Astronomy And Masonry.

ASTRONOMY AND MASONRY .

A Paper read in Palestine Lodge , No . 357 , Detroit , Mich ., after the Work of the Second Degree , 27 th January 1898 . IN Voltaire's masterpiece , the romance of Micromegas , an inhabitant of one of the worlds which revolve around the great star Sirius is represented as having learned how to traverse the interstellar spaces and as making a visit to our solar system . He pauses first at the planet Saturn , and in company with one of the Saturnians , travels onward to our earth .

Although the Sirian is several leagues in height , possesses some hundreds of senses and is a young man at the age of some thousauds of our years , yet being of a broad and open habit of mind , he is quite ready to admit that his companion , though only 300 feet in height , possessed of only seventv senses and belonging

. to a race of ephemerals who usually attained to the age of only 400 years , might still possess a certain sort of reasoning faculty and be not wholly unworthy of the attention of a careful student of the infinite variety of creation . But after a careful survey of the earth , finding it from his point of view totally unfit for a

dwelling place of intelligent beings , he , with his companion , is about to continue their journey when chance brings into the focus of a microscope in his hands one of those infinitesimal ephemera called men , and with much difficulty he is able to contrive a method of communication 'with him . He is astonished

when the mite , by means of a quadrant , calculates his height . He is saddened when he learns of the inconceivable shortness of human- life and how men devote that short life chiefly to making war upon each other and otherwise preying upon each other . But when the speck goes on to expound his theology ( he is a

Calvinist ) and declares that the sun , the heavens and even Micromegas' own suu , the glorious star Sirius , were made by the Almighty Creator solely for the use of man , he leaves him in disgust and makes his way homeward , satisfied that after such an exhibition of arrogance and puny pride he need look for no greater marvel in creation .

The fancy is not so made that it does not have a certain foundation upon analogies . Knowing , or being able to guess at the relative sizes of our sun and of some of the immensely greater suns which we call stars , we may , at least for the purposes of romance , assume that there revolve around those suns dark worlds forever invisible to men , of a size proportionate to their size . We

may assume that they are inhabited by rational beings of a size proportionate to them . Erom the varying lengths of the years of various planets and from observation of the endless variety in creation , in that small corner of God ' s universe open to our inspection , we may infer great differences in length of life , in equipment in physicial senses and so on endlessly .

Nor is the parable without use . It teaches the complexity of nature and assists us toward an idea of its magnitude . We are totally unable to conceive of even the few facts revealed to our ignorance relative to the magnitude of the visible universe . Our minds cannot grasp them . We must grope our way , a step at a time . We must look first at some little corner of the truth

and when we have finally understood that already we have gone beyond our capacity to comprehend , then by calling to mind the relation between that little corner and the immeasurable whole , allow our minds to be for a moment awed by the spectacle which if we were able to comprehend it , we should not be able to bear .

We cannot trunk of the universe as a whole . We speak of the swiftness of light which could circle the earth seven times in a second . Yet a ray of light consumes more than eight minutes in coming from the sun to the earth . When we consider the distance of the sun expressed in miles , we are already beyond our

powers oi comprehension and must use a help of this kind . Now when they wish to speak of the distance of the nearest stars , it is the habit of astronomers to express it in " light years . " It is idle any longer to speak of ' miles . They say the nearest stars are five or six light-years distant , meaning that it takes five or six

years for the light to come from them to us . Now millions of stars are visible with the greatest telescopes and we have reason ¦ to infer that commonly they are no nearer , each to the other , than are the nearest stars to us . Try to conceive , then , if you dare , of the whole starry system , composed of millions of stars , each

separated from its nearest neighbour by a distance which it takes light five years to traverse . Imagine , if you can , each of these million surrounded by a system of dark worlds like our own and each world inhabited , for aught we know , by teeming multitudes of God ' s children .

