UC-NRLF 
 
 527 033 
 
SIX LECTURES ON 
 ASTRONOMY. 
 
 BY 
 
 PROF. RICHARD A./PROCTOR 
 
 Delivered in Steinway Hall, New York City 
 
 Reported expressly for The Truth Seeker. 
 
 NEW YOKE: 
 THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY, 
 
 28 LAFAYETTE PLACE, 
 
FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 THE GEOWTH OF WORLDS. 
 
 From the time when men first began to think at all, they 
 began to form ideas about that which they found around 
 them; about the origin of the world as they knew it, and we 
 find that at different times they formed different ideas. 
 And the time came when they evolved different idea? as to 
 when all things have been brought about. We find some c* 
 them full of poetry; full of pathos ; certain beautiful sim- 
 plicity not childish, but child-like simplicity in the accour ^ 
 given in some of the explanations. 
 
 There is one relation more universal accepted, which 
 implies that Uie earth is a circular, flat region; they recog- 
 nized the heavens as like a tent spread over it. They first 
 supposed that in the beginning darkness rested on the face 
 C* the waters, and all was confusion. At last came the time 
 when God said: "Let there be light and there was light." 
 And then gradual changes took place, by which the water 
 was separated from the earth, and a separation was made 
 between the earth and the heaven, by which the firmament 
 like a crystal, separated the water above the earth, from the 
 water below. They did not know how rains were formed; 
 how the vapors arose in the atmosphere and then formed 
 clouds. They were not acquainted with the way in which 
 it took place those chemical changes or molecular changes 
 were not known to them. They supposed that rain came 
 from the heaven from beyond the crystalline which they 
 called the firmament. 
 
 M754978 
 
4 THE GROWTH OF WORLDS. 
 
 Then vegetation came upon the earth. Then came the 
 time when heavenly lights were formed; two great orbs, the 
 sun and the moon, and besides those, the multitudes of 
 stars. J am not concerned here to explain whether this ac- 
 count, which is familiar to all of us, agrees with the sci- 
 entific facts or not, or whether it is a different inter- 
 pretation; let it suffice to say, that for many thousand years 
 it was an accepted account. Whether the writers really 
 knew anything about science, certain it is they were not 
 acquainted with actual facts as science reveals them. I pre- 
 sent it without dogmatizing without saying it is consistent 
 or not with other things that has nothing to do with sci- 
 ence. 
 
 For thousands of years it has been an accepted account. 
 Gradually science made its researches, and men saw that 
 precisely as everything is developed, just in the same way as 
 the plant is developed from the seed and the tree from the 
 plant, so the solar system, so the earth was developed; so the 
 stars, of which the system is but an atom, were developed. 
 So they could go step by step without any hope that they 
 ever could reach the true beginning. Methods were so ar- 
 ranged that there is a sequency of mind throughout eternity 
 of space and of time. Science inquired whether this infin- 
 ity of evolution, the continual changes taking place, is con- 
 sistent or not with infinite purpose, with infinite personal ex- 
 istence, through whom, or with whom, all things are. Sci- 
 ence has nothing to say on that point. Science can not deny 
 the possibility. Infinite as the mystery can be, there is a 
 working of infinite wisdom, of infinite beneficence. All 
 science cafc say, is: "that is unknown, impalpable." Sci- 
 ence has to deal with other invisible ideas ol f pace and time, 
 m which all this is taking place; and admitting this infinity, 
 it cannot reject infinity of purpose of personal will, which 
 carries out its scheme notwithstanding there is infiinitude of 
 evolution. Science has no more right to rt ject them, than 
 to reject infinitude of space and of time, or the infinitude of 
 force which results from the infinitude of matter. 
 
 We have the power of gravitation, whicn as a part of the 
 distance that separates one portion of matter from another, 
 presents to us infinitude of energy. Take the infinitude of 
 
THE GROWTH OF WORLDS. 
 
 space to be occupied by infinite matter, and jou hare 
 itude of material power; there you see affinities which you 
 cannot understand. Science is bound to accept them, and 
 camiot reject, though they are wonderful, the infinitude 
 which every man who studies feels, the infinitude of purpose 
 manifested to us like the continual fruitions of uniform law. 
 Let us start with full faith in the sense in which religious 
 men use it, that by no means in studying the acts of nature, 
 can we find anything contradictory to the word of God. 
 If we honestly seek for truth, it is not likely to deceive us 
 by letting the facts of nature lead us astray; let us be sure 
 they can not teach us anything but the law which is work- 
 ing in and through all things. 
 
 In the history of our earth, tracing as far back as we can 
 go, the first state of things we can recognize is the presence 
 of infinite quantities of nebulous matter, glowing with a cer- 
 tain faint light throughout the space. My friend, Prof. 
 * * * * in Boston, has compared these nebulous masses to 
 clouds in the ether, which occupy a space bearing the same 
 relation to the ether, as clonds in the atmosphere bear to the 
 other systems of worlds which appear to have their being in 
 the infinitude of space. 
 
 We will have the room darkened now, in order that the 
 views I have to show you might be properly seen. 
 
 [The lecture was profusely illustrated with spectroscopic 
 views.l 
 
 The first scene will be a view representing part of the neb- 
 ulous mass spread across the infinity, and showing how the 
 stars are so connected with it, that it leads us to believe that 
 those stars are worlds; that there are many centres like our 
 own. Nor are you to imagine that the scene thrown upon 
 the screen is the mere region where the nebulae appear in 
 shreds and masses; that portion of space is such, that any 
 system like our own might be thought to be encompassed in 
 it, millions of millions of times. The distances are so great, 
 that our solar system would appear as a point ; and when 
 you see those large spaces of nebulas, you must infer that 
 every part of the nebulae may give origin to masses larger 
 than our solar system. You will perceive the peculiarity of 
 
ft THE GROWTH OF WORLDS. 
 
 shade, the difference indicative that they are capable o< 
 assuming different forms. 
 
 I will now describe the other appearances. You wili 
 hare the picture of the great nebulae in Argo. You have 
 the focus before you, and you see that every one of the stars 
 is represented by a point far too large in relation to what it 
 is in space. If you imagine them increased in Neptune, so 
 as to be thirty times as great as the sun, you will have a faint 
 idea of them. It has been found that more than 90,000,000 
 of miles separate us from the sun, and great as is this dis- 
 tance, it is but the twentieth part of our distance from Nep- 
 tune. 
 
 There you have a series of stars and that great dark 
 space. You may compare it to the belt of Orion that is 
 now to be presented. These nebular masses are capable of 
 change ; they are like clouds before a summer rain. If one 
 wanted to represent clearly those stars, they should be rep- 
 resented by points. The distance of these great nebulous 
 stars is almost beyond comprehension ; they are all growing 
 solar systems, compared to which our sun is but a tiny place. 
 
 Here you have two forms of the same nebular region ; 
 they differ not only from each other, but from all other 
 forms. These two forms are taken with one and the same 
 telescope, and the changes taking place in those nebulae, 
 show that we have to deal with mighty forces. 
 
 Another picture will show the region to which this be- 
 longsit is the ship of Argo, and the left part of it is the 
 portion to which it belongs. 
 
 The milky way is shown here, and to give you its impor- 
 :ance, Sir John Herschel tells us that this part of the milky 
 vay is wonderful by the number of stars it contains ; it is 
 opening to us the secrets in showing the laboratory of Na- 
 ture, where she is still engaged in building a system of stars. 
 
 Now, we will have the Orion representing the fanciful 
 Hunter ; in order that you may recognize the part of the 
 heavens where the mixed stars are seen. There are three 
 stars in the belt of Orion, and one that represents the Hun- 
 ter. There you have the figure of the giant Hunter and 
 three stars, and below the stars the belt, which I want you 
 to recognize ; it is composed of stars and nebulae, and if you 
 
GROWTH OF WOBLDS. 7 
 
 look through a large telescope, it seenis as though a comet 
 was coming into them. You will find that the nebulous 
 part forms like the mouth of an oyster. 
 
 When you take a telescope of sufficient power, you see it 
 goes from the upper to the lower part. They are much 
 greater by comparison. If the moon was above the horizon 
 and you could make a comparison, you would think they 
 were about the moon's diameter ; but you are surprised to 
 find that the distance between them is far greater than 
 the moon's diameter, and a point of space would require 
 many moons as large as ours. 
 
 Here is a nebular space that many moons would be re- 
 quired to cover ; it would be sufficient to form a solar sys- 
 tem. Sir William Herschel was ready to conclude that this 
 particular nebulas, the nebulae Orion consists of a mass of 
 glowing gases, seen gradually to resolve into distinct points 
 of light. It was this nebulous mass, that was seen through 
 the telescope of Lord Rosse and others ; also through the 
 Harvard telescope which was equal to the Rosse tele- 
 scope and it was found that it did not consist of glow- 
 ing gases, but of millions of small stars which had but a dim 
 light. It was fonnd to be a mistake when the spectroscope 
 was turned upon them. 
 
 Here you see the spectroscope has three bright lines in the 
 center of the glowing solid or liquid ; but instead of that, in 
 the spectrum of the gaseous matter, you see gray matter, con- 
 sisting of glowing gases. There is one line here, if you com- 
 pare it with the spectrum given above, you see that left- 
 hand line of the spectrum corresponds to that line 'of H.; the 
 right-hand line with the line of N. Every line of the nebulas 
 has not been identified. We have here a line of hydrogen, 
 one of nitrogen, while we see yet lines we are unable to ex- 
 plain. By the spectrum of the nebulae we are led to think that 
 they contain more elementary gases than hydrogen and ni- 
 trogen ; that those are not elements ; they are elements to us, 
 but the world is going down towards the simplicity of matter 
 as we go towards the beginning of matter ; and as we advance 
 step by step in the infinity of matter, we find our elements 
 are, in reality, compounds. In these nebulous masses, if 
 these clouds that fill the space, we have a step back toward 
 
8 THE GROWTH OP WORLDS. 
 
 simplicity, and yet we feel that we are in the presence on 
 infinite mystery. We can go through the links of time, 
 through the links of space, of constitution, of matter, toward 
 simplicity on the one hand, and complexity on the other. We 
 feel that we see but few links on both sides. We cannot 
 conceive the nature of space, the nature of time, and the 
 few forms of matter with which we are acquainted ; we look 
 at them as though they were central links, but when there 
 are so many links there are no links we have everywhere 
 infinite mystery. 
 
 Sir William Herschel sought to form a theory of the Uni- 
 verse. You see this nebulous matter gathering itself towards 
 the center. Neither Sir William, nor Sir John flerschel, 
 ever saw the gradual change of those nebulous masses. 
 They require many millions of years to be completed. We 
 may undergo changes which we will recognize, but the 
 changes of the Solar System require infinite ages. Though 
 only hundreds of those changing nebulas were known be- 
 fore his time, Sir William Herschel brought hosts of thou- 
 sands of them before the British astronomers. He found 
 various stages of growth, and was able to recognize that they 
 were all growing toward the center ; as they grew, the center 
 became more and more marked, till at last, nothing besides 
 the center was left. Here you have various orders of nebu- 
 la; another picture will show you still further changes 
 toward the formation of a larger mass. 
 
 Here you see nebulous gases gathering towards the center. 
 In the middle you see a large space ; you see how some of 
 the nebulous masses have separated themselves from the 
 great mass and show a tendency towards the formation of 
 separate systems. Another picture will show you a still 
 further change of these masses, still more gathering them- 
 selves, one star becoming the center. I would remind you 
 that those planetary systems don't resemble our planetary 
 system ; there is infinitude of variety, and we cannot expect 
 that the various systems are alike, any more than we should 
 have to expect that Venus is like Mars, or Mars like Jupiter. 
 So among the various systems ; if ever the time comes when 
 we will recognize the various areas of solar systems existing 
 throu<;hout space, I venture the prediction that we will fine 
 
OBOWTM OF WORLDS. 
 
 in them a variety surpassing our solar system. . This pic- 
 ture will pass on ; another will lead ns to another system. 
 
 Here is the central part of our solar system. You must 
 know the relation of the earth to the system ; here you have 
 the earth, Venus, Mars, and outside the asteroids. Of these 
 remarkable bodies, one hundred and fifty-nine are discover- 
 ed, all going the same way and in orbits separate from each 
 other by some thousands of miles. They may, doubtless, be 
 counted by millions. There is a picture which shows the 
 relation which the earth bears to the whole solar system, in 
 order that you may know how small our earth's diameter is, 
 compared with the system which it belongs to, that system 
 being a mere point, compared to the other systems in space. 
 Here you have the central series ol orbits, and here the 
 lower shady part, representing the asteroid belts. 
 
 Another picture comes on the screen, where you find the 
 central part with the asteroid region ; in the middle you see 
 a shady ring, it represents the ring nebulae. This is a pic- 
 ture drawn by me in the Encyclopaedia Britannic a. There 
 you have the powers of our solar system ; first Neptune, 
 then Uranus, then Saturn, then Jupiter, then the asteroids. 
 Those powers represent the scale of the powers of the plan- 
 ets. You must notice the peculiar uniformity of the system, 
 a certain oneness, a uniformity of progression. Besides 
 that, all of these planets travel on the same level. Our solar 
 system may be spoken of as a flat system, and if you take 
 the asteroids, and remember they all go the same way 
 around that fleld unless the Almighty wished to deceive his 
 creatures by presenting purposes which were meaningless. 
 We may take those uniform motions as having a meaning, 
 and ask what they mean, just as we might ask what is the 
 meaning of the growth of a tree, or of an animal. We can 
 proceed, trusting in the truth of the Almighty God in his 
 unwillingness to deceive his creatures. 
 
 According to the theory of Laplace, we find that the solar 
 system must have came into being from some great system, 
 proceeding from nebulous matter. That as it rotated and 
 contracted, ring after ring broke off, and one planet after an- 
 other was thrown ofi and proceeded towards the centre of 
 the sun, until the solar system was formed, and then they 
 
10 THE GROWTH OP WORLDS 
 
 rotated on their axes and being subject to the same laws, 
 they were contracting, and threw off ring after ring, and 
 that was the formation of the satellite systems. When I 
 came to study the various relations presented by the system, 
 and when I came to deal with modern researches, I found 
 there must be a mistake. He did not explain the peculiar 
 relations of the masses of the planets. All our boo^s dwell 
 too little on the difference of size. Mark Venus, the earth 
 with the moon, then stars, then the few small bodies repre- 
 senting the asteroids, then Saturn with his satellites, and 
 then the brother giants Uranus and Neptune. You will 
 find there is a peculiar arrangement. By Laplace gradual- 
 ly increasing motions towards the Central Sun, why don't 
 we find a uniform progression, or at any rate some law that 
 would correspond to the law of formation? We can answer 
 the question by finding a new point in the relation so pre- 
 sented, and instead of the solar system haying accumulation 
 throughout the system, which is inconceivable, because we 
 cannot believe a system of such immense space should ever 
 have gathered into planets, we would substitute to it the 
 Central Sun. We would be sure, even unacquainted with 
 absolute facts, that the continual process of gathering mat- 
 ter, is to be the real force in the formation of the solar sys- 
 tem. Compared with that, the contraction is relatively in- 
 significant, although it had its object in the formation. 
 When the sun gathers in matter from without, the velocity 
 of the matter increases as it approaches the sun ; calculated 
 by all mathematicians, the velocity would be infinite at the 
 sun's surface. It would amount in Jupiter to twelve miles 
 per second, and at the distance where Jupiter lies, it would 
 prevent such matter from going towards the Central Sun 
 by catching it. Close by the sun the velocity would be so 
 great, that the aggregation would have but a small chance, 
 whereas Jupiter would have a much better chance to capture 
 it. Once we recognize that, we find there is something at 
 the outset that would help to explain the size of those 
 planets. The larger their masses, the greater their power 
 for capture. So it is explained that Saturn and Jupiter con- 
 tain nine-twentieths of the matter belonging to the system. 
 Prof. Benjamin Pierce has said that nine-tenths of the solar 
 
?HE GROWTH OF WORLDS. 11 
 
 system is gathered in the two planets. It corresponds to the 
 processes really taking place, if we look upon persons 
 growing. 
 
 It would be familiar to many in this audience, but I will 
 venture to reproduce it. If there were creatures living one 
 day and seeing various trees around them, and if they tried 
 to conceive how those trees came into being, they might 
 think it was produced by contraction from a great vegetable 
 mass. But if records were kept, and they found there were 
 no cases of such trees contracting, they would reject the 
 theory that trees are formed by contraction of the masses, 
 but they would recognize that trees are growing, though the 
 life *f a tree would be as infinite to those creatures as the 
 planet is to us. So that we will be right in taking growth 
 as the process by which worlds and systems came into being. 
 A picture will illustrate this growth taking place. 
 
