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CosmologyT H E S C I E N C E O F T H E UN I V E R S E

S E C O N D E D I T I O N

E D W A R D H A R R I S O NFive College Astronomy Department, University of Massachusetts

Steward Observatory, University of Arizona

P U B L I S H E D B Y T H E P R E S S S Y N D I C A T E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A M B R I D G E

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# Cambridge University Press 1981, 2000

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no reproduction of any part may take place without

the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 1981

Reprinted 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991

Second edition 2000

Reprinted 2001 (with corrections), 2003

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Harrison, Edward Robert.

Cosmology: the science of the universe / Edward R. Harrison. —

2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0 521 66148 X

1. Cosmology. I. Title. II. Title: Cosmology, the science of the universe.

QB981.H276 1999

523.1–dc21 99-10172 CIP

ISBN 0 521 66148 X hardback

C O N T E N T S

Preface ixIntroduction 1

PART I

1 What is cosmology? 13

The Universe 13Cosmology 15The magic universe 17The mythic universe 17The anthropometric universe 19Cosmology and society 20Reflections 21Projects 25Further reading 26Sources 26

2 Early scientific cosmology 28

The beginning of western science 28Plato’s universe 29Three cosmic systems of the

ancient world 29The Aristotelian universe 30The Epicurean universe 33The Stoic universe 34The mystery religions 34The medieval universe 35The heliocentric universe 37The infinite universe 38Reflections 42Projects 45Further reading 46Sources 46

3 Cartesian and Newtonian world

systems 49

The decline of Aristotelian science 49The Cartesian world system 51The Newtonian world system 54Newton and the infinite universe 60The atomic theory 61Reflections 61Projects 63Further reading 64Sources 64

4 Cosmology after Newton and

before Einstein 66

Hierarchical universes 66The nebula hypothesis 70Cosmical islands 70The new astronomy 73The Victorian universe 77The age problem 78Fall of the Victorian universe 80Reflections 81Projects 83Further reading 83Sources 84

5 Stars 87

The distant stars 87A forest of stars 89Inside the stars 93Nuclear energy 95Birth of stars 100The star is dead! Long live the star! 103Reflections 105Projects 110

v

Further reading 111Sources 112

6 Galaxies 113

Our Galaxy 113The distant galaxies 119Birth of galaxies 123Radio galaxies and quasars 126Reflections 129Projects 131Further reading 132Sources 132

7 Location and the cosmic center 134

The location principle 134The isotropic universe 137The cosmological principle 138Perfect cosmological principle 140Reflections 141Projects 145Further reading 145Sources 145

8 Containment and the cosmic edge 147

The containment principle 147The cosmic edge 149Containment of space and time 153Design argument 155Many physical universes 156Theistic and anthropic principles 157Whither the laws of nature? 159Containment riddle 161Reflections 162Projects 166Further reading 167Sources 167

9 Space and time 169

Space 169Space and time 171Time 172The ‘‘now’’ 176Time travel 178Atomic time 179Reflections 180Projects 184Further reading 185Sources 185

PART II

10 Curved space 189

Euclidean geometry 189Non-Euclidean geometry 190Measuring the curvature of space 194The ‘‘outstanding theorem’’ 196Riemannian spaces 198Reflections 199Projects 203Further reading 204Sources 204

11 Special relativity 206

New ideas for old 206The strangeness of spacetime 207Travels in space and time 210Reflections 214Projects 218Further reading 218Sources 219

12 General relativity 220

Principle of equivalence 220A closer look 222Geometry and gravity 224Tidal forces 225Theory of general relativity 228Tests of general relativity 233Mach’s principle 236Reflections 239Projects 243Further reading 244Sources 245

13 Black holes 246

Gravitational collapse 246Curved spacetime of black holes 248Rotating black holes 253Superholes 257Miniholes 258Black-hole magic 259Hawking radiation 260Black holes are heat engines 263Reflections 264Projects 267Further reading 268Sources 268

14 Expansion of the universe 270

The great discovery 270

vi C O N T E N T S

The expanding space paradigm 275The expanding rubber sheet universe 275Measuring the expansion of the

universe 285The velocity–distance law 287Accelerating and decelerating universes 289Classifying universes 290Reflections 292Projects 299Further reading 300Sources 300

15 Redshifts 302

Cosmic redshifts 302The three redshifts 306Two basic laws 307Distances and recession velocities 309Cosmological pitfalls 309Redshift curiosities 311Reflections 314Projects 320Sources 321

16 Newtonian cosmology 323

Static Newtonian universe 323Expanding cosmic sphere 326Cosmological constant 331Why does Newtonian cosmology

give the same answer? 332Reflections 333Projects 336Further reading 337Sources 337

17 The cosmic box 339

The universe in a nutshell 339Particles and waves 341Thermodynamics and cosmology 344Where has all the energy gone? 348Reflections 350Projects 353Sources 353

18 The many universes 355

Static universes 355De Sitter universe 358Friedmann universes 359Oscillating universes 362Friedmann–Lemaıtre universes 363Classification of universes 365

Universes in compression 368Universes in tension 369Worlds in convulsion 371Kinematic relativity 373Continuous creation 374Scalar–tensor theory 376Reflections 379Projects 383Further reading 384Sources 384

19 Observational cosmology 387

Introduction 387Cosmography 387Local observations 388Intermediate-distance observations 397Large-distance observations 400Is the universe open or closed? 403Reflections 404Projects 407Further reading 408Sources 408

PART III

20 The early universe 413

The primeval atom 413The last fifteen billion years 415The first million years 416The first second 419The first hundred microseconds 422Grand unified era 427Reflections 428Projects 435Further reading 436Sources 436

21 Horizons in the universe 438

What are cosmological horizons? 438Horizons in static universes 439The horizon riddle 441The horizon problem 442Hubble spheres 443Reception and emission distances 444The photon horizon in cosmology 446The particle horizon 447Conformal diagrams 449Event horizons 451Reflections 454

vii

C O N T E N T S vii

Projects 457Sources 457

22 Inflation 458

Perfect symmetry 458The monopole problem 458Discovery of inflation 459Cosmic tension 459Inflation 460Inflation solves the monopole problem 463Inflation solves the flatness problem 463Inflation solves the horizon problem 465Nonluminous matter 467The origin of galaxies 468Reflections 470Projects 472Further reading 472Sources 473

23 The cosmic numbers 474

Constants of nature 474The cosmic connection 479Magic numbers 480Solving the cosmic connection 483Reflections 486Projects 490Further reading 490Sources 490

24 Darkness at night 491

The great riddle 491Two interpretations 493Halley’s shells 494Bright-sky universes 497The paradox resolved 499‘‘The golden walls of the universe’’ 502The celebrated hypothesis 503Expansion and darkness 503

Reflections 506Projects 513Further reading 513

25 Creation of the universe 515

Cosmogenesis I 515Creation myths 515Genesis 518Cosmogenesis II 519Cosmogenesis III 520Fitness of the universe 522Fitness and creation 523Theistic theories 523Anthropic theories 524Spontaneous creation theories 524Natural selection theories 525Eschatology 526Reflections 528Projects 532Further reading 532Sources 533

26 Life in the universe 535

Origin of life on Earth 535The exuberant Earth 537The evolution of life 538Natural selection 540Intelligent life 542What is life? 542Life beyond the Earth 543Epilogue 547Reflections 547Projects 551Further reading 552Sources 553

Appendix – Fundamental quantities 555Index 557

viii C O N T E N T S

WHAT IS COSMOLOGY?

