The Plurality of Worlds - William Whewell

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cannot but suppose,) the results of the exercise of these powers and faculties have been very different in different ages; and have gradually grown up, from small beginnings, to the vast and complex body of knowledge concerning the scheme and relations of the Universe, which is at present accessible to the minds of human speculators. It is, as we have said, probably about four thousand years, since the first steps in such knowledge were made. Geometry is said to have had its origin in Egypt; but it assumed its abstract and speculative character first among the Greeks. Pythagoras is related to have been the first who saw, in the clear light of demonstration, the property of the right-angled triangle, of which we have spoken. The Greeks, from the time of Socrates, stimulated especially by Plato, pursued, with wonderful success, the investigation of this kind of truths. They saw that such truths had their application in the heavens, far more extensively than on the earth. They were enabled, by such speculations, to unravel, in a great degree, the scheme of the universe, before so seemingly entangled and perplexed. They determined, to a very considerable extent, the relative motions of the planets and of the stars. And in modern times, after a long interval, in which such knowledge was nearly stationary, the progress again began; and further advances were successively made in man's knowledge of the scheme and structure of the visible heavens; till at length the intellect of man was led to those views of the extent of the Universe and the nature of the stars, which are the basis of the discussions in which we are now engaged. And thus man, having probably been, in the earliest ages of the existence of the species, entirely ignorant of abstract truth, and of the relations which, by the knowledge of such truth, we can trace in nature, (as the barbarous tribes which occupy the greater part of the earth's surface still are;) has, by a long series of progressive steps, come into the possession of knowledge, which we cannot regard without wonder and admiration; and which seems to elevate him in no inconsiderable degree, towards a community of thought with that Divine Mind, into the nature and scheme of whose works he is thus permitted to penetrate.

      5. Now the knowledge which man is capable, by the nature of his mental faculties, of acquiring, being thus blank and rudimentary at first, and only proceeding gradually, by the steps of a progress, numerous, slow, and often long interrupted, to that stage in which it is the basis of our present speculations; the view which we have just taken, of the nature of Intellect, as a faculty always of the same kind, always uniform in its operations, always consistent in its results, appears to require reconsideration; and especially with reference to the application which we made of that view, to the intelligent inhabitants of other planets and other worlds, if such inhabitants there be. For if we suppose that there are, in the Moon, or in Jupiter, creatures possessing intellectual faculties of the same kind as those of man; capable of apprehending the same abstract and general truths; able, like man, to attain to a knowledge of the scheme of the Universe; yet this supposition merely gives the capacity and the ability; and does not include any security, or even high probability, as it would seem, of the exercise of such capacity, or of the successful application of such ability. Even if the surface of the Moon be inhabited by creatures as intelligent as men, why must we suppose that they know anything more of the geometry and astronomy, than the great bulk of the less cultured inhabitants of the earth, who occupy, really, a space far larger than the surface of the Moon; and, all intelligent though they be, and in the full possession of mental faculties, are yet, on the subjects of geometry and astronomy, entirely ignorant;—their minds, as to such a knowledge, a blank? It does not follow, then, that even if there be such inhabitants in the Moon, or in the Planets, they have any sympathy with us, or any community of knowledge on the subjects of which we are now speaking. The surface of the Moon, or of Jupiter, or of Saturn, even if well peopled, may be peopled only with tribes as barbarous and ignorant as Tartars, or Esquimaux, or Australians; and therefore, by making such a supposition, we do little, even hypothetically, to extend the dominion of that intelligence, by means of which all intelligent beings have some community of thought with each other, and some suggestion of the working of the Divine and Universal Mind.

      6. But, in fact, the view which we have given of the mode of existence of the human species upon the earth, as being a progressive existence, even in the development of the intellectual powers and their results, necessarily fastens down our thoughts and our speculations to the earth, and makes us feel how visionary and gratuitous it is to assume any similar kind of existence in any region occupied by other beings than man. As we have said, we have no insuperable difficulty in conceiving other parts of the Universe to be tenanted by animals. Animal life implies no progress in the species. Such as they are in one century, such are they in another. The conditions of their sustentation and generation being given, which no difference of physical circumstances can render incredible, the race may, so far as we can see, go on forever. But a race which makes a progress in the development of its faculties cannot thus, or at least cannot with the same ease, be conceived as existing through all time, and under all circumstances. Progress implies, or at least suggests, a beginning and an end. If the mere existence of a race imply a sustaining and preserving power in the Creator, the progress of a race implies a guiding and impelling power; a Governor and Director, as well as a Creator and Preserver. And progress, not merely in material conditions, not merely in the exercise of bodily faculties, but in the exercise of mental faculties, in the intellectual condition of a portion of the species, still more implies a special position and character of the race, which cannot, without great license of hypothesis, be extended to other races; and which, if so extended, becomes unmeaning, from the impossibility of our knowing what is progress in any other species;—from what and towards what it tends. The intellectual progress of the human species has been a progress in the use of thought, and in the knowledge which such use procures; it has been a progress from mere matter to mind; from the impressions of sense to ideas; from what in knowledge is casual, partial, temporary, to what is necessary, universal, and eternal. We can conceive no progress, of the nature of this, which is not identical with this; nothing like it, which is not the same. And, therefore, if we will people other planets with creatures, intelligent as man is intelligent, we must not only give to them the intelligence, but the intellectual history of the human species. They must have had their minds unfolded by steps similar to those by which the human mind has been unfolded; or at least, differing from them only as the intellectual history of one nation of the earth differs from that of another. They must have had their Pythagoras, their Plato, their Kepler, their Galileo, their Newton, if they know what we know. And thus, in order to conceive, on the Moon or on Jupiter, a race of beings intelligent like man, we must conceive, there, colonies of men, with histories resembling more or less the histories of human colonies; and indeed resembling the history of those nations whose knowledge we inherit, far more closely than the history of any other terrestrial nation resembles that part of terrestrial history. If we do this, we exercise an act of invention and imagination which may be as coherent as a fairy tale, but which, without further proof, must be as purely imaginary and arbitrary. But if we do not do this, we cannot conceive that those regions are occupied at all by intelligent beings. Intelligence, as we see in the human race, in order to have those characters which concern our argument, implies a history of intellectual development; and to assume arbitrarily a history of intellectual development for the inhabitants of a remote planet, as a ground of reasoning either for or against Religion, is a proceeding which we can hardly be expected either to assent to or to refute. If we are to form any opinions with regard to the condition of such bodies, and to trace any bearing of such opinions upon our religious views, we must proceed upon some ground which has more of reality than such a gratuitous assumption.

      7. Thus the condition of man upon the earth, as a condition of intellectual progress, implies such a special guidance and government exercised over the race by the Author of his being, as produces progress; and we have not, so far as we yet perceive, any reason for supposing that He exercises a like guidance and government over any of the other bodies with which the researches of astronomers have made us acquainted. The earth and its inhabitants are under the care of God in a special manner; and we are utterly destitute of any reason for believing that other planets and other systems are under the care of God in the same manner. If we regarded merely the existence of unprogressive races of animals upon our globe, we might easily suppose that other globes also are similarly tenanted; and we might infer, that the Creator and Upholder of animal life was active on those globes, in the same manner as upon ours. But when we come to a progressive creature, whose condition implies a beginning, and therefore suggests an end, we form a peculiar judgment with respect to God's care of that creature,

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