The discovery of a world in the moone

Reprint of Wilkins’s essay, written in 1638, when he was just twenty-four. It’s a brief, speculative volume, subtitled ’a Discourse Tending to Prove, that ’tis probable there may be another habitable World in that Planet.’ The book comprises ‘proofs’ of thirteen propositions, the first of which somewhat hesitantly contends that ‘the strangenesse of this opinion is no sufficient reason why it should be rejected….’ In it, Wilkins writes ‘I must needs confesse, though I had often thought with my selfe that it was possible there might be a world in the Moone, yet it seemed such an uncouth opinion that I never durst discover it, for feare of being counted singular and ridiculous…’

He continues by stating that he had show more found many of his thoughts confirmed rather than confounded by his subsequent readings of such authors as Plutarch, Galileo and Kepler (or, as he styles the latter pair, Galilæus and Keplar). Even so, one never senses that Wilkins felt his theory was much more than well-informed speculation. Given the blustery religious crosswinds prevalent in his day, Wilkins treads carefully when claiming, in his second chapter that a plurality of worlds doth not contradict any principle of reason or faith. In a refutation therein of some Aristotelian tenets, he writes, in a phrase anticpating a famous line of Newton’s, ‘But yet it were a shame for these later ages to rest our selves meerely upon the labours of our Fore-fathers, as if they had informed us of all things to be knowne, and when we are set upon their shoulders, not to see further then they themselves did.’

Some of Wilkins’s propositions have been proven true with time: ‘That the Moone is a solid, compacted, opacous body; That the Moone hath not any light of her owne; That there are high Mountaines, deepe vallies, and spacious plaines in the body of the Moone.’ His explanation of the heliocentric solar system—an idea which he considers ‘likely enough to be true’—inspires his pithiest argument: ‘Now if our earth were one of the Planets […] then why may not another of the Planets be an earth?’ In other respects, alas, his propositions are wide of the mark: ‘That those spots and brighter parts […] in the Moone, doe shew the difference betwixt the Sea and Land in that other World; The spots represent the Sea, and the brighter parts the Land; That there is an Atmo-sphæra, or an orbe of grosse vaporous aire, immediately encompassing the body of the Moone.’ And, as his final proposition, Wilkins claims that ‘’tis probable there may be inhabitants in this other World, but of what kinde they are is uncertaine.’

Wilkins stops short of speculating on the nature of any conjectural ‘Selenites.’ The book closes with a poignant appeal to posterity: ‘So, perhaps, there may be some other meanes invented for a conveyance to the Moone, and though it may seeme a terrible and impossible thing ever to passe through the vaste spaces of the aire, yet no question there would be some men who durst venture this […] True indeed, I cannot conceive any possible meanes for the like discovery of this conjecture, since there can be no sailing to the Moone […] We have not now any Drake or Columbus to undertake this voyage, or any Dadalus to invent a conveyance through the aire […] However, I doubt not but that that time who is still the father of new truths, and hath revealed unto us many things of which our Ancestours were ignorant of, will also manifest to our posterity, that which wee now desire, but cannot know. […] Arts are not yet come to their Solstice, but the industry of future times assisted with the labours of their forefathers, may reach unto that height wee could not attaine to […] Keplar doubts not, but that as soone as the art of flying is found out, some of their Nation will make one of the first colonies that shall inhabit that other world.’ show less

The full title of the book is; The Discovery of a world in the Moone or a discourse tending to prove that tis probable there may be another habitable world on that planet.

Published in 1638 this is a set of propositions aiming to prove the possibility of life on the moon. Wilkins was well read in both the latest science theories of his own era and of the writers from antiquity. No scientist himself he put together his theories from contemporary writings and his own observations. He starts out by saying that the plurality of worlds does not contradict any religion or faith and having got that out of the way he makes the following propositions:

That the Moone is a solid, compacted, opacous body.
That the Moone hath not any light of her show more owne
That there is a world in the Moone, hath beene the direct opinion of many ancient, with some moderne Mathematicians, and may probably be deduced from the tenents of others.
That those spots and brighter parts which by our sight may be distinguished in the Moone, doe shew the difference betwixt the Sea and Land in that other World.
The spots represent the Sea, and the brighter parts the Land.
That there are high Mountaines, deepe vallies, and spacious plains in the body of the Moone.
That there is an Atmo-sphæra, or an orbe of grosse vaporous aire, immediately encompassing the body of the Moone.
That as their world is our Moone, so our world is their Moone.
That tis probable there may be inhabitants in this other World, but of what kinde they are is uncertaine.

All of theses propositions are backed up with a few paragraphs of explanation, much of it based on observations of refracted light. There are diagrams and much cognisance is given to the work of Galileo, Kepler and the observations of Tycho Brae.

I found this interesting in that Wilkins seems to be a man at a crossroads; saying that future discoveries will ascertain what is correct or not, he likens it to his own age when men of one land mass did not know of the existence of another. In the meantime he feels obliged to repeat what the philosophers of antiquity thought. He can’t quite rely on the scientific age.
An interesting diversion; of interest to people wanting background information to early/proto science fiction. Three stars show less

Facs. rpt. Hildesheim : Georg Olms, 1981