An original theory or new hypothesis of the universe /

Of Time and Space, with regard to the known Objects of Immensity and Duration.

SIR,

The Opportunity you gave me in your last Visit, of shewing you my general Scheme of the Universe, I find, besides the Pleasure it then gave, is now attended with many useful Advantages.

I now not only hope to be better understood for the future, but have reason to expect what I now write will merit your Attention more, and have some Title to your Approbation. The Ideas I have fram'd of Time and Space, will now more gradually fill your Imagination both with Wonder and Delight, before they can arise so high as to be lost in an Eternity and the Infinity of Space. And I am fully perswaded your farther Inquiries into these vast Properties of the Deity, will here be answered intirely to your Satisfaction. You must allow me now to be in some measure a Judge of what I think will please you most, from the Observations you have made upon my general System, or otherwise you would have reason to think me perhaps too presuming: But I flatter myself the great Difficulty is now over; and what remains to be said, will all so naturally follow from what has gone before, that this Letter, I guess, will go near to furnish you with all the Ideas you wish to form upon the Subject. To what you have said of my having left out my own Habitation in my Scheme of the Universe, having travell'd so far into Infinity as both to lose sight of, and forget the Earth, I think I may justly answer as Aristotle did when Alexander, looking over a Map of the World, enquir'd of him for the City of Macedon; 'tis said the Philosopher told the Prince, That the Place he sought for was much too small to be there taken Notice of, and was not without sufficient Reason omitted.

The System of the Sun compar'd but with a very minute Part of the visible Creation, takes up so small a Portion of the known Universe, that in a very finite View of the Immensity of Space, I judg'd the Seat of the Earth to be of very little Consequence, could I have possibly represented it, as not only being one of the smallest Objects in our Regions, but in a manner infinitely less than even her own annual Orbit, and had nothing to do with my main Design, which was to represent all our planetary Worlds as one collective Body, and begin my comparative Scale of Magnitude from the Sun only and his Sphere of activity; as the smallest Object I could with any Propriety pretend to express in such a Plan.

In some Measure to convince you that I have committed no Error in this, I will try by some less mathematical Method than that of meer Numbers, to imprint an Idea in your Mind of the true Extent of the solar System, and the Magnitude of all its moving Bodies, by natural Objects most familiar to your Senses. When we endeavour to form any Idea of Distance, Magnitude, or Duration, by Numbers only, we so soon exceed the Limits of Conception, that this way we find our Faculties of reasoning as finite as our Senses; and no doubt 'tis right it should be so, Providence, as it were, having ordain'd that the first should only attend the last, in such an adequate Degree to a determin'd Distance; but what Distance or Degree of Knowledge is destin'd to human Nature, none but the Power that gave it can tell. 'Tis certain that beyond the third or fourth Place of our Nomenclator, we receive but very faint Impressions of the thing exprest, and can frame scarce any Notion at all of either Number, Distance, or Magnitude, signified beyond it: Hence Astronomers are frequently oblig'd to have recourse to mixt Ideas, and make Things of different Natures and Properties assist each other, to excite more adequate Ideas of what they would have conceived. Thus to express immense Distances and Magnitude, they frequently apply themselves to Time and Motion; and vice versa, to signify a long Duration, they have often recourse to Distance and Matter, removing, in Imagination, Worlds of Sand, Grain after Grain, to some remote known Region.

Hesiod,[AQ] to express his Idea of the Distance from his highest Heaven to Earth, and from Earth to Hell, or Tartarus, supposes an Anvil to be let fall from one to the other, which he says in nine natural Days would reach the Earth from Heaven, and in the same time would fall from the Earth to Hell. [AR]Homer makes his Vulcan fall from Heaven to the Island of Lemnos in much less Time, not exceeding one full artificial Day.

