THE GRADUAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE COPERNICAN SYSTEM.
Just as Tycho Brahe's system proved to be for some a good half-way
station between the improbable Ptolemaic and the heretical Copernican
system;[347] so the Cartesian philosophy helped others to reconcile
their scientific knowledge with their reverence for the Scriptures,
until Newton's work had more fully demonstrated the scientific truth.
[Footnote 347: See Moxon: _Advice, A Tutor to Astronomy and Geography_
(1670): 269.]
Its originator, Rene Descartes[348] (1596-1650) was in Holland when
word of Galileo's condemnation reached him in 1633, as he was seeking
in the bookshops of Amsterdam and Leyden for a copy of the
_Dialogo_.[349] He at once became alarmed lest he too be accused of
trying to establish the movement of the earth, a doctrine which he had
understood was then publicly taught even in Rome, and which he had
made the basis of his own philosophy. If this doctrine were condemned
as false, then his philosophy must be also; and, true to his training
by the Jesuits, rather than go against the Church he would not publish
his books. He set aside his _Cosmos_, and delayed the publication of
the _Methode_ for some years in consequence, even starting to
translate it into Latin as a safeguard.[350] His conception of the
universe, the Copernican one modified to meet the requirements of a
literally interpreted Bible, was not printed until 1644, when it
appeared in his _Principes_.[351]
[Footnote 348: Haldane's _Descartes_ (1905) is the most recent and
authoritative account based upon Descartes's works as published in the
Adams-Tannery edition (Paris, 1896. foll.). This edition supersedes
that of Cousin. [Transcriber's Note: Missing footnote reference in
original text has been added above in a logical place.]]
[Footnote 349: Haldane: 153.]
[Footnote 350: Ibid: 158.]
[Footnote 351: Descartes: _Principes_, Pt. III, chap. 13.]
According to this statement which he made only as a possible
explanation of the phenomena and not as an absolute truth, while there
was little to choose between the Tychonic and the Copernican
conceptions, he inclined slightly toward the former. He conceived of
the earth and the other planets as each borne along in its enveloping
heaven like a ship by the tide, or like a man asleep on a ship that
was sailing from Calais to Dover. The earth itself does not move, but
it is transported so that its position is changed in relation to the
other planets but not visibly so in relation to the fixed stars
because of the vast intervening spaces. The laws of the universe
affect even the most minute particle, and all alike are swept along in
a series of vortices, or whirlpools, of greater or less size. Thus the
whole planetary system sweeps around the sun in one great vortex, as
the satellites sweep around their respective planets in lesser ones.
In this way Descartes worked out a mechanical explanation of the
universe of considerable importance because it was a rational one
which anyone could understand. Its defects were many, to be sure, as
for example, that it did not allow for the elliptical orbits of the
planets;[352] and one critic has claimed that this theory of a
motionless earth borne along by an enveloping heaven was comparable to
a worm in a Dutch cheese sent from Amsterdam to Batavia,--the worm has
travelled about 6000 leagues but without changing its place![353] But
this theory fulfilled Descartes's aim: to show that the universe was
governed by mechanical laws of which we can be absolutely certain and
that Galileo's discoveries simply indicated this.[354]
[Footnote 352: Haldane: 291.]
[Footnote 353: Monchamp: 185, note.]
[Footnote 354: Haldane: 292.]
This exposition of the Copernican doctrine strongly appealed to the
literary world of the 17th and 18th centuries in western Europe,
especially in the Netherlands, in the Paris salons and in the
universities.[355] M. Monchamp cites a number of contemporary comments
upon its spread, in one of which it is claimed that in 1691, the
university of Louvain had for the preceding forty years been
practically composed of Cartesians.[356] For the time being, this
theory was a more or less satisfactory explanation of the universe
according to known laws; it answered to Galileo's observations; it was
in harmony with the Scriptures, and its vortices paved the way for the
popular acceptance of Newton's law of universal gravitation.
[Footnote 355: Ibid: 193, 279.]