He has ventured far beyond the flaming ramparts of the world

and in mind and spirit traversed the boundless universe.

Lucretius (99–55 BC), The Nature of the Universe

THE UNIVERSE

From the outset we must decide whether touse Universe or universe. This is not so triviala matter as it might seem. We know of onlyone planet called Earth; similarly, we knowof only one Universe. Surely then the properword is Universe?

The Universe is everything and includesus thinking about what to call it. But whatis the Universe? Do we truly know? It hasmany faces and means many different thingsto different people. To religious people it is atheistically created world ruled by super-natural forces; to artists it is an exquisiteworld revealed by sensitive perceptions; toprofessional philosophers it is a logicalworld of analytic and synthetic structures;and to scientists it is a world of controlledobservations elucidated by natural forces.Or it may be all these things at differenttimes. Even more diverse are the worlds orcosmic pictures held by people of differentsocieties, such as the Australian aboriginals,Chinese, Eskimos, Hindus, Hopi, Maoris,Navajo, Polynesians, Zulus. Cosmic pic-tures evolve because cultures influence oneanother, and because knowledge advances.Thus in Europe the medieval picture, influ-enced by the rise of Islam, evolved into theCartesian, then Newtonian, Victorian, andfinally Einsteinian pictures. The standardWestern world picture of the late nineteenthcentury – the Victorian picture – was totallyunlike the standard picture – the Einsteinianpicture – of a hundred years later. Eachsociety in each age constructs a different

cosmic picture that is like a mask fitted onthe face of the unknown Universe.

If the word ‘‘Universe’’ is used we mustdistinguish between the various ‘‘modelsof the Universe.’’ Each model, religious,artistic, philosophical, or scientific, is oneof many representations; and similarlywith the models of different societies. Thusin the history of science we distinguishbetween the Pythagorean model, theAtomist model, the Aristotelian model,and so on. More precisely, we should say,the Pythagorean model of the Universe,the Atomist model of the Universe, theAristotelian model of the Universe, and soon. Inevitably, the models receive the abbre-viated titles: the Pythagorean Universe, theAtomist Universe, the Aristotelian Uni-verse, . . . , and we confuse ourselves byusing the word Universe to mean ‘‘a modelof the Universe.’’

The grandiose word Universe has afurther major disadvantage. When usedalone, without specification of the modelwe have in mind, it conveys the impressionthat we know the true nature of the Uni-verse. We find ourselves, in the company ofmultitudes of others in the past, speakingof theUniverse as if it were at last discoveredand revealed. By referring to the contempor-arymodel of theUniverse as the ‘‘Universe,’’we forget that our contemporary model willundoubtedly suffer the same fate as itspredecessors. Always, we mistake the maskfor the face, the model universe for theactual Universe. Our ancestors made this

1

13

mistake continually and most likely our des-cendants will look back and see us repeatingthe same mistake.

Because we cannot guess even in ourwildest imaginings the true nature of theUniverse, we may avoid referring to itdirectly by using the more modest word‘‘universe.’’ A universe is simply a model ofthe Universe (see Figure 1.3). Hence we may

speak of the Pythagorean universe, theAtomist universe, Aristotelian universe,and so on, and each universe is a mask, acosmic picture, a model that is invented,modified as knowledge advances, and finallydiscarded.

The word ‘‘universe,’’ which we shall use,has the further advantage that it may be usedfreely and loosely without any need to

Figure 1.1. The universe according to Hildegaard of Bingen in Germany in the

twelfth century. In her lifetime we see in her writings how the medieval picture

evolved toward its climax in Dante’s Divine Comedy (Figure 8.4). (Reproduced

from the Wiesbaden Codex B as figure 2 in Charles Singer’s ‘‘The scientific views

and visions of Saint Hildegaard’’.)

14 C O SMO L O G Y

remind ourselves constantly that the Uni-verse is still mysterious and unknown.When the word ‘‘universe’’ is used alone,as in such phrases as ‘‘the vastness of theuniverse,’’ it denotes our present universeas disclosed by modern science.

COSMOLOGY

We search the sky, the Earth, and withinourselves, and forever wonder about themystery of the universe: What is it allabout? Why did it all begin? How will it allend? And are these questions meaningful?Always we ask the burning question: Whatis the meaning of life? Each of us echoesthe words of Erwin Schrodinger – ‘‘I knownot whence I came nor whither I go norwho I am,’’ and seeks the answer. The searchis doomed to go astray from the beginningunless we familiarize ourselves with the

universes of the past and particularly withthe modern universe.

Cosmology is the study of universes. Inthe broadest sense it is a joint enterprise byscience, philosophy, theology, and the artsthat seeks to gain understanding of whatunifies and is fundamental. As a science,which is the main concern in this book, it isthe study of the large and small structuresof the universe; it draws on knowledgefrom other sciences, such as physics andastronomy, and assembles a physically all-inclusive cosmic picture.

In our everyday life we deal with ordinarythings, such as plants and flowerpots, and tounderstand these things of sensible size weexplore the small-scale and large-scalerealms of the universe. We delve deeplyinto the microscopic realms of cells, mol-ecules, atoms, and subatomic particles, andreach far out into the macroscopic realmsof planets, stars, galaxies, and the universe.We find that the very small and the verylarge are intimately related in cosmology.

