Eureka: A Prose Poem — Edgar A. Poe, 1848 — reading text

blasphemous idea of special interposition — we have to suppose that, in the particular instances of these " nebulas," an unerring God found it necessary to introduce certain supplementary regulations — certain improvements of the general law — certain retouchings and emendations, in a word, which had the effect of deferring the completion of these individual stars for centuries of centuries beyond the asra during which all the other stellar bodies had time, THE UNIVERSE. 91 not only to be fully constituted, but to grow hoary with an unspeakable old age. Of course, it will be immediately objected that since the light by which we recognize the nebulae now, must be merely that which left their surfaces a vast number of years ago, the processes at present observed, or supposed to be observed, are, in fact, not processes now actually going on, but the phantoms of processes completed long in the Past — just as I maintain all these mass-constitutive processes must have been. To this I reply that neither is the now-observed con dition of the condensed stars their actual condition, but a condition completed long in the Past ; so that my argument drawn from the relative condition of the stars and the " nebulas/' is in no manner disturbed. Moreover, those who maintain the existence of nebulae, do not refer the nebulosity to extreme distance ; they declare it a real and not merely a perspective nebulosity. That we may con ceive, indeed, a nebular mass as visible at all, we must con ceive it as very near us in comparison with the condensed stars brought into view by the modern telescopes. In maintaining the appearances in question, then, to be really nebulous, we maintain their comparative vicinity to our point of view. Thus, their condition, as we see them now, must be referred to an epoch far less remote than that to which we may refer the now-observed condition of at least the majority of the stars. — In a word, should Astronomy ever demonstrate a " nebula," in the sense at present in tended, I should consider the Nebular Cosmogony — not, in deed, as corroborated by the demonstration — but as thereby irretrievably overthrown. 92 EUJIEKA. By way, however, of rendering unto Caesar no more than the things that are Caesar's, let me here remark that the assumption of the hypothesis which led him to so glo rious a result, seems to have been suggested to Laplace in great measure by a misconception — by the very misconcep tion of which we have just been speaking — by the gen erally prevalent misunderstanding of the character of the nebulae, so mis-named. These he supposed to be, in reality, what their designation implies. The fact is, this great man had, very properly, an inferior faith in his own merely per ceptive powers. In respect, therefore, to the actual exist ence of nebulae — an existence so confidently maintained by his telescopic contemporaries — he depended less upon what he saw than upon what he heard. It will be seen that the only valid objections to his theory, are those made to its hypothesis as such — to what suggested it — not to what it suggests ; to its propositions rather than to its results. His most unwarranted assump tion was that of giving the atoms a movement towards a centre, in the very face of his evident understanding that these atoms, in unlimited succession, extended throughout the Universal space. I have already shown that, under such circumstances, there could have occurred no move ment at all ; and Laplace, consequently, assumed one on no more philosophical ground than that something of the kind was necessary for the establishment of what he in tended to establish. His original idea seems to have been a compound of the true Epicurean atoms with the false nebulae of his con temporaries ; and thus his theory presents us with the sin- THE UNIVERSE. 93 gular anomaly of absolute truth deduced, as a mathematical result, from a hybrid datum of ancient imagination inter- tangled with modern inacumen. Laplace's real strength lay, in fact, in an almost miraculous mathematical instinct : — on this he relied ; and in no instance did it fail or deceive him : — in the case of the Nebular Cosmogony, it led him, blindfolded, through a labyrinth of Error, into one of the most luminous and stupendous temples of Truth. Let us now fancy, for the moment, that the ring first thrown off by the Sun — that is to say, the ring whose breaking-up constituted Neptune — did not, in fact, break up until the throwing-off of the ring out of which Uranus arose ; that this latter ring, again, remained perfect until the discharge of that out of which sprang Saturn ; that this latter, again, remained entire until the discharge of that from which originated Jupiter — and so on. Let us imagine, in a word, that no dissolution occurred among the rings until the final rejection of that which gave birth to Mer cury. We thus paint to the eye of the mind a series of coexistent concentric circles ; and looking as well at them as at the processes by which, according to Laplace's hypo thesis, they were constructed, we perceive at once a