[Footnote 356: Monchamp: 177-181.]
Protestant England was of course little disturbed by the decree
against the Copernican doctrine, a fact that makes it possible,
perhaps, to see there more clearly the change in people's attitude
from antagonism to acceptance, than in Catholic Europe where fear of
the Church's power, and respect for its decisions inhibited honest
public expression of thought and conviction. While in England also the
literal interpretation of the Scriptures continued to be with the
common people a strong objection against the doctrine, the rationalist
movement of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries along with
Newton's great work, helped win acceptance for it among the better
educated classes.
Bruno had failed to win over his English hearers, and in 1600 when the
_De Magnete_ was published, William Gilbert, (1540-1603) was
apparently the only supporter of the earth's movement then in
England,[357] and he advocated the diurnal motion only.[358] Not many,
however, were as outspoken as Bacon in denunciation of the system;
they were simply somewhat ironically indifferent. An exception to this
was Dean Wren of Windsor (father of the famous architect). He could
not speak strongly enough against it in his marginal notes on Browne's
_Pseudodoxia Epidemica_. As Dr. Johnson wrote,[359] Sir Thomas Browne
(1605-1682) himself in his zeal for the old errors, did not easily
admit new positions, for he never mentioned the motion of the earth
but with contempt and ridicule. This was not enough for the Dean, who
wrote in the margin of Browne's book, at such a passage,[360] that
there were "eighty-odd expresse places in the Bible affirming in
plaine and overt terms the naturall and perpetuall motion of sun and
moon" and that "a man should be affrighted to follow that audacious
and pernicious suggestion which Satan used, and thereby undid us all
in our first parents, that God hath a double meaning in his commands,
in effect condemning God of amphibologye. And all this boldness and
overweaning having no other ground but a seeming argument of some
phenomena forsooth, which notwithstanding we know the learned Tycho,
prince of astronomers, who lived fifty-two years since Copernicus,
hath by admirable and matchlesse instruments and many yeares exact
observations proved to bee noe better than a dreame."
[Footnote 357: Berry quotes (p. 92) a passage from Thomas Digges (d.
1595) with the date 1590: "But in this our age, one rare witte (seeing
the continuall errors that from time to time more and more continually
have been discovered, besides the infinite absurdities in their
Theoricks, which they have been forced to admit that would not confess
any mobility in the ball of the Earth) hath by long studye, paynfull
practise, and rare invention delivered a new Theorick or Model of the
World, shewing that the Earth resteth not in the Center of the whole
world or globe of elements, which encircled or enclosed in the Moone's
orbit, and together with the whole globe of mortality is carried round
about the Sunne, which like a king in the middst of all, rayneth and
giveth laws of motion to all the rest, sphaerically dispersing his
glorious beames of light through all this sacred celestiall Temple."
Browne also refers to Digges (I, 383).]
[Footnote 358: Gilbert: _De Magnete_, Bk. VI, c. 3-5 (214-228).]
[Footnote 359: Johnson: _Life_, in Browne: I, xvii.]
[Footnote 360: Browne: I, 35.]
Richard [Transcriber's Note: Robert] Burton (1576-1639) in
_The Anatomy of Melancholy_ speaks of the doctrine as a "prodigious
tenent, or paradox," lately revived by "Copernicus, Brunus and some
others," and calls Copernicus in consequence the successor of
Atlas.[361] The vast extent of the heavens that this supposition
requires, he considers "quite opposite to reason, to natural
philosophy, and all out as absurd as disproportional, (so some will)
as prodigious, as that of the sun's swift motion of the heavens." If
the earth is a planet, then other planets may be inhabited (as
Christian Huygens argued later on); and this involves a possible
plurality of worlds. Burton laughs at those who, to avoid the Church
attitude and yet explain the celestial phenomena, invent new
hypotheses and new systems of the world, "correcting others, doing
worse themselves, reforming some and marring all," as he says of
Roeslin's endeavors. "In the meantime the world is tossed in a blanket
amongst them; they hoyse the earth up and down like a ball, make it
stand and goe at their pleasure."[362] He himself was indifferent.
