“A View of Nature: In Letters to a Traveller Among the Alps V2 § Letter 48”, 1794 (; backlinks):
[many aliens] …But, that which is above us is more legibly distinct. The firmament is the elder Scripture, written by God’s own hand: an undisputed, an universal Scripture…The wildest imagination cannot surely suppose, that this great system was solely made for the sake of man; or that this little planet, where we sojourn for a few days, is the only habitable, or inhabited part of the universe. How extravagant the idea, that we…should be the super-eminent creatures, upon whom all things of the universe wait, to whom all things are subservient.
…The celebrated Huygens says, “Why should we conclude that our star has better attendance than others? They must all have their plants and animals: nay, their rational creatures too.”…It scarcely can be reckoned more irrational, to suppose animals with eyes destined to live in eternal darkness, or without eyes to live in perpetual day, than to imagine space illuminated, where there is nothing to be acted upon. The fixed stars were not created barely to enlighten a void. The universe is crowded with myriads of glorious worlds, and which, from an atom to a creation indefinite, animates and fills the endless orbs of immensity.
…Those prodigious spheres of fire, the fixed stars, it is reasonable to conclude, are made for the same purposes that the sun is; each to bestow light, heat, and vegetation, on a certain number of inhabited planets, kept by gravitation within the sphere of their activity: what we know of our own system, leads us to this conclusion. One orb must be contrived and regulated with the like wisdom as another. What an august, what an amazing conception does this give of the works of the creator! Thousands of thousands of suns, multiplied without end, and ranged all around us; all in rapid motion, yet calm, regular and harmonious, invariably keeping the paths prescribed to them; and these worlds, peopled with myriads of intelligent beings, formed for endless progression, in perfection and felicity!
[regular apocalypses] …Of these habitable worlds, all of which may be supposed of a terrestrial and of a terraqueous nature, and filled with beings of an animated species, the numbers are not to be ascertained. 170 millions have been supposed by certain philosophers; but this, it is reasonably to be apprehended, falls far short of the truth. What is the catastrophe of a world, therefore, such as ours, or even the total dissolution of a world of systems? In comparison with the great celestial creation, it may not possibly be more to the Almighty Author of existence, than the burst of an evening meteor: nor can we otherwise conjecture, than that such final and general extinctions may be as frequent there, as even birth days, or mortalities, may be with us
[solar aliens] …Thus Newton supposed the sun and fixed stars to be great earths vehemently hot…To this, however, several obvious objections have been stated. If the sun and fixed stars, it is said, be either in a state of real ignition, like that of a dense body, heated white hot, or of actual burning, they must be totally barren and uninhabitable: and to suppose this, of that infinite number of immense bodies, by far the large of any we know in this universe, appears to be contrary to the design pursued in our globe, where every thing seems subservient to animation, and where every part is filled with life.
[Sun not hot] On the contrary, say these philosophers, from the great fulgency and clearness of the sun’s light, it appears to proceed rather from a flame or rarefied fluid vapor, than from a mere ignited dense body. A heated, dense, un-inflammable body, though in fusion, emits light in so small a quantity, and that in so confused a manner, that it is of very little use towards vision. Whereas the flame of a candle, though it contains a quantity of heat, which may be considered as nothing in comparison to that of a large fire that does not flame, yields light regularly, and in much greater abundance. That the sun is not in a burning state, is probable, from it having continued many thousand years; long before the expiration of which, it is reasonable to suppose, either the whole of its inflammable matter would have been decomposed; or its atmosphere phlogisticated, so as to be no longer capable of maintaining that process. Neither is the combustion to be supposed to be slow and gentle, as in phosphorus.
The light of the sun, probably proceeds from a luminous meteor in his atmosphere, surrounding his whole body at a distance; and which, therefore, illuminates both the sun himself, and the planets, and other objets without; and this is kept up by inflammable vapours, rising in sufficient quantity from the sun’s body. The electrical fluid, for example, in an exhausted [vacuum] glass globe, shines, yet does not feel hot. It may possibly be so with the Aurora Borealis; at least, its heat does not seem to be considerable. Hence, therefore, as this latter phenomenon is sometimes very luminous, and extends itself over so great a portion of the sky, why may not the shining meteor round the sun be an Aurora, which differs from ours, only in being universal, continual, and much denser, and therefore, by far more bright and glorious?
[solar geography] …As in our earth, likewise, so it consequently may be supposed in the sun, there may be seas and dry land; woods and open plains; hill and dale; rain and fair weather; and as the light, so the season will be perpetual or diversified, only by distance, and occasional interstices in the luminous matter.
[life adaptations] …And yet, can it be conceived that such mighty masses should be formed for nothing? Where, I repeat, is the necessity that all living beings should be like us? Is it not more reasonable to suppose, that different organizations, different forms, are calculated for different worlds? To suppose otherwise, is it not to adopt the prejudice which led the ancients to deny, that the torrid and the frigid zones were habitable? Even the pure element of fire, for ought we know to the contrary, may have its population, may have its appropriate inhabitants.
[ancient comet civilizations] But, indeed, we are lost, when we attempt to reflect upon this extraordinary class of the planets…These wandering planets, little as we think of them in general, are yet of greater moment perhaps in the scale of creation, than either we ourselves, or any of the few other globes that have been discovered to appertain to the solar system. Their numbers, indeed, are alone sufficient to indicate their importance. They greatly exceed the planets…But there yet may be thousands. How glorious then to form an idea of these travelling worlds, peopled as it were with observers, employed in the contemplation of the universe at large, as we are in the contemplation of an insignificant atom of it: passing from one sun to another: observing the orbits of the celestial spheres: viewing their particular, as well as their general revolutions: over their heads, thousands of years rolling, nearly as thousands of days over ours.
[against materialism/evolution] But the flight is too sublime for circumscribed capacities. It is enough, that if as on our little earth we can trace the works of a bounteous Providence, so we can in the heavens grasp in demonstration, the wonders of his omnipotence.
Can a blind fatality have originated such harmony; or could effects so transcendent have proceeded from non-intelligence and necessity? Miserable absurdity, humiliating instance of imbecility and ingratitude!
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A View of Nature: In Letters to a Traveller Among the Alps V2 § Letter 48