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Dreams of an astronomer

John Stuart Mill · en
Have you ever brought a bit of iron near a freely suspended magnetic
needle? What a marvellous spectacle is offered by the mobility, the
oscillations, the mad rushes of the needle under the influence of an
object apparently inert which acts upon it at a distance. We observe
a compass needle at the bottom of an hermetically sealed vessel: a
regiment passes on a neighbouring road and the needle becomes agitated,
influenced at a distance by the steel bayonets. An aurora borealis
appears in Sweden, the compass feels it in Paris; nay, we have seen
above that the fluctuations of the magnetic needle are in relation with
the spots and eruptions on the Sun. The new physics is the proclamation
of the invisible universe.

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It is under this aspect which it appeared to me interesting here to
contemplate the visible universe, inviting to this contemplation those
among my readers who wish sometimes to think of profounder truths.
Stars and atoms bring us face to face with an immense symphony. Those
who only see the orchestra without hearing anything are the deaf.
Behind the visible world, our minds must feel the presence of the
invisible world upon which we are based. All that we see is appearance:
the real is the invisible, the force, the energy, which moves all and
carries all through infinity and eternity.

And indeed we are really in the infinite and the eternal. The little
star of which we spoke before, an enormous sun a million times the size
of the Earth moves at such a distance that the fastest express train
would take at least 325 million years to reach it. Yet it is one of our
neighbouring stars. One can go still farther and farther and proceed
with any speed through any number of centuries in any direction of
space without ever coming to an end, without ever advancing a single
pace, since the centre is everywhere, the circumference is nowhere, and
eternity itself does not suffice to vanquish infinity.


[Footnote 2: This star is called “No. 1830 Groombridge.”]




                         X. ARE OTHER PLANETS
                              INHABITED?




                               CHAPTER X

                     ARE OTHER PLANETS INHABITED?