The greatest telescopes collect the light of stars so distant that the ray which reveals their existence to the astronomer must have started on its lonely journey through space ages before the creation of Adam . So that if Almighty God , to signalise that

new work of His , had thought fit to extinguish one of these distant stars , we should be seeing the light , for the last ray or vibration , starting at the time of the creation of Adam , would not yet have reached the earth . And yet sweeping the sky with

Astronomy And Masonry.

these great telescopes , among these millions of suns , astronomers find dark places , veritable holes iu the sky , in which our whole solar system could revolve without bringing any part of it nearer to the nearest star than it now is and down which it could fall with the swiftness of light , without meeting with any obstruction

—how long we cannot guess ; certainly longer than the life of the human race has been , according to our common computation , We need no longer stun ourselves with such conceptions . Let us look for the lesson . It is all found iu the Masonic Eitual , There are the texts . This is only the comment .

Does it not give a new meaning to the words of our Bitual" being created by one Almighty Parent and inhabitants of the same planet , we are to aid , protect and support one another . " If you are out on a little raft in the midst of the ocean with no man or sign of man in sight , but another poor wretch , clinging like yourself to the same frail support , would not all the shams

and conventionalities of life slip from you ? Would you not draw as close to him as possible , and would you not both try to aid , support and comfort one another ? So when you contemplate the inconceivable spaces of the universe , when you feel how not yourself but the whole , firm-seeming earth is but a speck of dust tossed to and fro over a bottomless abyss , do you not feel a sense

of helplessness , of loneliness , come over you ? Do you not long for the grasp of a friendly hand and the sound of a voice calling , " Brother" ? You feel that man is an atom , that life here is but a breath , the flight of a bird through a dark hall out of one blaze of sunlight and into another , that God alone is great and eternity

alone worth considering . Take two quotations from the lecture of the Second Degree : " Numberless worlds are around us , all framed by the same Divine Artist , which roll through the vast expanse and are all conducted by the same unerring law of nature .

" While engaged in the study ' ot this science ( astronomy ) we must perceive unparalleled instances of goodness aud wisdom , and throughout the whole creation learn to trace the glorious Author by His works . " What are worldly wealth and honour , what the pitiful distinctions of human life in the eye and mind of the Creator and

Governor of this universe ? What is there of any consequence in life except to do good , to love God and men , and to humbly study God and His creation ? What folly the interminable wars and disputes kept up among men upon this ball of mud ? If as much money and energy had been spent in studying the heavens as has been expended upou wars aud preparations for wars only

since 1870 , 1 dare say we should have known by this tiiiie whether Mars is inhabited by rational creatures , and if it is we might even be in actual communication wiih them . This is no new notion , but some of you may not have heard of it , and to such it will seem like a dream . But consider . In all the infinite variety of creation one thing remains unchanged—geometry . If there are rational

beings in Mars , doubtless they would not know any of our languages ; they may have no powers of speech . They may not eat or sleep or hear or breathe , but . if they have minds and have cultivated them , they have geometry , and the 47 th problem of Euclid , under whatever name , is as familiar to them as it is to us . We could mark it out on such a scale upon our earth that they could make it out if they have telescopes only equal to ours , and we

need not suppose that their advancement in physical science is behind ours , for according to the nebular hypothesis , their world is older than ours , and perhaps their civilisation is also older . If they have minds and eyes they would recognise our sign as the work of intelligent beings , and as meant for a signal to them , and they would reply . What a prospect is opened up . by the thought !

The wonders of astronomy are not confined to the inconceivably great . Let us look for a moment at the inconceivably small . Students of astronomical physics , " The New Astronomy , ' ' as it is called , by an apparatus which is a marvel of human skill , and by an application of analysis which is a monument to human reason , have been able to measure the length of waves of light .

They compare with certainty and accuracy the wave lengths of different kinds of light , which vary for the rays of the visible spectrum from about 30 , 000 to the inch for the red rays to about 65 , 000 for the violet rays . By the analysis and study of the ¦ li ght sent to us from the heavenly bodies they have to the most surprising extent increased our knowledge of the universe . Many

of you have doubtless heard of the early achievements of spectrum analysis , how it revealed to us with certainty the existence , in the sun for example , of nearly all the elements that compose the earth , proving a substantial unity of composition and suggesting with great force the idea of an original unity of existence . That is to say , that the sun and earth and the other

planets once formed a single body , from which the planets have been successively detached . You may have heard that by spectrum analysis we have learned that some luminous bodies in the heavens are apparently a simple gas , that some great stars are composed of a few elements , while others have more and some have all that we know of , and some perhaps some new ones .