# The Universe (Baker)

This transcription is of what is believed to be the first edition of this work. Although undated, most library catalogues assign it a date of 1727, but this is not a unanimous view.
THE
UNIVERSE.
A
POEM.
INTENDED
To restrain the Pride of Man.
By Mr. BAKER,
———Rex Jupiter Omnibus Idem.Virg.
LONDON: Printed for T. Worrall, at Judge Coke's Head, against St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet-street. [Price One Shilling.]
TO THE
READER.
t has, too long, been a general, though an absurd Opinion, that all the Works of Providence we see around Us, were created only for the Use of Man. Ignorance and Pride, which first began, have since continued this Mistake; and, being imbibed in Childhood, the early Prejudice of Education has given it such Authority, that to doubt its Truth, will, by many, be accounted high Impiety; tho' the quite contrary, to any one who dares reflect, is so exceeding plain, that little more is necessary than to look about Us and be convinced.
I am not for displacing Man from his proper Degree in the eternal Scale of Beings. He is, without dispute, the first upon this Globe: superior Reason making him superior to every other Creature here. But this Globe itself is so inconsiderable, so near to Nothing compared with the Grand Universe, that to be swelled with this small Preeminence, and fancy himself therefore the Lord of the whole Creation, is as ​ridiculous, as it would be for the puny Inhabitant of an Ant-Hill, to strut about, and boast that all the Earth was made for him alone.
As Self-Love is the inborn Principle of Mankind, so Pride, its first-begotten, their general Passion. No one lives without it: even the Beggar in his Rags imagines himself of exceeding Consequence. Nor is this Passion useless, or to be blamed, but when it overstretches much beyond the Bounds of Reason: for the Mind is hereby excited to emulate and rise above its Fellows, to gain and to deserve Esteem. The Love and the Respect of Others are the just as well as the wished Reward of every good Action: but, without this Passion, they both would be disregarded, and we should want the strongest Motive to encourage Us onward in the Pursuit of Vertue.—In short, Man has a Post assign'd him in the Creation, and that no ignoble one: he is of Consequence, and ought to believe himself so: but, to fancy the Whole was design'd for him alone, is downright Madness.
I thought the readiest way to check this Folly, would be to sketch out a Plan of the Universe; that, by considering the Grandeur of the Whole, Man might be made sensible of his own Littleness and Insignificance, except in the very Place he stands. When he views the ​Heavens, and considers their Immensity, the Number, the Distance, the Largeness and the Brightness of the Orbs which roll about him, can a Man be then so vain to cry, all these are his? or, if he looks at home, and surveys the Earth, stored with innumerable Species of Animals, all formed with exquisite Beauty and Exactness, and supplied with every Requisite to make them rejoice in their Existence; will there not appear some better Reason for all this, than meerly to supply his Luxury, and give him Subjects whereon to exercise his Power?—Do not the Insect Kinds, formed in the utmost Perfection, (the greatest part of which are to his naked Eye invisible, and almost all of them useless to him,) plainly say, they were not made for him?—How little either of the Heavens or of the Earth is he acquainted with! and how imperfect is his Knowledge even of that Little which be thinks he knows!
Mean and ridiculous is that Idea of the Deity, which limits his Care to Man: but how must the Soul be filled with Amazement, and Love and Adoration, that considers him as the impartial Parent of the whole Universe, and equally extending his Beneficence to every One of all his Creatures according to the Rank it bears. The primary Intent of the Almighty in the Existence of every Being must have been to make it happy, and the Relation in which it stands ​to every other Creature is only such as is most conducive towards the Felicity of the Whole. Every Individual was made principally for its own Sake, the meanest Insect as well as the proudest Monarch. We all are Fellow-Creatures.
The following Piece is a Hint only of what I judged would be a noble Subject for a larger Poem; and if thereby some bright Genius may be excited to undertake it, my Pains have been well bestowed. In the mean while, I hope this Sketch may not be intirely useless, to set forth the Omnipotence, Wisdom and Goodness of the Creator, by a general View of his Works; a way I thought most likely to curb the Pride of Man.
I have advanced Nothing but what the Discoveries of the Learned have made most reasonable to believe, The Notes subjoin'd will, I hope, both vindicate me, and entertain my Readers.
THE
UNIVERSE
A
POEM.