 Here is the downfall of the meteoric shower. During the 
 shower there was not a space that was not occupied by it, 
 and while they took place the earth was growing relatively 
 fast. Every one of those meteors falling upon the earth 
 came down in the form of vapor, and the vapor sinks down 
 and becomes a portion of the earth's mass. When we take 
 into account the meteors represented now, we find that in 
 the course of a year four hundred millions of mteorice 
 processes fall upon the earth and form a part of it. The 
 computations we could make, would make hundreds of 
 thousands of tons. Thus it is the earth grows, and though 
 the increase is infinitely small compared with the actual 
 masses, yet through the countless years the earth has passed, 
 no small power has been added to its growth. A large part 
 of the earth must have accrued in this particular way 
 through the enormous periods we have to deal with. 
 
 There is one stage of the earth's history, the cooling pro- 
 cess, from the time the earth was beginning to assume a 
 solid form to the present time, which embraces hundreds of 
 millions of years, and if even now every year there fall 
 400,000,000 of these meteoric masses, how enormous must 
 their number have been at those remote periods, when those 
 meteoric showers were not exhausted ; those of our days are 
 but mere shadows of the past. All the planets must have 
 
1$ THE GROWTH OP WORLDS. 
 
 been growing at the rate comparable with the masses. They 
 are growing as a child grows, year by year; and you see a 
 man does not grow, yet the process is taking place. It may 
 be traced back as the growth explaining the development of 
 man, so our growth explains the growth of the solar 
 system. 
 
 There is a picture of a meteoric mass which fell down in 
 South America, and weighed fifteen tons. Masses of great 
 meteors have fallen upon our planet in the tracks of the 
 larger comets, and we continually see a relation between 
 meteoric showers and comets. 
 
 Here is the shower, called the November meteor shower : 
 you see here the sun, the earth's orbit, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, 
 and Uranus : then that other part of the November shower, 
 or the comet to which it belongs. During a number of years 
 this shower occurred repeatedly. Millions of miles were oc- 
 cupied by these traveling masses. This meteoric system is 
 only one, out of so many. That one passing toward the 
 right is the August shower, which occurred on the twelfth of 
 August, when the tears of Saint Lawrence are supposed to 
 fall. - 
 
 There you see the way in which the comets gather around 
 the sun, they seem only as fine flakes of snow, floating in 
 space, yet they are thousands of miles in diameter. Our 
 earth encounters more than a hundred of them, some being 
 infinitely greater. See the way in which theythicken in ap- 
 proaching the sun. There are only a few known comets, and 
 Kepler says, these don't bear a greater relation to the un- 
 known ones, than the fishes caught to those uncaught. 
 There the earth is passing through Biela's comet, which 
 broke into pieces in 1836, the earth passing on the outskirts. 
 The comet was seen like a small spot of light. On all the 
 way of the passage of this comet, the sky was yellowish, and 
 it contained a great number of meteors ; you see the enor- 
 mous masses floating in it. There you have the comet of 
 1861 : I saw it one morning in Ireland, extending from the 
 horizon its enormous tail. A telescope was required to bring 
 it into view. It gave rise to innumerable showers. 
 
 Here is the comet of Donati, with a view of the Palace in 
 Paris, which gives you an idea of the apparent size of the 
 
THE GROWTH OF "WORLDS. 15 
 
 comet. As I have said, some of those telescopic comets 
 can cause our earth to increase in bulk. Here is Cog- 
 gia's comet. This picture shows the enormous size 
 of these comets. This is the comet of 1873. You see 
 here how this comet changed in shape under the action of 
 the sun. You see the want of symmetry in structure, as it 
 passed away from the Northern heavens, and appeared in the 
 South: the head of the comet was dividing itself into two dis- 
 tinct arms, as if it had been continually under the action of 
 the sun's forces. You could see the formation of it quite 
 distinctly. This is an evidence of the enormous quantity 
 still remaining of the matter out of which our system has 
 been formed, corresponding to my theory rather than to that 
 of Laplace. There you have a ring of nebulae, but if you 
 study that nebulae, you find that the ring is only a part of the 
 conception; there are various aggregations there, which 
 prove the theory that the different aggregations were formed 
 by the gathering of matter, and by the capturing of the va- 
 rious aggregations of so much matter as they could catch. 
 These are all formed from the nebulae. You see the central 
 mass, the streams all gathering toward it, and you have the 
 clearest possible evidence that the aggregates catch as much 
 matter as they can. You see here the flattened masses of 
 nebulas : they are flattened into a shape corresponding to 
 that which is exhibited in the solar system. 
 
 This view on the left tends to illustrate the reasoning I 
 brought before you in which you saw the way how various 
 aggregations formed That lower one shows the formation 
 of a system of greater complexity, as if there were many ag- 
 gregations around the central mass. The different streams 
 will correspond to those existing in our solar system. We 
 have come to an outlet which was a growth barely percept- 
 ible. As we consider the early history of the world, we may 
 have an idea of the formation of a central sun, and the sys- 
 tem it represents. 
 
 This picture represents the nebulous origin of our earth, 
 how it rotates around the sun and around her axis, and in 
 rotating casts off the moon, and the moon rotating in the 
 same direction, always turns but one side to the earth. 
 
 There we have a picture representing the past history of 
 
14 THE GROWTH OF WOBLDfi. 
 
 the earth as a sun the Tycho Bralie view. It represents the 
 ideas of Tycho Brahe about the surface of the sun covered 
 with flames. 
 
 Here we have a view of the sun with spots upon its sur- 
 face, showing the days in the past stages of our sun when 
 the aggregative process was taking place. Those pictures 
 are not intended to be pictures of the sun, but of our past 
 esrth, at the time when the moon's inhabitants speculates 
 upon the probability that our earth was inhabitable. 
 
 Now we have a picture of the sun presented by Sechi, a 
 stream of light approaching toward the centre of the sun, 
 one of the processes to which our sun is subjected. Here you 
 have a picture presenting colored prominences, red eruptions 
 on the surface of the sun. They represent cloudy masses ex- 
 tending from the sun's surface. Some of them are thou- 
 sands of miles in diameter ; they are swept away, and rush 
 in fragments into space. The rate at which they were ex- 
 pelled was such that the velocity of a cannon ball is abso- 
 lute rest compared to that. Our earth must have been dis- 
 playing a great activity of forces in that stage of its exist- 
 ence. Here is a picture of the solar corona. "We are pass- 
 ing from the sun's immediate neighborhood to the nebulous 
 origin our sun doubtless had. It is a view of the corona, 
 painted by the corona itself. These nebulous points repre- 
 sent the past history of our solar system. 
 
 In 1878, there will be an eclipse of the sun, visible in this 
 country. It is the last eclipse in this century, visible in 
 America. It will be a fair opportunity to see the zodiacal light 
 as presented on this picture, where you have an eclipse of the 
 the sun by the moon. Next time of the eclipse, instead of 
 powerful telescopes, those who observe it should simply use 
 their eyes, and from the side of the corona, try to find the ex- 
 tension of light. By going to the Rocky Mountains, 
 they would have a chance to answer the most problematic 
 question now alive in the clubs of astronomers, as to whether 
 the zodiacal light belongs to the sun. As it can be seen dur- 
 ing the eclipse, any one might make his name famous in as- 
 tronomy. The more powerful the telescope, the less you see 
 the corona, and you will do better by simply trusting^your 
 eyesight. 
 
THE GROWTH OF WOBLDA 15 
 
 Now we come to the last stage of our earth's growth In the 
 condition of the gigantic Jupiter, surrounded by clouds. 
 The water was boiling on its surface, the whole air was red- 
 hot. What we have seen of the solar system would lead us 
 to expect it to be so. We can understand the earth's pass 
 age from the nebulous stage to the sun-like stage, then to the 
 stage of Jupiter. Here you have an enlarged view of Jupi 
 ter, though it belongs to another lecture, and here is Saturn 
 with his surface enclosed in cloudy belts. 
 
 Here we have our earth at the stage in which the crust has 
 been formed on its surface. Notwithstanding that it was 
 told by Laplace that the solid matter would be likely to sink 
 into the fluid below, yet we must recognize the fact that the 
 volcanic lava forms a crust in the same way. We might ex- 
 pect that the crust, closing upon the central nucleus, would 
 be burst, being too close on the central body. There you 
 have two views , one on the left representing the movement 
 under a glass globe filled with water, aud hermetically 
 closed. The water finding its way through the glass would 
 burst it, You see here cracKs and radii in different direc 
 tions. 
 
 Then we come to the stage where the whole frame of the 
 earth would be drenched by dense clouds. These clouds 
 would be in an atmosphere of immense pressure, saturated 
 with muriatic acid, sulphuric acid, chloric and carbonic 
 acids, which together with boiling water, would descend in the 
 form of intensely hot rain. After having been subjected to 
 these forces, the earth would come to a condition where we 
 could look for spontaneous generation. Then comes the next 
 stage when the nucleus acts against the crust and bursts it. 
 You nave the red strokes indicative of the way in which the 
 crust would crack. Farther on you have an illustration of 
 what would happen when the nucleus withdrew from the 
 crust ; the centre contracting itself, the surface corrugates. 
 It is generally admitted that the American ladies have beau- 
 tiful hands, but where could you find a hand that would equal 
 in beauty the one presented on this picture? Look at the 
 back of the hand. What other hand would present those 
 majestic mountain ranges intersected by deep valleys? 
 They are occasioned by the contraction of the nucleus. It 
 
10 THE GROWTH OF WORLDS. 
 
 illustrates the formation of the mountain ranges after the 
 surface had been drenched by muriatic acid, sulphurous 
 acid, and other powerful agents, and those forces have been 
 withdrawn ; the crust corrugated and came to a condition 
 where spontaneous generation would be possible. Bui 
 whether spontaneous generation was the way in which life 
 began, we don't know ; we can only state that the time has 
 now come when our planet was fitted for life. An infinite 
 time had passed from the era of the glowing nebulae to the 
 time when the earth was in the stage of Jupiter and Saturn, 
 and from that time to the period when the life of the indi- 
 vidual, at last, became possible. 
 
 The period of life, as compared with the whole time 01 
 the evolution of the earth, is but like a wrinkle on the sur- 
 face of the ocean. I was listening some time ago to the 
 theory of Prof. Hyatt. According to his theory, humanity 
 is now at the top of Its physical and mental development, 
 and is going down to decrepitude and old age. The period 
 of human life is but a mere dot in the boundless ocean of 
 time. There was a time when the earth was looked at as the 
 center of space. Men gradually gave up that view ana 
 came to the conviction that this earth, which they had been 
 accustomed to regard as the most important body, is not 
 central, and that the solar system is not central. And now 
 we see that we have to deal with an infinitude utterly beyond 
 our power of comprehension. 
 
 I want to impress you with the idea that I have no desire 
 to create a doubt as to the existence of a Being, having in 
 finite wisdom ; but we cannot understand the mysteries of 
 that Being. That is all science has to say. But that there is 
 a Being, or a purpose throughout ail the Universe, I cannot 
 understand how a man can doubt. We find ourselves before 
 a mighty mechanism, going on around us, and to reject the 
 idea of some scheme working throughout it, is as unreason- 
 able as to reject our own existence. Many doubt even the 
 existence and the very facts going around. "We only know 
 what surrounds us by ideas ', but though we substitute ideas 
 instead of mechanism, we may feel sure that every idea has 
 a source, although we are not able to understand that source. 
 There is a great mistake made by the theologians in trying 
 
THE LIFE AND DEATH OP WORLDS. 17 
 
 to explain the nature of God, when the very Bible tells us, 
 41 God's ways are not our ways." There is the old question 
 always asked, whether by searching, we can find God ; and 
 science will give the old answer to this question: We can- 
 not find him out. 
 
 SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 THE LIFE AND DEATH OF WOELDS, 
 
 In the last lecture we considered the past history of the 
 solar system, tracing it from the time when it consisted of a 
 great mass of nebulous matter, spread through the depth of 
 space ; through the times when orbs, as our earth, were in 
 the sunlike stage, then in the stage of Jupiter and Saturn, 
 up to the time of its cooling and its coming to the present 
 state. In to-n'ght's lecture I don't propose to carry the 
 earth through her whole history up to her death, but I 
 want to bring before you the life and death of the other 
 worlds of the solar system. 
 
 There are differences between the yarious members of 
 our system ; differences taking origin in their mode of for- 
 mation ; and taking this as the principle of evolution, we 
 cannot regard them as all alike in their history, though they 
 may be alike in their structure. That is not a mere specu- 
 lative point, and if we once recognize the fact that every 
 planet came into being by evolution, out of matter, we have 
 to take either the system of the nebular contraction, out of 
 which the whole was formed, or my system, according U 
 
18 THE LIFE AND DEATH OP WOBLDa 
 
 which each planet forms its mass, by drawing matter from 
 space. We have this certain, that larger planets are first 
 formed ; the larger a planet, the greater its velocity and the 
 power to capture matter. Every planet can communicate to 
 the matter its own velocity. The sun has a velocity of 350 
 miles per second ; Jupiter 40 miles per second ; in our own 
 planet it is 7 miles per second; and each planet by its matter 
 and size, has a certain velocity and a certain heat, corre- 
 sponding to the planet's first state of existence ; the greater 
 the planet, the greater the heat. That gives to the larger 
 planets a greater lease of life to begin with. We may also 
 suppose that the larger planets take longer in growing. We 
 can reasonably assume that the giant planets, Jupiter and 
 Saturn, have not yet ceased to grow. That may be specula- 
 tion, but founded on a true principle. If the greater planets 
 were first hot, they part with their heat later than the 
 others. If you take two iron globes, one of an inch and the 
 other of two inches in diameter, let them become red hot, 
 and place them to cool on an iron stand, or any place where 
 they can cool under equal conditions, the smaller cools 
 before the larger. The reason is, that the larger mass has 
 the greater quantity of heat in proportion to its surface. 
 The heat contained is in proportion to the bulk ; the heat 
 given off is in proportion to the surface. The larger globe 
 having a surface four tunes larger, but a bulk eight times 
 surpassing the smaller, will give out four times as much 
 heat ; but will have eight times as much heat to give out, 
 and so will keep its heat twice as long as the smaller. It 
 will have its heat last longer in the degree that it exceeds 
 the diameter of the smaller. At present we see that the 
 larger planets have a smaller density ; but in a very remote 
 future they will have a density greater than the earth. 
 When Jupiter gets cool, it will dry in its mass, with a con- 
 tractive power three times larger than the earth. As it 
 exceeds the diameter of the earth ten times, it would be re- 
 duced to seven times the diameter of the earth at that time, 
 consequently the period of Jupiter's life, according to the 
 principle I have shown, would be seven times as long as the 
 period of our earth's life. But as its growing will continue 
 for such a long period yet, its surface will be so much larger. 
 
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF WORLDS. 19 
 
 It will probably be ten times larger than OVLC earth at the 
 end of its growth, and all the periods of its life wili be ten 
 times as long. Suppose we give three parts to the vapor 
 state, two to the sun state, one to the Jupiter and Saturn 
 state, that makes six, the seventh to the cooling state, and 
 the remaining three to the dense state, leaving out the latter 
 periods of death ; once dead it will remain so ; the earth 
 would be dead before Jupiter had passed the central state. 
 Jupiter is passing the central state now ; though it still 
 glows to some degree, it does not glow like the sun. The 
 earth would arrive to the state of death before Jupiter had 
 begun life. 
 
 We have clear evidence to show that the time of life in 
 different planets differ, and the periods they pass in thus 
 supporting life may be so long, that the whole duration of 
 life on earth seems but one second. One stage of the earth's 
 history, when the earth was cooling from 2000 to 200 de- 
 grees of heat, lasted 300,000,000 of years. Jupiter has not 
 reached that time. The cooling of Jupiter would take ten 
 times 300,000,000 of years. We have to look through long 
 stages before life will come out of the giant's mass. As in 
 beginning to study animal life, we must consider different 
 circumstances, the qualities of vitality, the laws of struc- 
 ture, the substance out of which they are made; so here we 
 must consider the circumstances in which the planets arise. 
 We see that Jupiter and the earth have lines of difference 
 and lines of resemblance, yet we have no positive evidence ; 
 our conclusions are drawn from the mass of probabilities. 
 We find the sun contains the same materials as the earth ; 
 we find by test they are both of the same structure, and 
 since the earth is like the sun, every planet is likely to be 
 like the sun; otherwise we have no positive evidence. The 
 spectroscope can tell us about the atmosphere of the sun, 
 but it can tell us nothing about its solid surface. If you 
 turn it upon the central body you see bright and dark lines, 
 which correspond to the lines given by the substances on 
 our earth. We proceed to have the nature of the spectro- 
 scope evidence illustrated on the screen to show the way ia 
 which light is analyzed by the prism ; we will have a picture 
 of the solar spectrum and then of the dark lines. Tba 
 
SO THE LIFE AND DEATH OF WORLDS. 
 
 spectroscope evidence is very strictly defined. The light of 
 the sun passes through the prism of glass, and so the spec- 
 trum is formed. You see the light spread out into a rain- 
 bow streak, red, yellow, violet, but some colors are want- 
 ing, and dark lines are formed in the solar spectrum ; those 
 are produced by vapors, which come from those parts of the 
 sun's light, which contain the substances giving out lights, of 
 the same color as the light they cut off. 
 
