Part 3 (1/2)

We can believe that, so far as a judgment is concerned, the a.n.a.logies cited would be all the more capable of rendering the mechanistic origin of the planetary system worthy of adopting if certain reasons derived from the very nature of the subject did not still seem to contradict this theory completely.

Celestial s.p.a.ce, as has already been mentioned several times, is empty, or at least filled with infinitely spa.r.s.e material, which, as a result, can provide no means of impressing the common motions on celestial bodies. This difficulty is so significant and valid that Newton, who had reason to trust the insights of his philosophy as much as any other mortal, saw himself compelled here to abandon the hope of resolving through natural law and material forces the transmission of the orbital forces present in the planets, in spite of all the harmony which indicated a mechanistic origin. It is a troubling conclusion for a philosopher to give up the effort of an investigation in the case of a compound phenomenon which is still remote from the simple basic laws and to be satisfied with a reference to the unmediated hand of G.o.d. Nevertheless, Newton acknowledged here the dividing line separating from each other nature and the finger of G.o.d, the pattern of set laws of the former and the hint of the latter.

After the doubt of such a great philosopher, it may appear presumptuous still to hope for some fortunate progress in a matter of such difficulty.

But this very difficulty which deprived Newton of the hope of understanding on the basis of natural forces the orbital forces allotted to the planets, whose direction and arrangement make the planetary structure a system, was the origin of the theory which we have presented in the previous sections. It forms the basis of a mechanical theory, but one which is far from the one which Newton found unsatisfactory and on account of which he rejected all basic causes, because, if I may be so bold as to say it, he made a mistake in maintaining that his doctrine was the only possible one of its kind. It is quite easy and natural, thanks to Newton's difficulty, from a short and basic set of conclusions, to reach certainty in the mechanistic style of explanation which we have set down in this treatise. If we presuppose (and we cannot do otherwise than acknowledge the fact) that the previous a.n.a.logies establish with the greatest certainty that the harmonious and well-ordered interrelated movements and orbits of the celestial bodies point to their origin in a natural cause, then this cause cannot be the same material which now fills celestial s.p.a.ce.

Thus, the movements of the material which earlier filled these expanses have caused the present orbits of the celestial bodies, after matter a.s.sembled together in these spheres and thus unified the s.p.a.ces which we now perceive as empty, or, a fact which flows directly form this, the materials themselves out of which the planets, the comets, and even the sun are made up must at the start have been spread out in the s.p.a.ce of the planetary system and, in this condition, have set themselves in the motions which they maintained when they united in particular cl.u.s.ters and developed the celestial bodies which contain in themselves all the previously scattered matter making up the worlds. We have little difficulty seeing in this idea the mechanical impulse which might have set in motion this material of self-developing nature. The very impulse which brought about the union of matter is the force of attraction, inherently present in matter; thus with the first stirring of nature, it serves as well to cause motion and is, in fact, its origin. The fact that this force always sets a direction straight to the mid-point here creates no problem. For it is certain that the fine material of the scattered elements in its vertical motion downward must have developed motion in different directions both through the heterogeneity of the points of attraction and through the obstacles which their intersecting vectors create for each other. Among these motions the certain natural law which causes all materials restricting each other through reciprocal interaction finally to be brought to a condition where they influence each other as little as possible produces both the uniformity in the direction and the appropriate levels of velocity, measured out according to the centripetal force for each distance away. Through the combination of these, the elements do not manage to deviate either above or below, for all the elements thus have been made to run, not just in one direction, but also in almost parallel free circles around the common point of downward motion in the spa.r.s.ely furnished celestial s.p.a.ce. These movements of the particles must endure from this time on, once the planetary spheres have developed out of them, and remain in place now, through the combination of the sideways momentum implanted once and the centripetal force, for an unrestricted future period. On this basic principle, so easy to grasp, rest the uniformity in the directions of the planetary orbits, the precise relations.h.i.+p to a common plane, the amount of the projectile momentum appropriate to the power of attraction at that location, the decreasing precision of these a.n.a.logies over distance, and the free deviation of the outermost celestial bodies on both sides as well as in the opposite direction.

