Fig. 57.Fig. 57.—The Roman Calendar.
A cubical block of white marble has been found at Pompeii which illustrates this very well.
Each of the four sides is divided into three columns, and on each column is the information about the month. Each month is surmounted by the sign of the zodiac through which the sun is passing. Beneath the name of the month is inscribed the number of days it contains; the date of the nones, the number of the hours of the day, and ofthe night; the place of the sun, the divinity under whose protection the month is placed, the agricultural works that are to be done in it, the civil and ecclesiastical ceremonies that are to be performed. These inscriptions are to be seen under the month January to the left of the woodcut.
The reform thus introduced by Julius Cæsar is commonly known as theJulian reform. The first year in which this calendar was followed was 44B.C.
The Julian calendar was in use, without any modification, for a great number of years; nevertheless, the mean value which had been assigned to the civil year being a little different to that of the tropical, a noticeable change at length resulted in the dates in which, each year, the seasons commenced; so that if no remedy had been introduced, the same season would be displaced little by little each year, so as to commence successively in different months.
The Council of Nice, which was held in the year 325 of the Christian era, adopted a fixed rule to determine the time at which Easter falls. This rule was based on the supposed fact that the spring equinox happened every year on the 21st of March, as it did at the time of the meeting of the Council. This would indeed be the case if the mean value of the civil year of the Julian calendar was exactly equal to the tropical year. But while the first is 365·25 days, the second is 365·242264 days; so that the tropical year is too small by 11 minutes and 8 seconds. It followshence that after the lapse of four Julian years the vernal equinox, instead of happening exactly at the same time as it did four years before, will happen 44 minutes 32 seconds too soon; and will gain as much in each succeeding four years. So that at the end of a certain number of years, after the year 325, the equinox will happen on the 20th of March, afterwards on the 19th, and so on. This continual advance notified by the astronomers, determined Pope Gregory XIII. to introduce a new reform into the calendar.
It was in the year 1582 that theGregorian reformwas put into operation. At that epoch the vernal equinox happened on the 11th instead of the 21st of March. To get rid of this advance of ten days that the equinox had made and to bring it back to the original date, Pope Gregory decided that the day after the 4th of October, 1582, should be called the 15th instead of the 5th. This change only did away with the inconvenience at the time attaching to the Julian calendar; it was necessary to make also some modification in the rule which served to determine the lengths of the civil years, in order to avoid the same error for the future.
So the Pope determined that in each 400 years there should be only 97 bissextile years, instead of 100, as there used to be in the Julian calendar. This made three days taken off the 400 years, and in consequence the mean value of the civil year is reduced to 365·2425 days, which is not far from the true tropical year. The Gregorian year thus obtainedis still too great by ·000226 of a day; the date of the vernal equinox will still then advance in virtue of this excess, but it is easy to see that the Gregorian reform will suffice for a great number of centuries.
The method in which it is carried out is as follows:—In the Julian calendar each year that divided by four when expressed in its usual way, byA.D., was a leap year, and therefore each year that completed a century was such, as 1300, 1400 and so on—but in the Gregorian reform, all these century numbers are to be reckoned common years, unless the number without the two cyphers divides by four; thus 1,900 will be a common year and 2,000 a leap year. It is easy to see that this will leave out three leap years in every 400 years.
The Gregorian calendar was immediately adopted in France and Germany, and a little later in England. Now it is in operation in all the Christian countries of Europe, except Russia, where the Julian calendar is still followed. It follows that Russian dates do not agree with ours. In 1582, the difference was ten days, and this difference remained the same till the end of the seventeenth century, when the year 1700 was bissextile in the Julian, but not in the Gregorian calendar, so the difference increased to eleven days, and now in the same way is twelve days.
Next to the year, comes the day as the most natural division of time in connection with the earth, thoughit admits of less difference in its arrangements, as we cannot be mistaken as to its length. It is the natural standard too of our division of time into shorter intervals such as hours, minutes, and seconds. By the worddaywe mean of course the interval during which the earth makes a complete revolution round itself, whiledaytimemay be used to express the portion of it during which our portion of the earth is towards the sun. The Greeks to avoid ambiguity used the wordnyctemere, meaning night and day.