 Another picture will show the evidence we have, as to 
 the nature of the vapors present in the sun's atmosphere. 
 You see a number of bright lines, corresponding in position 
 with the dark lines in the solar spectrum, which prove that 
 the bright element is present in the sun. It is the vapor of 
 iron which gives that bright line. It has a corresponding 
 line in the solar spectrum ; therefore, the evidence of iron 
 being there is clear. Here you see the spectra of various 
 elements, compared to the solar spectrum to see if they are 
 present in the sun. A great many of them exist in the sun, 
 and we may infer that all the others are there. Through 
 the recent researches of Michelet, a great addition has been 
 made to those of our elements, found in the atmosphere of 
 the sun, and we are led to believe that some of our elements 
 exist underneath the glowing atmosphere of the sun ; they 
 may be below the part of the sun which gives the chief por- 
 tion of light. The part of the sun we see, is the limit to 
 which the elements must reach to give a sign of their pres- 
 enc e. Gold must exist in the sun, but lower down. 
 
 Now we will consider the points I referred to, with regard 
 to the size of the planets. We have the indications of the 
 various ages of the planets ; we have evidence as to the du- 
 ration or their life. There you have Mercury. He is one 
 of the smallest of the planets, and would have the shortest 
 life; then comes Venus, then the earth and the moon, then 
 Mars, who has a shorter life and is now older than the 
 earth ; then the asteroids, then Jupiter and Saturn. Jupi- 
 ter would be the youngest of the planets, but there is a 
 doubt, because we don't know how long the planets were 
 growing, and I think that Saturn, though smaller than Jupi- 
 ter, is older, and in 3,000,000,000 years when Jupiter has 
 reached the epoch of the living creature, Saturn will be 
 
SHE LIFE AND DEATH OF WORLDS. 21 
 
 gone. Neptune would be older than the earth, he may 
 already have put on life, which would last longer there than 
 on earth, but that may have passed. Here is a picture rep- 
 resenting Jupiter enwrapped in clouds in the stage which I 
 have shown. Another illustrating the colors of the planets, 
 and here I will bring the latest development of science in 
 ravor of my theory ; that Jupiter is so young that he is en- 
 wrapped in cloudy masses. U! his atmosphere was dense, 
 tiie shadow might fall on the lower atmospheric strata. In 
 some cases we can see two shadows ; one on one layer of 
 tne clouds, another on the lower strata. Looking from a 
 distant planet with a powerful telescope, the two shadows 
 would appear side by side, and would look like a long streak 
 of shadow passing through the deep strata of the atmo- 
 sphere. The clouds in Jupiter's atmosphere throw shadows 
 in that way with long streaks, showing that they are passing 
 through a deep atmosphere. It shows my theory, that the 
 great planet is enwrapped in a far deeper atmosphere and 
 surrounded by greater clouds than would correspond to the 
 stage of our earth. 
 
 Here is Jupiter and his satellites, which he commands in a 
 different way than that in which the earth commands the 
 moon. If you were living beneath Jupiter and could test the 
 way in which you were attracted to Jupiter and to the sun, 
 comparing the two attractions, and could afterwards compare 
 the earth's and the sun's attraction, you would see the relation 
 is quite different. The region of space upon which earth 
 has command is comparatively insignificant, and it is the 
 sun that rules the moon, not the earth. But in Jupiter it is 
 different. The whole family of Jupiter have an orbit of 
 8,000,000 of miles ; but they must pass very far above the 
 sun, and Jupiter commands a space of 29,000,000 of miles. 
 The same with Saturn, he being further away from the sun, 
 but almost within the domain of Jupiter. Uranus' domain, 
 like his diameter, is great. Neptune has a still larger domain. 
 Besides this difference from the earth, they are characters 
 of a different kind. Here is a picture of Saturn, showing 
 that he corresponds in appearance with the theory I bring 
 before you. Here is a picture illustrating the proportion! 
 of the satellite system ; the satellites ruled over by the plan- 
 
33 THE LIFE AND DEATH OP WORLDS. 
 
 cts of the larger family ; Saturnus with his ring and the 
 satellites below you, see the scheme of Uranus, the scheme 
 of Jupiter and then the satellite we perceive around Nep- 
 tune. Saturn and Jupiter have the largest schemes, Uranua 
 and Neptune the smallest. It has been shown that Sir Wm. 
 Herschel was mistaken in thinking he saw four satellites of 
 Uranus. Some thought Uranus would have a larger scheme 
 and more satellites, because of his distance from the sun ; 
 but his little scheme corresponds with his size. 
 
 Now we have the planet Mars and the ocean on it, repre- 
 sented by a dark space; it shows the comparative smallness 
 of the water surface of that planet. You see that sea of 
 Mars running north and south. I call it the Kaiser sea, by 
 the name of the astronomer who first observed it. We 
 notice there the relative smallness of the seas and the larger 
 continents. The seas of Mars cover but one-half of the 
 planet's surface. We will proceed to consider why t'ue seas 
 of Mars are smaller than those of the earth. The water 
 surface of our globe bears to the surface of the continent a 
 proportion of 72 to 28. In Mars the two surfaces are equal. 
 The conclusion seems to be, that the older the planet, the 
 smaller the ocean. That sounds so startling, so sensational, 
 that it seems as if it was a lie. Yet it so happens, that four 
 students, one in Germany, one in France, one in England, 
 and one in this country, have been led to the same conclu- 
 sion ; that the oceans of the planets, as it grows older, are 
 soaked up. They are withdrawn in cavities. You must 
 remember that the planet's mass is always pressed by the 
 contractive force of the planet. Even steel under the press- 
 ure, at the interior of the planet, would become plastic and 
 would flow like water. It has been made to flow like a vis- 
 cid substance under the pressure that men could give, how 
 much more would it flow in the interior of a planet like our 
 earth. So the mass contracting together and tne heat de- 
 parting, interstices might be formed into which the water 
 may fee withdrawn and will be withdrawn. When the 
 earth has cooled down to the freezing point, there will be 
 room for the water and a large part of the atmosphere. 
 Stanislas Meunier has found that, when the water is with- 
 drawn, the ocean assumes a peculiar shape ; you see there 
 
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF WORLDS. 38 
 
 those long, narrow inlets characteristic of that period. 
 You have here all the telescopic views of Mars that can be 
 relied upon ; I collected them as carefully as I could. 
 
 We will not now deal with a planet which shows one 
 later stage. Mars shows the decrepitude; what we see now 
 is a planet arrived at death, going around the sun a mere 
 graveyard carrying the memories of past life. First there is 
 the comparison of moon and earth in size. The moon is 
 small enough to be in extreme old age, if not arrived at 
 death. We have seen that Jupiter presents all the appear- 
 ances of heat. Now we have a theory making the moon cold 
 and dead and the evidences correspond. 
 
 Those photographic views of the moon have been made 
 in Australia ; they are the first ever made there. The pecul- 
 iar feature is the ab&ence of the twilight circle. You see 
 bright patches of light and dark shadows, painted by the 
 moon itself, and showing there is no atmosphere. In the 
 next picture the darkness has passed further ; you see the 
 seas where doubtless there is no water. Those who have 
 studied the moon with the telescope saw there was an ocean 
 at the bottom of which matter was deposited. The surfaces, 
 of course, are not perfectly level. If we should take the 
 water from our earth, we would find level spaces ; but also 
 inequalities and rocks, yet you might see there had beea 
 water it is the same in the case of the moon. Here is the 
 further stage it is the full moon and you cannot look at 
 this picture without feeling there is no water nor air. No 
 changes could take place there; we have one evidence of it 
 in the absence of the twilight circle. Then in observing the 
 moon passing over a star, you see the star flash out suddenly, 
 if there were an atmosphere round the moon, the star would 
 be seen precisely as our sun when sinking. You also see 
 the blackness of the shadows of the lunar system, which 
 shows that there is no illuminated sky such as ours, no at- 
 mosphere to illuminate those regions. We have still an- 
 other evidence from the lunar eclipses. If we notice the 
 real color of the shadow, if instead of being black there is a 
 red copper view, it you watch the lunar eclipse, you know 
 it is caused by the reflection of the sun's light passing in the 
 lunar atmosphere. There would be a broad ring of light 
 
24 THE LIFE AND DEATH F WORLDS. 
 
 caused by the su'i We see in this case nothing of that 
 kind happens. 
 
 Another picture illustrates how it would appear as seen 
 from the moon, the earth biding the sun, but not hiding the 
 sun's light. Here a-roimd the globe you see that light, which 
 is the sun's own light, the image of the sun raised by the 
 lens so as to form that light. 
 
 The difference between the earth and the moon is that as 
 the water has passed away the atmosphere is reduced in 
 quantity. This is the lunar sea or lunar crater. The in- 
 terior has the flat appearance of which I spoke. Sir John 
 Herschel describes it as alluvial deposits. I think they are 
 deposits formed at the bottom of the lunar ocean. Now you 
 will see the part of the moon where the water is supposed to 
 be. Borne persons account for the disapperance of the 
 water by its being carried to the side which is never turned 
 to us. You observe th it it is more than half the moon which 
 we see. Taking a side view of the moon this side is the 
 furthest part of the moon, this is the middle. This belt is 
 the one which Is carried into view and out of view by the 
 moon's vibrations. This black portion is so very much less 
 than half of the moon, the water and the atmosphere taken 
 there must be very clever in playing hide and seek to keep 
 thus concealed. Here you see an outline of the moon's disk, 
 with a little cross in the centre circle, inclosed in a rectangle 
 representing the way in which the moon's centre is carried 
 upwards and downwards with symmetrical motions. The 
 whole lunar theory is mirrored in those motions. 
 
 Here is a supposed lunar eruption of a volcano. The 
 moon is under sunlight, it is day, yet the sky is dark ; you 
 would see the stars tnere as clearly in the full day as at 
 night. There is a fault in this picture, in the way the smoke 
 is carried from the volcano. Like the carbonic acid in our 
 air, these clouds, being heavier than the surrounding me- 
 dium, would flow down the sides of the mountain like 
 water. You see here the dead surface of the moon, the 
 degrees of death shown by the blackness of the shadows ; 
 that ruggedness which shows former activity but death at 
 present. 
 
 This picture presents the surface of the moon covered 
 
THE LltfE AND DEATH OP WORLDS. 25 
 
 witn craters. Here I want to speak of a theory which was 
 thought two years ago too sensational. That was the theory 
 that a portion of the matter forming the craters might have 
 been produced by the falling of the meteors. I don't sup- 
 pose a large crater could be produced in that way, but some 
 of the craters must have preserved the signs of the meteoric 
 forces impressed upon them from the time when meteors 
 poured from the solar system on the earth in immense 
 masses. The moon traveling alongside of the earth, which 
 is traveling round the sun and is assaulted by myriads of 
 meteors following the same direction, cannot fail as the 
 companion of the earth to catch its part of the downward fall 
 of those meteors, just as two persons of different size, travel- 
 ing in the rain, in the same direction, get each a portion of the 
 falling drops corresponding to the surface they present. 
 Those meteors, even now, may produce perceivable changes 
 in the moon's condition. But looking back through the 
 thousand millions of years during which the moon's surface 
 was passing from the plastic state, in which it could retain 
 the impression given by the meteoric masses, I cannot im- 
 agine how the moon could have escaped from being changed 
 by them. The downfall of the meteors in our days is merely 
 a residue of a process far more active. 
 
 You see here the craters of the moon very much like those 
 on our earth. There is a resemblance between the condi- 
 tion of the moon's and the earth's surface. Some of the 
 students think that those long, dark streaks are ridges on the 
 moon's surface, long cracks, as it were, that belong to the 
 time of the cracking stage, when the outer crust contracted 
 more rapidly than the nucleus. Nasmyth, in his book, deals 
 with those questions in a way which is well worth studying. 
 It would be hard if no man would bring theories until they 
 are proved. He studied the moon for thirty years and hia 
 work is worthy of our consideration, even if we are not con- 
 vinced. 
 
 If we compare these pictures representing the craters of 
 the earth with those of the moon, we see a singular resem- 
 blance between the two, showing that when the atmosphere 
 has disappeared our earth will present the same features as 
 the moon: the want of atmosphere, the want of water, tht 
 
26 THE LIFE AND DEATH OF WORLDS. 
 
 same deadness and the life erased from it. Now we have 
 come to the prospect of earth passing away and becoming 
 dead, going round the sun with no sign of life in it. The 
 thought is painful ; but we perceive that death comes upon 
 man, either by accident, or disease, or slow decay, so there 
 are different ways in which it can come upon our earth. 
 There we see that moon scarcely raised in our conception 
 above mechanism, where one recognizes no power of action, 
 no moral purpose. The character of life is given to our 
 earth by the individuals inhabiting it. It is while man ex- 
 ists upon the earth that we look at it as a matter of interest. 
 
 Prof. Hyatt, of Boston, has dwelt upon the fact of the de- 
 cadence of types of life and he goes to show that man has 
 passed the higher development of the physical part of life, 
 although mental development can be expected yet. Sup- 
 posing that not to be true, (and I suppose Prof. Hyatt is 
 mistaken) there is another view according to the old prophecy, 
 that as life was once destroyed by water, so the earth is to 
 be dissolved by fire. We know how long that belief has 
 prevailed. If death comes to the earth in that way, it may 
 simply be by a glowing of the sun far surpassing what we 
 have at the present day. Death may come upon the earth 
 by the intensity of heat poured upon it. Here you see a 
 picture of a star, in the constellation of the crown which 
 appeared suddenly in a conflagration some time ago, giving 
 out hundreds of times its accustomed heat, there you see the 
 bright lines produced by the conflagration of hydrogen over 
 that star. So we may suppose that the sun can raise its 
 heat to a degree which would cause the death of the crea- 
 tures on the earth. Then we have the prospect of the natu- 
 ral death of the planet by the slow process of cooling. 
 
 So we have to recognize the evidence that death has to 
 come upon the earth at some future time, however unpleas- 
 ant the thought may be, and that after life has gone from our 
 earth it will go to the larger planets, then after hundreds of 
 millions of years, during which life can last on Jupiter and 
 the other planets of our solar system, a period may come 
 when the whole of our system will be the abode of death. 
 Then it may be that our sun will take on rife, its internal 
 heat being sufficient to assist life. Then iif e would pass to 
 
WORLDS TtfAJf OURS. t7 
 
 another solar system, and so age after age the worlds of 
 eternity will live in glorious beauty. There is no finality 
 in astronomy, there is no finality in what science teacJies. 
 We may find a new kind of life within the Universe; we 
 may find in it a new meaning even in the forms of de*tb. 
 As when the sun is concealed in heaven at night, the starry 
 vault spread over our head surpasses even the glory of the 
 sunlight. So will death become a higher sign of life. 
 
 THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS, 
 
 The subject of life in other worlds is not, strictly speak- 
 ing, a scientific one, because science relates to that which 
 can be known. Nothing can be certainly known about life 
 in the other worlds. The astronomer can deal with material 
 facts in the planets ; can consider their volume, their laws, 
 the dimensions of their orbits ; the geologist can study the 
 ancient condition of our earth, and how far it can illustrate 
 the histories of other planets ; the biologist may consider the 
 life of animals and how they are developed; the physicist 
 can inquire into the construction of the earth and its various 
 parts, and they all can hope to find the substances that exist 
 in the planets ; but if any one could combine the knowledge 
 they all have, he would be unable to pronounce whether 
 there is life in the other worlds. The only kind of observa- 
 tion which would carry evidence would be the observation 
 of his own senses. 
 
88 OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS. 
 
 Although the subject is not scientific, yet this study of the 
 fe in other worlds gives us the means of combining to- 
 >4ether the various facts of astronomy, and so bring them to 
 the knowledge, and awaken the interest, of those who do 
 study astronomy specially. 
 
 In dealing with the subject, I meant to bring before you a 
 new theory. It has been connected with religious questions 
 insomuch, that Brewster spoke of the theory for which 
 Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake in Rome in 1600, 
 as "the hope of the philosopher and the creed of the Chris- 
 tian. " Many persons think that the religion they are taught 
 cannot be reconciled with the thought of life in other worlds 
 than.ours. We can dismiss here the thoughts of religion. 
 In connecting religion with the subject in finding religious 
 meaning in it we act as the Scotchman does, in a story a 
 friend of mine is in the habit of telling. Two Scotchmen 
 speaking together, the mind of one was much exercised 
 regarding the true place of the bumblebee in the animal 
 kingdom. He said to the other: "Jimmy McDonald, can 
 ye tell me whether a bumblebee is a bird or a beast? " The 
 other replied: " Sammy McFarland, ye must not trouble me 
 with religious questions on a week-day." So science asks 
 sometimes all manner of questions, as the poet says alxmt 
 
 " Bones and sealing wax and things, 
 
 And why the sea is boiling hot, 
 And wherefore pigs have wings." 
 
 In the midst of these questions the religious man is troubled 
 with the thoughts that those are religious questions, asked by 
 laymen who have no business to deal with them. But in 
 reality we may discuss what life we may have in the future, 
 without connecting the question with religion at all. 
 
