COMETS. 129 



to this cause some singular facts in geology, explained, " why the ocean has abandoned the 

 highest mountains, on which it has left incontestable marks of its former abode. "We see 

 why the animals and plants of the south may have existed in the climates of the north, 

 where their relics and impressions are still to be found. Lastly, it explains the short period 

 of the existence of the moral world, whose earliest monuments do not go much further back 

 than three thousand years. The human race, reduced to a small number of individuals, 

 in the most deplorable state, occupied only with the immediate care for their subsistence, 

 must necessarily have lost the remembrance of all sciences and of every art ; and when 

 the progress of civilisation has again created new wants, everything was to be done again, 

 as if mankind had been just placed upon the earth." When this was the language of a 

 philosopher of such high repute, the cockneys and belles of Paris might well tremble at 

 the announcement of a comet. " Popular terrors," said a professor there upon a recent 

 occasion, " are productive of serious consequences. Several members of the Academy 

 may still remember the accidents and disorders which followed a similar threat, impru 

 dently communicated to the Academy by M. Delande in May 1773. Persons of weak 

 minds died of fright, and women miscarried. There were not wanting people, who knew 

 too well the art of turning to their advantage the alarm inspired by the apprehended 

 comet, and places in Paradise were sold at very high prices. The announcement of the 

 comet of 1832 may produce similar effects, unless the authority of the Academy apply a 

 prompt remedy ; and this salutary intervention is at this moment implored by many 

 benevolent persons." The possibility of collision with one of these vagrant cruisers in 

 space may indeed be soberly entertained, as they move in all imaginable directions, 

 penetrate within the interior of the planetary orbits, and often pass between Mercury and 

 the sun. But a calculation of probabilities shows, that of 281,000,000 of chances, there 

 are 280,999,999 that are favourable to one unfavourable. The probability, therefore, of 

 such an event happening in the experience of any individual of the human race is no 

 greater than it would be with reference to his drawing one black ball, supposing it in an 

 urn with 280,999,999 white balls. As to the near approach of a comet producing any 

 great terrestrial change, such as deflecting our globe from its orbit by attraction, and 

 scampering off with it as a satellite, we have plain warrant to treat the assumption as 

 romance. The case of Lexel's lost comet intruding in the system of Jupiter without 

 disturbing it, but being itself twisted into a new path, may lead us to allow of some 

 approach to fellowship with perfect safety. That comet advanced to within six times the 

 distance of the moon from us, yet it neither raised our tides a jot, nor added a single 

 second to our year, though the diameter of its head was estimated to be thirteen times 

 that of our satellite. 



We, indeed, were not quite so passive upon that occasion, for the action of the earth 

 upon the comet increased the time of its revolution by two days. Even should an instance 

 of actual contact occur, there seems no more reason to infer physical convulsion from the 

 attack of a gaseous body, than in the case of a squadron of clouds assailing the sides and 

 summit of a mountain. In all probability the only effect would be a change of temperature, 

 with some peculiar atmospheric phenomena, yet compatible with a full security to human 

 life and happiness. That the orbital course and rotation of our planet would be affected ; 

 that the pole and the equator would exchange places ; that the ocean would leave its 

 present bed, and the dry land be submerged ; that any consequence would follow beyond 

 a temporary alteration of climate, we have not only no authority to suppose, but strong 

 grounds to deny. The surmise has been entertained that, in the year 1837, our globe 

 experienced some cometary entanglement ; and nothing more likely than that repeatedly, 

 since the Creation, the terrestrial surface has received a brush. No trifling service has been 

 rendered to mankind by science, that now these bodies are divested of those attributes of 



