Of the Order, Distance, and Multiplicity of the Stars, the Via Lactea, and Extent of the visible Creation.

SIR,

WE are told, and, if I remember right, it is also your Opinion, that three of the finest Sights in Nature, are a rising Sun at Sea, a verdant Landskip with a Rainbow, and a clear Star-light Evening: All of which I have myself often observed with vast Delight and Pleasure. The first I have frequently beheld, and always with an agreeable Surprize; the second I have as often taken notice of, with no small Degree of Admiration; but the last I shall never look up to without an Astonishment, even mixed with a kind of Rapture. The Night you last left us, this admirable Scene was in its full Beauty; and, as Milton says,

I found it was impossible to look long upon this stupendious Scene, so full of amazing Objects, and particularly the Via Lactea, which (the Moon being absent) was then in great Perfection, without being put in Mind of my Task. This surprizing Zone of Light being the chief Object I have undertaken to treat of and demonstrate.

This amazing Phænomenon which have been the Occasion of so many Fables, idle Romances, and ridiculous Opinions amongst the Antients, still continues to be unaccounted for, and even in an Age vain enough to boast Astronomy in its utmost Perfection.

What will you say, if I tell you, it is my Belief we are so far from the real Summit of the Science, that we scarce yet know the Rudiments of what may be expected from it. This luminous Circle has often engrossed my Thoughts, and of late has taken up all my idle Hours; and I am now in great Hopes I have not only at last found out the real Cause of it, but also by the same Hypothesis, which solves this Appearance, shall be able to demonstrate a much more rational Theory of the Creation than hitherto has been any where advanced, and at the same Time give you an intire new Idea of the Universe, or infinite System of Things. This most surprizing Zone of Light, which have employed successively for many Ages past, the wisest Heads amongst the Antients, to no other Purpose than barely to describe it; we find to be a perfect Circle, and nearly bisecting the celestial Sphere, but very irregular in Breadth and Brightness, and in many Places divided into double Streams.

[U]The principal Part of it runs through the Eagle, the Swan, Cassiopea, Perseus, and Auriga, and continues its Course by the Head of Monoceros, along by the greater Dog through the Ship, and underneath the Centaur's Feet, till having passed the Alter, the Scorpion's Tail, and the Bow of Aquarius, it ends at last where it begun.

PLATE XII, and XIII.

Represents the two Hemispheres, where its true Tract is distinguished amongst the principal Stars, and may easily be conceived by them to circumscribe and bisect the whole Heavens.

This is that Phænomena I am about to explain and account for; but before I proceed farther, I judge it will be no improper Precognita, to give you the Thoughts of the Antients upon it; the Relation perhaps may require some Patience; but I guess, that after reading such wild and extravagant Notions concerning it, you will naturally judge more favourably of the Conjectures of the Moderns upon it, and particularly of what is concluded in the succeeding Pages.

Theophrastus[V] was of Opinion, that the Hemispheres, which, by many of the Antients were imagined to be solid, was joined together here; and that this was the soldering of the two Parts into one. [W]Diodorus thought it celestial Fire, of a dense and compact Nature, seen through the Clifts or Cracks of the parting Hemisphere: But as Manilius says,

Oenopides[X] believed it the ancient Way of the Sun, till frighted at the bloody Banquet of Thyestis. [Y]Eratosthenes supposed it Juno's Milk, spilt whilst giving Suck to Hercules. [Z]Plutarch makes it the Effect of Phaeton's confused Erratication; but I think it is plain [AA]Ovid judged them to be Stars, and the ancient Ethnicks believed them to be the blissful Seats of valiant and heroic Souls.

But [AB]Democritus long ago believed them to be an infinite Number of small Stars; and such of late Years they have been discovered to be, first by Gallaleo, next by Keplar, and now confirmed by all modern Astronomers, who have ever had an Opportunity of seeing them through a good Telescope.

PLATE XIV.

Is from an Observation I made myself, of a bright Part of this Zone near the Feet of Antinous; which, (by a Mistake of the Engraver) is, as it appears through a Tube of two convex Glasses. I saw it through a very good Reflector, and formed the Plan by a Combination of Triangles.

Milton takes notice of this Zone in a most beautiful Manner, where he describes the Creator's Return from his six Day's Work to Heaven, he introduces it as a Simile to express his Idea of the eternal Way, or Road to the celestial Mansions.

