LETTERS TO THE EDITOR..
ASTRONOMY AND THE INSIGNIFICANCE OF MAN.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOH."11 Sin,—Among the fragments in my hands of " Lectures on Astronomy," by Sir William Rowan Hamilton, I have lit upon one which, in connection with recent discussions in the Spectator on the above subject, may, I think, be read with interest. It bears the date 1833. The copy I send you is transcribed from an original draft in his handwriting.—I am, Sir, &c., 1 Winton Road, Dublin, May 20th. R. P. GRAVES.
" What if our earth were no larger than one of those little planets which in our own times have been discovered by the telescope ?
What if it were a hundred or a thousand times smaller than it
now is ? What if it were reduced to that mere standing-place, which Archimede desired, that he might move the whole ? What if we had no earth at all, no home, no habitation of our own, but were wandering abroad from world to world through the universe ? Would this of itself suffice to make us insignificant ? Ought we therefore to account ourselves aliens in creation, and nothing worth in comparison with the vast expanse of matter, through which we drifted thus in our almost bodiless course ? Shall we do this while we retain our consciousness of an informing mind within us ? Shall mere external magnitude overpower and crush that consciousness ? Shall we forget that the very perception of such magnitude is evidence of a higher greatness, the greatness of the conceiving intellect ? If we see millions of miles, can we not imagine millions of millions ? The spectacle of those great bodies is a
glorious, a magnificent spectacle ; but shall we fall down and worship it ? Shall we forget that it derives all its glory and
all its magnificence, from its being a manifestation of power
to us whose being is Will, a communing of mind with mind ? This is the very essence of idolatry, to give to matter and the things of sense, the attributes of what is spiritual and super- sensuous. But we will tolerate in ourselves no such idolatrous despondence. Though all around hemmed in by worlds far greater than our own, we will still be of good cheer ; for if by worlds be meant only material globes, then are we of more value than many worlds ; but if their value be derived from their being the abodes of rational and immortal inhabitants, we too are rational and immortal. So much against the insignificance of Man ; but not against his humility. So much against the servile fear which sometimes comes across him when he finds himself as it were alone in such and so glorious an universe ; but not against that filial reverence which he owes to its author and upholder. If our conceiving intellects be therefore not contemptible, what must the grandeur be of that creating intellect ? Though body, as such, is inferior in dignity to mind, what must the dignity be of that per- vading Spirit, who is not like us imperfectly cognisant of the powers which animate body, but is himself the source and living principle of power, of all power bodily and mental—who holds the planets in the hollow of his hand and gives to man whatever power man has of reasoning upon those planets ? Thus Science, rightly used, must add to our reverence for the creator. And what if some have wrongly read the lesson ? yet of you may be hoped
better things, and fruits of a truer wisdom. To chance [here follow some words in an obsolete shorthand]. That wordless
language [here again words in shorthand]. And if you duly meditate on the endowment of vision alone, you will not be at a loss to refute from the testimony of sense itself the supposition that God is negligent of man ; and to show that though Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain Him,' yet he humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in
the earth,'• since we have the clearest evidences of a continual communication, a language for ever addressed to us, an unceasing process of instruction."
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