|
[page 170, continued:]
|
|
|
The radical assumptions of this Discourse suggest
to me, and in fact imply, certain important modifications of
the
Nebular Theory as given by Laplace. The efforts of the repulsive power
I have considered as made for the purpose of preventing contact among
the
atoms, and thus as made in the ratio of the approach to contact — that
is to say, in the ratio of condensation.* In
other words, Electricity,
with its involute phænomena, heat, light and magnetism, is to be
understood
as proceeding as condensation proceeds, and, of course, inversely, as
density
proceeds, or the cessation to condense. Thus the Sun, in the
process
of its aggregation, must soon, in developing repulsion, have become
excessively
heated — incandescent: and we can perceive how the operation of
discarding
its rings must have been materially assisted by the slight incrustation
of its surface consequent on cooling. Any common experiment shows us
how
readily a crust, of the character suggested, is separated, through
heterogeneity,
from the interior mass. But, on every successive rejection of the
crust,
the new surface would appear incandescent as before; and the period at
which it would again become so far incrusted as to be readily loosened
and discharged, may well be imagined as exactly coincident with that at
which a new effort would be [page 171:] needed, by
the whole mass, to restore the equilibrium of its two forces,
disarranged
through condensation. In other words: — by the time the electric
influence
(Repulsion) has prepared the surface for rejection, we are to
understand
that the gravitating influence (Attraction) is precisely ready to
reject
it. Here, then, as everywhere, the Body and the Soul walk hand in
hand.
These ideas are empirically confirmed at all
points.
Since condensation can never, in any body, be considered as absolutely
at an end, we are warranted in anticipating that, whenever we have an
opportunity
of testing the matter, we shall find indications of resident luminosity
in all the stellar bodies — moons and planets as well as suns.
That
our Moon is strongly self-luminous, we see at every total eclipse,
when,
if not so, she would disappear. On the dark part of the satellite, too,
during her phases, we often observe flashes like our own Auroras; and
that
these latter, with our various other so-called electrical
phænomena,
without
reference to any more steady radiance, must give our Earth a certain
appearance
of luminosity to an inhabitant of the Moon, is quite evident. In fact,
we should regard all the phænomena referred to, as mere
manifestations,
in different moods and degrees, of the Earth’s feebly-continued
condensation.
If my views are tenable, we should be prepared to
find the newer planets — that is to say, those nearer the Sun — more
luminous
than those older and more remote: — and the extreme brilliancy of Venus
(on whose dark portions, during her phases, the Auroras are frequently
visible) does not seem to be altogether accounted for by her mere
proximity
to the central orb. She is no doubt vividly self-luminous, although
less
so than Mercury: while the luminosity of Neptune may be
comparatively
nothing.
Admitting what I have urged, it is clear that,
from
the moment of the Sun’s discarding a ring, there must be a continuous
diminution
both of his heat and light, on account of the continuous incrustation
of
his surface; and that a period would arrive — the period immediately
previous
to a new discharge — when a very material decrease of both
light
and heat, must become apparent. Now, we know that tokens of such
changes
are distinctly recognisable. On the Melville islands — to adduce merely
one out of a hundred examples — we find traces of ultra-tropical vegetation
— of [page 172:] plants that never could have
flourished
without immensely more light and heat than are at present afforded by
our
Sun to any portion of the surface of the Earth. Is such vegetation
referable
to an epoch immediately subsequent to the whirling-off of Venus? At
this
epoch must have occurred to us our greatest access of solar influence;
and, in fact, this influence must then have attained its maximum: —
leaving
out of view, of course, the period when the Earth itself was discarded
—
the period of its mere organization.
Again: — we know that there exist non-luminous
suns — that is to say, suns whose existence we determine through
the
movements of others, but whose luminosity is not sufficient to impress
us. Are these suns invisible merely on account of the length of time
elapsed
since their discharge of a planet? And yet again: — may we not — at
least
in certain cases — account for the sudden appearances of suns where
none
had been previously suspected, by the hypothesis that, having rolled
with
incrusted surfaces throughout the few thousand years of our
astronomical
history, each of these suns, in whirling off a new secondary, has at
length
been enabled to display the glories of its still incandescent interior?
—
To the well-ascertained fact of the proportional increase of heat as we
descend into the Earth, I need of course, do nothing more than refer: —
it
comes in the strongest possible corroboration of all that I have said
on
the topic now at issue.