But to infer from their Appearance only, that they are really Stars, without considering their Nature and Distance; and that nothing but Stars could possibly produce such an Effect, may perhaps be assuming too much, when we have nothing but the bare Credit of the Belgic Glasses to support our Conjectures; and although this may be sufficient for any Mathematician, yet for your greater Satisfaction, I have thought proper to give two or three more evincing Arguments, to confirm these important Discoveries. Democritus, as I have said before, believed them to be Stars long before Astronomy reaped any Benefit from the improved Sciences of Optics; and saw, as we may say, through the Eye of Reason, full as far into Infinity as the most able Astronomers in more advantageous Times have done since, even assisted with their best Glasses: And his Conjectures are almost as old as the philolaic System of the Planets itself; the Construction of which, though attempted by many, none have ever yet been able to confute.

The Light which naturally flows from this Crowd of radiant Bodies is mixt and confused, chiefly occasioned by the Agitation of our Atmosphere, and from a Union of their Rays of Light, by a too near Proximity of their Beams, altogether they appear like a River of Milk, but more of a pelucid Nature, running all round the starry Regions.

There are also many more such luminous Spaces to be found in the Heavens of the same Nature with these, which we know to be Stars; in particular the Nebulæ, or cloudy Star in the Præsepe of 36; a cloudy Star in Orion of 21; [AC]a cloudy [AD]Knot not far from this in the same Asterism of 80; in one Degree of the same Constellation 500, and in the whole Form above [AE]2000. All of which are great Confirmations of the Truth of our Assertion, i. e. that this Zone of Light proceeds from an infinite Number of small Stars. Here it will not be amiss to observe, that it has been conjectured, and is strongly suspected, that a proper Number of Rays, meeting from different Directions, become Flame; and that hence it may prove not the Sun's real Body which we daily see, but only his inflamed Atmosphere. I begin to be of Opinion, and I think not without Reason, that the true Magnitude of the Sun is not near what the modern Astronomers have made it; and that it may not possibly be much above two Thirds of what it appears to us; I don't mean that this Expansion of the solar Flame is any Part of that dilated Light mentioned by Sir Isaac Newton, and conceived to be round all light Bodies in general; but you may consider it as not much differing from it, not of an unlike Nature, only greater in Degree, and peculiar to the Sun and Stars, who are all, as has been before in a manner demonstrated to be actually Globes of Fire.

This, tho' I presume to call it at present only meer Hypothesis, will in a great measure account for the excessive Changes in the Constitution of our Air and Atmosphere, which we often find very unnatural to the Season; also be a Means perhaps of reconciling the vast Disproportion so very remarkable betwixt the Sun and the lesser Planets, and many other Circumstances in the System of no small Consequence in Astronomy: One of which Particulars you have frequently expressed a great Mistrust and Disapprobation of, as suspecting some kind of a Fallacy in the Computation; and the other is Matter of general Complaint, being by many attributed to a Change in the Direction of the Earth's Axis[AF]; and by some, especially the Vulgar, to too near an Approximation of the Earth to some one of the celestial Bodies. But all this will very naturally be accounted for by the Levity, or expanding Quality of the Sun's circumambient Flame, or Atmosphere; and hence, according to its various State, being more condensed, or rare, we may have Heat or Cold in the greatest Extream, and alternately so, in a perpetual Vicissitude.

The Truth of this Doctrine will evidently appear from the Observations of the Sun's Diameter through the Year 1660, by the indefatigable Mouton: And, I must own, I am not a little surprized to find that no Conclusions have been drawn from them of this Kind. I am perswaded, if you once compare those Numbers, you will be very far from thinking this an improbable Suggestion. But this Digression has led me a little too far from the Via Lactea, and too near home again; I must now think of returning to the Stars, and my next Endeavours must be to give you some Idea of the Number of them. Through very good Telescopes there have been discovered in many Parts of this enlightened Space, and even out of it, several thousand Stars in the Compass of one square Degree; in particular near the Sword of Perseus, and in the Constellations of [AG]Taurus and Orion.

PLATE XV.

Represents the Pleides, a well known Knot of Stars in the Sign Taurus, as they appeared to me thro' a one Foot reflecting Telescope: And Plate XVI. is a View of the Persides, another surprizing Knot of Stars in the Constellation Perseus, exactly as they appear through a Tube of two convex Glasses. There are also other luminous Spaces in the starry Regions, not unlike the Milky Way, which I have had no Opportunity of observing; such as the Nebeculæ, near the South Pole, called by the Seamen Magellanic Clouds; and which likewise viewed through Telescopes, present us with little Nebulæ, and small Stars interspersed: One of these Kind is situated between Hydrus and Dorado; and another, something less than this, betwixt Hydrus and the Toucan.

