It is the boast of the Darwinian systematizers that their development
theory not only harmonizes with, but admirably supplements and out-rounds
the grander speculation of Laplace, termed the "Nebular Hypothesis," which
regards the universe as having originally consisted of uniformly diffused
matter, filling all space, which subsequently became aggregated by
gravitation, much after the manner of Mr. Darwin's little whirligig, into
an infinite number of sun-systems, occupying inconceivably vast areas in
space. Of the correctness of this hypothesis it is unnecessary to speak.
It is to the Darwinian speculation what the infinite is to the
infinitessimal, and we only refer to it to bring out the vastness of the
conception as compared to the latter theory, and to predicate thereon the
more conclusive induction that an Infinite Intelligence directs and
superintends all.
In an area in the Milky-way not exceeding one-tenth of the moon's disc,
Mr. Herschel computes the number of stars at not less than twenty
thousand, with clusters of nebulae lying still beyond. As we know that no
bodies shining by reflected light could be visible at such enormous
distances, we are left to conclude that each of these twinkling points is
a sun, dispensing light and heat to probably as many planets as hold their
courses about the central orb in our own system. From the superior
magnitude of many of the stars, as compared with the sun, we may
reasonably infer that many of these vast sun-systems occupy a much larger
field in space than our own. This would give an area in space of not less
than six thousand millions of miles as the field occupied by each of these
sun-systems. And as the distance between each of these systems and its
nearest neighbor is probably not less than that of our sun from the
nearest star, we have the enormous and inconceivable distance of not less
than nineteen billions of miles separating each one of these twenty
thousand stars or sun-systems, occupying a space in the heavens apparently
no bigger than a man's hand. And yet Infinity, as we apprehend the term,
lies beyond this vast cluster of constellated worlds! Where is Mr.
Darwin's little whirligig in the comparison, or Mr. Emerson's vegetal
stomach, or Mr. Herbert Spencer's "potential factors," to express the
sum-total of all this totality,--this gigantic assemblage of stars
clustered about a single point in the Milky-way? The human mind absolutely
reels--staggers bewildered and amazed--under the load of conceptions
imposed by these few twinkling stars, and is ready to exclaim,--
"Oh, star-eyed Science, hast thou wandered there,
To waft us back a message of despair?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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