 I bring a theory immediately between the one advanced 
 by Brewster, Chalmers, and Dr. Dix, who say that all the 
 orbs are either the abodes of life or intended to support life; 
 and the theory of Whewell, who contends that ours is the 
 only inhabited world. To decide between the two theories 
 is to decide whether a bumblebee is a bird or a beast. Al- 
 though we cannot know all about those matters, my theory 
 corresponds well with scientific evidence; it n.ay be consid- 
 
OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS. $9 
 
 ered to correspond satisfactorily with ihe facts and to accord 
 with the theological feeling. Before the time when life 
 began on earth, there was a time practically infinite, when 
 no life was possible, and there will be one equally infinite 
 when life shall cease to be possible. Between the two we 
 find the time when life is in progress, and that period being 
 finite, this space between two infinites may be compared to 
 a ripple on the ocean of time that represents our world's 
 history; that ocean being a mere wave on the ocean of infin- 
 ite time. Like this period of our earth's history, there is a 
 corresponding period in the life of every planet. The larger 
 the planet, the longer the period; but it would be short 
 compared with the whole history of the planet. We might 
 ask whether the planets are inhabited just now. But as we 
 have no better reason to think that this present time is cen- 
 tral in all time, than to consider our earth as being central 
 in space, we have to look at some remote period of the past 
 or of the future as the period of life in other worlds. The 
 chance is small that any planet of our system is now the 
 abode of life. It may appear to you that I am taking Whe- 
 well's theory; but I will tell you about regions where mil- 
 lions of inhabited worlds may exist at this time, so that on 
 the one hand with Brewster, you may believe in other in- 
 habited worlds, and on the other hand I will bring the evi- 
 dence which does not allow us to overlook the facts that 
 some planets the moon, for instance are dead and have 
 ceased to subserve the purposes of life, or to see that Jupiter 
 is not yet fit for life. 
 
 Now I will sketch what we know of Venus and Mercury, 
 then pass to Mars and inquire whether there is a chance at 
 all that we will find the possibilities of life there ; then to 
 the asteroids, then speak of the larger planets, and in consid- 
 ering all those orbs, I shall try to bring the evidence to the 
 latest possible period. I must mention here the difficulties 
 astronomers find in observing planets like Venus, traveling 
 within the path of our earth. In no part of its motion is it 
 well placed for observation. When near the earth the 
 sun lies in the same direction, and therefore Venus turns to 
 us her darkened side and cannot be seen. When beyond the 
 tun, his brightness obscures her. 
 
30 OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS. 
 
 There is the piefcire of the inner part of the solar system, 
 You see the sun, and Venus being carried around her. Strict- 
 ly speaking, it takes 584 days in making one circle; but, 
 probably, I could not pursuade you to remain here so long. 
 You notice here that Venus is in a position where she can 
 be observed from the earth without looking towards the 
 sun. Only one-half of the illuminated part is turned to- 
 wards the earth. The distance increasing, the planet passes 
 to a part of its orbit where the observer has to look towards 
 the sun, and Venus is concealed by the illuminating atmos- 
 phere. Now she passes to a part where she can be looked 
 on again without looking at the sun, and presents the ap- 
 pearance of a half moon, and now passing on she turns the 
 dark hemisphere towards the earth, and now the whole of 
 the dark hemisphere is presented. The same applies to 
 Mercury. You see here the different appearances presented 
 by Mercury at the different parts of its orbit. Notice how 
 close Mercury and Venus are to the sun; the sun pours 
 more heat on them than on the earth. The question arises 
 whether a planet in its old age might not have the extreme 
 cold of its mass compensated by the heat of the sun. Mer- 
 cury has ten times as much heat poured upon her as we 
 have; and at the farthest distance from the sun it has four 
 times as much heat as the earth. Being so much smaller 
 than our planet, he is probably much colder, and the ques- 
 tion is, whether that heat from the sun could make up f o r 
 the coldness of its entire mass. 
 
 We know that our moon has parted with nearly all its orig- 
 inal heat, but the sun pours heat upon it with such force 
 that its immediate surface is raised to the boiling point. 
 Yet this contrast of heat and intense cold does not corre- 
 spond to the requirements of the living creatures, and there- 
 fore Mercury never can have been the abode of life. Still 
 we may allow a large range for the possibilities of life 
 wherever there is an atmosphere. Life cannot exist with- 
 out atmosphere or water. But on Mercury and Venus the 
 excess of sun poured upon them would not make life im- 
 possible. Creatures could be so adapted that they could 
 bear the greater heat. You have here three views of the 
 earth, the larger planets Venus on the right and Mars on the 
 
OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS. 81 
 
 left, and between them the two smaller ones Mercury and 
 the moon. Supposing all these planets came into being at 
 the same time by the process of aggregation, they may have 
 started with equal activity in their development. Some 
 grew more rapidly, and although larger, they came to their 
 full growth sooner. It may be some of these planets are yet 
 growing perceptibly. It is possible sma^er planets are not 
 as old as we imagine. Venus may be so situated, and the 
 excess of heat poured upon Venus does not obviate the pos- 
 sibilities of life. There are some circumstances in Mars 
 which correspond with this theory. Here you have the ap- 
 pearances of Mercury when heated; to us it presents only a 
 small part of its surface and has a crescent shape and only at 
 the furthest distance can we see its whole face illuminated. 
 
 Now I will pass to Venus, interesting because of 
 the transit. You may notice the crescent of Venus is not 
 always perfect, on the left hand; instead of being sharply 
 denned it appears short. There are irregularities on the 
 surface of the planet, and observing them Bianchini and one 
 of his followers came to the conclusion that the planet turns 
 on its axis in about twenty-four of our hours. The lower 
 part illustrates the existence of a twilight circle in the plan- 
 et. When Venus was making its passage on the sun's face, 
 a fine arc of light was observable, showing it must have an 
 atmosphere that raises the sun's light around the planet just 
 as when the sun is setting. If some one was facing Venus 
 at that particular point, he would see Venus raised by com- 
 bining those two lines of light. That accounts for that ray 
 of light seen during the transit. Though we know that 
 there is on Venus an atmosphere which answers the require- 
 ments of life, yet from the mere facts that a planet has an 
 atmosphere or turns round its axis and has night and day, 
 01 turns round the sun and has the seasons, we cannot draw 
 the conclusion that the planet is at this time the abode of 
 life. 
 
 Now we turn to our moon, which shows the deadness of 
 which I have spoken. I may take this opportunity to pre- 
 sent the question asked by some scientists, as to how, if the 
 earth was gradually cooling having been much hotter in its 
 past history can we find the traces of glaciers where thew 
 
32 OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS. 
 
 is no ice. This question cannot be met with scientific dem- 
 onstrations here ; I have to present before you the general 
 results obtained by astronomers, rather than calculations or 
 profound study. 
 
 The earth's orbit is eccentric, and we are so placed that 
 when the earth is nearest to the sun, our winter is in prog- 
 ress and the summer of the southern hemisphere ; when the 
 earth has retired from the sun, our summer is in progress. 
 Therefore both Summer and Winter are milder in the north- 
 ern hemisphere, speaking generally. In the other hemi- 
 sphere it is different. They have the sun nearest in 
 Summer, remotest in Winter. Thus the glaciers in 
 the South extend further than in the North. The long, 
 intense cold allows the snow to accumulate and spread 
 through the southern hemisphere. But the eccentricity of 
 the earth changes, and if you go back several hundred thou- 
 sand years, you find certain stages where the snows of the 
 northern hemisphere, owing to the difference in the eccen- 
 tricity, spread more widely. And so in the latitudes where 
 the glacier's actions are not now in progress they neverthe- 
 once existed. Those changes of eccentricity have been 
 shown to us by several astronomers, and we may accept 
 the theory as practically certain. 
 
 Now we pass to the planet Mars, whose orbit is much 
 more eccentric than that of the earth. You see Mars much 
 nearer to us in the upper part of his orbit than in the lower 
 part, and being nearer he looks larger and more brightly 
 illuminated. In 1877 Mars will make a remarkable approach 
 of this kind, and many will be disposed to believe a new 
 red star has made its appearance. We can then make ex- 
 periments of the earth's distance and determine the scale of 
 the solar system whose proportions are known to us. 
 
 The features of Mercury have not the changing appearance 
 of the belts of Jupiter and Saturn, showing they are only 
 clouds. If you look at it through a telescope, you 
 see prominent markings, and you are satisfied they are 
 lands and oceans. You . see the sea running Nor i and 
 South, with little narrow inlets. Here on the right you per- 
 ceive two seas running side by side. The planet has been 
 carried round through a complete rotation. You must con- 
 
OTHER WOKLDS THAN OTTBa 88 
 
 gider that all the features of the planet cannot be seen at 
 once; parts of the planet are sometimes wrapped in clouds. 
 There you may notice a dark sea which was not shown in 
 other views. In studying Mars the sky must be clear, not 
 only on this earth, but also in the planet. Owing to the clouds, 
 after weeks of study of the olanet, a feature like this has 
 not been seen. It has been discovered quite recently. 
 Looking at these green lands and seas, you might doubt 
 whether those green masses are really seas. It seems a 
 though nothing short of the chemical analysis can assure 
 you that they are really seas. But here the spectroscope 
 comes in. By means of the spectroscope analysis the chem- 
 ist cannot ascertain the nature of the solid or fluid sub 
 stances of the planet, but he can say what its atmosphere is 
 composed of. It matters not how long the track of the 
 light may be, its message is just as perfect on ten or a hun- 
 dred millions of miles as if watched in the laboratory of the 
 chemist. The light comes from the sun and the beam is re- 
 ceived on Mars, passes through the atmosphere, is reflected 
 back again, passes a second time through the atmosphere, 
 then reaches our earth. And as the beam passes through the 
 atmosphere the chemical astronomer can take it and see what 
 the substance of the planet's atmosphere is. Dr. Huggins, in 
 1864, applied those means to Mars and noticed that across the 
 solar spectrum there were dark bands showing the presence 
 of aqueous vapors. They might have been caused by the 
 moisture of our own air during the passage of the light 
 through our atmosphere. In order to remove all doubts, he 
 turned the spectroscope to the moon, which was low down ; 
 if the bands of the spectrum had been due to the moisture 
 of our air they would have been more clearly seen in the 
 spectrum of the moon's light, but they were wanting; it in- 
 dicated that the vapor of water was in the atmosphere of 
 that planet. It shows the planet is not so old as its small- 
 ness would lead us to believe, and may have formed itself 
 later than the earth, being placed in a region where the 
 formation was rather difficult. 
 
 Outside of Mars we come to the asteroids which seem to 
 have been placed in a condition where they were spoiled at 
 their very f ormatioD Mars, coming next within the 
 
84 OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS. 
 
 oids, was probably subjected to the same conditions. On 
 feature I want to call your attention to. You see the signs 
 of glacial action all around there; it has a whitish appear- 
 ance, showing the planet has a wide glacial region where 
 the cold must be intense. On account of the prevailing 
 cold, Mars seems unfit to be the abode of life, and we may 
 say with certainty, that the period of life there, is shorter 
 than on our planet, so that the creatures are not so devel- 
 oped as here. 
 
 In passing to the outer family of planets I bring argu- 
 ments which make me differ from the way in which they 
 are described by other astronomers, which seems natural, 
 whereas my view of them seems sensational. In point of 
 fact there is not a single substance, nothing about those 
 planets, which corresponds to the theory that they are orbs 
 like the others. Their rotating theories, their mass, their 
 density, all the circumstances of the planets are unlike our 
 earth. Considering the enormous size of Jupiter, 1230 times 
 larger than our earth, and his powerful mass dragging his sub- 
 stance continually towards the centre, we should expect the 
 planet t"> be as dense as possible, and yet it has only one 
 fourth of the density of the earth; it corresponds with 
 that of the sun. This phenomena can be explained only by 
 an intense inherent heat, which expands the atmosphere 
 around it. After the cooling of this planet, when it comes 
 to a density equal to our earth, its size will be half as large 
 as its present disk, and the clouds surrounding it will 
 be reduced to one-third; and this reduction would make 
 the apparent brightness of the planet one-sixth of what it 
 shows now in our sky. You can not look at the next pic- 
 ture without feeling that the atmosphere must be very deep 
 in which those planets are. That shadow you see there, has 
 a diameter of 2,000 miles; the cloud masses must be at least, 
 as deep as the diameter of that deep shadow. But if they 
 were only one hundred miles deep, the pressure at the bot- 
 tom would be so great that the lower atmosphere would bi 
 much denser than platinum. 
 
 You see here one of the satellites which seemed to 
 enter the dis 3 of the planet and then went back; yet the 
 mere stopping of a satellite would cause it to be vaporized. 
 
OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS. 85 
 
 It could not have gone back. We can explain it by suppos- 
 ing the planet to be enshrouded by deep masses of clouds, 
 a portion of which would disappear sometimes, and so the 
 outline would be thrown back to the interior. If at any 
 time the outer layer of clouds could be dissipated and we 
 could see the lower layer, the planet would appear fl it, an 1 
 to some observers, parts of the outlines of Jupiter have ap- 
 peared flattened. Those who possess silver-lined glasses-, 
 should try to use the glass without the silvering; it would 
 give the images of Jupiter and Venus free from irradiation 
 It would be interesting to study the planet with reference tc 
 the theories I am dealing with. One observer in France Ins 
 perceived that the shadows of the clouds can be seen pass- 
 ing through the atmosphere, and showing how deep that at- 
 mosphere must be. If we dismiss the central orb of Jupiter 
 as unable to have life, we might possibly find life oa his 
 satellites. They have an orbit of 8,000 miles. The two 
 moons of Jupiter on the left are as large as our moon, and 
 of the two outside his mass, one is larger. You notice the 
 curious way in which their motions are arranged. On the 
 left-hand picture you see them in a straight line, two on one 
 side of the planet and one on the other; on the right hand 
 they are at right angles to each other. They swing around 
 the planet like the hour-hand, the minute-hand, and the sec- 
 ond-hand of a clock, and when Jupiter has reached the stage 
 of individual life, they will be good time measurers. Yet 
 they will not supply the planet with light, as Brewster 
 thinks. They cannot give more than one-sixteenth of the 
 light we get from the full moon, although Jupiter can pour 
 much light and heat upon them. So we can explain the 
 purpose of Jupiter by regarding the satellites as the abode 
 of life and Jupiter as supplying them with light and heat. 
 In Saturn's history one thing must be mentioned. It is en- 
 wrapped in cloudy masses, raised by the planet's inherent 
 heat, and you see here a line surrounding the equator. It is 
 on the planet's own disk and always keeps that position. 
 This equatorial belt never shifts as ours does, following the 
 sun along the ecliptic. Here is a picture illustrating the 
 way in which the planet supplies nther worlds with light 
 and heat. It is comparable with the ' solar system in con- 
 
85 OTHER WORLDS THAN OURS. 
 
 density. You see a ring and eight satellites. The satellites 
 are divided into two families; the outer family and one clow 
 in the centre of the system, just as in our sun. 
 
 In 1877 Saturn will have the ring placed in the position it 
 has on this picture, and we can observe its appearance and 
 the satellites around it as described by Sir Win. Herschel. 
 There yoa see how the ring is passing downwards. The time 
 it takes to pass from the former position to the position now 
 shown, is seven and a-half of our years, during which it hides 
 a large portion of the pi anet y s surface. This ring is said to 
 be composed of an immense number of minute satellites. 
 Brewster talks of its beauty and how it would appear as a i 
 arc of light to the inhabitants of Saturn, but he forgets that 
 the bright ide of the ring is the same side as the hemisphere 
 enjoying the summer. In winter there is not only no sup- 
 ply of heat and light from the ring, but it throws a black 
 shadow which conceals a large surface of the planet from 
 the rays of the sun. You see here the progressive creeping 
 of the black shadow over the planet, hiding parts larger 
 than the whole surface of the earth in extent, and it goes on 
 to the last of those views and keeps those parts in shadow 
 for more than two years. 
 
 In the family traveling around Saturn, we have regions 
 which may be the abode of life, but according to the theory 
 brought before you, the shortness of life on those small 
 bodies, compared with the preceding and following periods, 
 the chance is small, and we may altogether reject the sup- 
 position that life actually exists either there or in Neptune 
 and Uranus ; those planets being so far from the sua could 
 only be supposed to have preserved enough inherent light 
 and heat to maintain life. 
 
 Turning to the star depths, you find that instead of dealing 
 with one system, you may see in the heavens sun after sun, 
 each the centre of schemes of worlds. Here you have the 
 Northern Bear with his family of stars ; some of those stars 
 viewed with the telescope are exceedingly small, the regions 
 appearing dark to the unaided eye are crowded with stars. 
 Here is the large star and the curve of stars which form the 
 constellation of the Little Bear. Again in Cassiopaeia 
 you see the whole space crowded with stars, and yet we 
 
OTHER SUNS THAN OUBS. 87 
 
 Using here the results obtained by a small telescope. Now 
 another picture shows hundreds of thousands of stars at 
 once ; every point is a centre of a system in which you have 
 hundreds of thousands of stars. Increasing the power ol 
 the telescope, taking Herschel's telescope, you see 21,000,000 
 of stars in this part of the heavens, and passing to Rosse's 
 telescope, the number increases to hundreds of millions, and 
 you have no more the small chance you had before, but mul- 
 tiplied chances of the existence of millions of inhabited 
 worlds ; for every planet has a period of life, and millions 
 of orbs are the abode of life now. 
 