If these indications of the reciprocal dependency in the development ill.u.s.trate with open certainty moving matter originally distributed through all s.p.a.ce, then the total lack of all materials in this now empty celestial s.p.a.ce (except for what the bodies of the planets, the sun, and the comets are composed of) proves that this very material would have had to have been at the start in a condition of being spread out. The ease and correctness with which all the phenomena of the planetary structure have been derived from the a.s.sumption of these basic principles in the previous sections is the completion of such a conjecture and gives it a value which is no longer arbitrary.

The certainty of a mechanistic theory for the origin of the planetary structure, particularly of ours, will be elevated to the highest peak of conviction if we consider the development of the celestial bodies themselves and the importance and size of their ma.s.ses, according to the relations.h.i.+p which they have with respect to their distance from the central point of gravitation. For in the first place, the density of their material, when we consider them as a total cl.u.s.ter, decreases in constant stages with distances from the sun, a fixed condition which points so clearly to the mechanical arrangements of the first development that we can demand no more. They are put together out of materials in such a way that those of the heavier sort have reached a deeper position in relation to the common point of downward motion and, by contrast, the lighter sort a distance further away. This arrangement is necessary in any sort of natural development. But with an arrangement issuing from the unmediated will of G.o.d, there is not the slightest reason to encounter the relations.h.i.+ps mentioned above. For although it might immediately seem that spheres further away must consist of lighter materials so that they could not notice the necessary effect of the diminished force of the sun's rays, this purpose pertains only to the composition of the material located on the outer surface and not to the deeper varieties on the inside of its cl.u.s.ter. The heat of the sun never has any effect on these inner materials, which serve only to make effective the planet's power of attraction which is to make the bodies moving around it sink down towards it.

Therefore, they cannot have the slightest relations.h.i.+p to the strength or weakness of the sun's rays. If we then ask why the densities of the Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn (as determined by the correct calculations of Newton) stand in relation to each other as 400 to 94.5 to 64, then it would be absurd to attribute the cause to G.o.d's apportioning the densities according to the degrees of solar heat. Our Earth can serve as a counterexample. In the case of the Earth, the sun only affects such a small part under the outer layer with its rays, that the part of the Earth's cl.u.s.ter which must have some relations.h.i.+p with these rays does not by a long way make up the millionth part of the total planet. And the remaining part is entirely indifferent in this matter. Also, if the material of which the celestial bodies consist has in itself a well-ordered relations.h.i.+p in harmony with the distances and if the planets cannot now restrict each other, separated as they are now from each other in empty s.p.a.ce, then their matter must have previously been in a condition where they were able to bring about a common effect on one another in order to limit them to locations proportional to their specific gravity. This could have happened only if their parts before development had been spread out in the entire s.p.a.ce of the system and if they took up locations appropriate to their densities, in accordance with the general laws of motion The relations.h.i.+p among the sizes of the planetary ma.s.ses, which increases with distances, is the second reason by which the mechanical development of the celestial bodies, and especially our theory of that, is clearly demonstrated.

Why do the ma.s.ses of the celestial bodies approximately increase with the distances? If we subscribe to a theory which a.s.signs everything to G.o.d's choice, then no purpose can be imagined why the further planets have to have larger ma.s.ses other than the fact that for this reason they could be able to hold onto one or several moons through the preponderant strength of their power of attraction within their sphere. The moons are to serve the inhabitants destined for the planets by making their stay comfortable. But this purpose could have been achieved just as well by a preponderant density in the interior of their cl.u.s.ters. And why then would the lightness in the material arising for special reasons, which goes against this relations.h.i.+p, have to remain, and why would the planets, because of the relatively large volume, become so excessive that the ma.s.s of the higher planets had to be more significant than the lower ones? When we do not take into account the manner of the natural development of these bodies, then we have difficulty being able to provide a reason for this relations.h.i.+p. But in the light of mechanistic theory nothing is easier to grasp than this arrangement. When the material of all planetary bodies was still spread out in the s.p.a.ce of the planetary system, the power of attraction developed spheres out of these particles. Undoubtedly the spheres must have been bigger the further the location of their developing globe was away from that common central body, which from the central point of the entire s.p.a.ce limited and hindered this combining as much as possible by means of its powerful force of attraction.

We will with satisfaction notice the manner of this development of the celestial bodies from basic material spread out at the start in the width of the intervening s.p.a.ces separating their orbits from each other. These, according to this concept, must be deemed empty sections from which the planets have appropriated the materials for their development. We perceive how these intervening s.p.a.ces between the orbits have a relations.h.i.+p to the size of the ma.s.ses which developed out of them. The width between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars is so large that the s.p.a.ce enclosed in it exceeds the plane of all the lower planetary orbits taken together. But it is worthy of the largest of all the planets, the one which has more ma.s.s than all the others collectively. We cannot attribute this distance of Jupiter from Mars to the intention that their powers of attraction were to interfere with each other as little as possible.