In speaking, not long ago, of the repulsive or
electrical
influence, I remarked that “the important phænomena of vitality,
consciousness,
and thought, whether we observe them generally or in detail, seem to
proceed at least in the ratio of the heterogeneous."* I mentioned, too,
that I would recur to the suggestion: — and this is the proper point at
which
to do so. Looking at the matter, first, in detail, we perceive that not
merely the manifestation of vitality, but its importance,
consequences,
and elevation of character, keep pace, very closely, with the
heterogeneity,
or complexity, of the animal structure. Looking at the question, now,
in
its generality, and referring to the first movements of the atoms
towards
mass-constitution, we find that heterogeneousness, [page 173:]
brought about directly through condensation, is proportional with it
forever.
We thus reach the proposition that the importance of the
development
of the terrestrial vitality proceeds equably with the terrestrial
condensation
.
Now this is in precise accordance with what we
know
of the succession of animals on the Earth. As it has proceeded in its
condensation,
superior and still superior races have appeared. Is it impossible that
the successive geological revolutions which have attended, at least, if
not immediately caused, these successive elevations of vitalic
character
— is it improbable that these revolutions have themselves been produced
by the successive planetary discharges from the Sun — in other words,
by
the successive variations in the solar influence on the Earth? Were
this
idea tenable, we should not be unwarranted in the fancy that the
discharge
of yet a new planet, interior to Mercury, may give rise to yet a new
modification
of the terrestrial surface — a modification from which may spring a
race
both materially and spiritually superior to Man. These thoughts impress
me with all the force of truth — but I throw them out, of course,
merely
in their obvious character of suggestion.
The Nebular Theory of Laplace has lately received
far more confirmation than it needed, at the hands of the philosopher
Compte.
These two have thus together shown — not, to be sure, that
Matter
at any period actually existed as described, in a state of nebular
diffusion, but that, admitting it so to have existed throughout the
space and
much
beyond the space now occupied by our solar system, and to have
commenced
a movement towards a centre — it must gradually have assumed the
various
forms and motions which are now seen, in that system, to obtain. A
demonstration
such as this — a dynamical and mathematical demonstration, as far as
demonstration
can be — unquestionable
and
unquestioned — unless, indeed, by that unprofitable and disreputable
tribe,
the professional questioners — the mere madmen who deny the Newtonian
law
of Gravity on which the results of the French mathematicians are based
— a demonstration, I say, such as this, would to most intellects be
conclusive
— and I confess that it is so to mine — of the validity of the nebular
hypothesis upon which the demonstration depends. [page 174:]
That the demonstration does not prove the
hypothesis, according to the common understanding of the word “proof,”
I admit, of course. To show that certain existing results — that
certain
established facts — may be, even mathematically, accounted for by the
assumption
of a certain hypothesis, is by no means to establish the hypothesis
itself.
In other words: — to show that, certain data being given, a certain
existing
result might, or even must, have ensued, will fail to prove
that
this result did ensue, from the data, until such time
as
it shall be also shown that there are, and can be, no other
data
from which the result in question might equally have ensued.
But,
in the case now discussed, although all must admit the deficiency of
what
we are in the habit of terming “proof,” still there are many
intellects,
and those of the loftiest order, to which no proof could bring
one
iota of additional conviction. Without going into details which
might
impinge
upon the Cloud-Land of Metaphysics, I may as well here observe, that
the
force of conviction, in cases such as this, will always, with the
right-thinking,
be proportional to the amount of complexity intervening
between
the hypothesis and the result. To be less abstract: — The greatness of
the complexity found existing among cosmical conditions, by rendering
great
in the same proportion the difficulty of accounting for all these
conditions,
at once, strengthens, also, in the same proportion, our faith in
that
hypothesis which does, in such manner, satisfactorily account for them:
—
and as no complexity can well be conceived greater than that
of
the astronomical conditions, so no conviction can be stronger — to my
mind at least — than that with which I am impressed by an hypothesis
that
not only reconciles these conditions, with mathematical accuracy, and
reduces
them into a consistent and intelligible whole, but is, at the same
time,
the sole hypothesis by means of which the human intellect has
been
ever enabled to account for them at all.
A most unfounded opinion has been latterly
current
in gossiping and even in scientific circles — the opinion that the
so-called
Nebular Cosmogony has been overthrown. This fancy has arisen from the
report
of late observations made, among what hitherto have been termed the
“nebulæ,”
through the large telescope of Cincinnati, and the world-renowned
instrument
of Lord Rosse. Certain spots in the firmament which presented, even to
the most [page 175:] powerful of the old
telescopes,
the appearance of nebulosity, or haze, had been regarded for a long
time
as confirming the theory of Laplace. They were looked upon as stars in
that very process of condensation which I have been attempting to
describe.
