History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume II (of 2) / Revised Edition

by John William Draper

His immortality and future life.But dreams at night, and sometimes visions by day, serve to enforce the conclusion that life is not limited to our transitory continuance here, but endures hereafter. How often at night do we see the well-known forms of those who have been dead a long time appearing before us with surprising vividness, and hear their almost forgotten voices? These are admonitions full of the most solemn suggestions, profoundly indicating to us that the dead still continue to exist, and that what has happened to them must also happen to us, and we too are destined for immortality. Perhaps involuntarily we associate these conclusions with others, expecting that in a future life good men will enjoy [290] the society of good beings like themselves, the evil being dismissed to the realms of darkness and despair. And, as human experience teaches us that a final allotment can only be made by some superior power, we expect that He who was our Creator shall also be our Judge; that there is an appointed time and a bar at which the final destination of all who have lived shall be ascertained, and eternal justice measure out its punishments and rewards.

Inducements to morality.From these considerations there arises an inducement for us to lead a virtuous life, abstaining from wickedness and wrong; to set apart a body of men who may mediate for us, and teach us by precept and example the course it is best for us to pursue; to consecrate places, such as groves or temples, as the more immediate habitations of the Deity to which we may resort.

Such are the leading doctrines of Natural Theology of primitive man both in the old and new continent. They arise from the operations of the human mind considering the fitness of things.

Just as we have in Comparative Anatomy the structure of different animals examined, and their identities and differences set forth, thereby establishing their true relations; just as we have in Comparative Physiology the functions of one organic being compared with those of another, to the end that we may therefrom deduce their proper connexions, so, from the mythologies of various races of men, a Comparative Theology may be constructed. Course of Comparative Theology. Through such a science alone can correct conclusions be arrived at respecting this, the most important of the intellectual operations of man—the definite process of his religious opinions. But it must be borne in mind that Comparative Theology illustrates the result or effect of the phase of life, and is not its cause.

Corrections of anthropocentric ideas.As man advances in knowledge he discovers that of his primitive conclusions some are doubtless erroneous, and many require better evidence to establish their truth incontestably. A more prolonged and attentive examination gives him reason, in some of the most important particulars, to change his mind. He finds that the earth on which he lives is [291] not a floor covered over with a starry dome, as he once supposed, but a globe self-balanced in space. The crystalline vault, or sky, is recognized to be an optical deception. It rests upon the earth nowhere, and is no boundary at all; there is no kingdom of happiness above it, but a limitless space, adorned with planets and suns. Instead of a realm of darkness and woe in the depths on the other side of the earth, men like ourselves are found there, pursuing, in Australia and New Zealand, the innocent pleasures and encountering the ordinary labours of life. By the aid of such lights as knowledge gradually supplies, he comes at last to discover that this, our terrestrial habitation, instead of being a chosen, a sacred spot, is only one of similar myriads, more numerous than the sands of the sea, and prodigally scattered through space.

Consequence of discovering the form of the earth. Never, perhaps, was a more important truth discovered. All the visible evidence was in direct opposition to it. Detection of its insignificance. The earth, which had hitherto seemed to be the very emblem of immobility, was demonstrated to be carried with a double motion, with prodigious velocity, through the heavens; the rising and setting of the stars were proved to be an illusion; and, as respects the size of the globe, it was shown to be altogether insignificant when compared with multitudes of other neighbouring ones—insignificant doubly by reason of its actual dimensions, and by the countless numbers of others like it in form, and doubtless, like it, the abodes of many orders of life.

And so it turns out that our earth is a globe of about twenty-five thousand miles in circumference. The voyager who circumnavigates it spends no inconsiderable portion of his life in accomplishing his task. It moves round the sun in a year, but at so great a distance from that luminary that, if seen from him, it would look like a little spark traversing the sky. It is thus recognized as one of the members of the solar system. Other solar bodies. Other similar bodies, some of which are of larger, some of smaller dimensions, perform similar revolutions round the sun in appropriate periods of time.

Magnitude of the universe.If the magnitude of the earth be too great for us to attach to it any definite conception, what shall we say [292] of the compass of the solar system? There is a defect in the human intellect which incapacitates us for comprehending distances and periods that are either too colossal or too minute. We gain no clearer insight into the matter when we are told that a comet which does not pass beyond the bounds of the system, may perhaps be absent on its journey for more than a thousand years. Distances and periods such as these are beyond our grasp. They prove to us how far human reason excels imagination, the one measuring and comparing things of which the other can form no conception, but in the attempt is utterly bewildered and lost.

The infinity of worlds.But as there are other globes like our earth, so too there are other worlds like our solar system. There are self-luminous suns exceeding in number all computation. The dimensions of this earth pass into nothingness in comparison with the dimensions of the solar system, and that system, in its turn, is only an invisible point if placed in relation with the countless hosts of other systems which form, with it, clusters of stars. Our solar system, far from being alone in the universe, is only one of an extensive brotherhood, bound by common laws and subject to like influences. Even on the very verge of creation, where imagination might lay the beginning of the realms of chaos, we see unbounded proofs of order, a regularity in the arrangement of inanimate things, suggesting to us that there are other intellectual creatures like us, the tenants of those islands in the abysses of space.

Though it may take a beam of light a million of years to bring to our view those distant worlds, the end is not yet. Far away in the depths of space we catch the faint gleams of other groups of stars like our own. The finger of a man can hide them in their remoteness. Their vast distances from one another have dwindled into nothing. They and their movements have lost all individuality; the innumerable suns of which they are composed blend all their collected light into one pale milky glow.