For according to such a principle, the planet between two orbits would always find itself closest to the planet whose power of attraction combined with its own could disturb their dual orbits around the sun as little as possible; as a result, the planet would be closer to the one with the smallest ma.s.s. Now, according to the correct calculations of Newton, the force with which Jupiter affects the orbit of Mars is related to the force which it exercises on Saturn through the combined forces of attraction is as 1/12512 to 1/200. So we can easily calculate by how much Jupiter would have to be closer to the orbit of Mars than to that of Saturn, if their distance had been determined with their external relations.h.i.+p in mind and not through their mutual development. However, this phenomenon is quite different. For in relation to the two orbits above and below it, a planetary orbit often stands further away from the one in which a smaller planet runs than from the path of the larger ma.s.s of the two. However, the extent of the s.p.a.ce around the orbit of a planet always has a correct relations.h.i.+p to its ma.s.s. Thus, it is clear that the form of the development must have established these relations.h.i.+ps. Because these arrangements seem to be bound up with their causes and effects, we will in reality estimate it most correctly if we consider the s.p.a.ce included between the orbits as the container of that material out of which the planets were built. From this it immediately follows that the size of these s.p.a.ces must be proportional to their ma.s.ses.

However, this relations.h.i.+p will be augmented with the further planets because of the greater scattering of the basic material in their first state. Therefore, of two planets which are almost equal to each other in ma.s.s, the one further away must have a larger s.p.a.ce in which to develop, that is, a greater distance to the two nearest orbits, both because the material was of an inherently lighter sort and because it was more widely scattered than in the case of the planet which developed closer to the sun. Therefore, although the Earth together with the moon does not appear to be equal to Venus in its physical content, nevertheless, it required for itself a greater room for development, because it had to be built out of a more scattered material than this lower planet. For this reason, we can a.s.sume, so far as Saturn is concerned, that its sphere of development stretched much further on the distant side than on the side of the central point (as this holds true for almost all planets). Thus, the intervening s.p.a.ce between Saturn's...o...b..t and the path of the higher celestial body next to Saturn, which we can a.s.sume is above it, will be much wider than the s.p.a.ce between Saturn and Jupiter.

Thus, everything in the planetary structure proceeds in stages out into all limitless distances with an accurate relations.h.i.+p to the first force of development, which was more effective near the central point than at a distance.

The diminution of the impressed projectile motion, the deviation from the most precise agreement in the direction and the orientation of the orbits, the densities of the celestial bodies, the scarcity of nature in relation to the s.p.a.ce where they developed, everything diminishes stage by stage from the centre into the far distances. Everything shows that the first cause was bound up with the mechanical rules of movement and did not take place through a free choice.