Since the seventeenth century, knowledgehas advanced rapidly and the number ofsciences has grown enormously. Eachscience focuses on a domain of the universeand tends in the course of time to fragmentinto closely related new sciences of greaterspecialization. Originally, the characteristics

Figure 1.2. The Universe, one and all-inclusive, by

Filippo Picinelli, 1694. In The Cosmographical

Glass: Renaissance Diagrams of the Universe

(1977), S. K. Heninger writes, ‘‘We might

conjecture that the artist, not bound by the

constraint of cosmological dogma, felt free to

engage in cosmological speculations of his own

sort. He assumed a license to create his own

universe. The worlds of Hieronymus Bosch, of Leon

Battista Alberti, and of John Milton, to name a few

examples, are the result.’’ (Courtesy of the Henry E.

Huntingdon Library, San Marino, California.)

Figure 1.3. The Universe contains us who

construct the many universes. Each universe is a

model of the Universe. An intriguing thought is that

each universe is the Universe attempting to

understand itself.

WHA T I S C O SMO L O G Y ? 15

of living and nonliving things defined thedifferences between the broad domains ofbiology and physics. Each of these basicsciences, as it advanced, branched into newsciences, which in turn branched into morespecialized sciences. Physics – once knownas natural philosophy – has grown andbranched into high-energy subatomic parti-cle physics, low-energy nuclear physics,atomic physics, chemical physics, con-densed-matter physics, biophysics, geophy-sics, astrophysics, and so on, and each hasits own theoreticians, experimenters, andtechnicians. Biology – once the subject ofnaturalists of broad interests – with asso-ciated sciences such as botany, zoology,entomology, ecology, and paleontology,and so on, has grown and branched intomolecular biology, biochemistry, genetics,and so on. And astronomy – once thesubject in which everybody had equalknowledge (but not computing skill) – hasbranched into planetary sciences, the studyof stellar structure and atmospheres, inter-stellar media, galactic astronomy, extra-galactic astronomy, and the separate fieldsof radio, infrared, optical, ultraviolet, x-ray, and gamma-ray astronomy.

It is evident that the sciences divide theuniverse in order that each can construct indetail a domain of special knowledge.Science tears things apart into constituentsof greater and greater specialization – ofteninto smaller and smaller pieces – and devotescloser and closer attention to detail. A per-son studying in depth a branch of sciencebecomes a specialist, engrossed in a mazeof detailed knowledge, who knows muchabout a small domain of the universe andis comparatively ignorant of all the rest.

Cosmology is the one science in whichspecialization is rather difficult. Its mainaim is to assemble the cosmic jigsaw puzzle,not to study in detail any particular jigsawpiece. While other scientists are pulling theuniverse apart into progressively moredetailed pieces, the cosmologists are endeav-oring to put the pieces together to see thepicture on the jigsaw puzzle. Unlike allother scientists, the cosmologists take a

broad view; like the impressionist paintersthey stand well back from their canvases soas not to see too much distracting detail.

Introductory cosmology is not a branchof astronomy. It is a ‘‘cosmopedia,’’ morethan an inventory of the contents of theuniverse, and is not a ‘‘whole-universe cata-logue’’ of descriptive astronomical data.Cosmology is the study of the primarycosmic constituents, such as the origin andhistory of the chemical elements, and ofspace and time that form the frame of theexpanding universe. The primary things ofimportance are scattered over large regionsof space and endure over long periods oftime. The origin and evolution of stars andgalaxies, even the origin of life and intelli-gence, are important cosmic subjects. Sub-atomic particles, the role they play duringthe earliest moments of the universe, theirsubsequent combination into atoms andmolecules that form the complexity of theliving cell and our surrounding world, areall of cosmic interest.

At each turn, the issues of cosmologycause us to pause and reflect. Many subjectsof vital importance are still obscure and notunderstood: how human beings acquiredspeech and large brains; and how they devel-oped the ability to create abstract mentalstructures and think quantitatively. Whatdetermines the way that human beingsthink also determines the design they per-ceive in their universes. Human beingsform a vital part of cosmology and representthe Universe perceiving and thinking aboutitself.

Who are the cosmologists? Professionalcosmologists are relatively few; they arewell-versed in mathematics, physics, andastronomy, and they study the evolutionand large-scale structure of the physical uni-verse. In general, however, whenever aperson seeks to understand the Universe,that person becomes a cosmologist. Whenwe stand back from the study of a specializedarea of knowledge, or just step aside fromoureveryday affairs, and reflect on things ingeneral, and try to see the forest and notjust the trees, the whole painting and not

16 C O SMO L O G Y

just the dabs of paint, the whole tapestry andnot just the threads, we become cosmologists.

THE MAGIC UNIVERSE

Cosmology is as old asHomo sapiens. It goesback to a time when human beings, living inprimitive social groups, developed languageand made their first attempts to understandthe world around them. Probably, hundredsof thousands of years ago, human beingsexplained their world by means of spirits.Spirits of all kinds, motivated by humanlikeimpulses and passions, activated everything.The early people projected their own innerthoughts and feelings into an outer animisticworld, a world in which everything wasalive. With supplications, prayers, sacrifices,and gifts to the spirits, human beings gainedcontrol of the phenomena of their world.

It was the Age of Magic, of benign anddemonic spirits incarnate in plant, animal,and human form. Everything that happenedwas explained readily and easily by thepassions, motives, and actions of ambientand indwelling spirits. It was an anthropo-morphic world, of the living earth, water,wind, and fire, into which men and womenprojected their own emotions and motivesas the guiding forces; the kind of worldthat children read about in fairy tales.From this ‘‘golden age’’ comes our primevalfear of the menace of darkness and the rageof storms, and our enchantment with thewizardry of sunrises, sunsets, and rainbows.For reasons not yet fully understood, humanbeings everywhere remained one species,and cultures (languages, social codes, beliefsystems, laws, technologies) interdiffused.Possibly, our moral codes of today, whichregulate behavior in the family and societyand determine in general what is ethicallyright and wrong, were naturally selectedover long periods of time in primitive socie-ties. Societies deficient in codes of mutualcare and support among individuals hadlittle chance of surviving.

THE MYTHIC UNIVERSE

At the dawn of history, ten or more thou-sand years ago, the early city-states attained

more abstract concepts of the Universe. Themagic universe evolved into the mythicuniverse. The long age of magic gave wayto what might be called the Age of Theism.The spirits that had been everywhere, acti-vating everything, amalgamated, retreatedinto remote mythic realms, and becamepowerful gods who personified abstractionsof thought and language. James Frazer, inThe Golden Bough, speculated on howmagic among primitive people evolved intotheism, and how the magic universe trans-formed into a variety of mythic universe:

But with the growth of knowledge man learns to

realize more clearly the vastness of nature and his

own littleness and feebleness in the presence of it.

