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Extraterrestrials of the New World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Alexandre Vigne  and
Alexandre Vigne
Alexandre Vigne
Affiliation:
Postgraduate School of Paris-Sorbonne
Alexandre Vigne
Affiliation:
Postgraduate School of Paris-Sorbonne
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Extract

The fact that the Earth is no longer seen as at the centre of the Universe is the reason normally put forward to explain the rejection of heliocentrism. However, this version does not hit the mark. We should remember particularly that Man's position at the midpoint of the heavens was not all glorious; in the medieval world's hierarchical vision, only Hell is lower than the Earth, above which rises the celestial sphere, the whole being transcended by divine infinity. Observing that this lowly spiritual position reflects a cosmic reality, Nicolas Oresme (d. 1382) thought it wiser to assign the central place to the Sun. Anticipating Copernicus, he even advanced the hypothesis that it was the Earth that moved rather than Heaven. In any case, the important point was less Man's place in the Universe than in Creation, which might in fact contain another Universe side by side with ours, also with an inhabited Earth at its centre, as certain reputable theologians maintained from the thirteenth century. Thus humanity's loss of the central position in Creation had already been sidelined by the hypothesis of a plurality of worlds. However, Giordano Bruno was condemned in 1600, eleven years before the heliocentrism of Copernicus and Galileo, for having defended the vision of an infinite Universe and the idea of extraterrestrial life. How should we explain the fact that in the thirteenth century the papacy was battling with the universities to persuade them to teach that God could create other worlds, whilst in the seventeenth century philosophers, scientists and freethinkers were risking their lives trying to persuade the Inquisition that solar systems similar to our own exist in the Universe?

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 48 , Issue 189 , March 2000 , pp. 48 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2000

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References

Notes

1. Propositions listed by Etienne Gilson (1962), in La philosophie au Moyen Age. Des origines patristiques à la fin du XIVe siècle (Paris, Payot, 2nd ed.), p. 559. See La condamnation parisienne de 1277, latin text, translation, introduction and commentary by David Piché, with the assistance of Claude Lafleur (Paris J. Vrin, 1999).

2. See George de Lagarde (1956), La naissance de l'esprit laïque au déclin du Moyen Age (Louvain-Paris, Editions Nauwelaerts), vol. II, pp. 151-152.

3. François de Meyronnes, Commentaires sur les Sentences, quoted in Etienne Gilson, La philosophie au Moyen Age, op. cit., p. 611.

4. Guillame de Vaurouillon, Sentences, distinction XLIV, Livre I, quoted by Steven J. Dick (1989), La pluralité des Mondes, trans. Marc Rolland (Arles, Actes Sud), p. 64.

5. Nicolas de Cusa, La docte ignorance, trans. Pierre Duhem (1965), in Le Système du Monde, Histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic (Paris, Hermann), 10, p. 324.

6. Martin Luther, Tischreden, quoted by Alexandre Calame in the introduction to Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1966), Entretiens sur la pluralité des Mondes (Paris, Librairie Marcel Didier), p. xxxiv. According to Lauterbach, a witness to the scene, Luther expressed his view with less force and anxiety: ‘People who wish to be intelligent should not be satisfied with others' opinions. They should always say what they believe them selves, just like that fellow who wants to overturn the whole of astrology. But even though astrology has been upset, I personally believe in Holy Scripture for Joshua [cf. Joshua 10, 12-14] commanded the Sun and not the Earth to stop.' Martin Luther, Tischreden quoted by Richard Stauffer (1975) in ‘L'attitude des réformateurs à l'égard de Copernic', Avant, Avec, Après Copernic. La représentation de l'Univers et ses conséquences épistémologiques (Paris, Librairie Albert Blanchard), p. 160. This position of Luther's, which is less forthright than the previous one, fits with his belief, also articulated in his after-dinner speeches, that ‘Wisdom, intelligence, knowledge, the pen, that is what should rule the world'. Martin Luther (1975), Propos de table, trans. Louis Sauzin (Paris, Montaigne), vol. II, p. 476.

7. Gaspar Peucer (1571), Hypotheses astronomicae, quoted by Pierre Marcel (1980), in ‘Calvin et Copernic. La légende ou les faits? La science et l'astronomie chez Calvin', La Revue Réformée, 31, March, p. 162.

8. Jean Calvin, 8ème Sermon sur I Co 10, 19-24, a sermon delivered c. 1556 and published in 1558, ibid, pp. 26-27.

9. See Donald Fleming (1964), ‘The judgement upon Copernicus in Puritan New England', L'aventure de l'esprit, Mélanges Alexandre Koyré (Paris, Hermann), 2, pp. 160-175.

10. Philipp Melanchton (1550), Initia doctrinae physicae (Wittenberg), quoted by Steven J. Dick, La pluralité des mondes, op. cit., p. 129. His Doctrines of Physics were published in nine new editions between 1550 and 1566.

11. On Europeans' view of that Other challenging them, see Jean-Bruno Renard (1984), ‘L'homme sauvage et l'extra-terrestre: deux figures de l'imaginaire évolutionniste', Diogène, 127, July-September, pp. 70-88.

12. Francisco López de Gómara (1552), Hispania victris, Primera & segunda parte de la Historia general de las Indias, quoted by Jacques Lafaye (1974), in Quetzalcóatl et Guadeloupe. La formation de la conscience nationale au Mexique (Paris, Gallimard), p. 59.

13. Gui Patin, letter of 14 Septembre 1643, in Lettres de Gui Patin, presented by J.H. Reveillé-Parisse, J.B. Baillière (Paris, 1846), 1, p. 297.

14. See Franck Lestringant (1996), ‘Calvinistes et cannibales: les écrits protestants sur le Brésil français (1555- 1560)', in L'expérience huguenote au nouveau monde (XVIe siècle), (Geneva, Droz), pp. 77-118

15. See Alfredo Gómez-Muller (1993), ‘L'être-Métis: l'inca Garcilaso de la Vega', in Penser la rencontre de deux mondes, under the direction of Alfredo Gómez-Muller (Paris, PUF), pp. 35-61. The prime position given to the Sun must have seemed intolerable to Europeans, who were convinced of the superiority of values over phenomena and discovered that the Indians started wars or sacrificed their children in order to feed warm hearts to the incandescent star.

16. Letter from Ciampoli to Galileo, February 1615, quoted by Camille Flammarion (1864), in La pluralité des Mondes habités. Etude où l'on expose les conditions d'habitabilité des terres célestes discutées au point de vue de l'astronomie, de la physiologie et de la philosophie naturelle (Paris, Didier et Cie), pp. 425-426.

17. Letter addressed by Father Gazrée to Gassendi three years after Galileo's death, quoted by Camille Flammarion, ibid., pp. 426-427.

18. Campanella fit éditer par son ami luthérien Tobias Adami une ‘Apologie de Galilée' (1622). Lire l'introduction de Richard J. Blackwell à l'édition anglaise de Thomas Campanella, 'A Defense of Galileo, the Mathematician from Florence', translated by Richard J. Blackwell, University of Notre Dame Press, London 1994, p. 157.

19. Isaac Newton (1996), Ecrits sur la religion (Paris, Gallimard), p. 261.