But what ill.u.s.trates as clearly as anything else the natural development of the celestial bodies out of the basic material originally spread out in the now empty celestial s.p.a.ce is the agreement, which I take from Buffon (which however in his theory plays nowhere near the role that it does in ours). For, according to his observation, if we add up together the planets whose ma.s.ses we can determine by calculation, namely, Saturn, Jupiter, Earth, and the Moon, they give a cl.u.s.ter whose density stands in relation to the density of the body of the sun as 640 to 650. In this comparison, since these are the major parts of the planetary system, the remaining planets (Mars, Venus, and Mercury) hardly merit counting. Thus, we will easily be astonished at this remarkably equality governing the materials of the planetary structure collectively considered as a single united cl.u.s.ter and the ma.s.s of the sun. It would be an irresponsible foolishness to ascribe to chance this a.n.a.logy, which, among a variety of such infinitely different materials, a few of which, even on our Earth, are fifteen thousand times more dense than others, nevertheless comes so near a ratio of 1 to 1 in the total. And we must concede that, if we consider the sun as a mixture of all types of matter, which in the structure of the planets are separated from each other, all of them together seem to have developed in one s.p.a.ce, originally full of material uniformly spread out. These materials were collected on the central body without distinction; for the development of the planets, however, they were divided up in proportion to the alt.i.tudes. I leave it to those who cannot subscribe to the mechanical development of the celestial bodies to explain from the motives of G.o.d's choice such a remarkable arrangement as this, if they can. I will finally stop grounding with more proofs a matter of such convincing clarity as the development of the planetary structure out of the forces of nature. If people are in a position to remain unmoved in the midst of so many convincing details, then they must either lie far too deep in the bonds of prejudice or be entirely incapable of rising above the desert of received opinions to the observation of the purest truth of all. Meanwhile we can believe that n.o.body except the very foolish, on whose approval we may not count, can deny the correctness of this theory, if the harmonies which the planetary structure has with all its links to the benefits of reasoning creatures did not appear to have something more than general natural laws as its basis. We believe correctly that skillful arrangements which point to a worthy purpose must have as their originator a Wise Intelligence. And we will become completely satisfied when we consider that, since the natures of things acknowledge no other origin than just this, their essential and universal arrangements must have a natural inclination to proper and really harmonious consequences for each other. We will thus not allow ourselves to feel strange if we become aware of the arrangements of the planetary structure rich in changing advantages for creatures and attribute these to a natural consequence of the general laws of nature. For what issues from these is not the effect of blind accident or of unreasoning necessity. It is, in the last a.n.a.lysis, based upon the Highest Wisdom from which the universal arrangements derive their harmony. One conclusion is entirely correct: If, in the arrangement of the world, order and beauty s.h.i.+ne forth, then there is a G.o.d. But another is no less well grounded: If this order could have emerged from the general natural laws, then all of nature is necessarily the work of the Highest Wisdom.

If people nevertheless let themselves absolutely at their own discretion acknowledge the unmediated application of the Divine Wisdom in all the ordering of nature, including in itself all harmony and beneficial purposes, since they do not credit the development out of general laws of motion with any harmonious consequences, then I will advise them in the contemplation of the planetary structure to direct their eyes not to a single one celestial body but to the totality in order to tear themselves immediately away from this delusion. If the steep inclination of the Earth's axis in relation to its annual orbit is to be a proof of the unmediated hand of G.o.d because of the well loved changes in the seasons, then people should insist on this relations.h.i.+p in connection with the other celestial bodies. Then they will become aware that it is different in each one and that in this difference there are also some planets that do not have this feature at all, as, for example, Jupiter, whose axis is perpendicular to the plane of its...o...b..t, and Mars, whose axis is almost perpendicular. Both of these enjoy no difference in the seasons and are as much works of the Highest Wisdom as the others are. The satellites of Saturn, Jupiter, and the Earth would seem to be special configurations of the Highest Being, if the free departure from this purpose throughout the entire planetary system did not ill.u.s.trate that nature produced these arrangements without being disturbed by an extraordinary constraint in its free actions. Jupiter has four moons, Saturn five, the Earth one, and the other planets none at all, although it immediately seems that the other planets were in greater need of moons than the former group because of their longer nights. If we wonder about the proportional equilibrium of the projectile force impressed on the planets with the centripetal force at their distance as the reason why they run almost in circles around the sun and are adapted to be residences for reasoning creatures by means of the equality in the heat distributed in this way and look upon that as the unmediated finger of G.o.d, then we will be led back at once to the general laws of nature, when we consider that this planetary arrangement loses itself gradually with all grades of diminution in the depths of heaven and that even the Highest Wisdom which derived satisfaction from the regularity of planetary motion did not exclude deficiency with which the system ends, since it runs out in complete irregularity and disorder. Regardless of the fact that it is essentially established for perfection and order, nature includes in its full multiplicity all possible changes even right up to deficiency and deviation. Just this unlimited fecundity of nature has produced the inhabited celestial globes as well as the comets, the useful mountains and the harmful cliffs, the habitable landscapes and barren deserts, the virtues and vices.

Universal History of Nature and Theory of Heaven

Part Three

which contains in it an attempt, based on natural a.n.a.logies, at a comparison between the inhabitants of different planets.

He, who through vast immensity can pierce, See worlds on worlds compose one universe, Observe how system into system runs, What other planets circle other suns, What varied Being peoples every star, May tell why Heaven has made us as we are.

(Pope) Appendix In my view it is a disgrace to the nature of philosophy when we use it to maintain with a kind of flippancy free-wheeling witty displays having some apparent truth, unless we immediately explain that we are doing this only as an amus.e.m.e.nt (20). Thus, in the present essay I will not introduce any propositions except those which can really expand our understanding and which are at the same time so plausibly established that we can scarcely deny their validity.

