be discovered.
Having reached another system, he asked the spirits of one of the earths
there how large their sun was and how it appeared. They said it was less
than the sun of our earth, and has a flaming appearance. Our sun, in
fact, is larger than other suns in space, for from that earth starry
heavens are seen, and a star larger than the rest appears, which, say
those spirits, 'was declared from heaven' to be the sun of Swedenborg's
earthly home.
What Swedenborg saw upon that earth has no special interest. The men
there, though haughty, are loved by their respective wives because they,
the men, are good. But their goodness does not appear very manifest from
anything in the narrative. The only man seen by Swedenborg took from his
wife 'the garment which she wore, and threw it over his own shoulders;
loosening the lower part, which flowed down to his feet like a robe
(much as a man of our earth might be expected to loosen the tie-back of
the period, if he borrowed it in like manner) he thus walked about
clad.'
He next visited an earth circling round a star, which he learned was one
of the smaller sort, not far from the equator. Its greater distance was
plain from the circumstance that Swedenborg was two days in reaching it.
In this earth he very nearly fell into a quarrel with the spirits. For
hearing that they possess remarkable keenness of vision, he 'compared
them with eagles which fly aloft, and enjoy a clear and extensive view
of objects beneath.' At this they were indignant, supposing, poor
spirits, 'that he compared them to eagles as to their rapacity, and
consequently thought them wicked.' He hastened to explain, however, that
he 'did not liken them to eagles as to their rapacity, but as to
sharpsightedness.'
Swedenborg's account of a third earth in the star-depths contains a very
pretty idea for temples and churches. The temples in that earth 'are
constructed,' he says, of trees, not cut down, but growing in the place
where they were first planted. On that earth, it seems, there are trees
of an extraordinary size and height; these they set in rows when young,
and arrange in such an order that they may serve when they grow up to
form porticoes and colonnades. In the meanwhile, by cutting and pruning,
they fit and prepare the tender shoots to entwine one with another, and
join together so as to form the groundwork and floor of the temple to be
constructed, and to rise at the sides as walls, and above to bend into
arches to form the roof. In this manner they construct the temple with
admirable art, elevating it high above the ground. They prepare also an
ascent into it, by continuous branches of the trees, extended from the
trunk and firmly connected together. Moreover, they adorn the temple
without and within in various ways, by disposing the foliage into
particular forms; thus they build entire groves. But it was not
permitted me to see the nature of these temples, only I was informed
that the light of their sun is let in by apertures amongst the branches,
and is everywhere transmitted through crystals; whereby the light
falling on the walls is refracted in colours like those of the rainbow,
particularly blue and orange, of which they are fondest. Such is their
architecture, which they prefer to the most magnificent palaces of our
earth.'
Other earths in the starry heavens were visited by Swedenborg, but the
above will serve sufficiently to illustrate the nature of his
observations. One statement, by the way, was made to him which must have
seemed unlikely ever to be contravened, but which has been shown in our
time to be altogether erroneous. In the fourth star-world he visited, he
was told that that earth, which travels round its sun in 200 days of
fifteen hours each, is one of the least in the universe, being scarcely
500 German miles, say 2000 English miles, in circumference. This would
make its diameter about 640 English miles. But there is not one of the
whole family of planetoids which has a diameter so great as this, and
many of these earths must be less than fifty miles in diameter. Now
Swedenborg remarks that he had his information from the angels, 'who
made a comparison in all these particulars with things of a like nature
on our earth, according to what they saw in me or in my memory. Their
conclusions were formed by angelic ideas, whereby are instantly known
the measure of space and time in a just proportion with respect to space
and time elsewhere. Angelic ideas, which are spiritual, in such
calculations infinitely excel human ideas, which are natural.' He must
therefore have met, unfortunately, with untruthful angels.