Thus it was supposed that we “had ocular evidence” — an evidence, by
the
way, which has always been found very questionable — of the truth of
the
hypothesis; and, although certain telescopic improvements, every now
and
then, enabled us to perceive that a spot, here and there, which we had
been classing among the nebulæ, was, in fact, but a cluster of
stars
deriving
its nebular character only from its immensity of distance — still it
was
thought that no doubt could exist as to the actual nebulosity of
numerous
other masses, the strong-holds of the nebulists, bidding defiance to
every
effort at segregation. Of these latter the most interesting was the
great
“nebulæ” in the constellation Orion: — but this, with innumerable
other
miscalled
“nebulæ,” when viewed through the magnificent modern telescopes,
has
become
resolved into a simple collection of stars. Now this fact has been
very
generally understood as conclusive against the Nebular Hypothesis of
Laplace;
and, on announcement of the discoveries in question, the most
enthusiastic
defender and most eloquent popularizer of the theory, Dr. Nichol, went
so far as to “admit the necessity of abandoning” an idea which had
formed
the material of his most praiseworthy book.*
Many of my readers will no doubt be inclined to
say
that the result of these new investigations has at least a
strong tendency to overthrow the hypothesis; while some of
them, more
thoughtful,
will suggest that, although the theory is by no means disproved through
the segregation of the particular “nebulæ” alluded to, still a failure
to segregate them, with such telescopes, might well [page
176:]
have been understood as a triumphant corroboration of the
theory:
and this latter class will be surprised, perhaps, to hear me say that
even
with them I disagree. If the propositions of this Discourse
have
been comprehended, it will be seen that, in my view, a failure to
segregate
the “nebulæ” would have tended to the refutation, rather than to
the
confirmation,
of the Nebular Hypothesis.
Let me explain: — The Newtonian Law of Gravity we
may, of course, assume as demonstrated. This law, it will be
remembered,
I have referred to the rëaction of the first Divine Act — to the
rëaction
of an exercise of the Divine Volition temporarily overcoming a
difficulty.
This difficulty is that of forcing the normal into the abnormal — of
impelling
that whose originality, and therefore whose rightful condition, was One,
to take upon itself the wrongful condition of Many. It is only
by
conceiving this difficulty as temporarily overcome, that we can
comprehend a rëaction. There could have been no rëaction had
the act
been
infinitely continued. So long as the act lasted, no
rëaction, of
course, could commence; in other words, no gravitation could
take
place — for we have considered the one as but the manifestation of the
other. But gravitation has taken place; therefore the act of
Creation
has ceased: and gravitation has long ago taken place; therefore the act
of Creation has long ago ceased. We can no more expect, then, to
observe
the primary processes of Creation; and to these primary
processes
the condition of nebulosity has already been explained to belong.
Through what we know of the propagation of light,
we have direct proof that the more remote of the stars have existed,
under
the forms in which we now see them, for an inconceivable number of
years.
So far back at least, then, as the period when these stars
underwent
condensation, must have been the epoch at which the mass-constitutive
processes
began. That we may conceive these processes, then, as still going on in
the case of certain “nebulæ,” while in all other cases we find
them
thoroughly
at an end, we are forced into assumptions for which we have really no
basis whatever — we have to thrust in, again, upon the
revolting
Reason,
the blasphemous idea, of special interposition — we have to suppose
that,
in the particular instances of these “nebulæ,” an unerring [page
177:] God found it necessary to introduce certain
supplementary
regulations — certain improvements of the general law — certain
re-touchings
and emendations, in a word, which had the effect of deferring the
completion
of these individual stars for centuries of centuries beyond the
æra
during
which all the other stellar bodies had time, not only to be fully
constituted,
but to grow hoary with an unspeakable old age.
Of course, it will be immediately objected that
since the light by which we recognize the nebulæ now, must be
merely
that
which left their surfaces a vast number of years ago, the processes at
present observed, or supposed to be observed, are, in fact, not
processes now actually going on, but the phantoms of processes
completed
long in the Past — just as I maintain all these mass-constitutive
processes must have been.
To this I reply that neither is the now-observed
condition of the condensed stars their actual condition, but a
condition
completed long in the Past; so that my argument drawn from the
relative
condition of the stars and the “nebulæ,” is in no manner
disturbed.
Moreover,
those who maintain the existence of nebulæ, do not refer
the
nebulosity
to extreme distance; they declare it a real and not merely a
perspective
nebulosity. That we may conceive, indeed, a nebular mass as visible at
all, we must conceive it as very near us in comparison with the
condensed stars brought into view by the modern telescopes. In
maintaining
the appearances in question, then, to be really nebulous, we maintain
their
comparative vicinity to our point of view. Thus, their condition, as we
see them now, must be referred to an epoch far less remote than
that to which we may refer the now-observed condition of at least the
majority
of the stars. — In a word, should Astronomy ever demonstrate a
“nebula,”
in the sense at present intended, I should consider the Nebular
Cosmogony
— not, indeed, as corroborated by the demonstration — but as
thereby
irretrievably overthrown.
