Occupied as most of us are with our respective worldly concerns, and
accustomed to see the routine of common events going on smoothly from
age to age, we are little apt to reflect on natural events of a
tremendous character, which modern science shews might possibly
happen, and that on any day of any year. We think of the land as a
firm and solid thing--as _terra firma_, in short--not recollecting
that geology shews how it may rise or sink, so as to pass into new
relations to the enveloping sea; how it may be raised, for instance,
to such an extent as to throw every port inland, or so far lowered as
to submerge the richest and most populous regions. No doubt, the
relations of sea and land have been much as they are during historical
time; but it is at the same time past all doubt, that the last great
geological event, in respect of most countries known, was a
submergence which produced the marine alluvial deposits; and when we
find that Scandinavia is slowly but steadily rising in some parts at
this moment, and that a thousand miles of the west coast of South
America rose four feet in a single night only thirty years ago, we
cannot feel quite assured, that the agencies which produced that
submergence, and the subsequent re-emergence, are at an end. We
likewise forgot, in these cool districts of the earth, that we are not
quite beyond the hazard of subterranean fire. There are numberless
extinct volcanoes in both Britain and France; there are some on the
banks of the Rhine; indeed, they are thick-sown everywhere. Now, an
extinct volcano is not quite so safe a neighbour as many may suppose.
Vesuvius was an extinct volcano from time immemorial till the year 63,
when it suddenly broke out again, and soon after destroyed Pompeii and
Herculaneum; since which time it has never again subsided into entire
inactivity. Suppose Arthur's Seat, which is 'within a mile of
Edinburgh town,' were to recommence business in like manner, we should
like to know at how many years' purchase house property in that
beautiful New Town would be selling next day. Yet what is there about
an old volcano here more than an old volcano in Italy, to give
assurance that its means of annoyance and destruction are absolutely
extinguished?
There is, however, in the showings of science, a more serious danger
than any of these. Comets were once regarded as most terrific objects,
but only in a superstitious way, perplexing nations with fear of
change, and shaking pestilence from their horrid hair. During an
intermediate enlightened time, these notions passed away; and we have
even come to think, that such a visitant of our skies may exercise a
beneficial influence. We at least recollect when old gentlemen, after
dinner, brightened up at the mention of 'claret 1811,' merrily
attributing the extraordinary merits of the liquor to the comet of
that year. But comets, in the cool eye of modern science, are not
without their terrors. Crossing as they often do the paths of the
planets in their progress to and from their perihelia, it cannot but
be that they should now and then come in contact with one of these
spheres. One, called Lexell's, did come athwart the satellites of
Jupiter in 1769, and once again in 1779, so as to be deranged in its
own course. It made, indeed, no observable change in the movements of
the Jovian train, being of too light a consistence for that; but can
we doubt, that it might nevertheless seriously affect the condition of
their surfaces, and especially any animal life existing thereon? This
very comet, on the 28th of June 1770, passed the earth at a distance
only six times that of the moon. There is another called Biela's,
which revisits the sun every six years, or a little more; and this
busy traveller actually crossed our orbit in 1832, only a month before
we passed through the same point in space! Another, which made a grand
appearance in the western sky in March 1843, would have involved us in
its tail, if we had been only a _fortnight_ earlier at a particular
place! Rather fine shaving that in the celestial economics. Now, if we
consider that as many as eight comets have been observed
telescopically in a single year (1846), we must see that the chance of
a collision of this kind is not quite so small as to be unworthy of
regard. If it be true that there are thousands of comets, all of which
make periodical visits to the near neighbourhood of the sun, it must
be evident that the earth, being itself not far, comparatively
speaking, from that luminary, must be rather liable as otherwise to a
brush from one of these wanderers; and, indeed, the wonder is, that
several thousand years should have passed without, so far as we know,
any one such collision having taken place.
