More Worlds Than One
The Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian

An argument for the possibility of extra-terrestrial life, by a distinguished scientist of deep religious convictions.

David Brewster (Author)

9781108004169, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

272 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm, 0.35 kg

Sir David Brewster (1781–1868) was a distinguished scientist and inventor who frequently turned the results of his research to practical ends; his work on the diffraction of light, for example, led to his developing improved reflectors for lighthouses and inventing two popular Victorian toys, the stereoscope and the kaleidoscope. He was also active as the editor of the Edinburgh Magazine and the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia (1808–1830) and contributed to the seventh and eighth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, as well as writing many articles for a variety of philosophical and scientific journals. He was deeply religious, and in More Worlds Than One (1854) he set out to counter the arguments against extra-terrestrial life of William Whewell's recently published Of the Plurality of Worlds (also reissued in this series), urging that Whewell's 'extraordinary doctrine' was wrong on scientific grounds.

Preface
Introduction
1. Religious aspect of the question
2. Description of the solar system
3. The geological condition of the earth
4. Analogy between the earth and the other planets
5. The sun, moon, satellites, and asteroids
6. The motion of the solar system round a distant centre
7. Religious difficulties
8. Single stars and binary systems
9. Clusters of stars and nebulæ
10. General summary
11. Reply to objections drawn from geology
12. Objections from the nature of nebulæ
13. Objections from the nature of the fixed stars and binary systems
14. Objections from the nature of the planets
15. The future of the universe.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]