The recognition of his helplessness does not,

however, carry with it a corresponding belief in

the impotence of those supernatural beings with

which his imagination peoples the universe. On

the contrary, it enhances his conception of their

power. . . . If then he feels himself to be so frail and

slight, how vast and powerful must he deem the

beings who control the gigantic machinery of

nature! . . . Thus in the acuter minds magic is

gradually superseded by religion, which explains

the succession of natural phenomena as regulated

by will, passion, or caprice of the spiritual beings

like man in kind, though vastly superior to him in

power.

Much of mythology consists of primitivecosmic imagery (Figure 1.4). The Sumerian,Assyro-Babylonian, Minoan, Greek, Chi-nese, Norse, Celtic, and Mayan mytholo-gies, to name only a few, are of historicalinterest because they illustrate mankind’searlier views of the universe. The creationmyths, often difficult to interpret, are ofparticular interest (see Chapter 25).

Human beings at the cosmic centerNo matter how powerful and remote theybecame, the mythic gods continued to serveand protect human beings, and men andwomen everywhere remained secure and ofcentral importance in an anthropocentricuniverse. The universe was assembled abouta center and human beings were located pro-minently at the center.

Anthropocentricity formed the basis ofthe Greek cosmology of an Earth-centered

WHA T I S C O SMO L O G Y ? 17

universe. The universe of Aristotle in thefourth century BC was geocentric (or Earthcentered); the spherical Earth rested at thecenter of the universe and the Moon, Sun,planets, and stars, fixed to translucent celes-tial spheres, revolved about the Earth. Theinnermost region of heaven – the sublunarsphere between the Earth and the Moon –contained earthly and tangible things in an

ever-changing state, and the outer regionsof heaven – the celestial spheres – containedethereal and intangible things in a never-changing state. The subsequent elaborationsof this system, bringing it into closer agree-ment with astronomical observations, cul-minated in the Ptolemaic system of AD 140.

The Middle Ages (fifth to fifteenth centu-ries) were not so terribly dark as was once

Figure 1.4. The Ancient of Days by William Blake (1757–1827). ‘‘When he sets a

compass upon the face of the depths’’ (Proverbs 8:27).

18 C O SMO L O G Y

supposed. The medieval universe from thethirteenth century to the sixteenth centurywas perhaps the most satisfying form ofcosmology known in history. Christians,Jews, andMoslems were blessed with a finiteuniverse in which they had utmost impor-tance. By the Arab and European standardsof those times it was a rational and well-organized universe that everybody couldunderstand; it gave location and prominencetomankind’s place in the scheme of things, itprovided a secure foundation for religionand gave meaning and purpose to humanlife on Earth. Never before or since hascosmology served in so vivid a manner theeveryday needs of ordinary people; it wassimultaneously their religion, philosophy,and science.

The Copernican RevolutionThe transition from the finite geocentric uni-verse to the infinite and centerless universe isknown as the Copernican Revolution. In thesixteenth century, Nicolaus Copernicuscrystallized trends in astronomical thoughtthat had originated in Greek science almost2000 years before and proposed the helio-centric (or Sun-centered) universe. TheCopernican heliocentric universe was soontransformed into the infinite and centerlessCartesian universe, which in turn wasfollowed by the Newtonian universe. Thisrevolution in outlook occupied the sixteenthand seventeenth centuries. The CopernicanRevolution opened the way for moderncosmology.

But the spiritual universe, thought to bevastly more important than the physicaluniverse, remained firmly anthropocentric.The spiritual universe was the ‘‘great chainof being,’’ a chain of countless links that des-cended from human beings through all thelower forms of life to inanimate matter,and ascended from human beings throughhierarchies of angelic beings to the throneof God. Mankind was the central link con-necting the angelic and brute worlds. Evenin an infinitely large physical universe,deprived first of the Earth and then of theSun as its natural center, it was still possible

to cling to old ideas that portrayed humanbeings as having central importance in thecosmic drama. The gods were ever myster-ious and after the Copernican Revolutionthey became more mysterious than before.

The Darwinian revolutionIn themiddle of the nineteenth century camethe most dreadful of all revolutions: theDarwinian Revolution. Human beings,hitherto the central figures in the cosmicdrama, became akin to the beasts of thefield. The gods who had attended and pro-tected mankind for so long were cast out ofthe physical universe.

The anthropomorphic (magic) andanthropocentric (mythic) universes werewrong in almost every detail. The medievaluniverse has gone and with it has gone thegreat chain of being. Science at last is thevictor, putting to flight the myths and super-stitions of the past. We applaud the Renais-sance (fifteenth to sixteenth centuries) withits revival of art and learning, we applaudthe rise of the Cartesian and Newtonianworld-systems in the seventeenth century,we applaud the Age of Reason (the Enlight-enment of the eighteenth century) with itsconviction in the power of human reason,and we applaud the Age of Science (seven-teenth to twentieth centuries), and tooeasily forget the growing dismay of ordinarymen and women in a universe that centuryby century progressively became moremeaningless and senseless. With thedecline and death of the old universes –anthropomorphic and anthropocentric –mankind was cast aimlessly adrift in analien universe.

THE ANTHROPOMETRIC UNIVERSE

‘‘Man is the measure of all things.’’

Protagoras (fifth century BC)

We believe that the universe is not anthro-pomorphic and not made in the image ofhuman beings; it is not a magic realm alivewith humanlike spirits. Also we believethat the universe is not anthropocentricwith human beings occupying its center; we

WHA T I S C O SMO L O G Y ? 19

are not the central figures; and the world isnot controlled by gods and goddesses.

Instead, as Protagoras said, we are themeasure of the universe, and this meansthat the universe is anthropometric. Let ustry to understand what this means.

We have minds, or as some would say, wehave brains. For our purpose it is not neces-sary to inquire into the nature of the mind–brain and attempt to probe its mysteries.It does not matter if we think the mind is anonphysical entity of psychic activity or isa physical brain throbbing with bioelectro-chemical activity. We have mind–brainsinto which information pours via the sen-sory pathways and from this informationwe devise in our mind–brains the Aristote-lian, Stoic, Epicurean, Zoroastrian, Neopla-tonic, Medieval, Cartesian, Newtonian, andall the other universes that have dominatedhuman thought in different ages.We observeplants and flowerpots and other things anddevise grand theories that relate and explainthem, and these theories reside not in thethings themselves but in our mind–brains.At each step in the history of cosmology, dif-ferent universes prevail, and every universein every society is a grand mental edificethat makes sense of the human experience.Each universe is anthropometric because itconsists of ideas devised by human beingsseeking to understand the things theyobserve and experience.