No ancient nation is known that did not divide the day into twenty-four hours, when they divided it at all into such small parts, which seems to show that such a division was comparatively a late institution, and was derived from the invention of a single nation. It would necessarily depend on the possibility of reckoning shorter periods of time than the natural one of the day. In the earliest ages, and even afterwards, the position of the sun in the heavens by day, and the position of the constellations by night, gave approximately the time. Instead of asking What "o'clock" is it? the Greeks would say, "What star is passing?" The next method of determining time depended on the uniform motion of water from a cistern. It was invented by the Egyptians, and was called a clepsydra, and was in use among the Babylonians, the Greeks, and the Romans. The more accurate measurement of time by means of clocks was not introduced till about 140B.C.,when Trimalcion had one in his dining chamber. The use of them, however, had been so lost that in 760A.D.they were considered quite novelties. The clocks, of course, have to be regulated by the sun, an operation which has been the employment of astronomers, among other things, for centuries. Each locality had its own time according to the moment when the sun passed the meridian of the place, a moment which was determined by observation.
Before the introduction of the hour, the day and night appear to have been divided into watches. Among the Babylonians the night was reckoned from what we call 6A.M.to 6P.M., and divided into three watches of four hours each—called the "evening," "middle," and "morning" watch. These were later superseded by the more accurate hour, or rather "double hour" orcasbri, each of which was divided into sixty minutes and sixty seconds, and the change taking place not earlier than 2,000B.C.Whether the Babylonians (or Accadians) were the inventors of the hour it is difficult to say, though they almost certainly were of other divisions of time. It is remarkable that in the ancient Jewish Scriptures we find no mention of any such division until the date at which the prophecy of Daniel was written, that is, until the Jews had come in contact with the Babylonians.
Some nations have counted the twenty-four hours consecutively from one to twenty-four as astronomers do now,but others and the majority have divided the whole period into two of twelve hours each.
The time of the commencement of the day has varied much with the different nations.
The Jews, the ancient Athenians, the Chinese, and several other peoples, more or less of the past, have commenced the day with the setting of the sun, a custom which perhaps originated with the determination of the commencement of the year, and therefore of the day, by the observation of some stars that were seen at sunset, a custom continued in our memory by the well-known words, "the evening and the morning were the first day."
The Italians, till recently, counted the hours in a single series, between two settings of the sun. The only gain in such a method would be to sailors, that they might know how many hours they had before night overtook them; the sun always setting at twenty-four o'clock; if the watch marked nineteen or twenty, it would mean they had five or four hours to see by—but such a gain would be very small against the necessity of setting their watches differently every morning, and the inconvenience of never having fixed hours for meals.
Among the Babylonians, Syrians, Persians, the modern Greeks, and inhabitants of the Balearic Isles, &c., the day commenced with the rising of the sun. Nevertheless, among all the astronomical phenomena that may be submitted toobservation, none is so liable to uncertainty as the rising and setting of the heavenly bodies, owing among other things to the effects of refraction.
Among the ancient Arabians, followed in this by the author of theAlmagesta, and by Ptolemy, the day commenced at noon. Modern astronomers adopt this usage. The moment of changing the date is then always marked by a phenomenon easy to observe.
Lastly, that we may see how every variety possible is sure to be chosen when anything is left to the free choice of men, we know that with the Egyptians, Hipparchus, the ancient Romans, and all the European nations at present, the day begins at midnight. Copernicus among the astronomers of our era followed this usage. We may remark that the commencement of the astronomical day commences twelve hoursafterthe civil day.
