I
1.
Astronomy may be broadly defined as any attempt
at a logical
explanation of celestial motions. For a long
time this science was based
essentially on calculation.
Indeed, the distance of objects at first
confined obser-
vation within certain
limits; the positive data acquired
were limited to the study of positions
and displace-
ments. However, this
descriptive knowledge was ex-
tended naturally
by scientific hypotheses. With the use
of Galileo's telescope (1610)
observation leaped for-
ward as did speculation
about the constitution of
heavenly bodies. But astrophysics really began
only
with spectrum analysis (1859). Despite constant
progress, our
knowledge of astrophysics will probably
remain, even in our time, indirect
and limited; specu-
lation and imagination
will both probably continue to
enjoy more or less an open field.
Imagination—the ability to elicit, forge, and connect
a chain of
images—is necessarily oriented and main-
tained by preferences of taste and sensibility. We shall
here
consider imagination as a comprehensive faculty
which involves the whole of
our psychical life from
the most intellectualized level to the depths of
the
unconscious. Now the field of astronomy makes a pow-
erful appeal to this faculty or power of imagination.
Nothing is more important to man than to have a view
of the universe as a
whole, because all life on earth
depends on cosmic cycles and because the
celestial
world surrounding us seems to exert a compelling
influence
on man's destiny. The idea of a corre-
spondence between Macrocosm and Microcosm
strengthens the bonds
between the mind of man and
the Universe. In the view of philosophers, the
cosmos,
the whole of God's creation, is the very archetype of
any
harmonious construction of the mind and the
pattern of any work of art.
From the time when the
Earth is no longer the fixed center of a closed
world,
the proportions in the mind's picture of the universe
change;
but as the Earth shrinks the importance of the
Universe grows. The idea that man makes of the world,
therefore, affects on all levels that power of imagina-
tion which we have said engages his whole mental life.
2.
Let us start from the highest level. We owe to
A. O. Lovejoy the idea
of “metaphysical pathos”; we
may prefer the more
general term, “the pathos of
abstract ideas.” Certain
ideas of this kind, despite their
barren appearance, awaken in different
temperaments
various reactions of a specifically emotional resonance.
No better definition of this phenomenon can be given
here than that of Kant
in his Theory of the Heavens
(Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels,
1755):
“If the aspect of so perfect a totality stirs the
imagination, a
delight of another sort grips the intel-
lect,
all the more so when it considers how so many
magnificent and grand
consequences flow from a single
general law....” Kant's
intellectual delight here was
stimulated by a consummately abstract idea:
the har-
mony of a unified explanation.
Like this aesthetic emotion, to which it is closely
allied, the intellectual
emotion often originates on a
level where obscure stimuli, difficult to
bring to light,
can yield only an incomplete explanation of their
effects, so enriched are they by the development of
culture and thought.
However, certain cosmic hy-
potheses appeal
to unconscious predilections which are
comparatively easy to detect: such
are all dreams about
genesis. In order to expose the origins of these imagi-
native constructions we shall look to
the undisputed
gains of the main psychoanalytical schools (but without
referring to any of the strictly orthodox among them).
Here, however, we shall adopt a working hypothesis:
there exist families of
minds, each corresponding to
a type of cosmic imagination; furthermore, the
manner
in which a thinker conceives and imagines the universe
is the
best key to the character of his mind.
Since attempts at classifying minds according to
ways of imagining the world
have been made before,
our course has already been charted. G. Bachelard
has
distinguished four types based on their respective
modes of
dreaming about the elements, and we shall
meet them on the way. However, we
prefer to follow
the ideas of A. O. Lovejoy, A. N. Whitehead, M. H.
Nicolson, and A. Koestler who have brought to light
a certain polarity and
classified minds in two opposing
groups, which will be described below as
the Parme-
nidean and the Heraclitean. The
works of these four
authors, based on the study of scientific ideas and
their
reverberation in the poetic imagination, are to be
joined to the
conclusions of other inquirers whose
starting point is different, namely,
those who have been
occupied with the idea of the baroque in the arts
and
literature: H. Wölfflin, E. d'Ors, and J. Rousset. There
would then be two types of minds, one attracted
strongly by permanence, the other by change. The first
are
usually called “classical,” the second either
“ro-
mantic” or
“baroque.” We prefer to follow Koestler's
suggestion,
and designate the two types of mind under
the names respectively of two
precursors of cos-
mogony: Parmenides and
Heraclitus.