It may appear that in this sort of subject the freedom to be poetical has no real limits, that in judging the make-up of those who live in distant worlds we could allow unbridled fantasy much more freely than a painter in an ill.u.s.tration of the flora and fauna of discovered countries, and that these very ideas could not be proved right or wrong. Nevertheless, we must admit that the distances of the celestial bodies from the sun involve certain relations.h.i.+ps which bring with them a vital influence on the different characteristics of the thinking beings found on these very bodies. Their way of working and suffering is a.s.sociated with the composition of the material to which they are bound and depends upon the quant.i.ty of impressions which the world arouses in them, according to the relations.h.i.+p of their living environment with the centre of gravitational power and heat.

I believe that it is not necessary to a.s.sert that all planets must be inhabited.

However, it would at the same time be absurd to deny this claim with respect to all or even to most of them. Given the richness of Nature, where worlds and systems are only sunny dust specks compared to the totality of creation, there could in fact also be deserted and uninhabited regions with not the slightest function in Nature's purpose, namely, the contemplation by reasoning beings. It would be as if one wished to raise a doubt about the basis of G.o.d's wisdom by acknowledging that sandy and uninhabited deserts make up large stretches of the earth's surface and that there are in the earth's oceans abandoned islands where no human being is found. However, a planet is far less in relation to the totality of creation than is a desert or an island in relation to the earth's surface.

Perhaps all the celestial bodies have not yet completely developed. Hundreds and maybe thousands of years are necessary for a large celestial body to reach a stable material condition. Jupiter still appears to be in a state of development. The remarkable changes in its appearance at different moments have already led astronomers for a long time to a.s.sume that the planet must be experiencing large upheavals and is a long way from having a calm outer surface, a condition which must pertain for a planet to be inhabited. If Jupiter is uninhabited and even if it is never to have any inhabitants, what an infinitely small natural expenditure that would be compared to the immeasurable size of the total creation. If nature were carefully to display all her richness in every place, would that not be much more a sign of nature's poverty than of her abundance?

But it is more satisfying for us still to a.s.sume that if Jupiter is uninhabited right now, nonetheless the planet will be inhabited in the future, when it has had time to develop completely. Earth perhaps existed for a thousand years or more before it was in a condition to support human beings, animals, and plants.

The fact that a planet reaches this complete state only after some thousand years does nothing to detract from the reason for its existence. For this very reason the planet will be around for a longer time in the future in its state of complete development, once it has attained it. For there is a certain natural principle that everything which has a beginning gets steadily closer to its dissolution and that much closer to destruction the further it is from its origin.

One can only approve of the satirical portrayal by that witty person from the Hague who, after setting down the general news from the scientific world, could humorously present the imaginary picture of the necessary habitation of all planets. ”These very creatures who live in the forests of a beggar's head [i.e., lice],” he says, ”had for a long time thought of their dwelling place as an immeasurably large ball and themselves as the masterworks of creation. Then one of them, to whom Heaven had given a more refined soul, a small Fontenelle of his species, unexpectedly learned about a n.o.ble man's head. Immediately he a.s.sembled all the witty creatures of his region and told them with delight: We are not the only living beings in all nature. Look here at this new land. More creatures live here.” If the last remark provokes laughter, that happens not because, as we judge the matter, it is far removed from human nature, but because that same mistake, which among human beings has basically a similar cause, seems more excusable in our case.

Let us judge in an unprejudiced manner. This insect, which in its way of living as well as in its lack of worth expresses very well the condition of most human beings, can be used for such a comparison with good results. According to the louse's imagination, nature is endlessly well suited to its existence. Thus, it considers irrelevant all the rest of nature which does not have a precise goal related to its species as the central purpose of nature. The human being, who similarly stands infinitely far from the highest stages of being, is sufficiently bold to flatter himself with the same imaginative picture of his existence as essential. The unlimited nature of creation contains within itself with equal necessity all creatures which its superbly fecund richness produces.

From the most refined cla.s.ses of thinking beings right down to the most despicable insect, no link is irrelevant to nature. And not a single one can fail to appear without in the process fracturing the beauty of the whole, which consists in the interrelatedness. Moreover, everything is determined by universal laws which nature effects through the combined forces planted in things at their origin. Because nature's actions produce only what is appropriate and ordered, no particular purpose must disturb and break her order.