 I proceed to consider the lesson of this day as our study of 
 science increases, we perceive that the domain of the un- 
 known has a wider extent than the domain of the known. 
 We find still greater mysteries by the very expansion of our 
 knowledge. We are constantly removing the obstacles on 
 our way, clearing it and hoping to come to a satisfactory 
 Interpretation of the facts. But as we go deeper down, we 
 come to regions of still greater mysteries. 
 
 FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 SUNS THAN OURS. 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : At the close of my last lec- 
 ture I spoke of the fact that when we look at any planet, we 
 cannot think that now is the time the planet is inhabited. 
 The chances are against that being so, but looking at the 
 star depths, we see in imagination millions of inhabited 
 worlds at the same time. I must not fail to call your atten- 
 tion to the fact, that the lesson told by the stars is that of 
 death. We see there millions of inhabited worlds, but hun- 
 
88 OTHER SUNS THAN OURS. 
 
 dreds of millions are not inhabited, either because they have 
 not reached the time of lite, or possibly they have passed it. 
 So that if the heavens present to us a scene of multiplied 
 iife, they also present a scene of multiplied death. Korean 
 we escape that view, so painful to many, by taking the theory 
 of Brewster, because there is nothing more certain than that 
 life has a limited period, a beginning and an end, and if at 
 this moment, all the worlds are either inhabited by living 
 creatures, or are subserving life, then we must look back to 
 the period when life began, and the period in the future, when 
 life will cease to find a limit, not in a section of creation, but 
 throughout the whole Universe. Whereas, according to my 
 theory, we have life all the time, now in this family, now in 
 another family of worlds, all the time worlds are inhabited. 
 We see in the star depths multiplied life ; we recognize 
 them as centers and supports of life. Here I must touch 
 upon a consideration which occurred to me when looking at 
 the star depths. Fifteen years ago I was living in Scotland, 
 at the birthplace of Burns, and used to see a faint fire burn- 
 ing on the distant shore. No sound reached me, nothing 
 gave sign of energy, but I knew there was a furnace fire. 
 The desire for studying astronomy coming to me, I pur- 
 chased a small telescope for studying terrestrial objects, and 
 I turned .at night the telescope towards those parts, I could 
 see the flames, and imagined I could catch the roaring sound 
 of the fire, and from time to time I saw figures of men 
 passing there. So I had the clearest evidence of intense 
 energy,- when all that could be seen to the naked eye was a 
 dull fire at night. And that feeling has been intensified 
 when in my travels I saw fire far away, which conveyed no 
 sign, but imagination told me processes were at work there 
 representing energy. 
 
 Looking at the star depths, we see something like that fire 
 supporting life in Jthe worlds around. We cannot see any 
 real trace of life, nor can we hear the sounds, they don't 
 reach us ; but imagination, based on scientific facts, assures 
 us that there we see the representation of the most stupen- 
 dous process at work, the worlds circling around it. There 
 was once a doubt based on this point. It was thought the 
 st&rs were mere torch-like flames, incapable of ruling and 
 
OTHER SUNS THAN OURS. 89 
 
 moving world's like those circling around the sun, differing 
 from the sun as this gaslight differs from an incandescent 
 mass of matter, giving the same light and having the same 
 size. But we know that flames could not continue to burn 
 without any supply. It is only a supply of gas from another 
 place, where large masses are collected, that enables the gas 
 to burn, else the flames would die out. 
 
 It was found that those world's were masses of glowing 
 matter shining through absorbing vapors that they had the 
 power of contracting, of drawing inward their mass and that 
 power corresponds to the heat they emit. In other words, 
 the heat corresponds to the mechanical equivalent of the 
 process of contraction. 
 
 Then we could determine a stars distance and infer from 
 the quantity of light it emits, the surface it has, we can de- 
 termine the absolute mass of that centre. 
 
 In a former course of lectures, I told about the evidence 
 we have as to the size and the mass of stars. The nearest 
 star, called Alpha in the Centaur, is 210, 000 times as far away 
 as the sun, and if our sun was there, it would be 40,000,000,- 
 000 less brilliant. Its lustre is three times as great as the 
 lustre that would be given out by our sun at that distance, 
 so that if the surface of that star is of the same intrinsic 
 brightness as the sun, if a square mile of the sun's surface 
 gives as much light and heat as a square mile of the surface 
 of the star, that star shines three times as brightly. If you 
 proceed from that to determine the diameter of the star, it 
 will exceed our sun more than 17 to 10, its diameter must be 
 4,250,000 miles. 
 
 If we proceed to the star Sirius, which shines four times 
 as brightly, we see an orb far exceeding our sun. If my 
 assumption be true, and every square mile of Sirius gives the 
 same amount of light and heat as the square mile of the sun, 
 its volume must exceed our sun about 2,000 times. The 
 astronomers have not been able to determine what its exact 
 distance is, yet we think that the surface of Sirius gives 
 more light and heat than the surface of the sun. 
 
 Now we have to consider the evidence we have of their 
 being centers of systems of glowing matter like our sun. I 
 am dealing with evidence now, though formerly I dealt with 
 
40 OTBER SUNS THAN OURS. 
 
 analogies, and the greater part of this lecture will be given 
 to matters altogether new, the illustrations being all n?w, 
 and we will come to the latest discoveries. In the flrst 
 place, I allude to a mistake made by Balfour Stuart in his 
 work called "The Unseen Universe," which though dry, ia 
 well worth studying. In dealing with Sirius, he makes a 
 mistake affecting all our conclusions. He says that hydrogen 
 is the only gas present there, and that no other elements 
 have been seen, yet we have evidence that all the other gases 
 exist there. Still the lines of hydrogen are stronger in 
 Sirius than in the sun ; he seems to belong to a class of stars 
 that have a deep atmosphere of hydrogen, and as we may 
 assume that hydrogen is a part of their atmosphere that ex- 
 tends furthest, the other ingredients of the atmosphere must 
 be equally extensive, and so we have the evidence of its 
 greater size. It is the same thing as in regard to the oceans; 
 the smaller planets have the smaller oceans. Here is a pic- 
 ture showing the evidence we have as to the constitution of 
 the sun by means of the messenger of light coming across 
 the depths of space. Below we have another picture show- 
 ing the way the astronomers determine the presence of 
 various elements in the stars. You see in the sun'a*spectrurn 
 a number of bright lines, of which some correspond and 
 some do not with the dark lines below, which, represent the 
 spectrum of the star. If the lines correspond, we infer that 
 the elements exist in the star, if they don't correspond, we 
 can only say there is no evidence of its existence. Another 
 picture shows how Dr. Huggins and Dr. Miller applied this 
 analysis to the stars and compared the different lines with 
 those belonging to certain particular chemical elements. 
 You see some short lines which correspond to the bright 
 lines in the preceding picture, and are marked with different 
 letters. They represent the elements corresponding to those 
 letters, and show that those elements exist in the sun. Aide- 
 baran contains nine elements familiar to us, bismuth, 
 sodium, antimony, magnesium, iron, mercury, calcium, and 
 so forth. The spectroscopic analysis gives us means of dis- 
 tinguishing the different construction of stars. Here you 
 see the star Betelgent. You see ia the spectrum of that star 
 no line corresponding to the letter H, marked on the spec 
 
OTHER SUNS THAN OURS. 41 
 
 tram above. We don't infer that hydrogen does not exist 
 there, we only infer it can not be detected there, either be- 
 cause hydrogen is low down or has not come to the glowing 
 condition it has when greatly heated. In studying a part of 
 the auk s surface, we find that the hydrogen absorbs the 
 matter below, which is relatively hot, and the lines of hydro- 
 gen appear bright. Here you have the spectrum of the star 
 which shone out in the constellation of the northern crown 
 in 1866. Those lines of hydrogen give the chief part of the 
 stars lustre. The star was covered with glowing flames, 
 probably owing to the downfall of meteoric matter or some 
 change in its constituent elements. On this picture you have 
 the two spectra of the blue and the orange components of 
 the double star called Alberion in the Swan. The question 
 arises whether those colors are inherent or due to absorp- 
 tion. There are two ways in which a light may appear 
 colored. There may be the inherent color, as in the light 
 used in our theatres, or as in the railway signals, it may 
 be produced by colored glass. By means of the spectrum 
 we see that in the stars the particular color is caused by 
 absorption. Here we see dark bands in the part represent- 
 ing yellow and orange light, which are cut off, and there 
 is a superabundance of blue and violet. In the other spec- 
 trum you see an abundance of dark lines in the blue and 
 violet parts, and a sparingness of them in the yellow and 
 orange parts. I met, some time ago, Dr. Louis Rutherford, 
 who told me that in taking photographs of the stars, the 
 colors of the stars affected the result. Here is an orange 
 and blue star, in which we know, when looked at through 
 the telescope, the orange star is the largest, and the blue 
 star is comparatively faint, but in the photographic picture 
 the blue looks almost like the orange. The blue light ia 
 that by which the photographic result is chiefly obtained. 
 Having thus learned that the stars are real suns, we must 
 study how they are spread through the depths of space. 
 Astronomers are engaged in taking the exact position of 
 stars in relation to the earth; their observations are impor- 
 tant, indeed, lying at the very foundation of the practical 
 application of astronomy. But the order which the stars 
 keep in space is seldom mentioned, and yet it is a question 
 
42 OTHER SUNS THAN OURS. 
 
 of great interest, being connected with the problem of the 
 origin of the Universe. Man is not satisfied to go back to 
 the nebulous matter ; he asks where the nebulous matter 
 comes from. If, as Balf our Stuart tells us, there was a time 
 when space was occupied by a fluid, out of which atoms 
 were formed, and if you take that as the origin of the 
 Universe, the arrangement of the stars in space will give 
 you some notion about it. If you can tell what the shapes 
 of the groups are, you can see how the fluid gradually de- 
 veloped itself into nebulous matter. 
 
 A picture will show the theory of Kepler, who asserted 
 that the solar system was *t the centre of the Universe. It 
 was an attempt to reconcile the teachings of astronomers 
 with the supposed description of the origin of the Universe 
 in Genesis. He affirmed that the rays of the sun were 
 taught by a shell enclosing the stars, and being led astray 
 by a series of numerical calculations, he said that the thick- 
 ness of the shell amounted to seventy miles. 
 
 Then came the theory of Wright, attributed to Sir Win. 
 Herschel. You see here across the milky way, a great 
 number of stars, and you see it divided in one part. By 
 studying the stars with a telescope, he was led to believe 
 they were spread all through space, and the whole stellar 
 system had the shape of a flat disk, cloven in the direction 
 of the zone of the milky way. You see galaxies of stars 
 spread over the space which represent the nebulae. 
 
 Another picture illustrates the theory of Lambert; it shows 
 that our stellar system is a cloven flat disk, formed by spher- 
 ical clusters of stars. You see clouds of stars in some 
 places. He was, doubtless, led to compare them to what 
 we recognize when we look at the heavens and see the milky 
 way on a Summer night. We see the clouds scattered over, 
 some branching off, some of them converging; they form a 
 confused mass, nodules of light being projected one upon the 
 other, and presenting a cloudy surface. He said the motley 
 aspect of the milky way results from the clouds of stars. 
 
 Wm. Struve, in Germany, rejects the theory of the stellar 
 system having the shape of a disk. He says there is an inter- 
 mixture of large and small stars in the milky way, which 
 has no limits. 
 
OtHEB SXJN9 THAN OURS. 43 
 
 Passing now to Wm. Herschel's theory on this subject, I 
 call your attention to the mistakes made in describing his 
 method of gauging the stars; the two methods are mixed as 
 if they were one, and yet nothing is more unlike than these 
 two methods. They require no profound study; his mind 
 was led to simplifying methods. At first he directed the same 
 telescope towards different parts of the heavens. By count- 
 ing the number of stars in each locality, he thought he 
 should be able to tell the shape of the stellar system; to tell 
 how far off the boundary of the system lies in different 
 directions. But he found spaces which seemed void of 
 stars, the stars were not spread continuously, so he changed 
 the method of gauging and directed telescopes of different 
 sizes to the same part of heaven, using one telescope till the 
 cloud of stars he perceived would revolve, then increasing 
 the size till he could penetrate to the limits of that region 
 of space. He failed again; and here I will touch upon a 
 mistake Herschel made. When he invented this second 
 method, he was eighty years of age. A little before his 
 health broke down, he wanted that mental versatility he 
 had shown up to his advanced age, and he made a mistake 
 in thinking that by using greater telescopes in studying the 
 same space, he was all the time resolving clouds farther away. 
 The true theory is, that when he thought he was penetrating 
 further down, he scrutinized the depth of the same region. 
 Many stars were spread, the large and the small ones inter- 
 mingled, and he saw the peculiarities of one cluster of stars. 
 He was studying the stars that were really small and not 
 further away. 
 
 HerschePs results having shown that both his methods of 
 gauging cannot be relied upon; the true method is to com- 
 bine both these processes, to study the whole heavens with 
 one and the same telescope, and combine the results into 
 star charts, with increasing power to penetrate further and 
 further through the star depths, and comparing the charts to 
 come to the truth. Here you see the northern part of the 
 milky way divided in two parts and streams of stars be- 
 tween them. Another picture shows the complicated sys- 
 tem of the stars in the milky way. You see them divided 
 in branches, crossed by dark regions in some parts, scatter- 
 
44 OTHER SUNS THAN OURS. 
 
 ed stars in others. Here we have the projective portions of 
 the milky way well defined. In the upper part you see a 
 sudden change of brightness. It is taken from the work of 
 Sir John Herschel, called his "Southern Observations." 
 This other picture shows us what we ought not to do. We 
 ought not to have the straggling figures of the constellations 
 that spoil the maps. You see how the figure of a ship in- 
 troduced here spoils the evidence that may be given by the 
 arrangement of stars. See how the stars are gathered 
 together on the right hand, and scarcely any on the left. 
 This is full of interest; it brings us toward the true meaning 
 of stars, but it is lost when our attention is called to bears 
 and ships, etc. I endeavored to overcome this imperfection 
 by dividing a sphere more uniformly. You see on this pic- 
 ture the way I arranged them in dodecahedrons. There is 
 a central pentagon and five other pentagons touching on the 
 central ; the projections of every pentagon, with its stars, 
 are falling in the depressions of the other pentagon. You 
 notice the way in which the meridians of this chart appear 
 without distortion. Where there is richness of stars in one 
 part, and poverty in another, you may rely it is true. I will 
 mention that in the maps published by the Society for the 
 Advancement of Useful Knowledge, under the direction of 
 Sir John Lubbock, the center differs from the angles in the 
 ratio of one to five, whereas here the outer part differs from 
 the other part as thirteen to fourteen, it is hardly observ- 
 able, and so these outlines show how, originally, the stars 
 were spread. 
 
