"What a wonderful and amazing Scheme have we here of the magnificent Vastness of the Universe! So many Suns, so many Earths, and every one of them stock'd with so many Herbs, Trees, and Animals, and adorned with so many Seas and Mountains! And how must our Wonder and Admiration be increased, when we consider the prodigious Distance and Multitude of the Stars?"
The Opinion of Sir Isaac Newton.
This great Author, in his grand Scholia to the Principia, says:—"The most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, could only proceed from the Counsel and Dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being: And if the fix'd Stars are the Centers of other like Systems, these, being form'd by the like wise Counsel, must be all subject to the Dominion of One; especially, since the Light of the fix'd Stars is of the same Nature with the Light of the Sun, and from every System Light passes into all the other Systems. And least the Systems of the fix'd Stars should by their Gravity fall mutually on each other, he (the Divine Being) hath placed those Systems at immense Distances from one another."
The Opinion of Dr. Derham, in his Astro-Theology.
"The new System, says he, supposeth there are many other Systems of Suns and Planets, besides that, in which we have our Residence; namely, that every fix'd Star is a Sun, and incompassed with a System of Planets, both primary and secondary, as well as ours.
"These several Systems of the fixed Stars, as they are at a great and sufficient Distance from the Sun and us; so they are imagined to be at as due, and regular Distances from one another: By which means it is that those Multitudes of fixed Stars appear to us of different Magnitudes, the nearest to us large; those farther and farther, less and less; and that some, if not all of those vast Globes of the Universe, have a Motion, is manifest to our Sight, and may easily be concluded of all, from the constant Similitude and Consent that the Works of Nature have with one another."
To this we may add, that this System of the Universe, as it is physically demonstrable, is far the most rational and probable of any. Because,
"It is far the most magnificent of any, and worthy of an infinite Creator, whose Power and Wisdom, as they are without Bounds and Measure, so may they, in all Probability, exert themselves in the Creation of many Systems as well as one. And as Myriads of Systems are more for the Glory of God, and more demonstrate his Attributes than one; so it is no less probable than possible, there may be many besides this which we have the Privilege of living in." And as the strongest Confirmation of this, "we see it is really so, as far as it is possible it can be discerned by us, at such immense Distances as those Systems of the fixed Stars are from us; and we cannot reasonably expect more."
"Since the Sun and fix'd Stars, says Dr. Gregory, are the only great Bodies of the Universe that have any native Light, they are justly esteemed by Philosophers to be of the same Kind, and designed for the same Uses; and it is the Effect of a Man's Temper that sets a greater Value upon his own Things than he ought, that makes him judge the Sun to be the biggest of them all."
That, as an elegant[F] Writer observes, which we call the Morning, or the Evening Star, is, in reality, a Planetary World; which, with the four others, that so wonderfully, as Milton expresses it, "vary their mystick Dance, are in themselves dark Bodies, and shine only by Reflection; have Fields and Seas, and Skies of their own; are furnished with all Accommodations for animal Subsistence, and are supposed to be the Abodes of intellectual Life. Again, The Sun, with all its attendant Planets is but a very little Part of the grand Machine of the Universe. Every Star—is really a vast Globe, like the Sun, in Size and in Glory, no less spacious, no less luminous, than the radiant Source of our Day; so that every Star is the Center of a magnificent System, has a Retinue of Worlds irradiated by its Beams, and revolves round its active Influence; all which are lost to our Sight in immeasurable Tracts of Æther.