From The Spectator. THE SUN AS A DWELLING-PLACE.

|bodied creatures we can form a few notions based on more trustworthy facts. Indeed, the elder Herschel, who was one of the earliest theorists about the sun's spots, always held that the sun might be inhabited; that its solid nucleus, that is, need not be so hot as to prevent the existence of beings organized more or less as we are. It is, at least, worth while to consider what sorts and degrees of difference such a life, if it be possible, would imply, even without an atmosphere of gigantic salamanders, and a converging fire of innumerable meteors and planetoids, or a lashing by cometary tails a few millions of miles in length.

In the physics of the universe, as in the customs of human societies, there are many serious qualifications to the advantages of a central situation. Sir William Armstrong suggested, in his inaugural address last week to the British Association, that that curiously mottled appearance of the sun's bright atmosphere when seen through a telescope, which has given rise to Mr. Nasmyth's expression about the solar "willow-leaves," might be due to organized" forms of matter; and that the constant supply of heat which warms the whole solar system may, as previous astronomers have suggested, be due to the con- In the first place, there is, no doubt, room stant concussion of falling bodies rushing into enough for a very considerable immigration the centre of our system, and heating it just there, as the surface of the sun would accomas his own cannon-balls or shells heat the modate in mere extent the population of great targets at Shoeburyness. Both these 12,000 earths. In other words, if the carth suggestions are, of course, mere guesses, had been fully peopled during 12,000 generathough the latter, at least, is as probable as tions, and all its population transferred to any other mere conjecture concerning the the sun, the sun would only then become source of the solar heat; but both of them fully peopled, supposing its surface to be in suggest so many marvels and inconveniences the same proportion susceptible of cultivawhich would attend its possible inhabitants, tion. Unfortunately, however, the muscular if it could be the babitation of beings in any way resembling the inhabitants of this earth, that if astronomers were to acquiesce in them, or, at least, in the latter of them, the sun would probably be given up as rapidly as the moon to that desolating theory of Dr. Whewell, which refuses to give rational animals a foothold anywhere in the universe except upon our little planet. Certainly, one would not choose for a dwelling-place a sphere, however majestic, eternally bombarded from all parts of the celestial spaces,-a world into which minute planets, that had been travelling from infinite distances with a constantly accelerating speed, should be constantly crashing home, where the annexation of a comet would be an every-day event. Sebastopol or Vicksburg under siege would be a sort of heaven to such a life as that, besides that, they at least had the satisfaction of returning the fire, which would be impossible for the sun, seeing that the force which would keep up the bombardment would be of no alien origin, but inseparable from its own existence. The big salamanders, 100,000 miles in area, which Sir W. Armstrong pictured as floating in the solar atmosphere, and this heavy celestial artillery, are alike matters of conjecture; but of the sun as a dwelling-place for em

power needed for walking on the sun would have to be twenty-eight times as great, for a man of the same size, as the muscular power needed for walking on the earth. The sun is very much less dense than the earth,—not much, indeed, above the density of water,but its enormous size increases the gravitation there to twenty-eight times its power on earth. Every man, therefore, suddenly transferred to the surface of the sun,-if he could ive there at all,-would appear to himself to have an accumulation of twenty-seven other men upon his back-a weight under which it is needless to observe that no human muscles could stagger. However, swimming upon such a surface, in any fluid as light as water (and the bulk of the sun appears to be made up of fluid at least as light as this), would be far easier than it is here; for all weights being multiplied by about twenty-eight, the difference between the weight of the water displaced and of the human body--which measures the supporting force-would also be multiplied by twenty-eight; and just in proportion, therefore, as the difficulty of walking is increased there, that of swimming (in such a fluid as our water) would be diminished.