Seeing what a highly-organised system is formed by the physical and
organic arrangements upon our planet, one is apt to think that the
scheme of Providence must have been framed with a provision for the
complete exclusion of such accidents. To allow of the sudden undoing
of all this fair scene, which it has taken thousands of years to bring
out in its full proportions, seems like a wanton destruction of
valuable property, and we are not disposed to believe that such a
thing could be permitted. But we must at the same time remember, that
our sense of what is important and consequential has a regard to the
earth alone, which is but a trifling atom in the universe. Who can
tell what are the limits which the Master of worlds has set to mundane
calamity? And assuredly, even though a whole solar system were here
and there, now and then, to be remodelled in respect of all such
arrangements as have been spoken of, it could not be supposed to be a
very great event in the progress of the entire scheme, seeing that
astronomy has taught us to regard such systems as no more than
particles in the dust-cloud or grains of sand on the sea-shore. It
must, then, in sober reasoning be admitted, that our mere abhorrence
of so much destruction is no guidance to our judgment on this point;
and that for anything we can see of the plans of Providence, an
entanglement of our globe with a comet may take place any day, with
consequences incalculably damaging for the meantime, though not
conclusively destructive, and perhaps necessary as a step towards an
improved system of things--the bringing in of what Ben Jonson calls
'an age of better metal.'
In the frame of mind which these speculations induce--not very greatly
alarmed about such extraordinary contingencies, yet not insensible to
the solemnity of the thought of what may come to pass even before our
living eyes--it is curious, and not necessarily unpleasant, to
consider what might be the actual phenomena attending a cometary
collision. We know not what comets are composed of, but are certain
that they consist of some palpable matter, however diffused, for they
observe the rules of motion in their revolutions round the sun. On the
whole, the most plausible supposition as to their composition, is that
which regards them as watery vapour or cloud, of great tenuity. How
like, for example, to the doings of a cloud, is the splitting into
two, which has been occasionally observed in them! Well, if they be
clouds, the coming of one into contact with our earth would most
likely deposit with us an immense addition to our stock of water. It
would be instantaneous, or nearly so. Only think of a sudden fall of
water sufficient to raise the ocean a hundred feet, and submerge all
parts of the land which were less than that height above the present
level of the sea! There would, of course, be a fearful abridgment of
our continents; all big islands would be made little; and many littler
ones would cease to be. The surviving lands would be so swept by the
flood, that scarcely any of the present features would remain
unchanged. All animals and movable things would be engulfed. In a few
minutes, this brawling, chattering, bustling world would be stilled in
universal death. What a settlement of 'questions' there! What a strike
of work! What a command of Silence!
A board of bank directors was hesitating about a bill for L.100, some
thinking it rather indifferent paper, others viewing it more
favourably; when down comes the cometic flood, and while the manager
rings his bell to see what is the matter, it enters by doors and
windows, and in an instant closes the whole concern. A criminal court
was sitting in expectation of the return of the jury with their
verdict. There was one thinking that death may not be far from his
door, and a hundred pitying him in the contrast of their own assurance
from the imminent foe, when lo! the flood, and judges, jury, criminal,
and sympathising audience, are all instantly on a level. A sanitary
commission was deliberating on impediments to the bringing in of fresh
and the taking away of foul water, and wondering if there ever would
be a body of their denomination which could do anything it wished to
do for the benefit of a mild, expectant, inactive, suffering public.
The comet pours in its fresh water on the instant, and the whole
difficulties of the case are at once resolved. A synod had been called
to consider some nice point, hardly palpable to common understandings,
but which everybody thought a very important point notwithstanding,
and three gentlemen speaking at once to contrary purposes were about
to be interrupted by a fourth of a different opinion still, when enter
comet--a real Moderator--and at one stroke decides what poor mankind
had been wrangling about for centuries, and what, to all appearance,
but for this 'redding straik,' they would have wrangled about for
centuries to come. Lord Augustus Anser had demanded satisfaction of
the Honourable Mr Pavo for an injurious remark, and they were
proceeding by railway to make a deadly end of it, when, lo! the comet
dashes in like an undesired train from a siding, and quashes one of
the prettiest quarrels which has happened for a twelvemonth. There was
an unpleasant dispute with America about a herring-barrel, and barrels
of a different kind were likely to be resorted to to settle it. The
Admiralty was all astir as to how many vessels it might be necessary
to set afloat for the business. Brother Jonathan was calculating what
could be made of the crisis in working out the election of a
president. The comet takes upon itself to set the whole naval force of
both countries afloat--the 'origo mali' too--and at the same time to
countermand the presidential election. So that matter passes. Another
president was on the point of electing himself emperor--a loving pair
was about to be wed--the Court of Chancery was just commencing a
career of reform--a new author was starting into fame with the most
brilliant novel of the season--when the comet thwarts every hope.