In its initial development a planet's growth was only an infinitely small consequence of nature's fertility. Now, it would be somewhat absurd if nature's well-grounded laws should defer to the specific purposes of this atom. If the composition of a celestial body establishes natural barriers against its becoming inhabited, then it will not have inhabitants, even though in and of itself the planet would be more beautiful if it had its own creatures. The excellence of creation loses nothing in such a case, for among all large quant.i.ties the infinite is the one which is not diminished by the subtraction of a finite part. It would be as if one wished to complain that the s.p.a.ce between Jupiter and Mars was unnecessarily empty and that there are comets which are not populated. In fact, however insignificant that louse may appear to us, to Nature it is certainly more appropriate to maintaining its entire cla.s.s than a small number of more excellent creatures (of which there would nevertheless be infinitely many, even if one region or locale should lack them). Because Nature is endlessly fertile in producing both species, in their sustenance and their destruction we really see both equally abandoned disinterestedly to the universal laws. Indeed, has the possessor of the inhabited forests on the beggar's head ever created more disasters among the races of this colony than the son of Philip [Alexander the Great] brought about among the race of his fellow citizens, when his wicked genius gave him the idea that the world was created only for his sake?

However, most of the planets are certainly inhabited, and those that are not will be in the future. Now, what sort of interconnections will occur among the different types of these inhabitants through the relations.h.i.+p between their place in the cosmic structure and the central point from which the warmth which nourishes all life extends outwards? For it is certain that, with the materials of these celestial bodies this heat will bring with it certain relations.h.i.+ps in their composition proportional to the distance from the centre. In this comparison, the human being, who is, of all reasoning beings, the one we know most clearly, although at the same time his inner composition is still an unexplored problem, must serve as the common basic reference point. We do not wish here to comment on his moral characteristics or his physical structure. We want only to explore how the capacity to think rationally and the physical movement which obeys rational thought are limited by the material composition proportional to the solar distance. Regardless of the infinite distance encountered between the power of thought and the movement of matter, between the reasoning spirit and the body, it is nevertheless certain that a human being, who receives all his ideas and conceptions from impressions which the universe awakens in his soul by means of the body (both with respect to their clarity and to the skill of combining and comparing them, which we call the capacity for thought) is totally dependent on the composition of this material stuff to which the Creator has bound him.

The human being is made to take in the impressions and emotions which the world must create in him through that very body which is the perceptible part of his being. The body's material serves not only to impress on the imperceptible spirit which lives inside him the first ideas of the world outside but also is indispensable in its inner working to recall these impressions, to link them together, in short, to think (21). As a person's body grows, his intellectual capabilities also proportionally attain the appropriate stage of full development. He first acquires a calm and soberly mature capacity when the fibres of the corporeal machine have gained the strength and endurance which mark the completion of its development. These capabilities are set early enough within him, and with them he can cope sufficiently with the necessities of life to which he is bound by the dependence on external things. Some people's development remains at this level. The ability to combine abstract ideas and through a free use of one's understanding to gain control over pa.s.sionate tendencies comes late. Some never reach this state during their entire lives.

However, in all people this ability is weak; it serves the more primitive forces which it should govern. In the control of these lower forces consists the worth of a person's nature. When we consider the life of most people, it seems that these creatures have been created to absorb liquids, like a plant, to grow, to propagate the species, and finally to grow old and die. Among all creatures, human beings are the poorest at realizing the purpose of their existence, because they exhaust their excellent capabilities in those pursuits which other creatures, with far less capability, attain more confidently and conveniently.

The human being would be the most hateful of all creatures, at least from the point of view of true wisdom, if the hope for the future did not elevate him and if there was not awaiting him the time for a full development of the powers locked up inside him.

When we look for the cause of these obstacles which keep human nature so debased, we find it in the coa.r.s.eness of the material stuff in which his spiritual component is buried, in the stiffness of the fibres and the sluggishness and immobility of the fluids which should obey the movements of his spirit. The cerebral nerves and fluids provide him only crude and unclear ideas.

Because he cannot offset sensory stimulation in the inner workings of his thought process by means of sufficiently powerful ideas, he is taken over by his pa.s.sions and dulled and disturbed by the turmoil of elements which are the foundation of his mechanical body. The attempts of reason to stand up against this and to drive away the confusion with light from the power of judgment are like moments of suns.h.i.+ne when thick clouds constantly interrupt and darken their serenity.