For those lost in the vast and apparentlymeaningless modern universe there is com-fort in the realization that all universes areanthropometric. The Medieval universewas made and measured by men andwomen, although the medievalists them-selves would have hotly denied the thought.The modern universe with its bioelectro-chemical brains pondering over it is alsohuman-made. Like the Medieval universeit will inevitably fade away in time and bereplaced by other universes. The universesof the future will almost certainly differfrom our modern version; nevertheless,they will all be anthropometric because‘‘man is the measure of all things’’ enter-tained by man. The Universe itself, of

course, is not human-made, but we haveno true conception of what it actually is.All we know is that it contains us – thedreamers of universes.

COSMOLOGY AND SOCIETY

Cosmology and society are intimatelyrelated. Where there is a society, there is auniverse, and where there is a universe,there is a society of thinking individuals.Each universe shapes the history and directsthe destiny of its society.

This intimate relationship is mostobvious in primitive cosmology wheremythology and society mirror each otherand the ways of gods and goddesses are theways of men and women. Cruel people cre-ate cruel gods who sanction cruel behavior,and peaceful people create peaceful godswho foster peaceful behavior. The interplaybetween cosmology and society in themodern world is as strong as ever, if notstronger, but often in less easily recognizedforms.

Without doubt the most powerful andinfluential ideas in any society are those thatrelate to the universe. They shape histories,inspire civilizations, foment wars, createmonarchies, launch empires, and establishpolitical systems. One such idea was theprinciple of plenitude, which can be tracedback to Plato and has been enormouslyinfluential since the fifteenth century.

The principle of plenitude originated inthe anthropocentric belief system that theuniverse is created for mankind by an intel-ligible supreme being. In its simplest formit states that a beneficent Creator has givento human beings for their own use anEarth of unlimited bounty. Themore formalargument is as follows. The supreme being iswithout limitation because limitationimplies imperfection and imperfection iscontrary to belief. The unlimited potentialof the supreme being is made manifest inthe unlimited actuality of the createdworld. The Earth necessarily displays everyform of reality in inexhaustible abundance.This is the principle of plenitude that satu-rates Western culture.

20 C O SMO L O G Y

In the Late Middle Ages, telescopesdisclosed the richness of the heavens, micro-scopes disclosed a teeming world of micro-organic life, and the worldwide voyages bymariners opened up dazzling vistas of avast and bountiful Earth. An unlimitedabundance of every conceivable thing pro-vided sufficient proof of the principle ofplenitude. Europeans developed the princi-ple, were guided by it, and have sinceexported it to the rest of the world.

Political ideologies were shaped by theprinciple of plenitude. The principle guaran-teed endless untapped wealth and free enter-prise flourished as never before. To offsetdepletion and escape population growth itwas necessary only to push farther east andwest to the glittering prizes of unravishedlands. ‘‘The real price of anything is thetoil and trouble of acquiring it’’ said AdamSmith. Go east! the streets are paved ingold. Go west! beyond the sunset lie landsof unharvested wealth. Husbandry of finiteresources was not part of plenitude philoso-phy. People confidently believed that every-thing existed in unlimited abundance, andwhen anything became exhausted (such asthe elimination of the bison herds, theextinction of the carrier pigeons and thegreat auks), they were taken by surpriseand felt cheated.

The inevitable question followed, and hassince echoed around the world: Why shouldinequality of wealth exist in a world ofunlimited abundance? One answer came inthemessage fromKarlMarx: in theCommu-nist Manifesto we are told the less wealthy‘‘have nothing to lose but their chains.They have a world to win.’’ The principleof plenitude, which now lies buried deep inour cultural heritage and has been dissemi-nated in various forms throughout theworld, is unfortunately nothing but acosmological myth.

Old ideas of cosmological breadth stilldominate our everyday thoughts and manyof these ideas are totally unsuitable in themodern world. We are, it seems, lockedinto the misguiding logic of obsolete uni-verses that threaten to destroy us. We live

in an age of crises – unchecked populationgrowth, rapid depletion of resources, envir-onmental and atmospheric pollution – andare mesmerized by prophecies of doom.

In 1776 the engineering firm of Boultonand Watt began to sell steam engines that,unlike previous steam devices, were power-ful, quick-acting, and easily adapted fordriving machinery of various kinds. Thisevent more than any other ushered in theIndustrial Revolution that has transformedour way of life. Many persons say that theills of today are the direct consequence ofthe Industrial Revolution. But it is notthe technologies that are to blame, but theideas – the belief systems – that govern theuse of the technology.

To make the point clear, let us imaginethat space travelers encounter a planetthat has been devastated by unbridledtechnology and become lifeless. In theirinvestigations the space travelers cannotautomatically assume that technology wasthe cause of the devastation. They mustsearch for evidence indicating the nature ofthe beliefs of the vanished inhabitants.What inner mental world resulted in theouter ruined world? In their reports theywill probably draw the conclusion that theruined world is the result of an ancient cos-mology, a cosmology founded on principlesthat in their saner moments the inhabitantshad rejected and yet had driven them totheir doom.

REFLECTIONS

1 ‘‘I don’t pretend to understand theUniverse – it’s a great deal bigger than Iam.’’ Attributed to William Allingham(1828–1889).. The word Universe can be thought of ascombining Unity and the diverse. The wordcosmos means the harmonious whole of allreality. But what are the full meanings ofunity, diversity, harmony, and reality?2 In cosmology, there are two distinctlanguages: the first refers to universes andthe second refers to cosmologies. In thefirst, cosmology is the study of many uni-verses, and each universe is a model of the

WHA T I S C O SMO L O G Y ? 21

Universe. (Naturally in any age cosmologytends to be the study of the contemporary uni-verse.) In the second, the Universe is studiedby many cosmologies, and each cosmology ispeculiar to a particular society. We haveeither a single cosmology studying many uni-verses or a single Universe studied by manycosmologies. The first refers repeatedly touniverses and the second refers repeatedly tothe Universe. In this book we adopt the firstmethod because it avoids using the word ‘‘Uni-verse,’’ except occasionally to make a pointclear, and does not foster the illusion thatthe Universe is a known or even knowablething.3 Homo sapiens has existed for about onemillion years. How did the early human beingsview the world around them? ‘‘I shall invite myreaders to step outside the closed study of thetheorist into the open air of the anthropo-logical field,’’ wrote Bransilaw Malinowskiin his book on the Tobriand Islanders ofMelanesia. Through his observations andthose of many other anthropologists studyingdifferent societies we find not primitive butsophisticated cultures and intricate languagesexisting everywhere. Truly primitive humanbeings, offering us insight into how our remoteancestors thought and lived, most probablyexist nowhere in the world today.