[Footnote 361: Burton: _Anatomy of Melancholy_, I, 1; I, 66. First
edition, 1621; reprinted 1624, 1628, 1632, 1638, 1651-2, 1660, 1676.]
[Footnote 362: Ibid: I, 385, 389.]
Others more sensitive to the implications of this system, might
exclaim with George Herbert (1593-1633):[363]
"Although there were some fourtie heav'ns, or more,
Sometimes I peere above them all;
Sometimes I hardly reach a score,
Sometimes to hell I fall.
"O rack me not to such a vast extent,
Those distances belong to thee.
The world's too little for thy tent,
A grave too big for me."
[Footnote 363: Herbert: II, 315.]
Or they might waver, undecided, like Milton who had the archangel
answer Adam's questions thus:[364]
"But whether thus these things, or whether not,
Whether the Sun predominant in Heaven
Rise on the Earth, or Earth rise on the Sun,
Hee from the East his flaming robe begin,
Or Shee from West her silent course advance
With inoffensive pace that spinning sleeps
On her soft axle, while she paces ev'n
And bears thee soft with the smooth Air along,
Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid,
Leave them to God above, him serve and feare;
Of other Creatures, as him pleases best,
Wherever plac't, let him dispose; joy thou
In what he gives to thee, this Paradise
And the fair Eve: Heaven is for thee too high
To know what passes there: be lowlie wise." (1667)
[Footnote 364: Milton: _Paradise Lost_, Bk. VIII, lines 159 _et seq._
The great Puritan divine, John Owen (1616-1683), accepts the miracle
of the sun's standing still without a word of reference to the new
astronomy. (_Works_: II, 160.) Farrar states that Owen declared
Newton's discoveries were against the evident testimonies of Scripture
(Farrar: _History of Interpretation_: xviii.), but I have been unable
to verify this statement. Owen died before the _Principia_ was
published in 1687.]
Whewell thinks[365] that at this time the diffusion of the Copernican
system was due more to the writings of Bishop Wilkins than to those of
any one else, for their very extravagances drew stronger attention to
it. The first, "The Discovery of a New World: or a Discourse tending
to prove that there may be another habitable world in the moon,"
appeared in 1638; and a third edition was issued only two years later
together with the second book; "Discourse concerning a New
Planet--that 'tis probable our Earth is one of the planets." In this
latter, the Bishop stated certain propositions as indubitable; among
these were, that the scriptural passages intimating diurnal motion of
the sun or of the heavens are fairly capable of another
interpretation; that there is no sufficient reason to prove the earth
incapable of those motions which Copernicus ascribes to it; that it is
more probable the earth does move than the heavens, and that this
hypothesis is exactly agreeable to common appearances.[366] And these
books appeared when political and constitutional matters, and not
astronomical ones, were the burning questions of the day in England.
[Footnote 365: Whewell: I, 410.]
[Footnote 366: Wilkins: _Discourse Concerning a New Planet_.]
The spread of the doctrine was also helped by Thomas Salusbury's
translations of the books and passages condemned by the Index in 1616
and 1619. This collection, "intended for gentlemen," he published by
popular subscription immediately after the Restoration,[367] a fact
that indicates that not merely mathematicians (whom Whewell
claims[368] were by that time all decided Copernicans) but the general
public were interested and awake.[369]
[Footnote 367: Salusbury: _Math. Coll._: To the Reader.]
[Footnote 368: Whewell: I, 411.]
[Footnote 369: One London bookseller in 1670 advertised for sale
"spheres according to the Ptolmean, Tychonean and Copernican systems
with books for their use." (Moxon: 272.) In 1683 in London appeared
the third edition of Gassendi's _Institutio_, the textbook of
astronomy in the universities during this period of uncertainty. It
too wavers between the Tychonic and the Copernican systems.]
