de
of living and intellectual beings; he has perceived some indications
of an atmosphere which, however, he admits, cannot exceed two
miles in height, and certain elevations which appear to him to be
works of art rather than of nature. He considers that a uniformity of
temperature must be produced on her surface by her slow rotation
on her axis, by the insensible change from day to night, and the
attenuated state of her atmosphere, which is never disturbed by
storms; and that light vapours, rising from her valleys, fall in the
manner of a gentle and refreshing dew to fertilize her fields." [452]
Dr. H. W. M. Olbers is fully persuaded "that the moon is inhabited
by rational creatures, and that its surface is more or less covered
with a vegetation not very dissimilar to that of our own earth." Dr.
Gruithuisen, of Munich, maintains that he has descried through his
large achromatic telescope "great artificial works in the moon
erected by the lunarians," which he considers to be "a system of
fortifications thrown up by the selenitic engineers." We should have
scant hope of deciding the dispute by the dicta of the ancients, were
these far more copious than we find them to be. Yet reverence for
antiquity may justify our quoting one of the classic fathers. Plutarch
says, "The Pythagoreans affirme, that the moone appeereth
terrestriall, for that she is inhabited round about, like as the earth
wherein we are, and peopled as it were with the greatest living
creatures, and the fairest plants." Again, "And of all this that hath
been said (my friend _Theon_) there is nothing that doth proove and
show directly, this habitation of men in the moon to be impossible."
[453] Here we close the argument based on _induction_, and sum
up the evidence in our possession. On the one hand, several
scientific men, whose names we need not repeat, having surveyed
the moon, deny it an atmosphere, water, and other conditions of life.
Consequently, they disbelieve in its inhabitation, solely because
they consider the fact undemonstrable; none of them being so
unscientific as to believe it to be absolutely impossible. On the other
hand, we have the valuable views of Maedler and Beer, whose lunar
labours are unsurpassed, and whose map of the moon is a marvel
and model of advanced selenography. They do not suppose the
conditions on our satellite to be exactly what they are on this globe.
In their own words, the moon is "no copy of the earth, much less a
c