The world of primitive people was ‘‘pos-sessed, pervaded, and crowded with spiritualbeings,’’ according to the Victorian anthro-pologist Edward Tylor in his book PrimitiveCulture. He advanced the theory of animism.The early human beings projected their ownemotions and motives into the surroundingworld, and the world, thus animated, wasable to explain almost everything that neededexplaining. In the course of time, with thegrowth in language and abstract thought,the ambient spirits amalgamated into power-ful nature spirits, godlings, gods, and god-desses.

‘‘The conception of gods as superhumanbeings endowed with the powers to whichman possesses nothing comparable in degreeand hardly in kind has been slowly evolved inthe course of history,’’ wrote James Frazerin The Golden Bough. Frazer discussed the

evolution of animism into theism, and of howthe management of ‘‘the gigantic machineryof nature’’ was handed over to the gods. Heassumed as a basic premise that religion wasborn with the rise of the gods.4 Religion in general is not easily defined. Itseems to comprise emotions and ideas. Thereligious emotions experienced by individualsare much the same in all societies, whereas thereligious ideas that evoke those emotions arepeculiar to each society. Religious emotionsare probably an integral part of human natureand essential in the survival of humansocieties. Theology is the study of religiousideas, and faith is the conviction in the abso-lute truth of those ideas. Invariably, theideas have cosmological significance (seeChapters 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 25, and 26). We notethat everywhere in every age people in differ-ent societies have similar religious emotions,but have totally different religious ideas inwhose absolute truth they have complete faith.

Recognition of the universality of religiousemotions and the diversity of religious ideassuggests that Frazer was wrong when hetraced the roots of religion back to the birthof gods. Possibly religion is as old as Homosapiens. The error of confusing religiousemotions with religious ideas seems quitecommon. When members of religious institu-tions insist on keeping their mythic beliefs,they unwittingly make the mistake of con-fusing theory with emotional experience andthink that without primitive cosmology theycannot have religion. They fail to realizethat scientific rejection of mythic cosmologydoes not bring science into conflict withreligious experience. The modern theory oflight as quanta of energy, for example, hasnot robbed us of the sensation of color andthe emotional experience that accompaniescolor.

Mythology is the study of myths. Mythsapparently are ideas and stories that providehistorical insights into the belief systems ofother and often earlier cultures. Althoughcredible in the belief systems in which theyfirst originated, myths become incrediblewhen transplanted into the belief systems ofother cultures.

22 C O SMO L O G Y

5 Cosmological concepts have great influ-ence for good and evil. Consider: ‘‘Thoushalt not suffer a witch to live.’’ It is estimatedthat in the witch universe of the late MiddleAges (known as the Renaissance) and of theAge of Reason (known as the Enlightenment)about half a million men, women, and childrenconfessed heresy and witchcraft under tortureand were burned to death. It was said thatheretics would burn forever in hell and thetemporary anguish of fire on Earth wasjustified if they were saved from eternal fireof hell. Here is an instance of the maxim:‘‘cruel people create cruel gods who sanctioncruel behavior.’’. ‘‘And the awful fact was that whenever youfound one witch and used the just and properinstruments of inquiry, you inevitably foundmany others. Their numbers multiplied andseemed without limit. Male and femalewitches and their evilly spawned childrenwere consumed by fire in mounting numbers,and still they multiplied’’ (E. Harrison,Masks of the Universe).

‘‘All Christianity, it seems, is at the mercyof these horrifying creatures. Countries inwhich they had previously been unknown arenow suddenly found to be swarming withthem, and the closer we look, the more ofthem we find. All contemporary observersagree that they are multiplying at an incred-ible rate. They have acquired powers hithertounknown, a complex international organiza-tion and social habits of indecent sophistica-tion. Some of the most powerful minds of thetime turn from human sciences to explorethis newly discovered continent, this Americaof the spiritual world’’ (Trevor-Roper, TheEuropean Witch Craze).

‘‘The details they discovered are constantlyand amply confirmed by other researchworkers – experimenters in confessional andtorture chamber, theorists in library andcloister – leaving the facts still more securelyestablished and the prospect even more alarm-ing than before. Instead of being stamped out,the witches increased at a frightening rate,until the whole of Christendom seemedabout to be overwhelmed by the marshaledforces of triumphant evil. To protest in any

way against witch hunting as inhuman in atime of emergency was sheer lunacy, con-demned by the popes as bewitchment and theresult of consorting with devils’’ (E. Harrison,Masks of the Universe).6 Edward Milne in his last book ModernCosmology and the Christian Idea of God,published posthumously in 1952, wrote:‘‘There is a remarkable difference betweenphysics and philosophy. On the one hand,physicists agree with one another in generalat any one time, yet the physical theories ofany one decade differ profoundly from thoseof each succeeding decade – at any rate inthe twentieth century. On the other hand,philosophers disagree with one another atany one time, yet the grand problems of philo-sophy remain the same from age to age. . . .The man of science should be essentially arebel, a prophet rather than a priest, onewho should not be ashamed of finding himselfin opposition to the hierarchy. . . . The hard-baked or hardboiled scientist usually holdsthat science and religion, whilst on noddingterms, have no immediate bearing on oneanother. On the contrary, one cannot studycosmology without having a religious attitudeto the universe. Cosmology assumes therationality of the universe, but can give noreason for it short of a creator of the laws ofnature being a rational creator.’’7 ‘‘Whereas philosophers and theologiansappear to possess an emotional attachmentto their theories and ideas that requires themto believe in them, scientists tend to regardtheir ideas differently. They are interested informulating many logically consistent possi-bilities, leaving any judgment regarding theirtruth to observation. Scientists feel no qualmsabout suggesting different but mutually exclu-sive explanations for the same phenomenon’’(John Barrow and Frank Tipler, TheAnthropic Cosmological Principle, 1986).8 The emergence of science, says HerbertButterfield in The Origins of ModernScience, ‘‘outshines everything since the riseof Christianity and reduces the Renaissanceand Reformation to the rank of mere epi-sodes,’’ and ‘‘looms so large as the real originboth of the modern world and the modern