Modern Astronomers have made use of the swiftest Velocity of a Cannon-Ball as continued thro' the Space they would so describe, and in this Light, the Distance to the Sun has been by many compar'd to twenty-five Years Motion of a Cannon-Ball, supposing it to travel at the Rate of 100 Fathom in a Moment, i. e. the Pulse of an Artery; and that a Journey so performed to one of the nearest fix'd Stars, would take the same Body at least 100,000 Years before it could arrive there. But the Method I have chose to convey my Ideas of the Magnitude of the planetary Bodies, and the Extent of the visible Creation to you, I am willing to hope you will find still more familiar, comprehensive, and easy: And it only depends upon your Remembrance of a very few known Objects, and their neighbouring Distances, which may be presumed you are, or have been, very well acquainted with. You have not only very lately but very often been in London, and must, I think, retain some Idea of the Dome of St. Paul's, tho' I own I ought not to be sorry if you should chance to have forgot it, provided it might prove a Means of making your Visits more frequent. The Diameter of the Dome of this Church is 145 Feet: Now if you can imagine this to represent the Surface of the Sun, a spherical Body 18 Inches diameter, will justly represent the Earth in like Proportion; and another of only five Inches diameter, will represent the Moon. The Truths of these Proportions I have shewn in my Clavis Cœlestis; and the Reason why I have here fixt upon the Dome of this Church for my first Object of Comparison, will naturally appear from what follows.

From the Magnitude of the Earth on which we live, as from a known Scale with respect to its Parts compar'd with our own Bodies, we naturally frame our first Ideas of Extent, and fix our Rationale of Remoteness; by which we are sufficiently enabled to judge of all other sensible Distances within one finite View. And hence by the undoubted Principles of Geometry, having first given the Measurement of the Earth in any known Proportion with any other Quantity most familiar to our Senses, and the Angle of Appearance, or Parallax to any perceivable Object, we can easily find in homogenial Parts its true Distance from the Eye. And thus allowing for some small tho' unavoidable Errors, that may possibly arise from the Difficulties of Observation (especially small Angles and minute Quantities) we can always determine to a sufficient, and very frequently to a just Exactness, the relative Distance of all visible Bodies, remote or near, such as the Planets, Comets, and the Sun.

[AS]In this Manner Astronomers having procur'd a comparative Standard, reduc'd to some known Measure, as English Miles, Leagues, Semi-Orbs or Orbits, with all the Force of analogical Reasoning, clearly can demonstrate the Place and Distance of any Object within the Reach of Observation, and judge of Distances almost indefinite.

PLATE XXX.

Will help you to very correct Ideas of the real Magnitude of the Globe of the Earth, compar'd with the just Extent of the Island of Great-Britain, which you will find with Ireland, and the rest of its Islands, seated near the Center of the Projection. This as a Standard will enable you to judge of all other Distances more perfectly; and first I shall consider that of the Sun.

The Sun is found to be mean distant from the Earth nearly 81 Millions of Miles, or 6877,5 Diameters of the Earth; and Saturn, the remotest Planet from him is at his greatest Distance from us about 858 Millions of Miles: Yet these Distances are but the beginning of Space, and only serve to open our Ideas for farther Search.

The great Comet of 1680, as I have some where said before, was found to move in so vast an excentrick Orbit, that in its aphelion Point it would be 14,4 Times as far from the Sun, as the Orbit of Saturn, and hence at least eleven thousand and two hundred Millions of Miles from us. Now since the wise Creator hath so dispos'd all the independent Parts of the Creation, such as the several Systems of primary and secondary Planets, &c. at so great a Distance from each other, that the Laws of any one in no wise shall interfere, disturb, or interrupt the Principles of another; this Comet, which we can easily prove belong'd to our own Sun, we may well imagine came not near any other; and tho' at that vast Distance from the solar Body, yet still there must have remain'd a Space sufficient to divide or seperate the sensible activity of neighbouring Systems, that they may not rush upon each other. Hence we may reasonably suppose, that the nearest Star can be no nearer than a triple Radius of its active Sphere; and provided they are all in regular Order, and much of the same Magnitude with one another (which no Arguments can possibly contradict) this Radius we may justly make 2000 times the Distance of our Earth. For admitting the utmost Limits of the Sun's Attraction to exceed this Sphere of the Comets, as far as the Sphere of the Comets exceeds that of the Planets, which is nearly 14,4 times, the Radius of the solar System will be extended every way 200 Radius's of the Orbit of Saturn, and consequently the Distance from Star to Star will not be less than 6000 times the Radius of our Orbis Magnus, and consequently upwards of 480,000,000,000 Miles. That this is even less than the real Truth, and may be defended as a very moderate Computation, grounded upon Reason, we have infallible Demonstration to witness, and make appear as thus.