Of the various periods composed of several days, the week of seven days is the most widely spread—and of considerable antiquity. Yet it is not the universal method of dividing months. Among the Egyptians the month was divided into periods of ten days each; and we find no sign of the seven days—the several days of the whole month having a god assigned to each. Among the Hindoos no trace has been found by Max Müller in their ancient Vedic literature of any such division, but the month is divided into two according to the moon; theclearhalf from the new tothe full moon, theobscurehalf from the full to the new, and a similar division has been found among the Aztecs. The Chinese divide the month like the Egyptians. Among the Babylonians two methods of dividing the month existed, and both of them from the earliest times. The first method was to separate it into two halves of fifteen days each, and each of these periods into three shorter ones of five days, making six per month. The other method is the week of seven days. The days of the week with them, as they are with many nations now, were named after the sun and moon and the five planets, and the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and 28th days of each month—days separated by seven days each omitting the 19th—were termed "days of rest," on which certain works were forbidden to be done. From this it is plain that we have here all the elements of our modern week. We find it, as is well known, in the earliest of Hebrew writings, but without the mark which gives reason for the number seven, that is the names of the seven heavenly bodies. It would seem most probable, then, that we must look to the Accadians as the originators of our modern week, from whom the Hebrews may have—and, if so, at a very early period—borrowed the idea.
It is known that the week was not employed in the ancient calendars of the Romans, into which it was afterwards introduced through the medium of the biblical traditions, and became a legal usage under the first Christian Emperors.From thence it has been propagated together with the Julian calendar amongst all the populations that have been subjected to the Roman power. We find the period of seven days employed in the astronomical treatises of Hindoo writers, but not before the fifth century.
Dion Cassius, in the third century, represents the week as universally spread in his times, and considers it a recent invention which he attributes to the Egyptians; meaning thereby, doubtless, the astrologers of the Alexandrian school, at that time very eager to spread the abstract speculations of Plato and Pythagoras.
If the names of the days of the week were derived from the planets, the sun and moon, as is easy to see, it is not so clear how they came to have their present order. The original order in which they were supposed to be placed in the various heavens that supported them according to their distance from the earth was thus:—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon. One supposition is that each hour of the day was sacred to one of these, and that each day was named from the god that presided over the first hours. Now, as seven goes three times into twenty-four, and leaves three over, it is plain that if Saturn began the first hour of Saturday, the next day would begin with the planet three further on in the series, which would bring us to the Sun for Sunday, three more would bring us next day to the Moon for Monday, and so to Mars for Tuesday, to Mercuryfor Wednesday, to Jupiter for Thursday, to Venus for Friday, and so round again to Saturn for Saturday.
The same method is illustrated by putting the symbols in order round the circumference of a circle, and joining them by lines to the one most opposite, following always in the same order as in the following figure. We arrive in this way at the order of the days of the week.
Fig. 58.Fig. 58.
All the nations who have adopted the week have not kept to the same names for them, but have varied them according to taste. Thus Sunday was changed by the Christian Church to the "Lord's Day," a name it still partially retains among ourselves, but which is the regular name among severalcontinental nations, including the corruptedDimancheof the French. The four middle days have also been very largely changed, as they have been among ourselves and most northern nations to commemorate the names of the great Scandinavian gods Tuesco, Woden, Thor, and Friga. This change was no doubt due to the old mythology of the Druids being amalgamated with the new method of collecting the days into weeks.
We give below a general table of the names of the days of the week in several different languages.
English.French.Italian.Spanish.Portuguese.Sunday.Dimanche.Domenica.Domingo.Domingo.Monday.Lundi.Lunedi.Luneo.Secunda feira.Tuesday.Mardi.Marteti.Martes.Terça feira.Wednesday.MercrediMercoledi.Miercoles.Quarta feira.Thursday.Jeudi.Giovedi.Jueves.Quinta feira.Friday.Vendredi.Venerdi.Viernes.Sexta feira.Saturday.Samedi.Sabbato.Sabado.Sabbado.German.Anglo-Saxon.Ancient Frisian.Ancient Northmen.Dutch.Sonntag.Sonnan däg.Sonna dei.Sunnu dagr.Zondag.Montag.Monan däg.Mona dei.Mâna dagr.Maandag.Dienstag.Tives däg.Tys dei.Tyrs dagr.Dingsdag.Mitwoch.Vôdenes däg.Werns dei.Odins dagr.Woensdag.Donnerstag.Thunores däg.Thunres dei.Thors dagr.Donderdag.Freitag.Frige däg.Frigen dei.Fria dagr.Vrijdag.Samstag.Sœternes däg.Sater dei.Laugar dagr (washing day)Zaturdag.
