HEAVENLY BODIES: NEWTONIANISM, NATURAL THEOLOGY AND THE PLURALITY OF WORLDS DEBATE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

摘要

To modern readers, the eighteenth-century debates about multiple worlds sometimes sound like the science fiction novels they inspired. But for Newtonian scholars, this was an important topic that raised key philosophical and theological issues. Despite the lack of firm physical evidence concerning other worlds and their inhabitants, protagonists argued with sincere conviction. The major issues at stake remained the same throughout the century, although as theological hypothesis gradually became converted into scientific certainty, there was a general shift in authority away from the Bible towards natural philosophy. In the early discussions, many natural philosophers fashioned their cosmologies to be compatible with the Bible: other worlds must exist, ran their arguments from natural theology, in order to glorify God. A hundred years later, although even the strongest telescopes had failed to provide irrefutable evidence of life elsewhere, writers were reversing the logical direction: since Newtonian science claimed that multiple worlds existed, Christian theology could be challenged. This was the line taken by Percy Bysshe Shelley, who relied on the progressive nature of astronomical knowledge to mock Christianity: "All this was not known during the gradual invention of the Christian mythology.... If these incalculable millions of suns, planets, satellites, and comets are inhabited, is it to be supposed that God formed their inhabitants better, or less liable to offend him, than those primordial Spirits, those Angels near his throne, those first and most admirable of his creatures who rebelled and were damned?" On the other hand, there was no linear, unequivocal move towards secularization. Edward Nares, a country rector and former Oxford Fellow, assessed (at pedantic length) whether the concept of multiple worlds could be consistent with the Bible. Declaring in 1801 that he would always abandon science if it conflicted with revelation, Nares concluded, "when I consider to how extravagant a degree conjecture has been indulged upon these points ... and that those who have thought most soberly, and reasoned most coolly, have in few points been perfectly agreed. I am not so sensible of being able to decide any point in dispute". The reality of extra-terrestrial life was a marvellous topic: since the question could not be empirically resolved, there was ample scope for impassioned debate.