3. I have talked with spirits from our earth about this a number of times. We concluded that anyone with a capable mind can see, on the basis of things that are well known, that there must be many planets and they must have people on them. That is, we can determine on rational grounds that bodies as large as the planets-and some of them are significantly larger than our own-are not uninhabited lumps created only to be carried along on a wandering course 1 around the Sun and shed their feeble light for the benefit of just one planet. Their function must be more worthwhile than this.
If we believe, as everyone should, that the Divine created the universe for the sole purpose of bringing humankind into being as the source of heaven (because humankind is the seedbed of heaven), then we cannot help but believe that wherever there is a planet there must be people on it. 2
[2] As for the objects visible to our eyes because they are within our solar system, 3 we can obviously tell that they are planets from the fact that they are bodies of physical matter. They reflect the light of the Sun, and when we look at them through a telescope they do not look like stars, which twinkle because of their fire, but appear earthlike, with darker and lighter patches. 4 There is also the fact that they, like our own planet, travel around the Sun along the path of the zodiac, which must cause years and the seasons of the year called spring, summer, fall, and winter. Similarly, they rotate on their axes as our planet does, which must cause days and the times of day called morning, afternoon, evening, and night. Not only that, some of them have moons called satellites, which have their own periodic orbits around their sphere the way our moon orbits our planet. The planet Saturn, which is farthest from the Sun, has a huge luminous ring around it that gives a great deal of light to that planet, even though it is reflected light. 5 Can any rational individual who knows all this maintain that these bodies are uninhabited?
Notes de bas de page:
1. The Latin here translated “to be carried along on a wandering course” is ut . . . ferantur ac spatientur, literally, “to be borne and wander.” The reference to wandering points to the Greek word πλανήτης (planétes), the ancestor of the English word “planet,” which means “a wanderer.” The term reflects the observation made in ancient times that the planets vary in location against the background of the fixed stars. The word spatientur, “wander,” may also serve here as a pun on the word spatia, “spaces,” which Swedenborg uses in Worship and Love of God to refer to orbital distances. [GFD, SS]
2. The idea that all other planets are inhabited was quite common in eighteenth-century Europe. On the history of the extraterrestrial life debate from ancient times up to (and beyond) Swedenborg’s contemporaries, see the introduction to this volume, pages 85-90, as well as Dick 1982; Crowe 1986. For an analysis of Swedenborg’s views on the human race as the purpose of the universe, particularly in light of more recent astrophysical science, see Koke 1982; Koke 1987. [LSW]
3. The Latin phrase here translated “solar system” is mundus hujus Solis, literally, “the world of this sun”; the direct Latin equivalent for “solar system” seems not to have been used in Swedenborg’s time. Occasionally Swedenborg uses mundus (“world”) by itself in this sense, but since the word can also convey other meanings, including “planet” and even “material existence,” he here adds the qualifying phrase “of this sun” to avoid ambiguity. (Compare the English translation of mundus as “system” in the title of the first English translation of Other Planets, published in 1787 [Swedenborg [1758] 1787].) [SS]
4. Stars looked like points of light even through the best optical telescopes of the magnifications available in Swedenborg’s time (and in ours), but planets showed as actual disks, and features such as Jupiter’s bands were visible. Swedenborg’s description here can be assumed to be based on personal experience. For example, in 1711, during his first visit to England, he may have performed observations through the telescope at the observatory in Greenwich. He is known from his own letters to have conversed in person with Britain’s royal astronomer, John Flamsteed (1646-1719; see Tafel 1875, 210-211) and his remarks about the observatory show that he visited it at least once (Acton 1948-1955, 31-32). Stockholm Observatory, completed in 1753, would also have been accessible to Swedenborg; it was operated by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, of which he was a member (Sigstedt 1981, 161-162). [SS, GFD]
5. Swedenborg’s description of Saturn as the planet farthest from the Sun reflects the scientific knowledge current in his time. Of the planets beyond Saturn, Uranus was discovered only in 1781, nine years after Swedenborg’s death, and Neptune was discovered in 1846. The reason for the existence of Saturn’s rings implied here is that they were necessary as a reflector in order to provide the inhabitants of that “farthest” planet with sufficient light to live. [RS]