The appearance of Newton's _Principia_ in 1687 with his statement of
the universal application of the law of gravitation, soon ended
hesitancy for most people. Twelve years later, John Keill,
(1671-1721), the Scotch mathematician and astronomer at Oxford,
refuted Descartes's theory of vortices and opened the first course of
lectures delivered at Oxford on the new Newtonian philosophy.[370] Not
only were his lectures thronged, but his books advocating the
Copernican system in full[371] went through several editions in
relatively few years.
[Footnote 370: _Dict. of Nat. Biog._: "Keill."]
[Footnote 371: Keill: _Introductio ad Veram Astronomiam_.]
In the Colonies, Yale University which had hitherto been using
Gassendi's textbook, adopted the Newtonian ideas a few years later,
partly through the gift to the university of some books by Sir Isaac
himself, and partly through the enthusiasm of two young instructors
there, Johnson and Brown, who in 1714-1722 widened the mathematical
course by including the new theories.[372] The text they used was by
Rohault, a Cartesian, edited by Samuel Clarke with critical notes
exposing the fallacies of Cartesianism. This "disguised Newtonian
treatise" was used at Yale till 1744. The University of Pennsylvania
used this same text book even later.[373]
[Footnote 372: Cajori: 29-30.]
[Footnote 373: Cajori: 37.]
In 1710 Pope (1688-1744) refers to "our Copernican system,"[374] and
Addison (1671-1719) in the _Spectator_ (July 2, 1711) writes this very
modern passage:
"But among this set of writers, there are none who more
gratify and enlarge the imagination, than the authors of the
new philosophy, whether we consider their theories of the
earth or heavens, the discoveries they have made by glasses,
or any other of their contemplations on nature.... But when
we survey the whole earth at once, and the several planets
that lie within its neighborhood, we are filled with a
pleasing astonishment, to see so many worlds hanging one
above another, and sliding around their axles in such an
amazing pomp and solemnity. If, after this, we contemplate
those wide fields of aether, that reach in height as far as
from Saturn to the fixed stars, and run abroad almost to an
infinitude, our imagination finds its capacity filled with
so immense a prospect, as puts it upon the stretch to
comprehend it. But if we yet rise higher, and consider the
fixed stars as so many vast oceans of flame, that are each
of them attended with a different set of planets, and still
discover new firmaments and new lights, that are sunk
farther in those unfathomable depths of aether, so as not to
be seen by the strongest of our telescopes, we are lost in
such a labyrinth of suns and worlds, and confounded with the
immensity and magnificence of nature.
"Nothing is more pleasant to the fancy, than to enlarge
itself by degrees, in its contemplation of the various
proportions which its several objects bear to each other,
when it compares the body of man to the bulk of the whole
earth, the earth to the circle it describes round the sun,
that circle to the sphere of the fixed stars, the sphere of
the fixed stars to the circuit of the whole creation, the
whole creation itself to the infinite space that is
everywhere diffused around it; ... But if, after all this,
we take the least particle of these animal spirits, and
consider its capacity wrought into a world, that shall
contain within those narrow dimensions a heaven and earth,
stars and planets, and every different species of living
creatures, in the same analogy and proportion they bear to
each other in our own universe; such a speculation, by
reason of its nicety, appears ridiculous to those who have
not turned their thoughts that way, though, at the same
time, it is founded on no less than the evidence of a
demonstration."[375]
[Footnote 374: Pope: _Works_, VI, 110.]
[Footnote 375: Addison: _Spectator_, No. 420, (IV, 372-373). An
interesting contrast to this passage and a good illustration of how
the traditional phraseology continued in poetry is found in Addison's
famous hymn, written a year later:
"Whilst all the stars that round her [earth] burn
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
"What though in solemn silence all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball;
What though no real voice nor sound
Amidst their radiant orbs be found;
"In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
Forever singing, as they shine,
'The hand that made us is divine'."]