very singular analogy with the atomic strata and the process of the original irradiation as I have described it. Is it impos sible that, on measuring the forces, respectively, by which each successive planetary circle was thrown off — that is to say, on measuring the successive excesses of rotation over gravitation which occasioned the successive discharges — we should find the analogy in question more decidedly con firmed ? Is it improbable that we should discover these 94 EUREKA. forces to have varied — as in the original radiation — pro portionally to the squares of the distances ? Our solar system, consisting, in chief, of one sun, with sixteen planets certainly, and possibly a few more, revolv ing about it at various distances, and attended by seventeen moons assuredly, but very probably by several others — is now to be considered as an example of the innumerable agglomerations which proceeded to take place throughout the Universal Sphere of atoms on withdrawal of the Divine Volition. I mean to say that our solar system is to be un derstood as affording a generic instance of these agglomera tions, or, more correctly, of the ulterior conditions at which they arrived. If we keep our attention fixed on the idea of the utmost possible Relation as the Omnipotent design, and on the precautions taken to accomplish it through dif ference of form, among the original atoms, and particular inequidistance, we shall find it impossible to suppose for a moment that even any two of the incipient agglomerations reached precisely the same result in the end. We shall rather be inclined to think that no two stellar bodies in the Universe — whether suns, planets or moons — are particu larly, while all are generally, similar. Still less, then, can we imagine any two assemblages of such bodies — any two "systems" — as having more than a general resemblance.* Our telescopes, at this point, thoroughly confirm our deduc- * It is not impossible that some unlooked-for optical improvement may dis close to us, among innumerable varieties of systems, a luminous sun, encircled by luminous and non-luminous rings, within and without and between which, revolve luminous and non-luminous planets, attended by moons having moons — and even these latter again having moons. THE UNIVERSE. 95 tions. Taking our own solar system, then, as merely a loose or general type of all, we have so far proceeded in our subject as to survey the Universe under the aspect of a spherical space, throughout which, dispersed with merely general equability, exist a number of but generally similar systems. Let us now, expanding our conceptions, look upon each of these systems as in itself an atom ; which in fact it is, when we consider it as but one of the countless myriads of systems which constitute the Universe. Regarding all, then, as but colossal atoms, each with the same ineradicable tendency to Unity which characterizes the actual atoms of which it consists — we enter at once upon a new order of aggregations. The smaller systems, in the vicinity of a larger one, would, inevitably, be drawrn into still closer vicinity. A thousand would assemble here ; a million there — perhaps here, again, even a billion — leaving, thus, immea surable vacancies in space. And if, now, it be demanded why, in the case of these systems — of these merely Titanic atoms — 1 speak, simply, of an " assemblage/' and not, as in the case of the actual atoms, of a more or less consolidated agglomeration :— if it be asked, for instance, why I do not carry what I suggest to its legitimate conclusion, and de scribe, at once, these assemblages of system-atoms as rush ing to consolidation in spheres — as each becoming condensed into one magnificent sun — my reply is that p&'kovia ravra — I am but pausing, for a moment, on the awful threshold of the Future. For the present, calling these assemblages " clusters," we see them in the incipient stages of their consolidation. Their absolute consolidation is to come. 96 EUREKA. We have now reached a point from which we behold the Universe as a spherical space, interspersed, unequally, with clusters. It will be noticed that I here prefer the ad verb " unequably " to the phrase " with a merely general equability," employed before. It is evident, in fact, that the equability of distribution will diminish in the ratio of the agglomerative processes — that is to say, as the things distributed diminish in number. Thus the increase of in- equability — an increase which must continue until, sooner or later, an epoch will arrive at which the largest agglome ration will absorb all the others — should be viewed as, simply, a corroborative indication of the tendency to One. And here, at length, it seems proper to inquire whether the ascertained facts of Astronomy confirm the general arrangement which I have thus, deductively, assigned to the Heavens. Thoroughly, they do. Telescopic observa tion, guided by the laws of perspective, enables us to under stand that the perceptible Universe exists as a cluster of clusters, irregularly disposed. The " clusters " of which this Universal " cluster of clusters " consists, are merely