A Study of the Results of Scientific Research
in Relation to the Unity or Plurality
of Worlds
LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., ETC.
J.H. Dell.
This work has been written in consequence of the[ v]great interest excited by my article, under the sametitle, which appeared simultaneously in The FortnightlyReview and the New York Independent.Two friends who read the manuscript were ofopinion that a volume, in which the evidence couldbe given much more fully, would be desirable, andthe result of the publication of the article confirmedtheir view.
I was led to a study of the subject when writingfour new chapters on Astronomy for a new editionof The Wonderful Century. I then found thatalmost all writers on general astronomy, from SirJohn Herschel to Professor Simon Newcomb andSir Norman Lockyer, stated, as an indisputablefact, that our sun is situated in the plane of the greatring of the Milky Way, and also very nearly in thecentre of that ring. The most recent researches alsoshowed that there was little or no proof of therebeing any stars or nebulæ very far beyond theMilky Way, which thus seemed to be the limit, inthat direction, of the stellar universe.[ vi]
Turning to the earth and the other planets of theSolar System, I found that the most recent researchesled to the conclusion that no other planetwas likely to be the seat of organic life, unlessperhaps of a very low type. For many years I hadpaid special attention to the problem of the measurementof geological time, and also that of the mildclimates and generally uniform conditions that hadprevailed throughout all geological epochs; and onconsidering the number of concurrent causes andthe delicate balance of conditions required to maintainsuch uniformity, I became still more convincedthat the evidence was exceedingly strong against theprobability or possibility of any other planet beinginhabited.
Having long been acquainted with most of theworks dealing with the question of the supposedPlurality of Worlds, I was quite aware of the verysuperficial treatment the subject had received, evenin the hands of the most able writers, and this mademe the more willing to set forth the whole of theavailable evidence—astronomical, physical, andbiological—in such a way as to show both what wasproved and what suggested by it.
The present work is the result, and I venture tothink that those who will read it carefully will admitthat it is a book that was worth writing. It is foundedalmost entirely on the marvellous body of facts and[ vii]conclusions of the New Astronomy together with thosereached by modern physicists, chemists, and biologis