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FINIS
* ↑ That this Globe whereon we live, hath, in its present State, existed but some few thousand Years, both Scripture and Reason sufficiently evince. This we may learn from the slow Progress of Arts and Sciences, from its not yet being fully inhabited, from all History and Monuments of Antiquity whatsoever, and from the fresh Remembrance we still have of the Golden Age or first State of Nature; which appears so much plainer as we descend to the more early Writers, that we can almost trace out its Origine. But, on the other hand, we have no Reason to imagine all the other Orbs around us to be of so late a Date; for supposing the Sun and Planets in this our System, to have been disposed in their present Order, or created all at the same Time, (which is the most can justly be contended for) what Inference can we bring from hence, that all the other heavenly Bodies must have been so too? Bodies so remote from this Earth of ours, that we can neither reach them with our Eye nor our Imagination, and which can no more be influenced by our Globe, than a Man at Rome can be jostled by one at London: And we might as well maintain, that all the People now living were born at the same Minute, as that the whole Universe was created at the same Time. This erroneous Opinion proceeds from the Vanity of Mankind, in imagining these innumerable immense Bodies to have taken their Beginning, only to fill up the Train of Attendants on our earthly Spot; and that the sole Design of their Creation was to be of use to Us, whereas the least Consideration may serve to prove how very few are to Us of any use at all. Our Glasses discover innumerably more Stars than we can discern with the naked Eye; and still the better our Glasses are, the more we find out, lying beyond the other, and so on, for any thing we know, indefinitely and inexhaustably. From whence then this vain Opinion of our selves? May we not more justly suppose these glorious Orbs, inhabited by those numberless Orders of more glorious Beings which are betwixt Us and our Creator? (For surely, there are more Gradations, more Ranks of Beings betwixt Us and God Almighty, than there are betwixt Us and the meanest Insect we know;) and as we cannot, with any shew of Reason, imagine all these glorious Beings were created at the same Time with our selves, neither can we believe their Habitations to have been formed at the same Time with this of Ours; but by a Parity of Reason must suppose them to have been created as long before our World as these other Beings have existed before Mankind. Moses in his Account of the Creation (Genesis Chap. 1. verse 16. God made two Lights: the greater Light to rule the Day, and the lesser Light to rule the Night,) seems to imply as much: for he is here describing whatever was created at the same Time with this Earth of ours, and the two great Lights here mentioned, can only relate to this solar System, since they are far from being Great, if considered with the other Stars: for the Sun itself, if not less, is no bigger certainly than many of the fixed Stars; and a very small Knowledge in Astronomy will convince any one, that the Moon is less, without Comparison, than any Star discovered by the naked Eye. As to his subjoyning, He made the Stars also: it indeed attests God to be the Creator of all Things, but seems, at the same time, to insinuate their former Creation; as if he had said, After this manner God created the Earth, and made two great Lights to give Light unto it, even the same God who had created the Stars. And in the 17th and 18th Verses, where it is said, God set them in the Firmament of Heaven, to give Light upon the Earth, and to rule over the Day and over the Night, and to divide the Light from the Darkness: still is meant only the Sun and Moon, as may be learnt from Verse the 14th, And God said, let there be Lights in the Firmament of the Heavens, to divide the Day from the Night, and let them be for Signs, and for Seasons, and for Days and for Years; which every body must acknowledge can be meant of nothing else but the Sun and Moon, since they alone are the Causes of these Divisions; so that, God made the Stars also, serves indeed to remind Us of his being the Creator of all Things, but can never imply, that the whole Universe was created, or disposed in its present Order at that same Time. That there are frequent Changes, and perhaps new Creations amongst the Celestial Bodies, is more than probable, from the Disappearing of several Stars, and the new Appearance of others, which have been observed in different Parts of the Heaven, almost in every Age; and if we may have leave to guess, were old Worlds destroyed in some Places, and new Ones created in others. Since then this Orb, (with all the Planets of our System) was created much later than many of the other Heavenly Bodies, we have no Reason to believe the rest shall partake of all the Revolutions it must undergo. Whatever shall become of it, (for that it must change its present Appearance, the very Nature of Things does clearly evince) the rest will still roll on in their appointed Courses, till the same God, in his allotted Time, shall make them also undergo Changes appointed for them.
* ↑ That each fixed Star we see is a Sun, round which a Set of Planets take their regular Courses, and are from thence enlighten'd, as those of our System are by our Sun, is an Opinion now so generally agreed to by the learned World, that it is almost needless to endeavour its Defence. They shine by their own Light 'tis certain: since 'tis not possible the Light of the Sun should be sent to them, and transmitted again to Us. For the Sun's Rays would be so dissipated, before they reached such remote Objects, that the best Eyes in the World could not thereby discover them. We see, for all his Bulk, how faintly Saturn shines in respect of the fixed Stars; and yet his Distance from the Sun is but a Point compar'd with that of the nearest of them. Their Distance is so immense, that the best Telescopes shew them but as meer Points, instead of magnifying them, as they do any Objects within a measurable Distance, how great soever. Mr. Huygens computes, that the Sun's Distance from the Earth, to the Distance of the nearest fixed Star, is as 1 to 27664: according to which, the nearest fixed Star is distant from Us, at least 2,404,520,928,000 Miles. A Cannon-Ball would spend almost 700,000 Years in passing through this Space, even with the same Velocity it goes from the Cannon's Mouth. Then, since the fixed Stars are at such immense Distances, and shine by their own Light, 'tis plain they must be Bodies like our Sun in Size and Glory. Nor are they all placed in one concave Surface of the same Sphere, and equally distant from Us; but spread every where through the indefinite Expanse, and as far from one another as this Sun of Our's is from the nearest of them. Were we removed from the Sun as we are from the fixed Stars, the Sun and Stars would seem alike: Our Planets would not be seen at all, their Light being much too weak to affect Us at such a Distance, and all their Orbits would be united in one single Point. Hence a Spectator who is near any one Sun, will only look upon that as a real Sun, and the rest but as so many glittering Stars fixed in his own Heaven or Firmament.