The cycle which must be completed with the present calendar to bring the same day of the year to the same day of the week, is twenty-eight years, since there isone day over every ordinary year, and two every leap year; which will make an overlapping of days which, except at the centuries, will go through all the changes in twenty-eight times, which forms what is called the solar cycle.
There is but one more point that will be interesting about the calendar, namely, the date from which we reckon our years.
Among the Jews it was from the creation of the world, as recorded in their sacred books—but no one can determine when that was with sufficient accuracy to make it represent anything but an agreement of the present day. Different interpreters do not come within a thousand years of one another for its supposed date; although some of them have determined it very accurately to their own satisfaction—one going so far as to say that creation finished at nine o'clock one Sunday morning! In other cases the date has been reckoned from national events—as in the Olympiads, the foundation of Rome, &c. The word we now use,ÆRA, points to a particular date from which to reckon, since it is composed of the initials of the words AB EXORDIO REGNI AUGUSTI "from the commencement of the reign of Augustus." At the present day the point of departure, both forwards and backwards, is the year of the birth of Jesus Christ—a date which is itself controverted, and the use of which did not exist among the first Christians. They exhibited great indifference,for many centuries, as to the year in which Jesus Christ entered the world. It was a monk who lived in obscurity at Rome, about the year 580, who was a native of so unknown a country that he has been called a Scythian, and whose name was Denys, surnamedExiguus, or the Little, who first attempted to discover by chronological calculations the year of the birth of Jesus Christ.
The era of Denys the Little was not adopted by his contemporaries. Two centuries afterwards, the Venerable Bede exhorted Christians to make use of it—and it only came into general use about the year 800.
Among those who adopted the Christian era, some made the year commence with March, which was the first month of the year of Romulus; others in January, which commences the year of Numa; others commenced on Christmas Day; and others on Lady Day, March 25. Another form of nominal year was that which commenced with Easter Day, in which case, the festival being a movable one, some years were shorter than others, and in some years there might be two 2nd, 3rd, &c., of April, if Easter fell in one year on the 2nd, and next year a few days later.
The 1st of January was made to begin the year in Germany in 1500. An edict of Charles IX. prescribes the same in France in 1563. But it was not till 1752 that the change was made in England by Lord Chesterfield's Act. The year 1751, as the year that had preceded it, began onMarch 25th, and it should have lasted till the next Lady Day; but according to the Act, the months of January, February, and part of March were to be reckoned as part of the year 1752. By this means the unthinking seemed to have grown old suddenly by three months, and popular clamour was raised against the promoter of the Bill, and cries raised of "Give us our three months." Such have been the various changes that our calendar has undergone to bring it to its present state.
Perhaps the most anxious question that has been asked of the astronomer is when the world is to come to an end. It is a question which, of course, he has no power to answer with truth; but it is also one that has often been answered in good faith. It has perhaps been somewhat natural to ask such a question of an astronomer, partly because his science naturally deals with the structure of the universe, which might give some light as to its future, and partly because of his connection with astrology, whose province it was supposed to be to open the destiny of all things. Yet the question has been answered by others than by astronomers, on grounds connected with their faith. In the early ages of the Church, the belief in the rapid approach of the end of the world was universally spread amongst Christians. The Apocalypse of St. John and the Acts of the Apostles seemed to announce its coming before that generation passed away. Afterwards, it was expected at the year 1000; and though these beliefs did notrest in any way on astronomical grounds, yet to that science was recourse had for encouragement or discouragement of the idea. The middle ages, fall of simple faith and superstitious credulity, were filled with fear of this terrible catastrophe.
As the year 1000 approached, the warnings became frequent and very pressing. Thus, for example, Bernard of Thuringia, about 960, began to announce publicly that the world was about to end, declaring that he had had a particular revelation of the fact. He took for his text the enigmatical words of the Apocalypse: "At the end of one thousand years, Satan shall be loosed from his prison, and shall seduce the people that are in the four quarters of the earth. The book of life shall be open, and the sea shall give up her dead." He fixed the day when the Annunciation of the Virgin should coincide with Good Friday as the end of all things. This happened in 992, but nothing extraordinary happened.
