JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
The following is section is from mathematician/logician Augustus DeMorgan’s (1806-1871) classic Budget of Paradoxes second edition of 1912). It is a short expository on the plurality of worlds and life on them beyond the Earth, looking back over the history of the idea from Lucian, Huygens, Swift, Kircher, and others. DeMorgan’s footnotes are included at bottom (with a few added comments in italics).
"INHABITED PLANETS IN FICTION
There is a class of hypothetical creations which do not belong to my subject, because they are acknowledged to be fictions, as those of Lucian,[177] Rabelais,[178] Swift, Francis Godwin,[179] Voltaire, etc. All who have more positive notions as to either the composition or organization of other worlds, than the reasonable conclusion that our Architect must be quite able to construct millions of other buildings on millions of other plans, ought to rank with the writers just mentioned, in all but self-knowledge. Of every one of their systems I say, as the Irish Bishop said of Gulliver's book,—I don't believe half of it. Huyghens had been preceded by Fontenelle,[180] who attracted more attention. Huyghens is very fanciful and very positive; but he gives a true account of his method. "But since there's no hopes of a Mercury to carry us such a journey, we shall e'en be contented with what's in our power: we shall suppose ourselves there...." And yet he says, "We have proved that they live in societies, have hands and feet...." Kircher[181] had gone to the stars before him, but would not find any life in them, either animal or vegetable.
- [This lovely image belongs to Entretiens sur la Pluralitie de Mondes (Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds), written by the great French philosophe Bernard le Bouvier de Fontenelle in 1686 (just a year before publication of perhaps the greatest work in the history of science, Newton’s Principia Mathematica). The Plurality was a best-seller by the best-selling Fontenelle. An excellent attempt by a rather restricted writer to engage the population-at-large, writing a high-pop book on what was basically the history of astronomy and cosmology of the preceding century. Copernicus was a major feature of his imaginary conversations with a muse as he wandered through a metaphorical garden of questions, with the observations of Galileo and Cassini also very prominently featured.]
The question of the inhabitants of a particular planet is one which has truth on one side or the other: either there are some inhabitants, or there are none. Fortunately, it is of no consequence which is true. But there are many cases where the balance is equally one of truth and falsehood, in which the choice is a matter of importance. My work selects, for the most part, sins against demonstration: but the world is full of questions of fact or opinion, in which a struggling minority will become a majority, or else will [104]be gradually annihilated: and each of the cases subdivides into results of good, and results of evil. What is to be done?
"Periculosum est credere et non credere;
Hippolitus obiit quia novercæ creditum est;
Cassandræ quia non creditum ruit Ilium:
Ergo exploranda est veritas multum prius
Quam stulta prove judicet sententia."[182]
Nova Demonstratio immobilitatis terræ petita ex virtute magnetica. By Jacobus Grandamicus. Flexiae (La Flèche), 1645, 4to.[183]
No magnetic body can move about its poles: the earth is a magnetic body, therefore, etc. The iron and its magnetism are typical of two natures in one person; so it is said, "Si exaltatus fuero à terra, omnia traham ad me ipsum."[184]
Footnotes:
[177] The late Greek satirist and poet, c. 120-c. 200 A.D.
[178] François Rabelais (c. 1490-1553) the humorist who created Pantagruel (1533) and Gargantua (1532). His work as a physician and as editor of the works of Galen and Hippocrates is less popularly known.
[179] Francis Godwin (1562-1633) bishop of Llandaff and Hereford. Besides some valuable historical works he wrote The Man in the Moone, or a Discourse of a voyage thither by Domingo Gonsales, the Speed Messenger of London, 1638[179] Francis Godwin (1562-1633) bishop of Llandaff and Hereford. Besides some valuable historical works he wrote The Man in the Moone, or a Discourse of a voyage thither by Domingo Gonsales, the Speed Messenger of London, 1638
Huygens, Christian, Cosmotheoros, Sive de Terris Coelestibus, Earumque Ornatu, Conjecturae. The Hague: 1698 (Oeuvres XXI).
[180] Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657-1757), historian, critic, mathematician, Secretary of the Académie des Sciences, and member of the Académie Française. His Entretien sur la pluralité des mondes appeared at Paris in 1686.
[181] Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), Jesuit, professor of mathematics and philosophy, and later of Hebrew and Syriac, at Wurzburg; still later professor of mathematics and Hebrew at Rome. He wrote several works on physics. His collection of mathematical instruments and other antiquities became the basis of the Kircherian Museum at Rome.
[Very prolific man, staying more than a few steps ahead of those who disagreed with him. Very insightful in many areas; less so in far fewer.]
[182] "Both belief and non-belief are dangerous. Hippolitus died because his stepmother was believed. Troy fell because Cassandra was not believed. Therefore the truth should be investigated long before foolish opinion can properly judge." (Prove = probe?).
[183] Jacobus Grandamicus (Jacques Grandami) was born at Nantes in 1588 and died at Paris in 1672. He was professor of theology and philosophy in the Jesuit colleges at Rennes, Tours, Rouen, and other places. He wrote several works on astronomy.
[184] "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." John xii. 32.
No magnetic body can move about its poles: the earth is a magnetic body, therefore, etc. The iron and its magnetism are typical of two natures in one person; so it is said, "Si exaltatus fuero à terra, omnia traham ad me ipsum."[184]n unto me."
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