BISHOP WILKINS [John Wilkins was born at Oxford in 1614, and educated in his early years under the care of a well-known dissenter, Mr. John Dod, who was his grandfather on the mother's side. He afterwards entered at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and after taking his degree went abroad and became Chaplain to the Count Palatine. Joining the Parliamentary side when the Rebellion broke out, he was made Warden of Wadham in 1648, and Master of Trinity, Cambridge, in 1659, having in 1656 married Robina, sister of Oliver Cromwell, and widow of Peter French, Canon of Christ Church. On the Restoration, he was ejected from Trinity, but became Rector of St. Lawrence Jewry; and subsequently, through the help of a somewhat compromising patron, the Duke of Buckingham, he was promoted first to the Deanery of Ripon, and then to the Bishopric of Chester, in 1668. He died in 1672. His works were numerous. In 1638, there appeared The Discovery of a New World: a Discourse to prove that there may be another habitable world in the Moon. A second part of this treats of The Possibility of a Passage to the Moon. In 1640, appeared A Discourse Concerning a new Planet: tending to prove that the Earth may be a Planet. Others of his works were Mercury, or the Secret Messenger (1641); Mathematical Magic (1648); The Principles of Natural Religion (printed after his death); and an Essay towards a Real Character and Philosophical Language. This last is a scheme for a universal language, and was written for, and published under the auspices of, the Royal Society, of which Wilkins was a devoted member.] WILKINS'S curious variations of political adherence, and the fact that his patrons were so strangely assorted as to comprise Cromwell, Charles II., and the Duke of Buckingham, do not lead us to infer that his political faith was very ardent, or that he was troubled with any special delicacy of feeling. But it would be absurd to describe him as a political schemer. His interests were chiefly in other pursuits: such creed as he had was summed up chiefly in the determination to adhere very closely to no creed; and he was sufficiently astute to make his religious, as well as his political, latitudinarianism, serve his own interests. His friends admit that he was ambitious: and on the other hand, his enemies do not charge against him any dishonourable act. His books have a certain interest of their own, and deserve a place in any collection which is to represent the literary fashion of the day. Wilkins was without enthusiasm, without reverence, and without humour: on the other hand he has unquestionably a certain quaintness and sprightliness of invention, and a certain boldness in argument, in the course of which he puts forward, quite gravely, propositions which, as stated, are extremely droll. Of literary art he has no conception, and the precision with which his argument advances from step to step, while it gives a certain clearness to his prose style, necessarily imparts to it more than the usual amount of formality, and makes any elasticity or ease impossible. Yet it is curious to see how even in a writer so argumentative, and so redolent of the schools, as Wilkins, a reminiscence of that direct colloquial force and freedom so distinctive of our earlier English prose still lingers; and that even his most scholastic reasoning is enlivened occasionally by a familiar phrase or exclamation. The characteristic of Wilkins's thought is not profound speculation, and his prose accordingly never becomes intricate or obscure. His chief qualities are, a sort of alert curiosity, a boldness in hazarding conjectures, a determination to be fettered by no authority: and, joined with these, an absence of all hesitation, an air of absolute unconcern as to whether this or that position be true or false, so long as it is conceivably tenable, and a readiness to advance theories which is all the greater because all earnestness of feeling is so entirely wanting. Wilkins was only by accident a theologian. He was for the most part an experimental philosopher, ready and independent, but neither profound nor judicious. He represented one type of the Royal Society. He was not merely the fashionable and dilettante virtuoso just as little was he one who could materially advance physical science, or extend her sway. He still retains the habit of introducing into his physical speculations, the miscellaneous, ill-digested, uncritical learning which his generation, or a certain section of it, loved, and which seemed an inheritance from the old days of the alchemists. It is easy to see how strong the effect of the Latin construction is upon him. He recurs, sentence after sentence, to what answers to the ablative absolute in Latin. The participle appears in almost every clause: and he seeks to impart a certain logical formality to his argument, by repeatedly following the Latin construction by which the object frequently precedes, and the subject follows, the verb. All this in Wilkins, and in others of his kind, was no doubt helping to form the later fashion of an argumentative style; but it was leading English prose further and further away from the more natural, and perhaps in a literary sense, more healthy, tendency to fix the position of a word rather by the dictates of sound and harmony, than by the exigencies of grammar or logical precision. VOL. II H. CRAIK. 2 N A JOURNEY TO THE MOON POSSIBLE ALL that hath been said concerning the people of the new world is but conjectural, and full of uncertainties; nor can we ever look for any evident or more probable discoveries in this kind, unless there be some hopes of inventing means for our conveyance thither. The possibility of which shall be the subject of our enquiry in this last proposition. And if we do but consider by what steps and leisure all arts do usually rise to their growth, we shall have no cause to doubt why this also may not hereafter be found out among other secrets. It hath constantly yet been the method of providence, not presently to show us all, but to lead us on by degrees from the knowledge of one thing to another. It was a great while ere the planets were distinguished from the fixed stars; and some time after that, ere the morning and evening star were found to be the same: and in greater space (I doubt not) but this also, and other as excellent mysteries will be discovered. Time, who hath always been the father of new truths, and hath revealed unto us many things which our ancestors were ignorant of, will also manifest to our posterity that which we now desire, but cannot know. Veniet tempus (saith Seneca) quo ista quæ nunc latent, in lucem dies extrahet, et longioris ævi diligentia. Time will come when the endeavours of after ages shall bring such things to light as now lie hid in obscurity. Arts are not yet come to their solstice; but the industry of future times, assisted with the labours of their forefathers, may reach that height which we could not attain to. Veniet tempus quo posteri nostri nos tam aperta nescisse mirentur. As we now wonder at the blindness of our ancestors, who were not able to discern such things as seem plain and obvious unto us, so will our posterity admire our ignorance in as perspicuous matters. In the first ages of the world, the islanders thought themselves either to be the only dwellers upon earth, or else if there were any other, they could not possibly conceive how they might have any commerce with them, being severed by the deep and broad sea. But aftertimes found out the invention of ships in which notwithstanding, none but some bold daring men durst venture, according to that of the tragedian : Audax nimium qui freta primus Rate tam fragili perfida rupit." And yet now, how easy a thing is this even to a timorous and cowardly nature? And, questionless, the invention of some other means for our conveyance to the moon cannot seem more incredible to us than this did at first to them; and therefore we have no just reason to be discouraged in our hopes of the like success. Yea, but (you will say) there can be no sailing thither, unless that were true which the poet does but feign, that she made her bed in the sea. We have not now any Drake, or Columbus, to undertake this voyage, or any Dædalus to invent a conveyance through the air. I answer, though we have not, yet why may not succeeding times raise up some spirits as eminent for new attempts and strange inventions as any that were before them? It is the opinion of Kepler, that as soon as the art of flying is found out, some of their nation will make one of the first colonies that shall transplant into that other world. I suppose his appropriating this pre-eminence to his own countrymen may arise from an overpartial affection to them. But yet, thus far I agree with him, that whenever that art is invented, or any other whereby a man may be conveyed some twenty miles high, or thereabouts, then it is not altogether improbable that some or other may be successful in this attempt. For the better clearing of which I shall first lay down, and then answer those doubts that may make it seem utterly impossible. These are chiefly three. The first, taken from the natural heaviness of a man's body, whereby it is made unfit for the motion of ascent, together with the vast distance of that place from us. 2. From the extreme coldness of the ætherial air. |