We know from the Nature of Distance and Motion that the Stars may have an annual Parallax, but it is so very small, that the very best Astronomers have never yet been able to assign what the Quantity really is. Yet it is allow'd by universal Consent, that it can't possibly be more that one Minute of a Degree, and may probably be much less. Mr. Flamstead, by repeated Observations, made it in some of them upwards of 40″; but Mr. Bradley has endeavour'd to prove it is every where too small to be determined, and assigns this Angle to another Cause. This way then we cannot make their Distance less; and to prove that it is something more than I have said it is, let us even increase the doubtful Parallax of 40″ to the most it possibly can be, viz. to 60″ or 1′; and by the Solution of the Triangle, we shall find that the nearest Star is 6875 times the Radius of the Earth's Orbit from the Sun: And this tho' more than any other Proportion makes them, is still undeniably less than the Truth, which every Mathematician will of course be convinc'd of; and you yourself of force must believe, when you are told, that the smaller the Angle of Parallax is, the farther the Body is remov'd from us. By which Rule, according to Mr. Flamstead's Observations, the Distance must be still greater: By the optical Experiment of [AT]Mr. Huygins, greater still than this; and according to Mr. Bradley, so much more as not even too be determin'd.

Now if the rest are in general from each other, allowing the same Extent of System, and as much to part the like Extreams of active Virtue, be in such Proportion of aerial Space, it will appear, that to pass from any one Star to another, we must fly thro' so vast a Tract of pure Expanse or Ether, that to visit any one of the most neighbouring Systems, could we travel even as fast as the swiftest Eagle flies, for Instance, 500 Miles per Day, yet should we be 3,000,000 of Years upon our way before we could arrive there; and if continuing on to view the Regions of the rest within the known Creation, Myriads of Ages would be spent, and yet we could not hope to see the whole of but the smallest Constellation.

But what Idea of Distance can you receive from this sort of Estimation, where Numbers arise so very high. I own to you mine are soon quite lost by this Method of counting, either, Distances or Duration. I believe few People can range their Ideas with such Perspicuity, as to arrive at any adequate Notion of any Number above a thousand.

To give you therefore a clearer Idea of Distance, and impress the Proportions of Space more strongly and fully in your Mind, let us suppose the Body of the Sun, as I have said before, to be represented by the Dome of St. Paul's; in such Proportion a spherical Body eighteen Inches Diameter, moving at Mary-le-bone, will justly represent the Earth, and another of five Inches Diameter, describing a Circle of forty-five Feet and a half Radius round it, will represent the Orbit and Globe of the Moon. A Body at the Tower of 9,7 Inches, will represent Mercury; and one of 17,9 Inches at St. James's Palace will represent the Planet Venus; Mars may be supposed at a Distance, like that of Kensington or Greenwich, 10 Inches Diameter: Jupiter, imagined to be at Hampton-Court, or Dartford in Kent; and Saturn, at Cliefden, or near Chelmsford: The first represented by a Globe 15 Foot 4 Inches Diameter, the latter by one of 11 Feet ¾ Inches and his Ring four Feet broad: These would all naturally represent the planetary Bodies of our System in their proper Orbits and proportional Magnitudes, as moving round the Cupola of St. Paul's, as their common Center the Sun. And preserving the same natural Scale, the Aphelion of the first Comet would be about Bury, the second at Bristol, and the third near the City of Edinburgh. But if you will take into your Idea one of the nearest Stars; instead of the Dome of St. Paul's, you must suppose the Sun to be represented by the gilt Ball upon the Top of it, and then will another such upon the Top of St. Peter's at Rome represent one of the nearest Stars.

The whole System exhibited in the above Proportion, would be nearly as follows:

That of the most distant Comet 390, and the nearest of the Stars not less than 6875,[AV] Radius's of the Orbis Magnus.

Now, if like Creations crowd the vast Depths of Infinity, and if each are adapted to receive Beings of different Natures, where must our Wonder and Ideas have end?

