******
Bishop of Chester, John Wilkins, was a free thinker who like Jules Verne saw earth as more than just a place to live; it was a place from which to launch grand adventures. Granted his overriding issues were those of serving the Church, but he did dream.
As he looked to the moon (moone) he saw a planet, not a satellite, that possibly could have a race of men not unlike those on earth. Fantasy you may say, as did others in his time, but nevertheless he proposed that exploration of the moon would be, and that it could be colonized. As no way of venturing to the moone was available, it remained only possible to explore it by way of the telescope. His book, The Discovery of a World in the Moone or a discourse tending to prove that 'tis probable there may be another habitable world in that planet (1840) based on observation and conclusions of probability. Probabilities were numbered and number 13, proposed: "'tis probable there may be inhabitants in this other world but of what kind is uncertain." With this he proposed ways of traveling to the moone.
Another of his schemes was what would now be called mental telepathy. He published a book, Mercury, or the Secret and Swift Messenger, showing how a man may with privacy and speed, communicate his thoughts to a friend at a distance. He envisioned communicating through a code. Perhaps this was just another way of doing the Internet.
The seas offered another avenue for his imagination and he had schemes for exploration beneath polar ice.
And, the mystical birds of paradise that reside constantly in the air, laying their eggs on the back of another, so that they need no nest. Always being airborne, the have no need for legs and so as Darwin would have predicted, evolved as a consequence of adaptation. The only time they are to be found is when they have died and so fall to earth. Discovery of a New World, 1684.
Perhaps John Wilkins was a romantic, as Ian Hacking describes him in his book, The Emergence of Probability, but he was after all a theologian and if in his descriptions of thought processes and exploration, he was able to slip in a message about God, so much the better. To provide a reasoned approach to belief in a Deity, consider; 1) if you believe in God and there is a God, you win. 2) if you believe in God and there is no God, you don't lose - you break even. 3) if you disbelieve in God and there is no God, you don't lose - you break even, and 4) if you disbelieve in God and there is a God, you lose big time! So the argument goes that believing has a much better outcome than being an agnostic.
What if there are actually men on Wilkins' "moone", earthlings can only benefit by accepting the possibility. So Russia and the United States centuries later, embark on a space race that lands men on the moon, and are there benefits? Of course, technological advances resulted that far outweigh the cost. You win by believing.
Ralpho found Wilkins' "science" unacceptable and in debating with Hudibras attacked the premise. Samuel Butler was perhaps in the minority holding opinions about space travel and inhabiting the moone. No less a personage than Robert Burton, aka Democritus Junior, believed in more than just the "man in the moone". In The Anatomy of Melancholy, with all kinds of maladies, their causes, symptoms, prognostics, and several cures, Burton wrote this passage, "Kepler and others prove, and then per consequens, the rest of the planets are inhabited, as well as the moon, which he grants in his dissertation with Galileo's Nuncius Sidereus that there be Jovial and Saturn inhabitants" pp 326, London, William Tegg and Co., 85 Queen Street, Cheapside, 1854.
Ben Johnson believed as did Wilkins. In Hudibras as annotated by Zachary Grey, Grey writes, "Ben Johnson says, in banter of this opinion, see Works, 1640, vol, i, p.41, "Certain and sure news, news from the new world discovered in the moon of a new world, and new creatures in that world, in the orb of the moon, which is now found to be an earth inhabited, with navigable seas and rivers, variety of nations, politics and laws, with havens cut, cattles, port towns, inland cities, boroughs, hamlets, fairs and markets, hundreds and wapentakes, forest, parks, coney grounds, meadows, pasture, what not."
This was just too much for Butler who had Ralpho speak to the issue in Hudibras, lines 727, part II, Canto III,
"Have we not lately, in the moon,
Found a new world, to the old unknown?
Discover'd sea and land, Columbus
And Magellan could never compass?
Made mountains with our tubes appear,
And cattle grazing on 'em there?
Quoth Hudibras, You lie so ope,
That I, without a telescope,
Can find your tricks out, and descry,
Where you tell the truth, and where you lie."
Butler then created Sidrophel as a collage of men of science and astrologers. Sidrophel characterized the charlatanism and vanity which was current day coin. The Elephant on the Moon (see Butler's Poetical Works, Vol. II, published after Butler's death,), takes them to task when it is discovered (in the poem) that the mysteries of the moon are nothing but ants that have found their way into the telescope used for making the fantastic discoveries. The charade is ended.
So it is that John Wilkins laid the ground word for Jules Verne and others, while Samuel Butler and Sir Thomas Browne before him, reminded the reader that it is well to question those who speak from authority in the absent of good science. (One should be reminded that John Wilkins married Oliver Cromwell's sister and would certainly have earned the ire of Samuel Butler.) Having said that, it remains that Wilkins' proposals were intended to interest the reader, and perhaps sell his religious points of view(?), while Samuel Butler via Hudibras, destroyed by satire, any substance to Cromwell and his followers.
****
Joe Wortham's Home Page, About Joe Wortham, Directory of Web Pages
Questions? Comments? [email protected]