Now admitting the Breadth of the Via Lactea to be at a Mean but nine Degrees, and supposing only twelve hundred Stars in every square Degree, there will be nearly in the whole orbicular Area 3,888,000 Stars, and all these in a very minute Portion of the great Expanse of Heaven. What! a vast Idea of endless Beings must this produce and generate in our Minds; and when we consider them all as flaming Suns, Progenitors, and Primum Mobiles of a still much greater Number of peopled Worlds, what less than an Infinity can circumscribe them, less than an Eternity comprehend them, or less than Omnipotence produce and support them, and where can our Wonder cease?

In this Place perhaps I ought not to pass over the astonishing Phenomenon of several new Stars, &c. which have frequently appeared, and soon again vanished, in the same Point of the Heavens. But as the Business of this Theory is rather to solve the general, than any particular Phænomenon, I shall only here by way of Note subjoin a Table of such as has been regularly observed, and by whom they were first discovered.

A Table of several new Stars, Nebulæ, and double Stars, &c.

I would now willingly help you to conceive the indefinite mutual Distance of the Stars, in order to give you some small Notion of the Immensity of Space; but as this will be a Task merely conjectural, I shall only desire you to believe it as far as your Reason will carry you, safely supported by an obvious Probability.

Perhaps it may be necessary here to acquaint you, that all the Stars are so far apparently of different Magnitudes, that no two of them are to be found in the whole Heavens exactly the same, either in Bigness or Brightness[AH]. The largest we have sufficient Reason to believe is the nearest to us; the next in Bigness and Brightness more remote; and so on to the least we see, which we judge to be the most remote of all.

The first Degree, or that of the largest Magnitude, we give to Syrius, the second to Arcturus, the third to Aldebaran, the fourth to Lyra, the fifth to Capella, the sixth to Regulus, the seventh to Rigel, the eighth to Fomahaunt, and the ninth to Antarus: These are all said to be of the first Class; and besides which, there are at least, within the Reach of our latest improved Opticks, nine more Denominations within the Radius of the visible Creation.

Now, by the certain Return of the Comets, which we find are all governed by the Laws of this System, and supposed to be undisturbed by any of the others, we cannot avoid concluding, if we consider them at all to the Purpose, that the nearest Stars cannot be less distant than twice the Radius of the greatest Orbit belonging to the Sun. Most Mathematicians think this a great deal too near, as it must of course make all the Systems join, as in Contact; and I think we may safely add, to separate their Spheres of Attraction, at least one Half of this Distance more, which will make in the Whole about four hundred and twenty Semi-orbits of the Earth, or 33,600,000,000 Miles. This even the ingenious Mr. Huygins endeavours to prove still much too little, and his Arguments are such as cannot easily be refuted. His Principle is grounded upon the known Laws of Analogy, as considered in the Proportion of light Surfaces, and is as follows. Having reduced the Sun's Disk to the Appearance of the Star Syrius, by the Help of a small Hole at the End of his Telescope, and comparing this Part of his Surface to the whole Disk of the Sun, he infers that the Stars Distance to that of the Sun must be as 27,664 to 1. Hence Syrius from us will be nearly (avoiding Units) 2,213,120,000,000 Miles: But this I take to be as much too large as the former is too little; yet, as Mr. Bradley has, with some Shew of Reason, banished all the Stars out of the Sphere of Parallax, the last is the only Method we can possibly make use of with any kind of Confidence; and Sir Isaac Newton endeavours to recommend it with great Force of Argument, as the only probable Means by which we can give any tolerable Guess at these immense Measurements of Space.

To moderate the Matter then if you please, allow me but to make use of a Mean betwixt the two fore-mentioned Numbers; and we may take it for granted, a Distance sufficiently exact, to suit all our Wants in the present Case, namely, to give a very tolerable Idea of the Extent of the visible Creation, which is all I propose in this Place to attempt; but I mean to be much more exact in another.

Now as the Distance from the Sun to the Earth is so small in Proportion to the Distance of the Stars from us, and from one another, we may very well consider the Sun as the Center of our Station, or Position in the general System or Frame of Nature. And as the Stars are very visible thro' good Telescopes, to the ninth or tenth Magnitude, if we multiply the primary Distance of Syrius, or of any other of his Class, by this Number of common intermediate Spaces, the Product will be equal to the Radius of the visible Creation to the solar Eye; which, by this Rule, you will find in capital Numbers to be [AI]nearly 6,000,000,000,000 Miles, taking in a Star of the sixth Magnitude, and to a Star of the ninth, 9,000,000,000,000 Miles: But this Computation supposes a mean common Distance of the Stars in a sort of Syzygia, or Direction of a Right Line, which is not the real Case; for the Stars cannot be supposed to diminish in a proportional Magnitude by any mathematical Ratio, but by some geometrical, or rather musical one; for Instance, if the Distance of a first be 3, that of a second should be about 5, and of a proportional Third 8,333, &c. ad infinitum: But as their true proportional Distance is unknown, the above will be sufficient for our present Purpose; which is only to shew, without Exaggeration, the Space we now are truly sensible of.