 Now we pass to another series of maps showing tne way 
 the stars are gathered in some parts of the heavens. "X ou 
 eee them spread out like the branches of a tree. Sometimes 
 you see two or three streams extending from a star; some- 
 times they are spiral groups. These maps show you the 
 stars of the fourth magnitude, seen by the naked eye. 
 You see a great lack of stars in one part, whereas in the 
 Northern part of the milky way the stars of the fourth order 
 are rich in number; all along the milky way the stars are 
 richly spread. In Aldebaran we have a poverty-stricken re- 
 gion, even if we pass beyond the compass of the naked eye. 
 Here in the Southern hemisphere, observe the poverty on 
 
OTHER SUNS THAN OURS 45 
 
 the right hand as compared with the central portion in the 
 Magellanic cloud, and that part of the milky way where the 
 dark rift extends. Now we will pass to the telescopic stars. 
 Every one of these stars has been observed, their place in 
 ascension and declination have been studied, and so they 
 have been formed into charts. Every one of the atars is 
 a known star. It was by means of such a chart that the 
 star that flashed in the Northern crown was found to be an 
 old friend. If charts of this kind had been wanting, there 
 would be no evidence to show whether it was an old or a 
 new star. You see the Dipper and Cassiopeia, then the rich 
 part of the milky way in the constellation of the Swan and 
 those bright stars forming the cross in the Swan, the beauti- 
 ful star, Alberion, and the region where Sir William Her- 
 schel pointed out 32,000 stars with his telescope, eighteen 
 inches in aperture. Here again we have the evidence of 
 clouds in space. We have to study them carefully before 
 determining where one cloud overlaps another. This pic- 
 ture shows the way in which those dark spaces are spread, 
 and how clusters and clouds of stars impinge on the dark 
 space. In the constellation of the Eagle you have this 
 strange arrangement of stars floating inward toward the va- 
 cant space. Here you have the cluster of the Pleiades, the 
 Aldebaran and the Polar star of the Little Bear. When you 
 combine all those maps you get the picture of the whole 
 heavens with a telescope two and one half inches in aper ] 
 ture. I was occupied four hundred hours in charting those 
 stars. I made the stars very minute so as to have room for 
 all, and though I was rery careful, the result was not io 
 striking as I intended it to be I have strengthened it since 
 that time. When we leave the milky way we see a greater 
 uniformity and a greater poverty in the distribution of stars. 
 5Tou see how the small stars mark out the shape of the 
 milky way Here you have the whole of the heavens on 
 one m^p. The best photographic result was used by me in 
 Springfield, and, being the last picture shown, was probably 
 left in the lantern. The 324,000 stars cannot be seen well 
 here. In the next lecture I hope to get the picture and show 
 it to you again. It is necessary, in order to satisfy you of the 
 evidence that the milky way, as brought into view, there ii 
 
46 OTHER SUNS THAN OURS. 
 
 a stream of all the bright and small stars intermixed. 
 Now you have before yon a map indicating the motions 
 of the stars. Those stars in the constellation of the Twins 
 have ai-rows attached to them indicating the amount of their 
 motion in 30,000 years. I must mention that DeMarion bor- 
 rowed from me the manner of indicating the change of 
 place of the stars. It is a simple thing to attach an arrow 
 to a star; anyone might do it, only I don't want it to appear 
 as if I appropriated this method from him; I mention it in 
 self-defense. Those arrows indicate the diiection and the 
 rate of motion. You see them moving slower or faster in 
 different directions. By observing them you can dislin 
 guish one star cloud from another. Here in the constella- 
 tion of the Great Bear, you see five of the seven stars mov- 
 ing in one direction and apparently at the same rate, while 
 the two others have an opposite direction; those stars seem 
 to belong to a drifting system. They are approaching and 
 receding continually. They have the same spectrum as the 
 bright star Sirius. You see there a strongly marked line of 
 hydrogen. Dr. Huggins applied a certain method for dis- 
 tinguishing those motions. The application of that method 
 to determine the recess or approach depends, on the princi. 
 pie that light comes to us by waves. Suppose a sailor crossing 
 the sea: as he meets the waves they eeem to pass more 
 quickly than if they were at rest, their crests are closer to- 
 gether and their sound is more acute; if they are receding, 
 the sound is more grave. When you pass a train where the 
 bell is sounding, the sound seems to increase as you ap- 
 proach. When you pass you hear a certain detonation and 
 ut last when passed, a lower tone. The law is the same 
 when applied to light and color. When the waves are 
 uearer together, the blue part of the spectrum predominates* 
 you know the star is approaching. If it is receding, the 
 crests are longer, and it shifts toward the red. When I 
 made the prediction that those stars in the Great Bear be- 
 longed to a drifting family, I knew Dr. Huggins was apply- 
 ing this method, and my prophecy was verified. Aud now 
 this mode of recognizing recession and approach, together 
 with the spectroscopic analysis, gives us another means 
 of bringing the stars into collocation. 
 
OTHER rtl'NS THAN OURS. 47 
 
 Seeing all these groups and clouds and clusters and 
 branches cf stars spread throughout infinite space, we must 
 put aside all the ideas of uniform arrangement in the Uni- 
 verse. But in the midst of this inconceivable variety of 
 worlds, let us hope that we may be able to ascertain the way 
 in which those worlds are spread, in carrying a series of re- 
 searches and mapping the stars as we see them with tele- 
 scopes from twelve to thirty inches in diameter, and now 
 after we have tried to recognize the star depth, containing 
 millions of millions of stars centers of worlds, let us con- 
 sider the mystery brought before us. We see the fullness of 
 space and while there is abundance of life throughout the in- 
 numerable stars, there is still more abundant death. In 
 prc touting before you the fact that the stars without life, 
 supersede so much the scene of life, we may hav given the 
 Universe a melancholy meaning. We see, in imagination, 
 whole classes of stars, where death has passed over, and the 
 f uiure of the Universe presenting the same death. But it is 
 the small extent of our knowledge which gives that meaning 
 t ) what we see in the Universe. If we knew the reality , in- 
 stead of seeing a small part of the Universe, we should find 
 a meaning that would agree with our ideas of an almighty 
 power. It is not with less reverence, but with greater rev- 
 erence for the Universe and for that power that works in 
 and through the Universe that we must strengthen our hope. 
 
 Let knowledge grow ever more and more, 
 
 Let more of revereoice in 113 dwell. 
 
 That mind and soul, according well, 
 Might make one music as before, 
 But vaster ! 
 
48 THE GREAT MYSTERIES OF TI1E UXIVBRBB. 
 
 FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 The Great Mysteries of the Universe, 
 
 There are two mistakes very commonly made in speaking 
 of the mysteries of the Universe, which have very opposite 
 effects. One is the mistake of supposing that a question is 
 necessarily as mysterious as it appears to be. Often by some 
 change in our mode of viewing it, we find a great simplifica- 
 tion may come in. The other is the mistake of supposing 
 that because we have found the explanation of one part of 
 the mystery, the mystery is cleared up; whereas we know that 
 usually the explanation of a mystery brings with it a greater 
 mystery. 
 
 The mysteries I have to deal with to-night are related to 
 astronomy. 
 
 The ancients were led early to discover those mysteries, 
 but they attempted great simplicity in explaining them; they 
 took the natural interpretation of what they saw before 
 them. Soon, however, they were lost amidst the complica- 
 tions that arose from their simple mode of viewing matters. 
 They took the earth as a flat surface the heavens as a tent 
 spread over it it was the most natural way. Then they 
 saw the stars, their advances and retrogradatious, and they 
 found those motions could not be explained by their simple 
 way of viewing the Universe. They found that in traveling 
 around the Universe, instead of the heavens being carried 
 around the earth, the axis of rotation was continually chang- 
 ing; they had to form new hypotheses, still leaving the mat- 
 ter unexplained. Still greater was the difficulty when they 
 p issed from the stars to the planets. They found them trav- 
 eling backward and forward, advancing, retrograding, stand- 
 ing still. They put the earth at the centre of the Universe, 
 and thought all motions could be explained that way ; but 
 instead of an explanation, confusion arose from the errone- 
 ous centre they took. 
 
THE GREAT MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE. 4fc 
 
 The motion of the planets, as supposed by the ancients, 
 will be shown, and you will see how the old explanation, 
 which seemed so natural, brought great confusion; yet it is 
 common to find, even in our day, people who think that the 
 old explanation of the motions of the planets had some truth 
 in it. We are sure, however, that there is no other way to 
 explain that motion, than by taking our present center of 
 observation. 
 
 Tou see here the motions of the different planets forming 
 various loops. The Venus loop, the Mars loop, and the last 
 one, the loop of Saturn. This other picture represents the 
 various systems. You have there the Ptolemaic system with 
 the earth at the center. Another picture shows how far it is 
 from introducing simplicity; you see the curves that those 
 two planets, Mars and Venus, should have to trace, notice 
 those interlacing loops. If all the planets were introduced 
 there would be still greater complexity. 
 
 Seeing those mysteries of the stars, realizing that the plan- 
 ets had the power, not only of advancing, but of checking 
 their course and retrograding, it was natural for the astrono- 
 mers to think that the stars rule the acts and the fate of 
 men. And so their astronomical researches were associated 
 with the belief in astroiogy, and it remained so very long, 
 even till after the telescope was discovered. 
 
 Here you have one of the great buildings erected by ancient 
 men for advancing the science of the Egyptian astrology. , 
 Prof. Smith has advanced the theory that the pyramids wer& 
 ejected by architects who thought they were endowed with 
 the knowledge by divine revelation, and with the object to 
 record that knowledge. But we all know about the ancients 
 teaches us that they would never have devoted such an 
 amount of money and labor for any other purpose than to 
 advance knowledge. You remember the story in Layard's 
 book of Nineveh. He was boring some Oriental chief 
 about the heavenly bodies, and the chief answered: " What 
 does it matter what way a planet passes? In God's name let 
 it be so." That is the way in which Oriental nations view 
 these abstruse matters; and I think the purpose for which 
 these buildings were erected, was to give the means of prc. 
 dieting the future of the king and their families. 
 
50 THE GREAT MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVBBSK. 
 
 Another building shows conclusively that the builders of 
 the pyramids had no acquaintance with one of the phenom- 
 ena of o;\r system, the precession of the equinoxes. See this 
 passage opening towards the Northern face of the pyramid; 
 it has a Northern slope, showing it was directed towards the 
 polar star of that time Alpha in the Dragon. It was 
 erected with the view that the Polar Star in making it* 
 passage underneath the heavens could always be observed 
 here. In every one of the pyramids of Gizeh, you see this 
 passage directed to the Pole Star. It is evident that the erec- 
 tion of these buildings was due to the belief of the influence 
 exercised by the stars on the fate of men and nations. They 
 imagined that by observing the distribution and the motions 
 of stars they might ascertain the true laws governing human 
 life, and predict confidently, the future of mankind. 
 
 A picture will show how the dragon was placed at that 
 time. The star in the tail of the Dragon, called Alpha, has 
 lost a great part of its splendor within two hundred years. 
 In the picture before you, representing the Egyptian plani- 
 sphere, you can see the Dragon with the Polar Star. At the 
 present time the Little Bear has taken its place. And here I 
 will touch on the curious fact that there is evidence that this 
 position of the Dragon, as the central point of the heavens, 
 is referred to by Homer. Many of the lines of both his po- 
 ems are astrological. On the shield of Achilles, he places 
 all the constellations which one would not expect to find on the 
 shield of a hero. Among others we find the Dragon, "There 
 in the central shield with eyes retorted and gleaming with 
 flre." This description of the shield of Achilles was the de- 
 scription of a temple, and we notice in Homer, that when 
 imagination cannot serve him, he uses memory instead of 
 extemporizing. 
 
 Here you see an Egyptian temple containing the Egyptian 
 zodiac the Bow, the Twins, the Crab, the Lion, the Virgin, 
 the Scales, the Fishes with glittering tails, and soon we find 
 also in the Bible the evidence of a connection with the astro, 
 logical system of the Egyptians. Here you see the seven 
 planets, at the seven points of a star, arranged in the order 
 in which they were supposed to rule the hours. The names 
 of the daj's in many languages are the remnant of those r- 
 
THE GREAT MYSTEI11KS OF THE UNIVERSE. 51 
 
 mote times. The first day of the week wa8 dedicated to the 
 sire, the next to the moon, Tuesday, Mardi, Mars' day; 
 Misrcredi, Mercury's day; Je.ndi, Jove's day; Vend red, Ve- 
 nus' day; Saturday, Saturn's day; and so every day was de- 
 voted to some of the planets, on account of their mysterious 
 .nfiuence. 
 
 Alter the Ptolemaic system had proved inadequate to ex- 
 plain the true motions of the planets, it was thought that the 
 complexity might be removed by selecting a proper center of 
 the Universe and studying the planets. Then Kepler dis- 
 covered the position of the sun at the centre of our system, and 
 found that the orbit of the planets around it was an ellipse. 
 But he did not account for the peculiarities of their motion. 
 There was a simple law, but the complexity appeared to be 
 augmented. The mystery was greater than ever. The ques- 
 tion was, why should the planets travel in this irregular way? 
 We may notice that science deals with the "how" all the 
 time. A man of science may ask why it comes to pass, but 
 lie only finds how it comes to pass. 
 
 Kepler found how the planets moved, but the mystery of 
 the variations in their motions still remained. Suddenly 
 Newton came and introduced another kind of simplicity, 
 showing that those variations could be accounted for by 
 every particle attracting another particle. This was a sinr 
 pie law which took the place of the complex results appear- 
 ing in Kepler's law. 
 
 You might think the mystery was explained, but a new 
 mystery took its place. What explains the law of gravity? 
 Of all the mysteries conceived, there is no greater mystery 
 than this one. No one acquainted with scientific reasoning, 
 could imagine that one particle of matter c.ould act on 
 another particle, at a distance, without any kind of connec- 
 tion between them. In 1874 I pointed out that the action of 
 gravity must be more rapid than the action of light. The 
 light coming from the sun takes eight minutes to reach the 
 earth; at that time the earth has made a change in position 
 so that the ray that falls upon it is the next one that was to 
 fall in front of the earth. Gravity is a mutual force between 
 the sun and the earth. The earth attracts the sun precisely 
 as the sun attracts the earth, only the sun being so mucb 
 
52 THE GREAT MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSB. 
 
 larger, exercises a greater force. It being a mutual force ba, 
 tween them, we cannot imagine it setting out of.the sun, and 
 traveling at the same rate as light; if it did it would always 
 act in advancing; our pathway would widen; the length of the 
 year would increase, while we see there is no change. There- 
 fore gravitation acts much more rapidly than light. Light acts 
 by traveling along the waves of ether; it is the most rapid 
 transmission of waves we know; it travels with the enor- 
 mous velocity of 200,000 miles in every second of time; yet 
 gravity acts millions of times faster. 
 
 I am going to deal with mysteries, but I don't pretend to 
 explain them. I will try to show, not how they are, but how 
 they might be explained. 
 
 I have spoken of the waves of water; they are not trans- 
 mitted very rapidly. Sound traveling through water is 
 transmitted with a greater velocity. In this case the same 
 fluid transmits two kinds of waves at different rates. The 
 ether may have the same property. If there are waves of 
 sound in the ether, their real motions must be transverse; 
 but at the same time there might be waves of compression, 
 which would travel very fast like gravity. 
 
 According to the theory of Le Sage, adopted by "William 
 Thompson, there are bodies very small " ultramundane cor- 
 'ousdes," traveling in space in every direction with great 
 velocity, except where they encounter matter. If there are 
 two material objects between them, those two shelter each 
 other; if corpuscles travel between them, pressure is pro- 
 duced on those two masses on every side, but not enough to 
 keep them apart. That is illustrated by what happens when 
 there are two ships at sea, especially on a calm sea, they 
 have a tendency to be drawn together. The common 
 explanation is to attribute it to the attractive power in mass 
 of the ships. According to Thompson's theory, the waves 
 going around the sea, and those two ships sheltering each 
 other, the forces tending to draw the ships together, are 
 ot counterbalanced from the inside, and so the two bodies 
 are brought together; and so it might be that the waves of 
 compression, traveling in ether, with that infinite velocity, 
 being outside of the earth and the sun, tend to draw them to- 
 gether and produce gravitation. Jf I could give you evi- 
 
GREAT MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE.. 58 
 
 dence of it, then you would say, Is the mystery of gravita- 
 tion explained? Not at all! Where do these waves come 
 from? Why do they travel in every direction, not like light 
 which travels from a known source, as natural as the source 
 of sound? Whether we take Le Sage's theory of corpuscles 
 or these waves, we are brought to a greater mystery. 
 
 Now we will proceed to the mystery of repulsion. There 
 /ou have a series of pictures representing comets according 
 to the fancy of the ancients, who looked at them in ,3rror. 
 You see there swords, lances, animals. They were associ- 
 ated with the effects the comets were expected to produce; 
 if a comet had the shape of a sword, it was supposed to pre- 
 dict the beheading of a king. It is said that in 1556 Charles 
 V., seeing from his window a comet in the shape of a 
 sword, said it was a sign that his fates called him, and on 
 that account he abdicated. That story may, or may not, be 
 true; it is more probable that it is not, because history says 
 he abdicated in the year before. 
 
 When men ceased to attach any terror to the appearance 
 of the comets, they began to observe them, and found that 
 they traveled on a parabolic or hyperbolic course; they 
 traced them in space and saw them gradually growing larger; 
 they were able to calculate the paths they will follow among 
 the stars. By extending our powers of research we can de- 
 termine the changes that take place, we see the "how" of 
 the comets' changes; we can measure the comets how 
 many miles in diameter they have in the nucleus. We trace 
 an association between comets and meteors. In applying 
 the spectroscope analysis, we find they give a spectrum, in- 
 dicative of the gaseity of their light, and we distinguish cer- 
 tain elements in them, such as carbon. We see many of the 
 mysteries of the comets explained, but the mystery of the 
 formation of tails remains unsolved. It apparently brings us 
 in presence of that intense repulsion which in velocity seems 
 to exceed gravitation, especially when we observe the velocity 
 with which these tails sometimes fifty to ninety million* 
 e>f miles in length are swept in a few hours from one side 
 of the comet to the opposite side, when they approach the 
 sun. As Herschel said, the tail cannot be considered as a rod 
 flying around the comet; it must be propelled by the sun'i 
 
64 THE GREAT MYSTERIES OP THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 energy. There is one other theory, according to which, the 
 sun's rays, poured upon the head of the comet, are deprived 
 by the comet of their heating action, but their actinic action 
 passes on and has the power of calling into existence behind 
 the head of the comet a faint cloud formed of outside matter. 
 Tyndall, who advanced this theory, based it upon the follow- 
 ing experiment: He took a long tube, apparently free from 
 any material substance except air, then placed in it 
 a piece of blotting paper, previously immersed in water, 
 and allowed to dry, and let the air pass upon' it. Then 
 he allowed the light of an electric spark to fall np^n 
 the tube and there appeared a cloud, distinctly, in the tube. 
 He opened the tube, to let in dry air, which carried out all 
 the vapor, leaving nothing but an invisible residue, then 
 closed the tube again. Yet when the rays from the electric 
 spark fell on it, again the cloud appeared, which corresponds 
 in character, as in apperance, to the tail of the comet. 
 