The real source of Swedenborg's inspirations will be tolerably
obvious--to all, at least, who are not Swedenborgians. But our account
of his visions would not be complete in a psychological sense without a
brief reference to the personal allusions which the spirits and angels
made during their visits or his wanderings. His distinguished rival,
Christian Wolf, was encountered as a spirit by spirits from Mercury, who
'perceived that what he said did not rise above the sensual things of
the natural man, because in speaking he thought of honour, and was
desirous, as in the world (for in the other world every one is like his
former self), to connect various things into series, and from these
again continually to deduce others, and so form several chains of such,
which they did not see or acknowledge to be true, and which, therefore,
they declared to be chains which neither cohered in themselves nor with
the conclusions, calling them the obscurity of authority;' so they
ceased to question him further, and presently left him. Similarly, a
spirit who in this world had been a 'prelate and a preacher,' and 'very
pathetic, so that he could deeply move his hearers,' got no hearing
among the spirits of a certain earth in the starry heavens; for they
said they could tell 'from the tone of the voice whether a discourse
came from the heart or not;' and as his discourse came not from the
heart, 'he was unable to teach them, whereupon he was silent.'
Convenient thus to have spirits and angels to confirm our impressions of
other men, living or dead.
Apart from the psychological interest attaching to Swedenborg's strange
vision, one cannot but be strongly impressed by the idea pervading them,
that to beings suitably constituted all that takes place in other worlds
might be known. Modern science recognises a truth here; for in that
mysterious ether which occupies all space, messages are at all times
travelling by which the history of every orb is constantly recorded. No
world, however remote or insignificant; no period, however distant--but
has its history thus continually proclaimed in ever widening waves. Nay,
by these waves also (to beings who could read their teachings aright)
the future is constantly indicated. For, as the waves which permeate the
ether could only be situated as they actually are, at any moment,
through past processes, each one of which is consequently indicated by
those ethereal waves, so also there can be but one series of events in
the future, as the sequel of the relations actually indicated by the
ethereal undulations. These, therefore, speak as definitely and
distinctly of the future as of the past. Could we but rid us of the
gross habiliments of flesh, and by some new senses be enabled to feel
each order of ethereal undulations, even of those only which reach our
earth, all knowledge of the past and future would be within our power.
The consciousness of this underlies the fancies of Swedenborg, just as
it underlies the thought of him who sang--
There's not an orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.
But while this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it.
V.
_OTHER WORLDS AND OTHER UNIVERSES._
If any one shall gravely tell me that I have spent my time idly in
a vain and fruitless inquiry after what I can never become sure of,
the answer is that at this rate he would put down all natural
philosophy, as far as it concerns itself in searching into the
nature of such things. In such noble and sublime studies as these,
'tis a glory to arrive at probability, and the search itself
rewards the pains. But there are many degrees of probable, some
nearer to the truth than others, in the determining of which lies
the chief exercise of our judgment. And besides the nobleness and
pleasure of the studies, may we not be so bold as to say that they
are no small help to the advancement of wisdom and
morality?--HUYGHENS, _Conjectures concerning the Planetary Worlds_.
The interest with which astronomy is studied by many who care little or
nothing for other sciences is due chiefly to the thoughts which the
celestial bodies suggest respecting life in other worlds than ours.
There is no feeling more deeply seated in the human heart--not the
belief in higher than human powers, not the hope of immortality, not
even the fear of death--than the faith in realms of life where other
conditions are experienced than those we are acquainted with here. It is
not vulgar curiosity or idle fancy that suggests the possibilities of
life in other worlds. It has been the conviction of the profoundest
thinkers, of men of highest imagination. The mystery of the star-depths
has had its charm for the mathematician as well as for the poet; for
the exact observer as for the most fruitful theoriser; nay, for the man
of business as for him whose life is passed in communing with nature. If
we analyse the interest with which the generality of men inquire into
astronomical matters apparently not connected with the question of life
in other worlds, we find in every case that it has been out of this
question alone or chiefly that that interest has sprung. The great
discoveries made during the last few years respecting the sun for
example, might seem remote from the subject of life in other worlds. It
is true that Sir William Herschel thought the sun might be the abode of
living creatures; and Sir John Herschel even suggested the possibility
that the vast streaks of light called the solar willow-leaves, objects
varying from two hundred to a thousand miles in length, might be living
creatures whose intense lustre was the measure of their intense
vitality. But modern discoveries had rendered all such theories
untenable. The sun is presented to us as a mighty furnace, in whose
fires the most stubborn elements are not merely melted but vaporised.