But these differences are trifling compared

But even if this be so, the vast difference

with the differences arising from the central sun's surface, to produce a heat equal to that position of the sun. To inhabitants of that radiated from the solar orb." We can easily globe there would be no such phenomena as imagine how very thick a stratum of cloud day and night, but a perpetual and uniform and air it would need to protect the solar inblaze, like the light with which the roofs of habitants, if such there are, from a heat and the Houses of Parliament are nightly lighted light so intense and so constant, where there up. though infinitely intense, would be al- is no periodic light to lower the temperature ways blazing above that semi-transparent and rest the eye after the heat and glare of cloudy screen which Sir William Herschel the day. This heat and light would have to thought might temper the light and heat of shine through a most effectively protecting the solar world. Most of our best astrono- roof of cloud to be in any way consistent mers believe that the sun has three strata of with human or quasi-human organisms. At atmosphere. The highest stratum is a gen- the same time, it may be reasonably argued uine atmosphere like our own, the existence that the heat we picture to ourselves must at of which is betrayed by the red beads of the some point or other be tempered, if only solar eclipse, due to the same atmospheric towards the very centre of the solar globe, cause as the red light of sunset, and also by since it would otherwise reduce the whole the comparative paleness of the edges of the globe to gas, while the sun has, in fact, an solar disc (whose obliquer light would travel average density greater than water; and this to us through much more of this atmosphere being so, there must be a limit at which this than the light from the centre). The middle enormous heat is reduced-though, of course, is the phosphorescent atmosphere in which the nearest approach to solidity might be seas the light (and perhaps heat) of the sun is of molten iron. Still the probability of some situated. The lowest one, again, is an at- deep cloudy stratum of atmosphere envelopmosphere full of thick cloud, which is seen ing a cooler world seems considerable. by us only when one of the cavities opens in the outer atmosphere which we call "spots "between the physical situation of the Sunites on the sun. At all events, it is quite cer- and that of our race would scarcely be much tain that the illuminating power of the sun is diminished. With a sufficiently thick sea of quite external to its principal mass,-for it cloud between them and the intolerable light is proved that the spots are cavities in the and heat, they might manage to exist, like illuminating surface showing a much darker the fabled mermen who, living on the ocean world beneath. Sir David Brewster, indeed, floor, saw sunlight only through the unfathbelieves that though the light of the sun is omable depths of the sea. But then, though derived from the higher strata of its atmos- living in the centre of our system, they could phere, its heat comes from the body of the sun never know that there was a system at all itself, and urges, we believe, in confirmation, beyond this centre. They could not even that those years are hottest when there are know that their own sun revolves in about most of these dark spots on the sun, instead twenty-five and a half of our days on its own of when there are fewest. This, however, is axis. For no celestial phenomena at all an exceedingly doubtful fact, and probably could be accessible to them. The constant there are as yet no data for deciding it either and uniform light would shut them in far way. In the mean time, it is natural to sup- more effectually than any darkness, and the pose that the light and heat are derived from cloud which would be essential to soften that the same source, and that since we have at constant and uniform light would be a second times glimpses into the recesses of a darker screen. We could never know that our own sphere, that darker sphere would also be a carth revolved on its axis if a blaze stronger cooler sphere than we usually connect with than the strongest noon always shut out the our visible sun. Indeed, if inhabitable at all, night. And the solar inhabitants certainly it would need to be. The temperature of the would be far more effectually cut off from sun's heated surface is calculated to be seven astronomy, both by their light and by the times as hot as the hottest known blast fur- internal screen which would interrupt the nacc. “It would require the combustion of light, than by any darkness. The planet more than 130,000 lbs., or nearly sixty tons Neptune would have a better chance of good of coal per hour, on each square foot of the astronomers than the sun. The absence of

anything like night and dew, and of all the mighty spherical chandelier, rather than a consequent periodic changes in the vegetable sun, which they can never turn down, which

roofs in their universe and roofs out the infinitude of worlds, they might, if they had any suspicion of the truth, say, with the poet :

"Oh! who could tell such darkness lay concealed

Beneath thy beams, O Sun? Or who could find,

When fly and leaf and insect lay revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind?"

and animal world, would certainly revolutionize the whole character of the agriculture, and natural history. Sleep might perhaps exist without night, but both plants and animals must have a different structure in order to secure it. Then, too, there could be no change of the seasons, and even mountains, instead of rising into a colder zone, would probably rise into a hotter. The equator of the sun, indeed, would, Sir John Herschel thinks, be hotter than its poles, owing to the-nay, to more than countless worlds outside greater accumulation of the third or external them,-for to the varieties of torrid and frigid atmosphere around its central belt (just as water set spinning gets heaped up round the middle and flattened at both ends), so keeping the heat in more at the equator than at the poles. And to this Sir John Herschel ascribes the spots which appear and disappear in two belts-corresponding to the belts of our trade-winds-on the sun's surface. He thinks these are apertures caused by the external atmosphere breaking through the fiery atmosphere, in eddies like water-spouts,-for reasons analogous to those which restrict circular whirlwinds and water-spouts even on our earth to the region of the trade-winds. The notion is confirmed by the fact that these spots on the sun have been observed to spin round on some axis of their own, before closing in, just as if they were of the nature of monstrous eddies. But even these tornadoes, which in certain latitudes of the sun, perhaps break through as far as the lower envelope of cloud, can scarcely open to the Sunites a tunnel through which they could see the stars, -for if it really penetrate the inner veil of cloud, it would probably carry fire and destruction with it.