A little later, Cotton Mather declared (1721) that the "Copernican
hypothesis is now generally preferred," and "that there is no
objection against the motion of the earth but what has had a full
solution."[376] Soon the semi-popular scientific books took up the
Newtonian astronomy. One such was described as "useful for all
sea-faring Men, as well as Gentlemen, and Others."[377]
"Newtonianisme pour les Dames" was advertised in France in the
forties.[378] By 1738 when Pope wrote the _Universal Prayer_:
"Yet not to earth's contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound
Or think thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round,"
the Copernican-Newtonian astronomy had become a commonplace to most
well-educated people in England. To be sure, the great John Wesley
(1770) considered the systems of the universe merely "ingenious
conjectures," but then, he doubted whether "more than Probabilities we
shall ever attain in regard to things at so great a distance from
us."[379]
[Footnote 376: Mather: _Christian Philosopher_, 75, 76.]
[Footnote 377: Leadbetter: _Astronomy_ (1729).]
[Footnote 378: In de Maupertius: _Ouvrages Divers_, (at the back).]
[Footnote 379: Wesley: _Compendium of Natural Philosophy_, I, 14,
139.]
The old phraseology, however, did recur occasionally, especially in
poetry and in hymns. For instance, a hymnal (preface dated 1806)
contains such choice selections as:
"Before the pondr'ous earthly globe
In fluid air was stay'd,
Before the ocean's mighty springs
Their liquid stores display'd"--
and:
"Who led his blest unerring hand
Or lent his needful aid
When on its strong unshaken base
The pondr'ous earth was laid?"[380]
[Footnote 380: Dobell: _Hymns_, No. 5, No. 10.]
But too much importance should not be attributed to such passages;
though poetry and astronomy need not conflict, as Keble
illustrated:[381]
"Ye Stars that round the Sun of Righteousness
In glorious order roll...."
[Footnote 381: Keble: _Christian Year_, 279.]
By the middle of the 18th century in England, one could say with Horne
"that the Newtonian System had been in possession of the chair for
some years;"[382] but it had not yet convinced the common people, for
as Pike wrote in 1753, "Many Common Christians to this day firmly
believe that the earth really stands still and that the sun moves all
round the earth once a day: neither can they be easily persuaded out
of this opinion, because they look upon themselves bound to believe
what the Scripture asserts."[383]
[Footnote 382: Horne: _Fair, Candid, Impartial Statement ..._, 4.]
[Footnote 383: Pike: _Philosophia Sacra_, 43.]
There was, however, just at this time a little group of thinkers who
objected to Newton's scheme, "because of the endless uninterrupted
flux of matter from the sun in light, an expense which should destroy
that orb."[384] These Hutchinsonians conceived of light as pure ether
in motion springing forth from the sun, growing more dense the further
it goes till it becomes air, and, striking the circumference of the
universe (which is perhaps an immovable solid), is thrown back toward
the sun and melted into light again. Its force as its tides of motion
strike the earth and the other planets produces their constant
gyrations.[385] Men like Duncan Forbes, Lord President of the Court of
Sessions, and George Horne, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, as
a weapon against rationalism, favored this notion that had been
expounded by John Hutchinson (1674-1737) in his _Moses's Principia_
(1724).[386] They were also strongly attracted by the scriptural
symbolism with which the book abounds. Leslie Stephen summarizes their
doctrines as (1) extreme dislike for rationalism, (2) a fanatical
respect for the letter of the Bible, and (3) an attempt to enlist the
rising powers of scientific enquiry upon the side of orthodoxy.[387]
This "little eddy of thought"[388] was not of much influence even at
that time, but it has a certain interest as indicating the positions
men have taken when on the defensive against new ideas.
[Footnote 384: Forbes: _Letter_, (1755).]
[Footnote 385: See Wesley: I, 136-7.]
[Footnote 386: _Dict. of Nat. Biog._: "Hutchinson."]
[Footnote 387: Stephen: _Hist. of Eng. Thought_: I, 390.]
[Footnote 388: Ibid: 391.]