This coa.r.s.eness in the stuff and fabric of the const.i.tution of human nature is the cause of the lethargy which keeps the soul's capabilities continually weak and powerless. Coping with reflections and ideas rationally is an exhausting condition. The soul cannot be placed in it without resistance. And the natural tendency of the mechanical body is to fall out of that state back into a condition of suffering as soon as sensory stimulations have a determining influence on and take over its behaviour.

This lethargy in the thought process, a consequence of the dependence on a crude and awkward material, is the source not only of vice but also of error. Because the soul is hindered by the difficulty involved in the attempt to scatter the clouds of confused notions and, by comparing ideas, to distinguish general knowledge from sense impressions, the soul prefers to bestow a quick approval on and is content with the possession of an opinion which the sluggishness of its nature and the resistance of the material scarcely allow it to see in perspective.

In this dependency, the spiritual capabilities disappear at the same time as the vitality of the body. When, on account of the weakened circulation of the fluids, extreme old age keeps warm only thick juices, when the flexibility of the fibres and the agility of movement decrease, then the powers of the spirit congeal in a similar fatigue. Rapidity of thought, clarity of ideas, liveliness of wit, and memory grow feeble and cold. The ideas which, through long experience, have been stored still compensate to some extent for the departure of these powers, and the understanding would betray its incapacity even more clearly, if the intensity of pa.s.sions, which require its rein, did not decline at the same time and even earlier.

From all this it is clear that the powers of the human soul are reduced and hemmed in by the obstacles of the coa.r.s.e material stuff to which they are innerly tied. But it is still more remarkable that the specific composition of the stuff is inherently related to the degree of the sun's influence. According to this principle, the sun's stimulation of the soul, which renders it capable of carrying out animal functions, is proportional to distance. The necessary connection with the light which spreads out from the centre of the planetary system so as to maintain the required motion in the material stuff is the basis for an a.n.a.logy which will be firmly established here between the different inhabitants of the planets. Thanks to this relations.h.i.+p, every single cla.s.s of these inhabitants is bound by its essential nature to the place which it has been allocated in the universe.

The inhabitants of Earth and Venus would not be able to exchange their living environments without the mutual destruction of both. The material out of which the inhabitants of Earth are made is proportional to the degree of heat for their distance from the sun. Thus, it is too light and volatile for an even greater heat, and in a hotter sphere it would suffer from violent movements and natural breakdown, arising from the scattering and drying up of the fluids and a powerful tension in its elastic fibres. The inhabitants of Venus, whose cruder structure and elemental sluggishness require a stronger solar influence, would in a cooler celestial region freeze and die from a lack of vitality. Hence, the body of an inhabitant of Jupiter would have to consist of far lighter and more volatile material, so that the very small motion which the sun can induce at this distance could move these machines just as powerfully as it does in the lower regions. I summarize all this in one general idea: The material stuff out of which the inhabitants of different planets (including the animals and plants) are made must, in general, be of a lighter and finer type and the elasticity of the fibres as well as the advantageous structural design must be more perfect in proportion to their distance away from the sun.

This relations.h.i.+p is so natural and well grounded that not only do the fundamental motives of its higher purpose (which in the study of nature are normally considered weak reasons) lead to it, but also at the same time the proportions of the specific composition of the material stuff making up the planets confirm it. These are derived from Newton's calculations as well as from the basic principles of cosmogony. According to these, the material stuff composing the celestial bodies is always of a lighter type in the more distant planets than in those closer to the sun. This point must necessarily bring with it a similar relations.h.i.+p for the creatures which develop and maintain themselves on the planets.

We have established a comparison between the material composition which reasoning creatures on the planets essentially have in common. Thus, following the introduction of this concept, it is easy to consider that these relations.h.i.+ps will involve consequences so far as their spiritual capacities are concerned. For if these spiritual capacities are necessarily dependent on the mechanical material in which they live, we can conclude with more than probable a.s.surance that the excellence of thinking beings, the speed of their powers of organization, the clearness and vivacity of their ideas, which come to them from external stimuli, together with the ability to combine ideas, and finally, too, the rapidity in actual performance--in short the entire extent of their perfection--is governed by a particular rule according to which these characteristics will always be more excellent and perfect in proportion to the distance of their dwelling places from the sun.