In a word, the Sunites must in all probability pay for their central position by being quite ignorant of it, and of thousands of other phenomena to which the alternation of night and day, summer and winter, are absolutely essential. "A glorious privacy of light" is theirs, if glorious it be. Illumined by a

zone, of spring-time and harvest, of morning and evening,-probably even of work and rest,-and to a large proportion of that which makes countless worlds of thought and reflection within, the same dreadful uniformity of splendor would equally blind them. Then, too, shadow would be as rare there as it is frequent here,-for the light always flowing equally from North, South, East, and West, it would be only at a door, window, or a cavern's mouth, where the other quarters were protected from the light, that shadow would be seen. Imagine all the intellectual fruits of such varieties struck out of car literature and history, and what would the human mind be? The sun may be a dwelling-place for beings whose inner world has begun to develop itself regularly without the stimulus of outward variety and change, but scarcely for any natures less advanced. That which knows "no variableness nor shadow of turning" must either be God or nothing,-the highest life or the most absolute nonentity. If we did live there, we should soon, perhaps, prefer being bombarded by fragments of planet rushing sunwards, even at the risk of annihilation, to the hot, changeless uniformity of such an orb. We almost wonder no one has suggested the sun as a physical locality of the place of torture. That it would make evil the root and centre of our system, would only be an additional recommendation to a very popular form of modern theology.

From The Saturday Review.

HATRED.

things for what they seem to be, rather than for what they really are. The mask imposes MENAGE says, somewhere or other, that we upon youth, and acts upon the young imagishould be careful not to hate gratis-that is nation as a scarlet cloth upon a Spanish bull. to say, he explains, "from antipathy." It Thus the tender girl, who comes out for her required much acuteness and much knowledge first season in London, is apt to fancy that of the world to load words so slender with every man with a big beard and a stern counsuch a weight of meaning. For if life is fall tenance is a Socrates, of a stern, superhuman of disappointments in love, it may be said, in disposition, who lives in contemplation and another point of view, to be equally full of the clouds. If he has hard features, she imblunders in hatred. Fielding tells us that mediately concludes that he has a hard heart the great lesson in life is to learn to buy noth- and a bad temper. But if his face is smooth, ing too dear; and Ménage's application of his brow clear, and he has a laughing blue the rule is, not to sell your hatred for noth-eye, though he be a very lago of deceit and ing. But although this is the humorous sense cruelty, she will endow his disposition with which lies on the surface of his words, they all the soft attributes of his countenance. cover one of the widest and most painful tracts of human feeling. As soon as we begin to put two thoughts together, we begin to hate, no less than to love, and the whole universe of things and men seems at first to be roughly divided between our loves and hatreds. And those whose feelings run furthest in one direction are apt also to go to the other extreme. Life might almost be described as one long training of our sympathies and antipathies. We must all of us be conscious of the gradual shifting, the gradual wear and tear, the slow detritus of our carly antipathies. Later life is generally much less prone to instinctive aversion. Men gradually learn not to give their hatred gratis. They have come to know the price of their whistle. Perhaps the temper of mind they have arrived at is less lofty, but it is more rational, and nearer the truth. And if their sentiments of hostility savor more of calculation than of romance, they are less likely to fall into the illusion of the young mouse on her entrance into life, who thought the gallant cock the most terrible of monsters, but fell straightway in love with the cat as the most angelic of beings.

In carlier days, as in their love, so ardent characters take a conscious pride in the spontaneity and exuberance of their hatred. Hatred for its own sake seems more natural than hatred for an injury. "I hate him, because I hate him," seems more noble, just as "I hate him, because he has done me harm," seems too sordid and mean in the eyes of generous youth. Thus the first tendency of the very young is to hate things for what they are, rather than for the way in which they affect one's self. But it would be more accurate to say that early hatred attaches to

Nor is she to be blamed. Are not men, to their dying day, beguiled by pretty faces and soft voices in women? Even La Rochefoucauld thought the subject worth speculating upon, and puzzled his clever brain to account for the discrepancy between the appearance and the reality. It may, indeed, be said that the instinctive aversions of childhood and youth are often more rational than they seem. The voice of nature is never to be despised. And probably the instinct of youth is co-extensive with its wants. Nor does it follow, because in later life we have learned to love and appreciate a character which repelled us as children, that such a character ought, when we were younger, to have suited us. A child is not expected to sympathize with hoary statesmanship and learning hidden behind the mask of rugged visage and uncouth form. Still, on the whole, the balance of experience is that our early aversions are too often misplaced, and that, as we grow older and wiser and more worldly-as our intellectual and moral wants become more manifold and intricate-so the early milk of purely external good-nature, which is the child's ideal, ceases to satisfy us, and we learn to sympathize with and see the use and excellence of many characters and many views some of which were in the highest degree repulsive to us. Nor can anything be objected to this, for, after all, the process only brings us nearer to that Power which looks intelligently and benignly on the infinitude of things and men.