This I have here considered more extensively, to obviate all Objections that you may make to the Probability of the general Motion of the Stars, by shewing no Difficulty can possibly arise from their apparent Proximity, Number, or irregular Distribution: Their Distances being so immensely large, no Disorder or Confusion can be supposed in any Direction of them, or Motion whatever. The greatest Distance of the Planets, which all move undisturbed round the Sun, is about three hundred and fifty-three Million of Miles: But the least Distance of one Star from another, is upwards of two thousand eight hundred and thirty-two Times that Distance, or one Million of Millions of Miles: And as no sensible Disorder can be observed amongst the solar Planets, what Reason have we to suppose any can be occasioned amongst the Stars, or that a general Motion of these primary Luminaries round a common Center, should be any way irrational, or unnatural?

What an amazing Scene does this display to us! what inconceivable Vastness and Magnificence of Power does such a Frame unfold! Suns crowding upon Suns, to our weak Sense, indefinitely distant from each other; and Miriads of Miriads of Mansions, like our own, peopling Infinity, all subject to the same Creator's Will; a Universe of Worlds, all deck'd with Mountains, Lakes, and Seas, Herbs, Animals, and Rivers, Rocks, Caves, and Trees; and all the Produce of indulgent Wisdom, to chear Infinity with endless Beings, to whom his Omnipotence may give a variegated eternal Life.

The astonishing Distance of the starry Mansions undoubtedly was design'd to answer some wise End: One Consequence is this, and probably is not without its Use: To every Planet of the same System, the same sidereal Face of Heaven appears without the least Degree of Change; and as the remotest Regions upon Earth see the same Moon and Planets, so also the Inhabitants of the most distant Planets in ours, or in any other System, see the same Forms and Order of the Stars in common with the rest. The whole Sphere of Heaven being common and unchangeable through all their various Revolutions.

Thus those (the People) in the Planet Venus will see the Constellation of Orion just as we do, and the People in the Planet Saturn, much farther still removed, alike will view this Constellation in all respects the same; here then, (in the System of the Sun) the Eye removed from us must only hope to find a new Earth surrounded with the same sort of Sky: But Beings in another System, behold not only a new Heaven above, but also new Earths below; and all the Frame of Nature to them puts on a new Dress, new Signs, new Seasons, and new Planets roll, and a new Sun renews the Day.

The Heathen Fables here are all erased with all the Immortality of their vain earthly Gods and Heroes; Perseus and Alcides are no more, and both the Bears are vanished; the Pleiades and the Hyads join, and shining Leo, though boasting two Stars of the first Magnitude with us, there no where can be found, lost in the common undistinguished Herd. But still Astronomy will exist, and new-framed Forms may fill the varied Scene.

Perhaps you may expect that I should here give you my Conjectures of what sort of Beings may be supposed to reside in the Ens Primum, or Sedes Beatorum of the known Universe, whether mortal, immortal, or Creatures partaking in some Degree of the Properties of both; as such may be conceiv'd to change their Natures and States, without a total Dissolution of their Senses by Death: And farther, it may possibly be judged unpardonable in me not to point out every blessed Abode, suited to the Virtues, and all the various States an immortal Soul may be translated to; but this is a Task above the human Capacity, or is the pure Province of Religion alone; the Business of a Revelation rather than Reason to discover. Besides, it is enough for the present Purpose, to prove, that Miriads of celestial Mansions, are to be discovered within our finite View, and by a kind of ocular Revelation, which visibly extends the human Prospect, as it were, far beyond the Grave. It matters not whether a Race of Heroes fill these Worlds, or a Tribe of happy Lovers people those; whether a Peasant in the Realms of Orion shall ever become a Prince in the Regions of Arcturus, or a Patriarch in Procion, a Prophet in the Precepæ. Not to mention all the Stages human Nature may, or have been destined to in any one World, as believ'd by the ancient Philosophers, besides the final Coalition of all Beings much more naturally to be expected in the Sedes Beatorum.

I say, whatever our Case may be with regard to these Queries and Futurity, the Plan and Principles of this Theory will not be at all changed by it, since what it is chiefly founded upon may be clearly demonstrated, so clearly and incontestably, that, with the Reverend Dr. Young, we may justly conclude,

Devotion! Daughter of Astronomy!

and affirm with him also, That,

An indevout Astronomer is mad.

But I find what I at first proposed will prove too long for this Letter. However, I will endeavour to reward your Patience in my next, and continue, &c.