 Yet some appearances in comets cannot be so explained. 
 There are some phenomena observed in the tail of Donati's 
 comet, for instance, which can only be accounted for by 
 matter being repelled from the head to the tail of the comet. 
 The rapidity with which it acts is so much greater than 
 gravitation, as to force us to believe in some unknown 
 law. Gravity took seven days in conducting the head of the 
 comet over a space of 90,000,000 miles, while the tail of the 
 comet was swept over the same space in a few hours. And 
 so we come to a force which gives us no means of judging 
 how this repulsive action comes into existence. There is a 
 possibility that it may be explained, but at the present time 
 it puzzles all our conjectures. 
 
 Now we pass to the sun. See how the Arabs bow before 
 the sun, viewing him as a center, who has the power to in- 
 fluence life, which indeed he has; but they adore him as if 
 he was a personal power. Here, also, men gradually went on 
 with their researches, and instead of viewing the sun as an 
 unexplainable deity, they found out the facts by reasoning and 
 by various methods of observation. They found the way in 
 which this orb car. be observed. Tycho Brahe discovered 
 that its whole surface was covered with flames; then the 
 spots were examined, the way in which the sun rotates on 
 
THE GREAT MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE. 58 
 
 its axis, and the changes it brings. It was seen that the 
 whole frame of the sun was subject to disturbances. Then 
 the sun was made to take pictures of itself. A relation be- 
 tween the changes there and terrestrial phenomena was ob- 
 served. Then Stephen Langley went on analyzing the sun 
 and recognized the cyclonic disturbances taking place there, 
 and the velocity with which those storms sweep over the 
 sun was determined. By means of the spectroscope they 
 analyzed the structure of the sun, determined the position of 
 the dark lines of the spectrum; they showed how the various 
 elements have their bright lines, how those bright lines cor- 
 respond with the dark lines; and so they recognized the fact 
 that iron and other elements exist in the sun. 
 
 Taking advantage of the way hi which, during the solar 
 eclipse, the shadow of the sun sweeps across the earth, they 
 placed themselves along the shadowy track and described 
 the prominences and the corona ; and instead of bowing to the 
 sun, they ascertain that he is surrounded by prominences 
 which consist of flames enwrapping the frame of the sun, 
 that those flames consist of glowing matte*; and passing 
 further they ascertained the means by which they might 
 watch the prominences, even when there was no eclipse. 
 They advanced further towards interrogating those myste- 
 ries obtaining more and more resembling features of the 
 matter spreading out from the sun, they noticed pecul- 
 iarities ot construction, showing the existence of repul- 
 sive forces exerted by the sun. There is a photographic 
 picture of the corona, photographed by itself in 1870, then 
 another aspect of it in 1871. From the corona they have 
 passed to the zodiacal light itself, and to the outlines of the 
 envelopes of the sun. All these researches they made grad- 
 ually; but they arrived at the lesson that the sun presents 
 mysteries they cannot explain. We may think that the sun 
 by its mighty mass recruits its own forces. The indrawing 
 of meteoric masses gives us a way of accounting for the 
 duration of its heat for many millions of years; the gradual 
 mdrawing of its own mass is another source of heat with 
 which the sun can supply us for millions of years. 
 
 Still our knowledge remains unsatisfied. There is yet the 
 great mystery of the formation of matter. If the nebula or 
 
66 THE GREAT MYSTERIES OF THS UNIVERSE. 
 
 star cloudlets were readjusted from a fluid occupying space, 
 according to a theory advanced, the astronomers can deal 
 with the nebulae, study all the forms of nebulae, one after 
 another, and trace the way that these nebulous clouds arc 
 formed, but still there remains the mystery of how the mat 
 ter began to form those nebulous processes. Having been leo 
 by the lightenings oi reason to find the means of extending 
 our knowledge of the invisible Universe, we might perhaps 
 find there the way to answer some of the most interesting 
 questions which associate science and religion. I don't 
 want to touch on those questions which bring differences 
 between science and religion, but some questions on which 
 they agree may occupy us. 
 
 First we find the evidence of an absolute aim. Nothing 
 can be more certain than that an absolute end is mani- 
 fested in the Universe. In every moment, in every instant, 
 of the sun's pouring out energy in space, there is a tendency 
 towards the equalizing of the temperature, meaning death. 
 As the sun pours its energy upon the earth, it undergoes 
 changes; light is changed into heat, heat into electricity. 
 Nothing is destroyed, but as the heat is continually spread 
 into space, this interchange of heat is a tendency towards 
 absolute death; and there seems to be no escape from that 
 absolute end of the visible Universe. But the visible Uni- 
 verse may be only one form of the real Universe. Our 
 planets and suns may be mere atoms of a larger Universe. 
 We have our atoms, the molecules of our chemists, that may 
 be universes compared with the ultimate particle of that 
 ether which is necessary for the transmission of light and 
 heat, and electricity, and gravitation, and repulsion. It 
 may be as tenuous compared with our atoms as those atoms 
 are compared with the sun and planets. 
 
 Now comes the question : Is there a possibility of a future 
 life in the invisible Universe? There are rays of light from 
 the sun poured in that Universe continually. If there is 
 not any particular receptacle of the sun's rays, how is it that 
 the whole space is not covered with stars? Balfour Stuart 
 brought out the idea which does not seem associated with 
 astronomy, but still is related to the star depths, that 
 the future life may be possible; that after death thought and 
 
GREAT MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE. 87 
 
 recollection still remain in existence. There is one thought 
 I often had before the idea of Balfour Stuart, which 
 corresponds with it. We know that equal causes produce 
 equal effects. Take a mind capable of ruling the fates 
 of nations, and another of no brain at all the same bul- 
 let will destroy the one and the other, and yet in one 
 case the amount of influence is small, in the other it is 
 important. Where does the difference belong? Balfour 
 Stuart says that all the time there is traveling through space, 
 the memory of past events, carried through space by light 
 rays or heat rays or any other way. The deeds of men, 
 done a hundred years ago, are, at this moment, conveyed 
 through the depths, and if we had sufficient telescopic 
 power, we might have the insight of what was going on hi 
 past ages. If there were a future life, or if it were possible 
 to pass from one space to another, men could go to the 
 places where the ether is carrying their lives, and live them 
 over again. 
 
 I touch on that to show how these mysteries can be con- 
 nected, one with another. This mystery of the invisible Uni- 
 verse, to which attraction, and infinite energy, and life and 
 death of worlds have led us, is all the time exceedingly dark, 
 but the existence of this invisible Universe is not specula- 
 tive. Perhaps there we may find one day realized Tenny- 
 son's idea, 
 
 That mind and soul, according well. 
 Will make one musio as before, 
 But vaster 1 
 
 and in tne workings of that Universe, according to the 
 thought of the poet-laureate, we may 
 
 See all things together blending. 
 Each to all its being lending. 
 All on each in turn depending. 
 Heavenly ministers descending. 
 And again to heaven uptendlng. 
 Floating, mingling, interweaving. 
 Rising, sinking, and receiving 
 Each from each, while each Is giving 
 Unto each, and each relieving 
 Each the golden pails. The living 
 
68 RELIGION AND ASTRONOMt. 
 
 Current through the air is heaving, 
 Breathing, blessing see them blending, 
 Balanced worlds from change defending, 
 Wuile everywhere diffused is harmony unending. 
 
 RELIGION AND ASTEONOMT, 
 
 In connection with Prof. Proctor's Steinway Hall course 
 ,f lectures, we will give our readers an abstract of a lecture 
 on Religion and Astronomy, delivered by him in Boston, 
 Nov. 28, 1875: 
 
 Astronomy holds a somewhat exceptional position in re- 
 lation to religion. On the one hand, it is held to be the 
 science, which of all others, most directly leads the mind 
 "from Nature up to Nature's God." "The undevout as- 
 tronomer," says Young, "is mad," and he proceeds to tell 
 us why the study of astronomy should make men devout. 
 
 " True, all things speak of God, but in the small. 
 Men seek out him, in great he seizes man." 
 
 As the researches of the astronomer range over all the 
 portion of the Universe into which even the mightiest tele- 
 scope can penetrate, while his thoughts pass beyond that 
 portion to infinity of space itself, he, of all men, should be 
 most mightily influenced by his conceptions of the being in 
 whom and through whom all things "live, move, and have 
 their being." But, on the other hand, between astronomy 
 and dogmatic religion there has been a long-standing feud. 
 Astronomy, first of all the sciences, introduced doubts re- 
 specting the meaning at least, if not the truth, of portions 
 of the Bible record. Those doubts were not met by reason- 
 ing or expostulation, but by a resort to force and cruelty. 
 Galileo was tortured for opposing the doctrine of a central 
 earth. Giordano Bruno, venturing further to assert that 
 
RELIGION AKD ASTONOMY. 59 
 
 other worlds besides our earth exist, was for that and simi- 
 lar heresies burned at the stake. The contest over those 
 first doubts was decided, not quickly, indeed, but conclu- 
 sively in favor of science ; and for more than a century no 
 well-informed man, whether theologian or layman, has in- 
 sisted upon the literal interpretation of those passages of 
 Scripture which seem to imply that the earth is the central 
 and most important body in the Universe. But soon after 
 securing the first success, science raised new and more 
 troublesome issues. Again astronomy was the offending 
 science. Herschel, searching through the star-depths, had 
 found vast tracts of nebulous light, and had been led to 
 connect these regions of luminous mist with the fixed stars 
 by a series of links suggesting a process of gradual evolution 
 from diffused nebulosity through irregular nebulae, planet 
 ary nebulae, and nebulous stars, till the star or sun itself (or 
 else a scheme of suns) was formed. Laplace, studying the 
 movements of the solar system, and distinguishing between 
 the characteristics which are explained by the law of gravi- 
 tation and those left unaccounted for, found clearest evi- 
 dence that the solar system must have reached its present 
 condition by a process of evolution, and though he admitted 
 that the nature of the process might be doubtful, he unhes- 
 itatingly asserted that some process of development there 
 must have been, or else all the laws of probability have to 
 be abandoned and an unscientific method is to be adopted 
 in dealing with this essentially scientific question. 
 
 This attack, as it was considered, on the Bible narrative, 
 though fiercely opposed by the few among theologians who 
 understood its significance, caused by no means so wide- 
 spread an excitement as the first attempt to introduce the 
 system of Copernicus. It was not till geology began to pre- 
 sent the evidence of the earth's crust, indicating a history 
 far other than the Bible account, as heretofore understood, 
 that theologians began again to be notably disquieted. I 
 need not remind you of the fierce contest which thereupon 
 ensued. The doubts raised by geologists were at first de- 
 rided. Then as the weight of evidence given by paleontol 
 ogists, microscopists, chemists, and others (gradually also 
 by biologists), began to be felt, the amazing theory was 
 
60 RELIGION AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 advanced that all the features of the earth's crust were cre- 
 ated in the beginning as they now exist purposely to delude 
 inquisitive and unbelieving men; in point of fact to give 
 Satan a fair chance in his game for human souls with their 
 Creator. This hypothesis gave way, however, as not meet- 
 ing the views even of those the ve^ ignorant for whose 
 benefit it had been invented. It was discovered quickly 
 that the Bible account was right, after all, but had simply 
 been misunderstood till now. Nay, it was found that the 
 poetical sketch of creation in the beginning of the book of 
 Genesis, accords so remarkably with these modern scientific 
 discoveries, that new evidence is thus supplied in proof of 
 the inspiration of Moses, at that time supposed to be the 
 writer of the Pentateuch. This explanation of the meaning 
 of the Bible account of creation is still in vogue among the- 
 ologians, some of whom consider that the matter is reduced 
 by this explanation to the simple dilemma: either Moses 
 (or whoever wrote the book of Genesis) was inspired to 
 write as he did, or else must have been a perfect master of 
 science as now taught, and the latter alternative, no less than 
 the former, implies that he received miraculous assistance. 
 
 You will remember, therefore, that if I now proceed to 
 show how inadequately the account of creation in Genesis, 
 as formerly understood, accords with received scientific 
 ideas, I need by no means be regarded as opposing the Bible 
 record. On the contrary, according to the received theolog- 
 ical interpretation, I am leading you up to the fact that sci- 
 eaice has in this matter proved herself the handmaiden of 
 religion by finding out for us the true meaning of a part of 
 the Bible (only somehow it so chances that theologians are 
 not so grateful to science for this service as one might have 
 expected). The Bible account, then, as thus misinterpreted 
 (for a rather long period), begins by stating that in the be- 
 ginning God made the earth and the sky; the earth form- 
 less, the sky dark. Then light appeared, and under the 
 name of Day was separated from the darkness called Night. 
 As the sun had not yet been made, this light was not sun- 
 light, nor were day and night caused by the rotation of th& 
 earth. Indeed, the account (always as misinterpreted) gave 
 the idea of a flat, circular earth, not of a rotating globe. It 
 
KELIGION AND ASTRONOMY. fll 
 
 may be the light was auroral [a picture of the aurora was 
 shown], and its spectrum that as now shown, or it may be 
 the light was of the nature of that faint luminosity which 
 we see in the gaseous nebulae, and had the spectral charac- 
 ter next indicated. Be this as it may, a firmament or clear 
 space was next formed, and the waters divided into two 
 portions, one under the firmament or heaven, the other 
 forming a water supply above the firmament (whence rain 
 was supposed to come, especially when needed in great 
 quantities, as for the flood). The waters under the firma- 
 ment or sky were then gathered into one place so that dry 
 land appeared ; and on this dry land, grass, seed, herbs, and 
 fruit trees were formed by special creative acts. And now 
 the time had come when the celestial bodies which form the 
 subject of astronomical study were to be created, for signs 
 (astrological), for seasons, and for days and years. The 
 sun, with his mighty globe, exceeding the earth's 1,250,000 
 times, and the scene of processes so stupendous that the 
 whole frame of iie earth would be destroyed if subjected 
 for a moment to the millionth part of their action, was set 
 up in the sky for us to measure our days by ; the moon next, 
 to rule the night; and then the stars were added; planets 
 orbs of like nature with our earth ; but many far larger 
 and fixed stars, suns like our own, but some so vast as to 
 dwarf even his bulk into insignificance, and to make hig 
 mighty energy seem like weakness. 
 
 "And God set these in the firmament of the heaven to 
 give light upon the earth." There was at once, according 
 to that old and erroneous, but very natural interpretation, 
 an answer to all our doubts about the purpose in which all 
 these orbs were made. " Surely not to illuminate our 
 Slights," says Sir J. Herschel, "not to sparkle as a pageant 
 void of meaning and reality and bewilder us among vain 
 conjectures. He must have studied astronomy to little pur- 
 pose who can suppose man to be the only object of his 
 Creator's care. " But for no other purpose the Bible account, 
 as misinterpreted, asserts: " God set them in the firmament 
 of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over 
 the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the 
 darkness. " I pass over the remaining portion of the account 
 
62 BELIGION AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 of creation, as not relating to astronomy. But in passing I 
 must note that I think they err who consider that the struggle 
 respecting evolution must rage chiefly around the question 
 of biological development. Just now it is there the strug- 
 gle is warmest, but the time may be at hand when men will 
 find in philological and ethnological questions, or in the 
 study of cerebral phenomena, the most vitally interesting 
 matters for inquiry. Nor is it at all impossible that astron- 
 omy, already twice in the forefront of the contest, may 
 again be found in that position, because of the bearing of 
 facts yet to be ascertained respecting subjects now forming 
 the great mysteries of astronomy, as cometic phenomena, 
 the true action of gravitation, laws of repulsive action, etc., 
 besides the manifest bearing of astronomical research on 
 that vitally-important subject, the conservation of energy. 
 Nor must I pass from this part of my subject without no- 
 ting the apparent discrepancies between the accounts given 
 in the first and second chapters of Genesis. In the first we 
 are told that plants were made after the waters had been 
 separated; then followed the creation of the sun and moon, 
 the stars also, sea creatures and birds, land creatures gener- 
 ally, and man in particular, in the image of God, after his 
 likeness, "male and female created he them." In the 
 second, after plants were created, a mist went up and water- 
 ed the whole face of the earth, then man was formed, the 
 Garden of Eden planted by the Lord God ; and when man 
 had been put there, "the Lord God formed out of the 
 ground every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, 
 and brought them to Adam, to see what he would call them, 
 after which task Adam fell asleep, and a rib taken from his 
 side was made into woman as a helpmeet for him. As both 
 accounts, however, are interpreted quite differently than of 
 yore, these discrepancies have been made to disappear. 
 