It may be doubted whether many people speculate upon the nature of hatred in general, or examine very carefully into the nature of their own hatreds in particular. Like

fire, hatred, however it may burn, is an awk-be admitted that, except in peculiar cases, ward thing to handle. And we seem more hatred gradually disappears with increased busy, when we are once ablaze, to find ex- familiarity-and a great consolation this is. cuses for being on fire, and for letting the fire On the one hand, we make more allowance burn out, than anxious to put a stop to it, or for defects which we can understand, and for to understand its exact bearings. Hatred consequences which we can calculate and and love are, it is true, at the opposite poles guard against. On the other, a more intito one another. But it does not seem that mate acquaintance corrects many errors, and either indifference or friendship lies on the line dispels many illusions into which people are between the two. Indifference and friend-apt to fall regarding those whom they do not ship do not strictly belong to early youth. know. They are later and artificial developments.

There are, however, certain characters, and

A child loves or hates, likes or dislikes. A those not by any means the worst, to whom child is rarely indifferent, and can scarcely the indulgence of a good hot hatred is as understand friendship-which is a limited, refreshing and delightful—we should rather defined, and, as it were, constitutional form say, delicious-as the luxury of love is to of attachment, with its tacit customs, rules, others. And this is intelligible. Love and and laws, essentially distinct from the "all hatred being on the same line of passionate or nothing" of love, but, on the other hand, emotion, the only difference with them is, requiring far more delicate management. that the habitual emotion which constitutes There is, indeed, friendship and friendship; their life lies nearer to the pole of hatred. and we may pass from indifference to some One might almost say, but for the fear of a kinds of friendship, and from friendship to paradox, that hatred is, in fact, the form love indifference, more easily than from either to takes in them. It is their form of passionate hatred or love. But it is easier for hatred to care and attention. Instead of the slow and pass into love, or for love to pass into hatred, agonizing simmer of love, theirs is the slow, than for either to pass into real indifference. and to them delicious, simmer of hatred. Where real love or hatred has ever fairly en- Nor is this state of things without analogy tered, a flutter of attention commonly outlives among the lower animals. The male spider its departure, which shows that true indiffer- so loves the female that he puts her to death ence will never more be possible. Perhaps a and cats her if she does not run away. This, touch of indifference is the safest foundation however, she takes very great pains to do, on which to build a lasting and delicate though she does not always succeed in doing friendship. Nothing on the direct line of it, and then she pays the penalty of having passion which runs between love and hatred inspired that form of love which is hatred. is ever quite safe. And a touch of ice lends So among men, who among them all embody charms to the warmest feelings and the most the perfect circle and encyclopædia of subluloyal attachments, which none but very highly nary sentiment, there are those to whom a organized minds can appreciate. The worst good hatred is naturally congenial. It is a that can happen to a friendship which has perpetual source of life, and a filip to the full arisen out of indifference is to return to in- sense of overflowing existence. Love, even difference. But passionate love is never se- the most passionate love, is probably not to cure from sudden gusts of hatred, as it is be compared for intensity of sensation with a never certain that hatred may not pass into full-blown hatred. It is, in fact, in the naardent love. It is, indeed, true that, from ture of a sweet emotion, though the fruit be indifference, men and women are often known bitter. So, in nature, the most poisonous to pass into love, through friendship. But plants may bear lovely blossoms to the sun, such love will generally be a feeble love, a and their fruit may have a certain beauty to weakling passion. A love like this is too the eye. And these plants have a growth feeble to travel into hatred, and gradually and an enjoyment, so far as life is an enjoyfalls back into indifference. La Bruyère says ment, of their own. And as poison is the that the most difficult form of love to cure is life of these plants, hatred is the life of cerlove at first sight. And so hatred at first tain natures. They regard a state of hatred sight ought also to last the longest. Possibly as veterans regard the state of war-namely, it does. Be this as it may, as a rule, it will as a glorious and noble, and not unlovely,