During the tenth century the royal proclamations opened by this characteristic phrase:Whereas the end of the world is approaching....
In 1186 the astrologers frightened Europe by announcing a conjunction of all the planets. Rigord, a writer of that period, says in hisLife of Philip Augustus: "The astrologers of the East, Jews, Saracens, and even Christians, sent letters all over the world, in which they predicted, with perfect assurance, that in the month of September there would be great tempests, earthquakes, mortality among men, seditionsand discords, revolutions in kingdoms, and the destruction of all things. But," he adds, "the event very soon belied their predictions."
Some years after, in 1198, another alarm of the end of the world was raised, but this time it was not dependent on celestial phenomena. It was said that Antichrist was born in Babylon, and therefore all the human race would be destroyed.
It would be a curious list to make of all the years in which it was said that Antichrist was born; they might be counted by hundreds, to say nothing of the future.
At the commencement of the fourteenth century, the alchemist Arnault of Villeneuve announced the end of the world for 1335. In his treatiseDe Sigillishe applies the influence of the stars to alchemy, and expounds the mystical formula by which demons are to be conjured.
St. Vincent Ferrier, a famous Spanish preacher, gave to the world as many years' duration as there were verses in the Psalms—about 2537.
The sixteenth century produced a very plentiful crop of predictions of the final catastrophe. Simon Goulart, for example, gave the world an appalling account of terrible sights seen in Assyria—where a mountain opened and showed a scroll with letters of Greek—"The end of the world is coming." This was in 1532; but after that year had passed in safety, Leovitius, a famous astrologer, predicted it againfor 1584. Louis Gayon reports that the fright at this time was great. The churches could not hold those who sought a refuge in them, and a great number made their wills, without reflecting that there was no use in it if the whole world was to finish.
One of the most famous mathematicians of Europe, named Stoffler, who flourished in the 16th century, and who worked for a long time at the reform of the calendar proposed by the Council of Constance, predicted a universal deluge for 1524. This deluge was to happen in the month of February, because Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars were then together in the sign of the Fishes. Everyone in Europe, Asia, and Africa, to whom these tidings came, was in a state of consternation. They expected a deluge, in spite of the rainbow. Many contemporary authors report that the inhabitants of the maritime provinces of Germany sold their lands for a mere trifle to those who had more money and less credulity. Each built himself a boat like an ark. A doctor of Toulouse, named Auriol, made a very large ark for himself, his family, and his friends, and the same precautions were taken by a great many people in Italy. At last the month of February came, and not a drop of rain fell. Never was a drier month or a more puzzled set of astrologers. Nevertheless they were not discouraged nor neglected for all that, and Stoffler himself, associated with the celebrated Regiomontanus, predicted once more that the end of theworld would come in 1588, or at least that there would be frightful events which would overturn the earth.
This new prediction was a new deception; nothing extraordinary occurred in 1588. The year 1572, however, witnessed a strange phenomenon, capable of justifying all their fears. An unknown star came suddenly into view in the constellation of Cassiopeia, so brilliant that it was visible even in full daylight, and the astrologers calculated that it was the star of the Magi which had returned, and that it announced the second coming of Jesus Christ.
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were filled with new predictions of great variety.
Even our own century has not been without such. A religious work, published in 1826, by the Count Sallmard Montfort, demonstrated perfectly that the world had no more than ten years to exist. "The world," he said, "is old, and its time of ending is near, and I believe that the epoch of that terrible event is not far off. Jacob, the chief of the twelve tribes of Israel, and consequently of the ancient Church, was born in 2168 of the world,i.e., 1836B.C.The ancient Church, which was the figure of the new, lasted 1836 years. Hence the new one will only last till 1836A.D."
Similar prophecies by persons of various nations have in like manner been made, without being fulfilled. Indeed, we have had our own prophets; but they have provedthemselves incredulous of their own predictions, by taking leases that shouldcommencein the year of the world's destruction.