* ↑ This Creature being little known, I thought a Description of it, would not only give light to the poetical part, but might also in itself afford some Amusement to the Reader: and therefore I have subjoined such a one, as I could collect from the best Writers. It is a Creature living both by Land and Water, which from an Egg (not a great deal bigger than a Turkey's) arrives sometimes to eight or ten Yards in Length: for whereas other Creatures have a certain Period to their Growth; this (as 'tis said) still grows bigger to the End of its Life; which is reported to last an hundred Years. Its Head is flat above and below, with Jaws wide enough to swallow a Man whole, a sharp long Snout, full of Teeth, but no Tongue: the Eyes very large, and of a darkish Colour. The Body all of a Bigness, covered on the Back with high Scales like the Heads of broad Nails, of a greenish Colour, and so hard, an Halbert cannot pierce them. Its Tail is long, and cover'd with such Scales as the Back; its Belly white, and pretty tender, being the only Place where it can easily be wounded. It has four short Legs, with five Claws on its fore, and four on its hinder Feet. Contrary to all Creatures (except the Hippopotamus) It moves only the upper Jaw in eating. Its Flesh is not poisonous, but insipid. It is a very ravenous and subtile Creature, hiding itself in the Sands, and behind the projecting Banks of Rivers, to watch the Beasts coming to drink, and when any comes within its reach, rushes with it into the Water, and holds it down 'till it is strangled. The only way to escape their Pursuit, is by flying in Circles, for their Body being of a vast Length, requires some time to turn about; but directly forward they will run with great Swiftness. Their Weeping is a Fable. It lays its Eggs in the Sand to be hatched by the Sun's Heat.
* ↑ Those experienced in Observations on the Insect Part of the Creation, by the help of Glasses, will not charge this with being only a poetical Liberty, but acknowledge its real Truth: And though others, whose Conceptions have never lain that Way, may find it very difficult to apprehend any Living Creature so extreamly minute; yet I hope the Opinion of the Learned may clear me from any Design of imposing on their Belief. Mr. Ball, in a Letter to Mr. Bradley, says, that Water's appearing Green, Red, or Black, proceeds only from Insects of several Kinds and Colours, 3d part Gardening, p. 87. "Nor indeed is any Part of the Earth, or Waters, and it may be the pure Air itself free from the Seeds of Life, p. 88." But this may better be conceiv'd by the following Note. Mr. Bradley after having given us his Observations on an Insect, which by Computation he found more than a thousand times less than the least Dust of Sand visible to the naked Eye, p. 62. Reflects thus, p. 63. "It is wonderful to consider the several Parts of a Creature, even so minute as this (for the Microscope has discovered much smaller) how small must the Organs of its Senses be, in proportion to its Body! the Eyes perhaps a thousand times less, and the other Parts answerable to them: May we not then reasonably conclude, that with such Eyes it is capable of discerning other Bodies, which are as minute, and of as distant Smallness to itself as the smallest Creature capable of our Sight is to us? But, alas! how trifling an Object was the Insect I have mention'd in comparison to those discovered by M. Lewenhoeck, in a quantity of Pepper Water, no bigger than a Grain of Millet, in which he affirms to have seen 10,000 living Creatures; and some of his Friends, at the same time, witness to have seen 30,000, and others above 45,000 Creatures moving in that small Quantity of Water? Nay, they tell us, that because they would be within Compass, they only related half the Number that they believed they had seen. Now, from the Greatness of the Numbers mentioned, it is inferred, that in a full Drop of Water, there will be 8,280,000 of these Animalcula, which if their Smallness comes to be compared, a Grain of Sand, broken into 8,000,000 Parts, would exceed the Smallness of one of these Infects, These Observations of Mr. Lewenhoeck's, were not only confirm'd by the famous Mr. Hook, but were likewise improved by him: He tells us, that after he had discovered vast Multitudes of those Animalcula, describ'd by Mr. Lewenhoeck, he made ufe of other Lights and Glasses, and magnify'd them to a very considerable Bigness; and that amongst them he discovered many other Sorts much smaller than those he first saw; some of which were so very minute that Millions of Millions of them might be contained in one Drop of Water."
* ↑ The famous Mr. Ray tells Us of an Insect which is hatched and dies in one Day, and probably there are many other Kinds, which as yet we know nothing of, whose Life is of no longer Duration. Hence we may naturally reflect that as we find, by the help of a Microscope, that Quantity is only computed to be Great or Small in proportion to what Objects our Eyes are capable of seeing without the Assistance of Glasses; so the Idea of Time seems confined to our Understanding by the same Rule, and the Life of that Creature which lives only one Day, may be of the same Length or Duration in proportion to itself, as the Term of an hundred Years is to Mankind: that is, three Minutes of such an Insect's Life is equal to a Year with Us.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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