 I need not go on to describe how the circumstances in 
 which Adam and Eve had been placed led to trouble and 
 death; how thereafter wickedness increased, until God saw 
 that every imagination of man's heart was only evil contin- 
 ually, so that "it repented the Lord that he had made man 
 on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart," so that no 
 course seemed good to him, but to destroy both man and 
 
RELIGION AND ASTRONOMY. 63 
 
 beast and creeping thing and the fowls of the air, not by 
 his mere will that as they had been created, so they should 
 perish, but by the complex device of a universal deluge, 
 during which certain persons and animals were safely float- 
 ed about in the Ark. 
 
 Returning to the account of creation, it appears that the 
 real explanation ascends perfectly with astronomical and 
 geological researches. The enormous time, intervals requir- 
 ed by geology, are found in the six days, when these are 
 understood to be periods of indefinite length. The evolu- 
 tion theory of astronomy is beautifully illustrated by the 
 account in Genesis, when we take the narrative as recording 
 a series of visions presenting the gradual development of 
 the earth as it would have appeared to a being on the sur- 
 face of the planet from the earliest age of its history. He 
 could preceive light and darkness alternating long before 
 the mass of clouds covering the whole sky had been dis- 
 solved away so as to show the sun and moon and stars. 
 The period when vegetation was formed was really the car- 
 boniferous era, while the succession of animals corresponds 
 to the succession indicated by the various geological strata. 
 Very probably we shall before long find that even the Dar- 
 winian theory is indicated by the way in which the creation 
 of man is included with that of animals in the work of the 
 sixth day. Thus does the progress of science throw light 
 on the meaning of the revealed narrative of creation, and 
 we perceive say theologians how the Bible writer was 
 inspired to say what was strictly true in every word and in 
 every syllable, though for some inscrutable purpose *it was 
 BO arranged that the true meaning of the narrative should 
 not be recognized until men had found out the truth in 
 another way. 
 
 After the six days or eras of work came the seventh day 
 or era, when "God rested and was refreshed;" and so he 
 blessed the seventh day, and the week of seven days (not 
 eras!) was appointed. I spoke in my last lecture of what 
 seems to have been the true origin of the weeK, even accord- 
 ing to Josephus, who, as a Jew, might have been expected 
 to maintain the origin described in the Bible of his nation. 
 It has been pointed out to me that Moses must have had 
 
64 RELIGION AND ASTRONOMY. 
 
 more than the purpose of merely sanctioning an Egyptian 
 festival, seeing that he caused the man who gathered sticks 
 on the Sabbath to be stoned to death, saying this was 
 specially commanded by the Lord. (Num. xv.) I need not 
 express any opinion about this act. But I may strengthen 
 the position I assumed on this point by noting that all the 
 special sacrifices made by the Jews according to the Mosaic 
 law indicate an astrological origin. These were offered at 
 sunrise and sunset, (Num. xxviii. 3, 4:) the offerings on Sat- 
 urn's day, the Sabbath, (Num. xxviii. 9;) the offerings to the 
 new moon (the day of new moon being scarcely less holy in 
 Jewish eyes than the Sabbaths), (Num. xxviii. 11 ;) and the 
 sacrifices on the great luni-solar festival belonging to the 
 first month of the sun's annual circuit of the zodiacal con- 
 stellations. The very idea of sacrifice was manifestly bor- 
 rowed from nations having debased and material concep- 
 tions of the Deity; from men who imagined a God after 
 their own likeness, and gave him all the attributes of the 
 being most powerful in their eyes the Oriental despot, 
 cruel and relentless if offended, and ready to take offense at 
 the least (even accidental) fault of omission or of commis- 
 sion. The cruelties of the King of Dahomey scarcely sur- 
 pass those committed by Moses, claiming divine authority 
 for his conduct (Num. xxxi). The most debasing supersti- 
 tions described by African travelers are not more ghastly 
 than the method of divination by a medicine test appointed 
 in the fifth chapter of Numbers. 
 
 Passing to matters more strictly within the range of his 
 subject., the lecturer discussed tiie standing still of the sun 
 and moon, a miracle described in terms manifestly indicat- 
 ing the belief in a central flat earth with certain relatively 
 small bodies moving for signs upon the concave of the sky. 
 In passing, he said, this corresponded with the account of 
 that exceeding high mountain whence all the kingdoms of 
 the earth were seen. The miracle of the going back of the 
 shadow on the dial, and its association with the lengthening 
 of Hezeldah's life in response to prayer, were then consid- 
 ered, with special reference to the question of the eflicacy of 
 prayer. This part of the lecture was illustrated by views of 
 eclipses. The lecturer compared the way in which nations 
 
RELIGION AND ASTRONOMY. 65 
 
 ignorant of the true nature of eclipses pray for the restora- 
 tion of sunlight, or otherwise manifest their sense of awt 
 and wonder, with the confidence of the student of science. 
 This confidence is simply the result of a certain knowledge 
 of what is taking place. As science removes natural pro- 
 cesses and phenomena from the domain of the unknown to 
 that of the known, so part passu the thought that prayer 
 may cause the progress of such processes and phenomena to 
 be modified must of necessity disappear. It is only while 
 we are uncertain that prayer, as ordinarily understood, ia 
 possible, and the student of science learns gradually to ex- 
 tend to processes beyond his range of research the reasoning 
 he had applied to those within it; to behave in the same 
 manner in presence of processes whose law he has not 
 grasped as in presence of processes whose course he can cer- 
 tainly anticipate. This is simply because he knows cer- 
 tainly that the former, like the latter, are under the domin- 
 ions of law, and cannot be affected never are affected, at 
 least, so far as experience shows by circumstances not 
 operating directly upon their physical cause or causes. 
 After discussing the star said to have led the wise men from the 
 East, the lecturer brought his discourse to a close by dwell- 
 ing on the importance of recognizing the dominion of uni- 
 form law throughout the Universe. This great doctrine, 
 when once thoroughly understood, cannot but prove a safe- 
 guard against excesses such as have been and continue to be 
 committed in the name of religion a safeguard against the 
 existence of the superstitions to which such excesses are 
 due. The belief in universal law, regarded by many in 
 these days as a rock ahead, will be one day recognized as a 
 breakwater against seas which have been heavy and may be 
 heavy yet again. 
 
FREETHINKERS' PICTORIAL TEXT-BOOK, 
 
 SHOWING 
 
 THE ABSUBDITY AND UNTKUTHFULNESS OF THE CHURCH'S CLAIM TO BE A DIVINE 
 
 AND BENEFICENT INSTITUTION, AND REVEALING THE ABUSES 
 
 OF CHUP.CH AND STATE. 
 
 ONE HUNDRED AND EMIT-FIYE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 WITH copious CITATIONS OF FACTS, HISTORY, STATISTICS AND 
 
 OPINIONS OF SCHOLARS TO MAINTAIN THE ARGUMENT OF THE ARTIST- 
 
 DESIGNS BY WATSON HESTON, V;ITH POETKAIT OF THE DESIGNER. 
 
 The illustrations are classified as follows : 
 
 M represent Uncle Sam and the Priests. 
 2 " The Church Robbing the 
 
 People. 
 
 8 " Thanksgiving. 
 6 Sabbath Laws. 
 14 " Children and the Church. 
 10 " Woman and the Church. 
 6 " The Church and Thomas 
 
 Paine. 
 
 4 " Studies in Natural History. 
 2 " The Bible and Science. 
 15 . " The Clergy and their 
 
 Flocks. 
 
 1 " Piety in our Penitentiaries. 
 4 ' The Atonement Scheme. 
 
 4 The Lord and His Works. 
 
 2 " Prayer. 
 
 10 " The Creeds. 
 1 " Christians and Mahome- 
 tans. 
 
 2 represent Samples of Christianity's 
 Work. 
 
 5 ' Missionaries. 
 
 1 ' The Lord's Instruments. 
 25 ' Bible Doctrines and their 
 Results. 
 
 1 The Church and Slavery. 
 
 2 Priests and Politics. 
 
 4 Ireland and the Church. 
 
 2 Church Idea of Civiliza- 
 
 tion. 
 
 1 ' The Uses of the Cross. 
 4 ' Unkind Reflection on the 
 
 Church. 
 
 9 ' Persecutions of the Church 
 12 Some Allegories. 
 
 3 ' Heaven. 
 
 6 " Hell. 
 
 7 " Miscellaneous 
 
 What They Say About the Picture Book. 
 
 The Freethinkers' Magazine. 
 
 A mosT extraordinary publication. We venture the assertion that nothing 
 like it has ever before appeared in this country, and it is very doubtful if an- 
 other one like it will ever again be published. We must give the Truth Seeker 
 Company the credit of putting the book in the reach of all. At twice the price 
 it would have been a cheap book. Artist Heston as a portrait painter and de 
 signer is a wonderful success, and we judge from our own feelings that nearly 
 every Liberal in America will desire a copy of this most wonderful volume. 
 
 The Boston Investigator. 
 
 Mr. Heston deserves to be called the artist-hero of Liberalism. He has dedi- 
 cated his gen'us to Freethought, and has done faithful and noble work for the 
 cause of right and truth. But the pictures do not make up the whole of this 
 volume. There are nearly two hundred pages of reading matter that serve 
 first as explanations of the illustrations, and secondly as texts to prove the 
 utter falsity of the church's professions and the hypocrisy of those who up- 
 hold them. Altogether the book is one of the best weapons against Christi- 
 anity and the church that has ever been put in the hands of Freethinkers. 
 
 Charles Watts in Secular Thought. 
 
 The book deserves to be read far and .wide. The cartoons are really excel- 
 lent, while the reading matter has been selected with great care and taste. 
 The two combined afford much amusement and convey a vast amount of use- 
 ful information. The general "get-up " of the book is first-class, the cartoons 
 ara clean, the paper is good, and the printing is in largt clear type. 
 
From the Denison Gazetteer, Texas. 
 
 The illustrations truthfully represent church absurdities, priestly hypocrisy, 
 and religious tyranny, and the degrading effects of practicing many of the so- 
 ealled revealed commands. The book is really an unanswerable argument of 
 symbols; it is folly sketched by reason. The expression of the characters is 
 BO lifelike, and the true inwardness of the subjects selected so well shown, 
 that the book is enough to make even a preacher laugh. The texts accom- 
 panying the illustrations are reliable and often from Scripture. The book is 
 more than a collection of mere caricatures, it is a faithful illustration of false- 
 hood and truths most ingeniously wrought out, every picture presenting an 
 argument as convincing aS it is entertaining. 
 
 Moses Harman in Lucifer. 
 
 This method of teaching useful lessons is a most effectiveone. Mr. Heston 
 is one of the very best ot living cartoonists, and his pictures have been and 
 will be the means of doing much good in the way of eliininat-ng old-timei 
 s 'jperstitions. 
 
 To be appreciated the book must be seen. Each alternate page is filled with 
 selections from well-known authors upon the subjects illustrated by the car- 
 toons. These c elections are printed in large and clear type, and altogether 
 the book contains a storehouse of information, instruction and innocent 
 amusement that it would be hard to find elsewhere at least hard to purchase 
 elsewhere for the sum of $2. It takes a pile of money to get out a single copy 
 of a work like this, and we sincerely hope the orders will be sent in thick and 
 fast, to gladden the hearts of the publishers and to make cheerful and happy 
 the homes and lives of the purchasers. 
 
 H. 0. Pentecost in Twentieth Century. 
 
 Besides the pictures, there are a great number of pertinent quotations 
 from great authors, living and dead, including Garibaldi, Professor I>raper, 
 Eobert G. Ingersoll, President Dwight, Prof. Felix L. Oswald, Guizot, Lecky, 
 Thomas Jefferson, Macaulay, Lafayette, George Washington, Walt Whitman, 
 Benjamin Franklin, and many others of equal fame and learning, embracing 
 the realms of history, science, poetry, and theology. These quotations from 
 great authors are, in themselves, worth the price of the book, and are suffi- 
 cient to furnish a liberal education on the subjects of which they treat. The 
 pictures are in Watson Heston's well-known 'style ; not particularly good in 
 drawing, but graphic and easy to understand. The artist does not work in 
 the best style of art, but he never fails to make his meaning understood, and 
 the book is calculated to shock, startle, persuade and 'teach. It will be a 
 pleasure to those who are familiar with the persistent work of THE TRUTH 
 SEEKETI against superstition and mental slavery on religious questions, and a 
 profit to those who are prepared to read it and calmly reflect on its facts and 
 teachings. 
 
 J. D. Shaw in the Independent Pulpit. 
 
 This is a wonderful book and will do effective work in showing in aosurdity 
 and untruthfulness of the church's claim to be a divine and beneficent institu- 
 tion, and in forecasting the abuses of union of church and state. 
 
 Elmina D. Slenker. 
 
 It is all and more than I anticipated a volume calculated to impress forci- 
 bly on the mind those wrongs it wars against, and to imprint them indelibly 
 iand ineffaceably upon the memory. You can never forget a single one of 
 them. Written words may pass away, spoken words be lost, but the pictures 
 6tay forever and forever. 
 
 The book contains nearly 4OO pages, 9 x 12 inches, bound in boards, 
 
 illuminated covers, postpaid, $2. CO ; "bound in silk cloth, 
 
 ink and gold side stamps, postpaid $2.5O. 
 
 THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY, 
 *28 Lafayette Place, - - - New York City. 
 
MEN, WOMEN, AND GODS, 
 
 AND OTHER LECTURES. 
 
 BY HELEN H. GARDENER. 
 
 WITH AN INTBO DUG TIO N 
 
 BY COL. R. G. INGERSOLL. 
 
 Published by THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY, 28 Lafayette PL, New York, 
 Heavy paper, handsomely bound in cloth, $1.00 ; paper covers, 50 cents. 
 
 PRESS NOTICES. 
 
 [The Chicago Times is one of the most wide-awake and independent news- 
 papers in America. Its daily circulation is 43,000 copies ; its Sunday circulation 
 is but a few hundred less than 50,000. The daily edition is never less than ten 
 pages, while its Sunday edition often reaches twenty. Helen H. Gardener may 
 therefore congratulate herself that her book has induced so widely read a 
 journal to give its world an opinion so damaging to the claims of Christianity 
 as the following notice of "Men, Women, and Gods :"1 
 
 " Men, Women, and Gods, and Other Lectures," by Helen H. Gardener, is a 
 duodecimo volume of about 186 pages, containing three lectures with an 
 appendix, setting forth some of the authorities from which the lecturer draws 
 some of her material. 
 
 The first lecture gives the title to the book, the second is on " Vicarious 
 Atonement," and the third on " Historical Facts and Theological Fictions." 
 
 All are keen, vigorous, and acrid attacks on the Christian church forms of 
 theology. They can scarcely be said to be attacks on religion or religious feel- 
 ing, since the flower of that plant is charity of thought and action, and in this 
 Miss Gardener sees the highest end of man's emotional side, as in absolute; 
 freedom of investigation and opinion she sees the highest end of his intellectual! 
 side. Her leading purpose seems to be to show that women, of all persons, 
 should least support the Bible and the churches which hold it in reverence. 
 
 The first lecture is a surprisingly bitter and scathing denunciation of the 
 Old Testament as the sum of all cruelty and brutality toward women ? and she 
 makes up a startlingly strong case from the pages of the book itself. If any one 
 does not think the case can oe made strong let him read carefully this book and 
 also the thirty-first chapter of ** Numbers." 
 
 The second lecture arraigns vicarious atonement as an inexcusable injustice 
 in itself, weakening and corrupting in its influence, like indiscriminate alms- 
 giving, and. points out that it is not peculiar to Christianity, but is found in 
 Borne form in every religious system known in history. 
 
 scture, where ner purpose is to show that our civilisation is in no sense based 
 upon Christianity, and that the Christian religion has especially not contrib- 
 uted to the elevation of woman in any respect. Here she drops largely her 
 jlippancy of style and settles down to earnest work. 
 
 Civilization she holds to be chiefly the creature of environment, the basia of 
 Which, in this world, is in climate and soil. In support of Ver view of the posi- 
 tion of woman she quotes largely from Sir Henry Maine, showing among other 
 things that the position of woman in Koman law and usage, before the intro- 
 duction of Christianity, was in advance of what it is even now in some respects, 
 and that the tendency of the canon (church) law was invariably to force her 
 back into the degradation from which she had been rescued by a long and! 
 painful evolution. 
 
 In this lecture, too, she answers the questions as to what she would substi-l 
 tute for the sanctions of Christianity, and she takes considerable pains tol 
 ehow, what one would think need scarcely be insisted upon in our day, that the! 
 morals of civilization morals in general, indeed 9-re not at all based in orj 
 dependent upon religion, certainly not on Christianity; since the wr-called| 
 ''golden rule," the highest principle of morality, antedates 
 thousand years. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 Renewed books are subject to immedi ill. 
 
 ONLY- I Teh Ne, 642-3405 
 
 g MAY 2 8 1968 06 
 
 General Library m 
 University of California 
 Berkeley