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17 Rene Descartes in 1644 proposed that the universe is not a void, but is filled with atoms whose vortices form stars and planets. He suggested that an infinite number of creatures far superior to us may exist elsewhere. Recognizing the implied demotion of Humankind, Descartes claimed that our merits are not diminished by the fact that intelligent beings on other heavenly bodies have similar ones.” Cyrano de Bergerac drew radically anti anthropocentric and anti theo- logical conclusions from Descartes’ cosmology. In satiric novels published in 1657 and 1662, he dismissed the idea that the universe exists for our benefit. Portraying an imagined meeting between humans and their coun- terparts in space, he described the aliens as being superior in intelligence. He drew irony from this situation; the extraterrestrials had believed the Earth to be uninhabited.” As the Enlightenment gained ground, the educated public increasingly accepted the belief that we are not alone. Two works had a particularly strong impact in Europe by making the idea of plurality accessible to non scholars. Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle’s Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (1686) expanded on Copernicus and the Cartesian universe, spreading the idea of a plurality of solar systems. The Frenchman argued that the Moon must be inhabited because it is like the Earth; the planets must be inhabited because they are like the Moon. If our Sun gives light to the planets, every star might do the same for its planets. De Fontenelle imagined that life elsewhere could be radically different from life on Earth; aliens might have new senses and other capabilities unknown to us.*! In his Kosmotheros, published in 1698, astronomer Christian Huygens also proposed a plurality of solar systems, primarily on the analogy that the stars were other suns. He reasoned that all the planets must have plants, animals, and intelligent life adapted to their environments. We can not feel threatened and downgraded by the higher degree of reason possessed by other planet dwellers, as enlightened Man is the highest conceivable form of life.* Meanwhile, Newton had published major works on physical laws and the motions of the planets, showing how gravity proved the truth of Coperni- can theory. William Herschel’s later observations of double stars confirmed that celestial objects light-years away behaved according to Newton’s laws of gravity and motion.* Physical laws seemed to be the same everywhere in the known universe; we humans could understand the cosmos by means other than faith or revelation. Many people found the Cartesian and Newtonian universes cold and impersonal. “I feel engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing and which know nothing of me,” said Blaise Pascal; “the eternal silences of those infinite spaces alarm me.” De Fontenelle too An Impersonal Universe An Impersonal Universe