Buck Conner
40 Cal
One doesn't realize how advanced our forefathers had become, our forefathers had many thoughts about other things besides just weapons and survival in earlier times.
Here's some interesting thoughts provided by an old friend - Peter Goebel of Goose Bay Workshops. Read this, its interesting how far we had come, even in the Eighteenth Century.
The Eighteenth Century and Extraterrestrials
During the eighteenth century, people who viewed the moon through their telescopes saw mountains and valleys similar to those on Earth. This led them to think: if life could be found on Earth, why couldn’t it exist on the other planets in the solar system? “These similarities (between Earth’s terrain and the moon’s) leave us no room to doubt, but that all the planets and moons in the system are designed as commodius habitations for creatures” the authors of the 1771 Encyclopedia Brittanica, Vol. 1, wrote.
The Encyclopedia’s authors understood the moon to have no atmosphere nor seas, yet they still did not doubt the presence of life there. Although they made few claims as to what life on the moon might be like, the authors assumed that, if Earth’s people were watching the moon and wondering about its inhabitants, those who lived on the moon (‘lunarians’) were watching them back with the same wondering eyes. They wrote that, through watching the Earth, lunarians could use it as a sort of clock by noting the speed at which its landmasses revolved. So, “her inhabitants (lunarians) are not destitute of means for ascertaining the length of their year, though their method and ours must differ.”
The authors believed Jupiter and Saturn to be inhabited as well. They wrote that, in order to have seen the Earth, the inhabitants of these planets must have much better eyesight than Earth dwellers, or at least have technologically equivalent telescopes. Although Jupiter and Saturn were thought to offer lower levels of sunlight and to be somewhat colder than Earth, the authors wrote “we … may, at first thought, … believe that these two planets are entirely unfit for rational beings to dwell upon” but “these two planets … may be very comfortable places of residence.”
The authors understood some planets were not suitable for humans from Earth, and they had an answer for this, too. In describing the supposed inhabitants of Mercury, they suggested “the Almighty could as easily suit the bodies and constitutions of its inhabitants to the heat of their dwelling, as he has done to ours to the temperature of our earth. And it is very probable that the people there have such an opinion of us, as we have of the inhabitants of Jupiter and Saturn; namely, that we must be intolerably cold, and have very little sight at so great a distance from the sun.”
Extraterrestrial life was not restricted to only the planets and their moons: “The extreme heat, the dense atmosphere, the gross vapours, the chaotic state of the comets, seem at first sight to indicate them altogether unfit for the purposes of animal life, and a most miserable habitation for rational beings … therefore some are of the opinion that they are so many hells for tormenting the dammed … it seems highly probable, that such numerous and large masses of durable matter as the comets are, however unlikely they be to our earth, are not destitute of beings …”
The authors concluded that all of the parts of the solar system (or, as much of the solar system they knew; they could see as far as Saturn) had been created in such detail and complexity that this fact alone was “little less than a positive proof, that all the planets are inhabited …” This conclusion as driven by the firm belief that God would not have put so much effort into creating the entire solar system, to leave all except one planet uninhabited.
The idea of extraterrestrial life, therefore, was around during the eighteenth century, but it was a far cry from the science fiction of today. Inhabitants of the other planets in our solar system were benevolent people with scientific, questioning, exploring minds, and were at roughly the same level of technology as the authors of the Encyclopedia Britannica. One wonders if the authors imagined the inhabitants of Jupiter, Mercury, and the moon standing in their frock coats and tricornes, gazing out at Earth through their telescopes.
The early survival lessons were hard learned. A school of hard knocks is a really tough task-master, with an extremely steep grading curve. You either learned, or you died. With lessons being so costly to learn, you can be sure that parents taught their children everything they knew.
Here's some interesting thoughts provided by an old friend - Peter Goebel of Goose Bay Workshops. Read this, its interesting how far we had come, even in the Eighteenth Century.
The Eighteenth Century and Extraterrestrials
During the eighteenth century, people who viewed the moon through their telescopes saw mountains and valleys similar to those on Earth. This led them to think: if life could be found on Earth, why couldn’t it exist on the other planets in the solar system? “These similarities (between Earth’s terrain and the moon’s) leave us no room to doubt, but that all the planets and moons in the system are designed as commodius habitations for creatures” the authors of the 1771 Encyclopedia Brittanica, Vol. 1, wrote.
The Encyclopedia’s authors understood the moon to have no atmosphere nor seas, yet they still did not doubt the presence of life there. Although they made few claims as to what life on the moon might be like, the authors assumed that, if Earth’s people were watching the moon and wondering about its inhabitants, those who lived on the moon (‘lunarians’) were watching them back with the same wondering eyes. They wrote that, through watching the Earth, lunarians could use it as a sort of clock by noting the speed at which its landmasses revolved. So, “her inhabitants (lunarians) are not destitute of means for ascertaining the length of their year, though their method and ours must differ.”
The authors believed Jupiter and Saturn to be inhabited as well. They wrote that, in order to have seen the Earth, the inhabitants of these planets must have much better eyesight than Earth dwellers, or at least have technologically equivalent telescopes. Although Jupiter and Saturn were thought to offer lower levels of sunlight and to be somewhat colder than Earth, the authors wrote “we … may, at first thought, … believe that these two planets are entirely unfit for rational beings to dwell upon” but “these two planets … may be very comfortable places of residence.”
The authors understood some planets were not suitable for humans from Earth, and they had an answer for this, too. In describing the supposed inhabitants of Mercury, they suggested “the Almighty could as easily suit the bodies and constitutions of its inhabitants to the heat of their dwelling, as he has done to ours to the temperature of our earth. And it is very probable that the people there have such an opinion of us, as we have of the inhabitants of Jupiter and Saturn; namely, that we must be intolerably cold, and have very little sight at so great a distance from the sun.”
Extraterrestrial life was not restricted to only the planets and their moons: “The extreme heat, the dense atmosphere, the gross vapours, the chaotic state of the comets, seem at first sight to indicate them altogether unfit for the purposes of animal life, and a most miserable habitation for rational beings … therefore some are of the opinion that they are so many hells for tormenting the dammed … it seems highly probable, that such numerous and large masses of durable matter as the comets are, however unlikely they be to our earth, are not destitute of beings …”
The authors concluded that all of the parts of the solar system (or, as much of the solar system they knew; they could see as far as Saturn) had been created in such detail and complexity that this fact alone was “little less than a positive proof, that all the planets are inhabited …” This conclusion as driven by the firm belief that God would not have put so much effort into creating the entire solar system, to leave all except one planet uninhabited.
The idea of extraterrestrial life, therefore, was around during the eighteenth century, but it was a far cry from the science fiction of today. Inhabitants of the other planets in our solar system were benevolent people with scientific, questioning, exploring minds, and were at roughly the same level of technology as the authors of the Encyclopedia Britannica. One wonders if the authors imagined the inhabitants of Jupiter, Mercury, and the moon standing in their frock coats and tricornes, gazing out at Earth through their telescopes.
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The early survival lessons were hard learned. A school of hard knocks is a really tough task-master, with an extremely steep grading curve. You either learned, or you died. With lessons being so costly to learn, you can be sure that parents taught their children everything they knew.
Buck
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