As it is evident in the Sign Taurus, in Perseus, and Orion, that we can plainly perceive Stars to the sixth and ninth Magnitude, the former with our naked Eye, the other by the Help of Telescopes, the visional ocular Creation cannot be less than 4,320,000,000,000 Miles in semi Diameter, and admitting a regular Distribution of those primordial Bodies amongst themselves, the Depth, or most remote Limits of the Vortex Magnus from Side to Side, cannot be less than 8 m, m, 640 thousand of Million of Miles, admitting it is no more than what we see; and lastly, supposing our System to be situated nearly in the Middle of the Vortex Magnus (which, from the visible Order of the Stars, we may justly conjecture, with the highest Probability of Truth) the nearest Distance of the Ens Primum, in the Realms of eternal Day, will rise to 30,000,000,000,000 Miles, but more probably to 100,000,000,000,000 Miles, making the Confines of Creation from Verge to Verge in the first Case, upwards of 68 Million of Millions of Miles, Diameter, and by the last above 200′. But, if we compute the Distance of the Stars after the Manner of Huygens, for his Distance of Syrius from the Sun, the Distance of the Region of Immortality without exceeding Probability may rise to near 1,000,000,000,000,000 Miles.

Now to pass by any progressive Motion from the outward Verge, or Borders of the Creation, thro' the starry Regions of Mortality, if I may call them so, as far as the Center of the Ens Primum, or Sedes Beatorum, according to Homer, or Milton's Manner of measuring Space, a Body falling, or a Being moving with a Velocity but of 1000 Feet per Minute, i. e. at the Rate of 20,000 Yards per Hour, or about 300 Miles per Day, would be at least 300,000,000 Years upon its Journey thither, if not 1,000, m, and perhaps much more, without offending Probability; but even three Million Centuries, or Ages, sure is enough to be employ'd, in passing from one Place to another; therefore, we may conclude, the Soul must have some other Vehicle than can be found in the Ideas of Matter to convey it so far, at least at once. Hence we may truly infer, that the Soul must be immaterial, and that in all Probability there may be States in the Universe so much more longer lived than ours, that, compared with the Age of Man, the Age of such Beings may be almost as an Eternity, or rather, as that of the human Species to that of a Sun-born Insect.

Again, if there are still Stars beyond all these of other Denomination, which we do not here perceive, how vastly must these Numbers be increased, to express, almost without Idea, the amazing Whole of this one visible Creation; but what has been already said, I judge will be sufficient to show the Immensity of Space, and help you to conceive the stupendious Nature of an endless Universe; every where the home Possession, Production, and instantaneous Care, of an infinite good Being, perfectly wise, and powerful, of whom we can have no Idea more, than a Being in dark Privation can have of Light, but through the Lustre of his own resplendent Attributes.

Thus, having attempted to enlarge your Ideas of the Creation in general, and in some measure having considered the Indefinity of Space, I shall in the next Place proceed to give you some Account of my Notions of Time.

As Distance is the Measure of Magnitude and of all Extent, and helps our Imagination to the Ideas of Space, so are progressive Moments the Measure of Velocity, and makes us sensible of Duration: And as Space may be extended through all Infinity, so Time may be continued as to Eternity. This Succession of temporal Ideas impressed, or excited in the Mind, as an Effect of Matter in Motion, producing a perpetual Change, both of Objects earthly and celestial, enables us not only to reflect upon past Vicissitudes of Nature, but from their regular Courses, known Order and Returns, predict Phænomena to come, and prove the periodical Effects of Nature's constant Laws so just and certain, that Time may be said with Truth, to co-exist with Motion.

Measure being a certain Quantity of Sensation interwove with our Ideas of Distance and Duration, proceeding from a Reflection of what is impressed upon the Mind by some external Object, I must again return to our Mother of Ideas the Earth, and from thence, as I did, of Distance, frame the original Images best suited to the Understanding, proper for our Judgment of Duration.

