From 'History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.' Copyright
1876, by Harper & Brothers
As man advances in knowledge, he discovers that of his primitive
conclusions some are doubtless erroneous, and many require better
evidence to establish their truth incontestably. A more prolonged and
attentive examination gives him reason, in some of the most important
particulars, to change his mind. He finds that the earth on which he
lives is not a floor covered over with a starry dome, as he once
supposed, but a globe self-balanced in space. The crystalline vault,
or sky, is recognized to be an optical deception. It rests upon the
earth nowhere, and is no boundary at all; there is no kingdom of
happiness above it, but a limitless space adorned with planets and
suns. Instead of a realm of darkness and woe in the depths on the
other side of the earth, men like ourselves are found there, pursuing,
in Australia and New Zealand, the innocent pleasures and encountering
the ordinary labors of life. By the aid of such lights as knowledge
gradually supplies, he comes at last to discover that this our
terrestrial habitation, instead of being a chosen, a sacred spot, is
only one of similar myriads, more numerous than the sands of the sea,
and prodigally scattered through space.
Never, perhaps, was a more important truth discovered. All the visible
evidence was in direct opposition to it. The earth, which had hitherto
seemed to be the very emblem of immobility, was demonstrated to be
carried with a double motion, with prodigious velocity, through the
heavens; the rising and setting of the stars were proved to be an
illusion; and as respects the size of the globe, it was shown to be
altogether insignificant when compared with multitudes of other
neighboring ones--insignificant doubly by reason of its actual
dimensions, and by the countless numbers of others like it in form,
and doubtless like it the abodes of many orders of life.
And so it turns out that our earth is a globe of about twenty-five
thousand miles in circumference. The voyager who circumnavigates it
spends no inconsiderable portion of his life in accomplishing his
task. It moves round the sun in a year, but at so great a distance
from that luminary that if seen from him, it would look like a little
spark traversing the sky. It is thus recognized as one of the members
of the solar system. Other similar bodies, some of which are of
larger, some of smaller dimensions, perform similar revolutions round
the sun in appropriate periods of time.
If the magnitude of the earth be too great for us to attach to it any
definite conception, what shall we say of the compass of the solar
system? There is a defect in the human intellect, which incapacitates
us for comprehending distances and periods that are either too
colossal or too minute. We gain no clearer insight into the matter,
when we are told that a comet which does not pass beyond the bounds of
the system may perhaps be absent on its journey for more than a
thousand years. Distances and periods such as these are beyond our
grasp. They prove to us how far human reason excels imagination; the
one measuring and comparing things of which the other can form no
conception, but in the attempt is utterly bewildered and lost.
But as there are other globes like our earth, so too there are other
worlds like our solar system. There are self-luminous suns, exceeding
in number all computation. The dimensions of this earth pass into
nothingness in comparison with the dimensions of the solar system, and
that system in its turn is only an invisible point if placed in
relation with the countless hosts of other systems, which form with it
clusters of stars. Our solar system, far from being alone in the
universe, is only one of an extensive brotherhood, bound by common
laws and subject to like influences. Even on the very verge of
creation, where imagination might lay the beginning of the realms of
chaos, we see unbounded proofs of order, a regularity in the
arrangement of inanimate things, suggesting to us that there are other
intellectual creatures like us, the tenants of those islands in the
abysses of space.
Though it may take a beam of light a million years to bring to our
view those distant worlds, the end is not yet. Far away in the depths
of space we catch the faint gleams of other groups of stars like our
own. The finger of a man can hide them in their remoteness. Their vast
distances from one another have dwindled into nothing. They and their
movements have lost all individuality; the innumerable suns of which
they are composed blend all their collected light into one pale milky
glow.
Thus extending our view from the earth to the solar system, from the
solar system to the expanse of the group of stars to which we belong,
we behold a series of gigantic nebular creations rising up one after
another, and forming greater and greater colonies of worlds. No
numbers can express them, for they make the firmament a haze of stars.
Uniformity, even though it be the uniformity of magnificence, tires at
last, and we abandon the survey; for our eyes can only behold a
boundless prospect, and conscience tells us our own unspeakable
insignificance.
But what has become of the time-honored doctrine of the human destiny
of the universe?--that doctrine for the sake of which the controversy
I have described in this chapter was raised? It has disappeared. In
vain was Bruno burnt and Galileo imprisoned; the truth forced its way,
in spite of all opposition, at last. The end of the conflict was a
total rejection of authority and tradition, and the adoption of
scientific truth.