By way, however, of rendering unto Cæsar no
more
than the things that are Cæsar’s, let me here remark that the
assumption
of the hypothesis which led him to so glorious a result, seems to have
been
suggested to Laplace in great measure by a misconception — by the very
misconception of which we have just been [page 178:]
speaking — by the generally prevalent misunderstanding of the character
of the nebulæ, so mis-named. These he supposed to be, in reality,
what
their designation implies. The fact is, this great man had, very
properly,
an inferior faith in his own merely perceptive powers. In
respect,
therefore, to the actual existence of nebulæ, an existence so
confidently
maintained by his telescopic contemporaries — he depended less upon
what
he saw than upon what he heard.
It will be seen that the only valid objections to
his theory, are those made to its hypothesis as such — to what
suggested
it — not to what it suggests; to its propositions rather than to its
results.
His most unwarranted assumption was that of giving the atoms a movement
towards a centre, in the very face of his evident understanding that
these
atoms, in unlimited succession, extended throughout the Universal
space.
I have already shown that, under such circumstances, there could have
occurred
no movement at all; and Laplace, consequently, assumed one on no more
philosophical
ground than that something of the kind was necessary for the
establishment
of what he intended to establish.
His original idea seems to have been a compound
of
the true Epicurean atoms with the false nebulæ of his
contemporaries;
and thus his theory presents us with the singular anomaly of absolute
truth
deduced, as a mathematical result, from a hybrid datum of ancient
imagination
intertangled with modern inacumen. Laplace’s real strength lay, in
fact,
in an almost miraculous mathematical instinct: — on this he relied; and
in
no instance did it fail or deceive him; in the case of the Nebular
Cosmogony,
it led him: — blindfolded, through a labyrinth of Error, into one of
the
most luminous and stupendous temples of Truth.
Let us now fancy, for the moment,
that the ring first thrown off by the Sun — that is to say, the ring
whose
breaking-up constituted Neptune — did not, in fact, break up until the
throwing-off of the ring out of which Uranus arose; that this latter
ring,
again, remained perfect until the discharge of that out of which sprang
Saturn; that this latter, again, remained entire until the discharge of
that from which originated Jupiter — and so on. Let us imagine, in a
word,
that no dissolution occurred among the rings until the final rejection
of that which gave birth to Mercury. [page 179:]
We
thus paint to the eye of the mind a series of cöexistent
concentric
circles;
and looking as well at them as at the processes by which,
according
to Laplace’s hypothesis, they were constructed, we perceive at once a
very
singular analogy with the atomic strata and the process of the original
irradiation as I have described it. Is it impossible that, on measuring
the forces, respectively, by which each successive
planetary circle
was thrown off — that is to say, on measuring the successive excesses
of
rotation over gravitation which occasioned the successive discharges —
we should find the analogy in question more decidedly confirmed? Is
it improbable that we should discover these forces to have varied — as
in the original radiation — proportionally to the squares of the
distances?
Our solar system, consisting, in chief, of one
sun,
with sixteen planets certainly, and possibly a few more, revolving
about
it at various distances, and attended by seventeen moons assuredly, but
very probably by several others — is now to be
considered as an example
of the innumerable agglomerations which proceeded to take place
throughout
the Universal Sphere of atoms on withdrawal of the Divine Volition. I
mean
to say that our solar system is to be understood as affording a generic
instance of these agglomerations, or, more correctly, of the
ulterior
conditions at which they arrived. If we keep our attention fixed on the
idea of the utmost possible Relation as the Omnipotent design,
and
on the precautions taken to accomplish it through difference of form,
among
the original atoms, and particular inequidistance, we shall find it
impossible
to suppose for a moment that even any two of the incipient
agglomerations
reached precisely the same result in the end. We shall rather be
inclined to think that no two stellar bodies in the Universe —
whether
suns, planets or moons — are particularly, while all are
generally,
similar. Still less, then, can we imagine any two assemblages
of
such bodies — any two “systems” — as having more than a general
resemblance.*
Our telescopes, [page 180:] at this point,
thoroughly
confirm our deductions. Taking our own solar system, then, as merely a
loose or general type of all, we have so far proceeded in our subject
as
to survey the Universe under the aspect of a spherical space,
throughout which, dispersed with merely general equability, exist a
number
of but generally similar systems.
|
|
|
|
|
|