But we have one in store for us yet. In 1840, Pierre Louis of Paris calculated that the end would be in 1900, and he calculated in this way:—The Apocalypse says the Gentiles shall occupy the holy city for forty-two months. The holy city was taken by Omar in 636. Forty-two months of years is 1260, which brings the return of the Jews to 1896, which will precede by a few years the final catastrophe. Daniel also announces the arrival of Antichrist 2,300 days after the establishment of Artaxerxes on the throne of Persia, 400B.C., which again brings us to 1900.
Some again have put it at 2000A.D., which will make 6,000 years, as they think, from the creation; these are the days of work; then comes the 1,000 years of millennial sabbath.
We are led far away by these vain speculations from the wholesome study of astronomy; they are useful only in showing how by a little latitude that science may wind itself into all the questions that in any way affect the earth.
Indeed, since the world began, the world will doubtless end, and astronomers are still asked how could it be brought about?
Certainly it is not an impossible event, and there are only too many ways in which it has been imagined it might occur.
The question is one that stands on a very different footing from that it occupied before the days of Galileo and Copernicus.Thenthe earth was believed to be the centre of the universe, and all the heavens and stars created for it.Thenthe commencement of the world was the commencement of the universe, its destruction would be the destruction of all.Now, thanks to the revolution in feeling that has been accomplished by the progress of astronomy, we have learned our own insignificance, and that amongst the infinite number of stars, each supporting their own system of inhabited planets, our earth occupies an infinitesimally small portion, and the destruction of it would make no difference whatever—still less its becoming uninhabitable. It is an event which must have happened and be happening to other worlds, without affecting the infinite life of the universe in any marked degree.
Nevertheless, for ourselves, the question remains as interesting as if we were the all in all, but must be approached in a different manner.
Numerous hypotheses have been put forth on the question but they may mostly be dismissed as vain.
Buffon calculated that it had taken 74,832 years for the earth to cool down to its present temperature, and that itwill take 93,291 years more before it would be too cold for men to live upon it. But Sir William Thomson has shown that the internal heat of the earth, supposed to be due to its cooling from fusion, cannot have seriously modified climate for a long series of years, and that life depends essentially on the heat of the sun.
Another hypothesis, the most ancient of all, is that which supposes the earth will be destroyed by fire. It comes down from Zoroaster and the Jews; and on the improbable supposition of the thin crust of the earth over a molten mass, this is thought possible. However, as the tendency in the past has been all the other way, namely, to make the effect of the inner heat of the earth less marked on the surface, we have no reason to expect a reversal.
A third theory would make the earth die more gradually and more surely. It is known that by the wearing down of the surface by the rains and rivers, there is a tendency to reduce mountains and all high parts of the earth to a uniform level, a tendency which is only counteracted by some elevating force within the earth. If these elevating forces be supposed to be due to the internal heat—a hypothesis which cannot be proved—then with the cooling of the earth the elevating forces would cease, and, finally, the whole of the continent would be brought beneath the sea and terrestrial life perish.
Another interesting but groundless hypothesis is that ofAdhémar on the periodicity of deluges. This theory depends on the fact of the unequal length of the seasons in the two hemispheres. Our autumn and our winter last 179 days. In the southern hemisphere they last 186 days. These seven days, or 168 hours, of difference, increase each year the coldness of the pole. During 10,500 years the ice accumulates at one pole and melts at the other, thereby displacing the earth's centre of gravity. Now a time will arrive when, after the maximum of elevation of temperature on one side, a catastrophe will happen, which will bring back the centre of gravity to the centre of figure, and cause an immense deluge. The deluge of the north pole was 4,200 years ago, therefore the next will be 6,300 hence. It is very obvious to ask on this—Whyshould there be acatastrophe? and why should not the centre of gravity returngraduallyas it was gradually displaced?
Another theory has been that it would perish by a comet. That it will not be by the shock we have already seen from the light weight of the comet and from experience; but it has been suggested that the gas may combine with the air, and an explosion take place that would destroy us all; but is not that also contradicted by experience?