Time takes its first Denomination from the diurnal Rotation of the Earth upon its Axis, which we call a natural Day, and this for obvious Reasons we subdivide in twenty-four Parts or Hours. This diurnal Motion having been successively repeated, and the Day renewed three hundred and sixty-five Times, we find that all the vegetable World has gone through all its Variegations, and Nature has again put on the same Face, adapted to the Season; during which Time, and indeed which occasions this general Change and Repetition, the Earth is found to make one intire Revolution round the Sun. This Space, or Period of Time, we call a solar, or rather a natural Year; and from our Sensibility of this, and its constituent Parts, both horary and diurnal, we form our general Judgment of Duration.

Saturn, the most remote, and most regular Planet in our System, as has been said before, performs one Revolution round the Sun in about twenty-nine of the above solar Years: The great Comet of 1680 makes but one periodical Return in five hundred and seventy-five of those Years, and the general Motion of the Stars, arising from the Procession of the Equinoxes, altogether continually changing their Aspect, or Position, at the Rate of 50″ per Year round the ecliptic Poles, compleats but one Revolution in 25920 Years; in which Time the whole sidereal Frame of Heaven has changed, and every Star returned to the same Point of the solar Sphere it set out from. This is by many called the great Saturnian Year: Concerning which, Mr. Addison has thus translated an eminent Author.

Now, if this sidereal Revolution, arising from a secondary Cause, require this Number of Years to perfect one Rotation, what must their primitive Orbits take to circumscribe the Vortex Magnus.

It has been observed, that the biggest Star to us scarce moves a Minute in an hundred Years, and the most remote as insensibly for Ages, from whence and what has been already said of the imagined Distance of the general Center, we may frame this probable and well-grounded Guess, that the mean Revolution of a Star near the Middle of the Vortex Magnus, cannot be made in less than a Million of Years, and though to us imperceptible, our Sun in his own orbicular Direction, may be moving many Miles per Day. Besides, if local Motion can be proved amongst the Stars, what less than an Eternity can again restore them to their original Order and primitive State. Such vast Room in Nature, as Milton finely expresses it, cannot be without its Use; and nothing but absolute Demonstration is wanting (which from their Nature and Distance cannot be expected) to confirm the grand Design, so suited to the Deity's infinite Capacity, and of eternal Benefit to all his Creatures, especially Beings of a rational Sense, and in particular Mankind.

Of these habitable Worlds, such as the Earth, all which we may suppose to be also of a terrestrial or terraqueous Nature, and filled with Beings of the human Species, subject to Mortality, it may not be amiss in this Place to compute how many may be conceived within our finite View every clear Star-light Night. It has already been made appear, that there cannot possibly be less than 10,000,000 Suns, or Stars, within the Radius of the visible Creation; and admitting them all to have each but an equal Number of primary Planets moving round them, it follows that there must be within the whole celestial Area 60,000,000 planetary Worlds like ours. And if to these we add those of the secondary Class, such as the Moon, which we may naturally suppose to attend particular primary ones, and every System more or less of them as well as here; such Satellites may amount in the Whole perhaps to 100,000,000, or more, in all together then we may safely reckon 170,000,000, and yet be much within Compass, exclusive of the Comets which I judge to be by far the most numerous Part of the Creation.

In this great Celestial Creation, the Catastrophy of a World, such as ours, or even the total Dissolution of a System of Worlds, may possibly be no more to the great Author of Nature, than the most common Accident in Life with us, and in all Probability such final and general Doom-Days may be as frequent there, as even Birth-Days, or Mortality with us upon the Earth.

This Idea has something so chearful in it, that I own I can never look upon the Stars without wondering why the whole World does not become Astronomers; and that Men endowed with Sense and Reason, should neglect a Science they are naturally so much interested in, and so capable of inlarging the Understanding, as next to a Demonstration, must convince them of their Immortality, and reconcile them to all those little Difficulties incident to human Nature, without the least Anxiety.

Such a Prothesis can scarce be called less than an ocular Revelation, not only shewing us how reasonable it is to expect a future Life, but as it were, pointing out to us the Business of an Eternity, and what we may with the greatest Confidence expect from the eternal Providence, dignifying our Natures with something analogous to the Knowledge we attribute to Angels; from whence we ought to despise all the Vicissitudes of adverse Fortune, which make so many narrow-minded Mortals miserable.

I am now, &c.