WHA T I S C O SMO L O G Y ? 23

mentality that our customary periodisation ofEuropean history has become an anachronismand an encumbrance.’’ Butterfield argues thatscience saved Europe from the mad witchuniverse. Not the humanities, not religion,but the sciences ended the witch craze of theRenaissance. Science was reaching out to anew universe more capable of distinguishingbetween the supernatural and the naturaland of defining the limits of human controlover nature.9 ‘‘Possibly the world of external facts ismuch more fertile and plastic than we haveventured to suppose: it may be that all thesecosmologies and many more analyses andclassifications are genuine ways of arrangingwhat nature offers to our understanding, andthat the main condition determining ourselection between them is something in usrather than something in the external world’’(Edwin Burtt, The Metaphysical Founda-tions of Modern Physical Science, 1932).. ‘‘Natural science does not simply describeand explain nature; it is part of the interplaybetween nature and ourselves; it describesnature as exposed to our method of question-ing’’ (Werner Heisenberg, Physics andPhilosophy, 1958).. In The Discarded Image (1967), C. S.Lewis writes: ‘‘The great masters do nottake any Model quite so seriously as the restof us. They know that it is, after all, only amodel, possibly replaceable.’’ Later he con-tinues: ‘‘It is not impossible that our ownModel will die a violent death, ruthlesslysmashed by an unprovoked assault of newfacts – unprovoked as the nova of 1572. ButI think it is more likely to change when, andbecause, far-reaching changes in the mentaltemper of our descendants demand that itshould. The new Model will not be set up with-out evidence, but the evidence will turn upwhen the inner need for it becomes sufficientlygreat. It will be true evidence. But nature givesmost of her evidence in answer to the questionswe ask her.’’10 In The Great Chain of Being (1936) byArthur Lovejoy, we read: ‘‘Next to the word‘nature,’ the ‘Great Chain of Being’ wasthe sacred phrase of the eighteenth century,

playing a part somewhat analogous to thatof the blessed word ‘evolution’ in the late nine-teenth.’’ The great chain inspired the notion of‘‘missing links’’ long before Darwin. Thegreat chain of being, according to Lovejoy,was intimately associated with the principleof plenitude. ‘‘Not so very long ago theworld seemed almost infinite in its ability toprovide for man’s needs – and limitless as areceptacle for man’s waste products. Thosewith an inclination to escape from worn-outfarms or the clutter of urban life could alwaysmove out into a fresh, unspoiled environment.There were virgin forests, rich lodes waiting tobe discovered, frontiers to push back, andlarge blank regions marked unexplored onthe map. . . . It has, so far as I know, neverbeen distinguished by an appropriate name;and for want of this, its identity in varyingcontexts and in different phrasings seemsoften to have escaped recognition by histor-ians. I shall call it the principle of plenitude.’’. Garrett Hardin in ‘‘The tragedy of thecommons’’ (1968) discusses how old mythsand cosmological beliefs affect the way welive. Individuals strive to maximize theirshare of a common resource in the beliefthat ownership is a natural and even divineright. When herdsmen graze their beasts oncommon land, each strives to increase thesize of his herd. Disease and tribal warfaremaintain a state of equilibrium by limitingthe numbers of persons and beasts below thecapacity of the land. Then comes a moreorderly and civilized way of life that, withdiminished war and disease, places anincreased burden on the commons. A herds-man now thinks, ‘‘If I increase my herd, theloss owing to overgrazing will be shared byall, and my gain will exceed my loss.’’ Allherdsmen think this way and therein lies thetragedy. ‘‘Each person,’’ states Hardin, ‘‘islocked into a system that compels him toincrease his herd without limit – in a worldthat is limited. . . . Ruin is the destination towhich all men rush.’’ Unfortunately, mostproblems created by outdated cosmic myths(such as the Great Chain of Being, the princi-ple of plenitude, and the freedom to reproducewithout limit) do not have technical solutions.

24 C O SMO L O G Y

‘‘A technical solution may be defined as onethat requires a change only in the techniquesof the natural sciences, demanding little ornothing in the way of change in human valuesor ideas of morality.’’ The ‘‘concern here iswith that important concept of a class ofhuman problems which can be called ‘no tech-nical solution problems.’ . . . My thesis is thatthe ‘population problem,’ as conventionallyconceived, is a member of this class. . . . It isfair to say that most people who anguishover the population problem . . . think thatfarming the seas or developing new strains ofwheat will solve the problem – technically.’’

PROJECTS

1 Consider the old English prayer: ‘‘Godhelp me in my search for truth, and protectme from those who believe they havefound it.’’. Consider also: In the Memoirs of Zeus byMaurice Druon, the goddess Mnemosyndeclares ‘‘we would be better mirrors of theUniverse if we were less concerned aboutour own image.’’2 In the ancient world and in the MiddleAges astrology was the science of planetsand stars, astrolatry was the worship ofstars, and astromancy was the practiceof soothsaying and divination by means ofcelestial configurations. We use the wordbiology for the science of living things andproperly speaking we should use the wordastrology for the science of stars. Butastrology became corrupted and took theplace of astrolatry and astromancy.Astrology now is the mythological beliefthat the affairs of human beings are influ-enced by the heavenly bodies.

Millions of people in America read theastrology (or rather the astromancy) col-umns in the daily newspapers; they findastromancy interesting and entertaining,for it is anthropocentric and connectshuman beings and the universe in waysthat are meaningful to most people. Somepersons take it seriously, and then, bymodern standards, it becomes slightly ridi-culous. But most people find it entertainingbecause it appeals to vestigial elements in

our cultural heritage. Bart Bok, LawrenceJerome, and 19 other leading scientists, in‘‘Objections to astrology’’ (1975), venttheir dismay: ‘‘Scientists in a variety of fieldshave become concerned about the increasedacceptance of astrology in many parts of theworld. . . . It should be apparent that thoseindividuals who continue to have faith inastrology do so in spite of the fact thatthere is no verified scientific basis for theirbeliefs, and indeed that there is strong evi-dence to the contrary.’’

Discuss why astrology is still popular.Can it be that many persons find themselvesin a largely meaningless universe fromwhichtheir religions and philosophies haveretreated? What can be done about thisunhappy situation in which people find com-fort in astromancy that science is resolved toeliminate? Sunday schools (in my day) didnot arrest the flight from religion; willmore introductory science courses arrestthe flight from the scientific universe? Con-sider also Alfred Whitehead’s statement inScience and the Modern World: ‘‘Nature isa dull affair, soundless, scentless, colourless;merely the hurrying of material, endlessly,meaninglessly.’’3 Adam Smith’s famous statement ‘‘Thereal price of anything is the toil and troubleof acquiring it’’ needs reexamining. In allundertakings with nature we should readthe small print in the contract. This mightdisclose that the real price is paid by thosewho inherit the depletion and despoliationthat follows. Are we already beginning tosee the real price?4 Give examples of problems that haveno technical solution. Note that technicalsolutions, when they exist, often entail newproblems. New drugs cure old diseases butadd to the problem of population growthand may lead to greater suffering. Popula-tion growth has become a problem withouttechnical solution, and requires, in Hardin’swords, either a ‘‘change in human values orideas of morality.’’