The material of the sun has been analysed, the motions and changes
taking place on his surface examined, the laws of his being determined.
How, it might be asked, is the question of life in other worlds involved
in these researches? The faith of Sir David Brewster in the sun as the
abode of life being dispelled, how could discoveries respecting the sun
interest those who care about the subject of the plurality of worlds?
The answer to these questions is easily found. The real interest which
solar researches have possessed for those who are not astronomers has
resided in the evidence afforded respecting the sun's position as the
fire, light, and life of the system of worlds whereof our world is one.
The mere facts discovered respecting the sun would be regarded as so
much dry detail were they not brought directly into relation with our
earth and its wants, and therefore with the wants of the other earths
which circle round the sun; but when thus dealt with they immediately
excite attention and interest. I do not speak at random in asserting
this, but describe the result of widely ranging observation. I have
addressed hundreds of audiences in Great Britain and America on the
subject of recent solar discoveries, and I have conversed with many
hundreds of persons of various capacity and education, from men almost
uncultured to men of the highest intellectual power; and my invariable
experience has been that solar research derives its chief interest when
viewed in relation to the sun's position as the mighty ruler, the
steadfast sustainer, the beneficent almoner of the system of worlds to
which our earth belongs. It is the same with other astronomical
subjects. Few care for the record of lunar observations, save in
relation to the question whether the moon is or has been the abode of
living creatures. The movements of comets and meteors, and the
discoveries recently made respecting their condition, have no interest
except in relation to the position of these bodies in the economy of
solar systems, or to the possible part which they may at one time have
performed in building up worlds and suns. None save astronomers, and few
only of these, care for researches into the star-depths, except in
connection with the thought that every star is a sun and therefore
probably the light and fire of a system of worlds like those which
circle around our own sun.
It is singular how variously this question of life in other worlds has
been viewed at various stages of astronomical progress. From the time of
Pythagoras, who first, so far as is known, propounded the general theory
of the plurality of worlds, down to our own time, when Brewster and
Chalmers on the one hand, and Whewell on the other, have advocated
rival theories probably to be both set aside for a theory at once
intermediate to and more widely ranging in time and space than either,
the aspect of the subject has constantly varied, as new lights have been
thrown upon it from different directions. It may be interesting briefly
to consider what has been thought in the past on this strangely
attractive question, and then to indicate the view towards which modern
discoveries seem manifestly to point--a view not likely to undergo other
change than that resulting from clearer vision and closer approach. In
other words, I shall endeavour to show that the theory to which we are
now led by all the known facts is correct in general, though, as fresh
knowledge is obtained, it may undergo modification in details. We now
see the subject from the right point of view, though as science
progresses we may come to see it more clearly and definedly.
When men believed the earth to be a flat surface above which the heavens
were arched as a tent or canopy, they were not likely to entertain the
belief in other worlds than ours. During the earlier ages of mankind
ideas such as these prevailed. The earth had been fashioned into its
present form and condition, the heavens had been spread over it, the
sun, and moon, and stars had been set in the heavens for its use and
adornment, and there was no thought of any other world.
But while this was the general belief, there was already a school of
philosophy where another doctrine had been taught. Pythagoras had
adopted the belief of Apollonius Pergaeus that the sun is the centre of
the planetary paths, the earth one among the planets--a belief
inseparable from the doctrine of the plurality of worlds. Much argument
has been advanced to show that this belief never was adopted before the
time of Copernicus, and unquestionably it must be admitted that the
theory was not presented in the clear and simple form to which we have
become accustomed. But it is not necessary to weigh the conflicting
arguments for and against the opinion that Pythagoras and others
regarded the earth as not the fixed centre of the universe. The certain
fact that the doctrine of the plurality of worlds was entertained (I do
not say adopted) by them, proves sufficiently that they cannot have
believed the earth to be fixed and central. The idea of other worlds
like our earth is manifestly inconsistent with the belief that the earth
is the central body around which the whole universe revolves.