Lloyd's had never calculated on such an accident. On 'Change, if there
had been time for a moment's remark, it would have been regarded as a
most unheard-of thing. The life-assurance companies, having in their
tables made no allowance for such a contingency, would have been
ruined by so many policies 'emerging' (oh, word of mockery!) at once,
had it not been that there were no survivors to claim the various
amounts. Debts, bonds, contracts, obligations of all kinds, in like
manner were absolved by the comet, and Creation itself left to open a
new score in, it is to be hoped, a less blotted book.
Considered as a reform, our possible event must be viewed with great
interest. The patriot's heart is broken, in the ordinary current of
things, by the passive resistance he meets with from the great, inert
mass of prejudice and contrary interest. His most generous views are
thwarted by thousands of accidents which there was no foreseeing when
he put the affair down on paper. Tories hate and scandalise him;
despots put him in prison; he only can bequeath his scheme to be
wrought out by the happy man of a happier age. Here, however, comes me
in a besom which sweeps all the old peccant institutions away at one
whisk. Church and state are severed, and for ever. The Holy Alliance
against the liberties of mankind is broken up--the pomp and corruption
of courts is annihilated--bribery and bigotry are no more. What a
clean sweep!--how hopeless reaction! Surely the most extravagant views
of the Destructives must be gratified and contented at last.
If the event shall ever happen, it cannot be doubted that the present
Mankind will leave many interesting memorials of themselves and their
progress for the examination of a new race, should such ever arise.
When the geologist of the after-world begins his work--who can tell
how many hundreds of thousands of years hence?--he will find, over all
our stratification and palæontology, a DRIFT containing the remains of
the ancient human species--here a _tibia_ of a stockbroker, there the
skull of a poet--here a lady's dressing-case in a fossilised state,
there a gentleman's box of cigars: besides all these odds and ends,
there will doubtless be ruins of temples, fortresses, ships,
gin-palaces, and other pertinents of an active, passionate humanity,
the purposes of which will form most curious matter of speculation for
the more angelic species then at last come upon the earth. Nothing in
writing or print will have survived to convey an idea of the state of
our knowledge, or of the attainments of our great writers; but it is
possible that a few inscriptions may be disinterred, and that through
these some glimpses may be obtained of our history, though of a most
detached and confused nature. Probably, the most puzzling thing of all
will be our warlike implements and munitions; for to one who never
thought of harming his neighbour, how incomprehensible must be any
tool designed expressly for that purpose! If the intent of these
articles be penetrated, they will doubtless be ranged in museums as
curious monuments of passions long extinct, just as we see the
instruments of torture used by the Inquisition and other ancient
judicatories hung up in antiquarian collections of our own day.
Well, well, my dear brethren--you have read thus far without, I hope,
being too much distressed by the idea of the physical contingencies to
which it is shewn we are liable. Probably you have, each of you, too
many matters of sore concern pressing closely upon you, to be much
incommoded by possibilities of so infinitesimal a character. It
cannot, nevertheless, be amiss, that you should know these amongst
other things that may any day leap from the laps of the Parcæ, were it
only to expand your souls a little with things superior to the eternal
commonplaces of life. It is, after all, a great thing to be a part of
so great a system as that revealed to us in the external frame of
things, and to feel in what a mighty hand our destiny lies. Even in
the danger of what is here styled a Possible Event, there is a
grandeur--both as to the event itself, and the Power under whose
permission it will, if at all, take place, and our filial relations to
that Power, which never leaves us without hope--which, to a high and
purified mind, must be felt as more than reconciling.