Do you think that colonizing space willtechnically solve the population problem?Sebastian von Hoerner, in ‘‘Population

WHA T I S C O SMO L O G Y ? 25

explosion and interstellar expansion’’(1975), shows that this could solve theproblem, with the present growth in birth-rate, for at most only 500 years. Thehuman space bubble, full of human beings,would expand faster and faster and in 500years would expand at the speed of light.Each colonized planet would become morecrowded and face the same problem thatwe now face on Earth. To what extent istheWest with its technology, pharmacology,hygiene, and ideas of plenitude responsiblefor the alarming decrease in wild life andstartling increase in human life?5 Consider critically the syllogism:

We are part of the Universe,we are alive,therefore the Universe is alive.

Consider also:

The Universe contains us,we create universes,therefore no universe contains us.

6 Discuss the following examples of cos-mic despair and hope:

‘‘That man is the product of causes whichhad no prevision of the end they were achiev-ing; that his origin, his growth, his hopes andfears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the out-come of accidental collocations of atoms;that no fire, no heroism, no intensity ofthought or feeling, can preserve a life beyondthe grave; that all the labors of the ages, allthe devotion, all the inspiration, all the noon-day brightness of human genius, are destinedto extinction in the vast death of the solar sys-tem; and the whole temple of Man’s achieve-ment must inevitably be buried beneath thedebris of a universe in ruins – all these things,if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearlycertain, that no philosophy which rejectsthem can hope to stand. Only within thescaffolding of these truths, only on the firmfoundation of unyielding despair, can thesoul’s habitation be safely built’’ (BertrandRussell, A Free Man’s Worship, 1923).. ‘‘The same thrill, the same awe and mys-tery, come again and again when we look atany problem deeply enough. With more

knowledge comes deeper, more wonderfulmystery, luring one on to penetrate deeperstill. Never concerned that the answer mayprove disappointing, but with pleasure andconfidence we turn over each new stone tofind unimagined strangeness leading on tomore wonderful questions and mysteries –certainly a grand adventure!’’ (RichardFeynman, ‘‘The value of science,’’ 1958).

FURTHER READING

Blacker, C. and Loewe, M. Editors. AncientCosmologies. George Allen and Unwin,London, 1975.

Hamilton, E. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Godsand Heroes. Little, Brown, Boston, 1942.

Munitz, M. K. Editor. Theories of the Universe:From Babylonian Myth to Modern Science.

Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, 1957.

SOURCES

Barrow, J. D. and Tipler, F. J. The AnthropicCosmological Principle. Oxford University

Press, Oxford, 1986.Bok, B. J., Jerome, L. E., Kurtz, P. et al. ‘‘Objec-

tions to astrology.’’ Humanist 35, 4 (October

1975).Burtt, E. The Metaphysical Foundations of Mod-

ern Physical Science. 1924. Revised edition:

Humanities Press, NewYork, 1932. Reprint:Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1954.

Butterfield, H. The Origins of Modern Science,1300–1800. Bell and Sons, London, 1957.

Revised edition: Free Press, New York,1965.

Campbell, J. The Masks of God: Primitive

Mythology. Viking Press, New York, 1959.Campbell, J. The Mythic Image. Princeton Uni-

versity Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1974.

Childe, V.G.What Happened in History. PenguinBooks, London, 1942.

Feynman, R. ‘‘The value of science,’’ in Frontiers

in Science: A Survey. Editor E. Hutchings.Basic Books, New York, 1958.

Frankfort, H., Frankfort, H. A., Wilson, J. A.,and Jacobsen, T. Before Philosophy. Penguin

Books, London, 1949. First published as TheIntellectual Adventure of Ancient Man. Uni-versity of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1946.

Frazer, J. G.The Golden Bough: A Study in Magicand Religion. Abridged edition: Macmillan,London, 1922.

26 C O SMO L O G Y

Greene, J. C.Darwin and the Modern World View.Louisiana State University Press, BatonRouge, 1973.

Hardin, G. ‘‘The tragedy of the commons.’’Science 162, 1243 (1968).

Harrison, E. R. Masks of the Universe. Mac-

millan, New York, 1985.Heisenberg, W. Physics and Philosophy. Harper

and Row, New York, 1958.Heninger, S. K. The Cosmographical Glass:

Renaissance Diagrams of the Universe.Huntington Library, San Marino, 1977.

Hoerner, S. von. ‘‘Population explosion and

interstellar expansion.’’ Journal of the BritishInterplanetary Society 28, 691 (1975).

Hoyle, F. Ten Faces of the Universe. Freeman,

San Francisco, 1977.John, L. Editor. Cosmology Now. British Broad-

casting Corporation, London, 1973.Kruglak, H. and O’Bryan, M. ‘‘Astrology in the

astronomy classroom.’’ Mercury (Novem-ber–December 1977).

Leach, M. The Beginning: Creation Myths

Around the World. Funk and Wagnalls,New York, 1956.

Leslie, J. Universes. Routledge, New York, 1989.

Lewis, C. S. The Abolition of Man. Macmillan,New York, 1947.

Lewis, C. S. The Discarded Image. Cambridge

University Press, Cambridge, 1967.

Lovejoy, A. O.The Great Chain of Being: A Studyof the History of an Idea. HarvardUniversityPress, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1936.

Lucretius. The Nature of the Universe. TranslatedbyR. E. Latham. Penguin,Harmondsworth,England, 1951.

Malinowski, B.Magic, Science and Religion.FreePress, New York, 1948.

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Oxford, 1952.Neugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity.

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Island, 1957.Russell, B. A Free Man’s Worship. Mosher, Port-

land, Maine, 1923.

Schrodinger, E. Science and Humanism: Physicsin Our Time. Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, 1951.

Schrodinger, E. Science, Theory and Man. Dover

Publications, New York, 1957.Singer, C. ‘‘The scientific views and visions of

Saint Hildegaard (1098–1180).’’ In Studies

in the History and Method of Science. EditorC. Singer. Dawson, London, 1955.

Trevor-Roper, H. R. The European Witch Craze.

Harper and Row, New York, 1969.Tylor, E. B. Primitive Culture. London, 1871.Whitehead, A. N. Science and the Modern World.

Macmillan, London, 1925.

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