Another idea is that we shall finally fall into the sun by the resistance of the ether to our motion. Encke's cometloses in thirty-three years a thousandth part of its velocity. It appears then that we should have to wait millions of centuries before we came too near the sun.
In reality, however, we are simply dependent on our sun, and our destiny depends upon that.
In the first place, in its voyage through space it might encounter or come within the range of some dark body we at present know nothing of, and the attraction might put out of harmony all our solar system with calamitous results. Or since we are aware that the sun is a radiating body giving out its heat on all sides, and therefore growing colder, it may one day happen that it will be too cold to sustain life on the earth. It is, we know, a variable star, and stars have been seen to disappear, or even to have a catastrophe happen to them, as the kindling of enormous quantities of gas. A catastrophe in the sun will be our own end.
Fontenelle has amusingly described in verse the result of the sun growing cold, which may be thus Englished:—
"Of this, though, I haven't a doubt,One day when there isn't much light,The poor little sun will go outAnd bid us politely—good-night.Look out from the stars up on high,Some other to help you to see;I can't shine any longer, not I,Since shining don't benefit me."Then down on our poor habitationWhat numberless evils will fall,When the heavens demand liquidation,Why all will go smash, and then allSociety come to an end.Soon out of the sleepy affairHis way will each traveller wend,No testament leaving, nor heir."
"Of this, though, I haven't a doubt,One day when there isn't much light,The poor little sun will go outAnd bid us politely—good-night.Look out from the stars up on high,Some other to help you to see;I can't shine any longer, not I,Since shining don't benefit me."Then down on our poor habitationWhat numberless evils will fall,When the heavens demand liquidation,Why all will go smash, and then allSociety come to an end.Soon out of the sleepy affairHis way will each traveller wend,No testament leaving, nor heir."
The cooling of the sun must, however, take place very gradually, as no cooling has been perceived during the existence of man; and the growth of plants in the earliest geological ages, and the life of animals, prove that for so long a time it has been within the limits within which life has been possible—and we may look forward to as long in the future.
It is not of course the time when the sun will become a dark ball, surrounded by illuminated planets, that we must reckon as the end of the earth. Life would have ceased long before that stage—no man will witness the death of the sun.
The diminution of the sun's heat would have for its natural effect the enlargement of the glacial zones! the sea and the land in those parts of the earth would cease to support life, which would gradually be drawn closer to the equatorial belt. Man, who by his nature and his intelligence is best fitted to withstand cold climates, would remain among the last of the inhabitants, reduced to the mostmiserable nourishment. Drawn together round the equator, the last of the sons of earth would wage a last combat with death, and exactly as the shades approached, would the human genius, fortified by all the acquirements of ages past—give out its brightest light, and attempt in vain to throw off the fatal cover that was destined to engulf him. At last, the earth, fading, dry, and sterile, would become an immense cemetery. And it would be the same with the other planets. The sun, already become red, would at last become black, and the planetary system would be an assemblage of black balls revolving round a larger black ball.
Plate XVI.Plate XVI.—The End of the World.
Of course this is all imaginary, and cannot affect ourselves, but the very idea of it is melancholy, and enough to justify the words of Campbell:—
"For this hath science searched on weary wingBy shore and sea—each mute and living thing,Or round the cope her living chariot drivenAnd wheeled in triumph through the signs of heaven.Oh, star-eyed science, hast thou wandered thereTo waft us home the message of despair?"
"For this hath science searched on weary wingBy shore and sea—each mute and living thing,Or round the cope her living chariot drivenAnd wheeled in triumph through the signs of heaven.Oh, star-eyed science, hast thou wandered thereTo waft us home the message of despair?"
In reality, as we know nothing of the origin, so we know nothing of the end of the world; and where so much has been accomplished, there are obviously infinite possibilities enough to satisfy the hopes of every one.
While some stars may be fading, others may be rising into their place, and man need not be identified with one earth alone, but may rest content in the idea that the life universal is eternal.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest paragraph break. Obvious errors in punctuation and a few misprints have been silently corrected. Other than that, printer's inconsistencies in hyphenation and ligature usage have been retained.