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magnetism from the eyery-day exhibition of man ' s natural capacities With more ethereal bodies , with the highest possible tension of the perceptive powers , we can conceive of a race of beings of which our Euclids and Archimedes , our Liebigs , Faradays , and Hersehels , are but the lowest steps in a higher order of gradation . With such
breadth of conception on the basis of natural science , a corresponding one will give us gladsome pictures of the home of the greatest master of art . A planet without a hovel ; every building fashioned to the truest standard of purity of taste ; every man existing with the most rigid attention to natural and moral laws . Poetry penned by powers exceeding Dante and Milton , and sung with the harmony of seraphic choirs .
But from this height of speculation , an unpoetie philosopher , as a cruel falcon , would bring us down , for our mood for this time is not hard argument , and we escape from our cold-iiatured friend . We will assume that man , the inhabitant of this globe , in his highest sphere of intellect , is only the lowest link in the chain of mind ; to illustrate which , our readers will pardon our quoting Milton , who having been made to confirm many dogmas , may reasonably be advanced in our
support : — " O Adam ! one Almighty is , from whom All things proceed , and up to him return , But more refined , more spirituous and pure , As nearer to him placed or nearer tending , Each in . their several active spheres assigned , Till body up to spirit work , in bounds Proportioned to its kind . "
But here we will inquire why we venture to speculate at all ? Sir John Herschel asks , " Tor what purpose are we to suppose such magnificent bodies scattered through the abyss of space ? Surely , not to illuminate our nights , which an additional moon of the thousandth part of the size of our own would do much better—not to sparkle as a pageant void of meaning and reality , and bewilder us among vain conjectures . Useful , it is true they are to man , as
points of exact and permanent reference : but he must have studied astronomy to little purpose , who can suppose man to be the only object of his Creator ' s care , or who does not see , in the vast and wonderful apparatus around us , provision for other races of animated beings . The planets derive their light from the sun ; but that cannot be the case with the stars . These , doubtless , are themselves suns , and may perhaps , each in its sphere , be the presiding centre round which other planets , or bodies of which we can form no conception from any analogy offered by our own system , may he circulating . "
Sir David Brewster says , " Man , intellectual , moral , and spiritual , may or may not be an inhabitant of Jupiter , But the question does not relate to man at all . We contend that Jupiter , with the shape of our earth , its days and nights , its seasons and climates , its tides and its moons , and its atmosphere , is fitted for the reception of inhabitants , and that we are entitled to believe that it has been , or is , or will bo occupied with intellectual races ; but of what physical vol . i . 3 I
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
magnetism from the eyery-day exhibition of man ' s natural capacities With more ethereal bodies , with the highest possible tension of the perceptive powers , we can conceive of a race of beings of which our Euclids and Archimedes , our Liebigs , Faradays , and Hersehels , are but the lowest steps in a higher order of gradation . With such
breadth of conception on the basis of natural science , a corresponding one will give us gladsome pictures of the home of the greatest master of art . A planet without a hovel ; every building fashioned to the truest standard of purity of taste ; every man existing with the most rigid attention to natural and moral laws . Poetry penned by powers exceeding Dante and Milton , and sung with the harmony of seraphic choirs .
But from this height of speculation , an unpoetie philosopher , as a cruel falcon , would bring us down , for our mood for this time is not hard argument , and we escape from our cold-iiatured friend . We will assume that man , the inhabitant of this globe , in his highest sphere of intellect , is only the lowest link in the chain of mind ; to illustrate which , our readers will pardon our quoting Milton , who having been made to confirm many dogmas , may reasonably be advanced in our
support : — " O Adam ! one Almighty is , from whom All things proceed , and up to him return , But more refined , more spirituous and pure , As nearer to him placed or nearer tending , Each in . their several active spheres assigned , Till body up to spirit work , in bounds Proportioned to its kind . "
But here we will inquire why we venture to speculate at all ? Sir John Herschel asks , " Tor what purpose are we to suppose such magnificent bodies scattered through the abyss of space ? Surely , not to illuminate our nights , which an additional moon of the thousandth part of the size of our own would do much better—not to sparkle as a pageant void of meaning and reality , and bewilder us among vain conjectures . Useful , it is true they are to man , as
points of exact and permanent reference : but he must have studied astronomy to little purpose , who can suppose man to be the only object of his Creator ' s care , or who does not see , in the vast and wonderful apparatus around us , provision for other races of animated beings . The planets derive their light from the sun ; but that cannot be the case with the stars . These , doubtless , are themselves suns , and may perhaps , each in its sphere , be the presiding centre round which other planets , or bodies of which we can form no conception from any analogy offered by our own system , may he circulating . "
Sir David Brewster says , " Man , intellectual , moral , and spiritual , may or may not be an inhabitant of Jupiter , But the question does not relate to man at all . We contend that Jupiter , with the shape of our earth , its days and nights , its seasons and climates , its tides and its moons , and its atmosphere , is fitted for the reception of inhabitants , and that we are entitled to believe that it has been , or is , or will bo occupied with intellectual races ; but of what physical vol . i . 3 I