The Parmenidean places himself outside of time and
takes the side of the
eternal. Underneath his choice,
one can detect perhaps a fear, a recoil
from whatever
is transformed, crumbles, decays...; in short, he
recoils from the biological laws which include decom-
position as an integral part. Because he fears
death,
the Parmenidean does not love life. But there is some-
thing more: an aesthetic taste, a choice
of an idea, and
at times, a religious motivation.
The forms of cosmic pathos to which the follower
of Parmenides is
susceptible are those which have come
to terms with the Eternal, attracted
by the purity and
rigidity of an incorruptible substance. Everything
enters into a clear and stable harmony: the Pythago-
rean aesthetic of numbers and configurations, the
circle
and sphere as types of perfection; and as the divine
type of
motion a steady eternal rotation, equivalent
to the unmoveable. With a
greater degree of com-
plexity, the Music and
Dance of the planets appear
in a harmony of numbers and combination of
configu-
rations in a similarly
experienced duration and in
strictly determined limits.
For this aesthetic of the Eternal is an aesthetic of
the Finite: what is
perfect or complete necessarily has
limits. It is also the aesthetic of
Discontinuity and of
Hierarchy: the Scale of Being is fixed with
distinct
levels in the Parmenidean cosmos. Each thing has
its place,
and the thinking man enjoys the pleasure
of feeling that he is in his right
place. It is an aes-
thetic of immutable
Unity, and not of a process of
Fusion.
The Parmenidean thinker is more or less suscep-
tible—and susceptibility varies in degree with each
individual—to the pathos of Unity in explanation, of
simplicity
in basic assumptions, and of implacable rigor
in formulated laws. There is
also the pathos of ideal
exactness in the appropriation and coherence of
a
well-knit network of logical correspondences and rela-
tions which take in the whole of creation and leave
nothing out.
As for the Heraclitean, he is susceptible to the pathos
of Becoming, and in
order that it may unfold and reveal
itself, he needs the Unlimited. If we
seek any deep
motivation, we discover a taste for life which accepts
everything which life implies, including death as a
condition for a new
birth. There is a boldness in his
outlook which rejects protection and
authority, and
assumes a willingness to take risks of all sorts. The
appeal of
the Heraclitean kind of pathos to instinctive
forces and to the Unconscious
is naturally greater than
it is in the Parmenidean family of minds.
The Heraclitean type includes everything arising out
of the fascination of
change, and transfers to the cosmic
plane whatever is integral to the cycle
of life. There
are dreams of life's genesis: the pathos of Birth and
its original freshness, the pathos of continuous Creation
and its
inexhaustible onward surge. There are dreams
of life's evolution: the
pathos of continuity and of the
flow of the forms of life. Opposing the
Parmenidean
pathos of Unity is that of Variety: the taste for
profusion
and even disorder; the taste for the irregular, the origi-
nal, the unique which will feed the dream
of the
plurality of worlds. In opposition to the joy of feeling
satisfied with being “in one's place,” there is the intox-
ication of being lost in the swarming
proliferation of
universal Being. In order to accommodate all these
wonderful things, the true Heraclitean requires Pleni-
tude, a fullness within the Infinity of space, akin
to
the infinity of God and to the unlimited capacity of
the soul of
man.
While the Parmenidean accepts hierarchy and its
hemmed-in gradations, the
Heraclitean, on the other
hand, is alive to the pathos of absolute freedom;
and
in certain eras, he experiences the pathos of liberation,
of
transport, and of flight without thought of return.
He is a traveler in the
mind. Lastly, the science of
motion for him is not mechanics but dynamics.
Cosmic
energies are absorbed in vital forces; he is receptive
not to
steady and completely smooth rotation, but
welcomes the conflict of
opposites, tension, and effort,
so that his Universe tends to be polarized.
3.
In practice it is not always easy to classify types
of imagination
because there are mixed forms. Some-
times the
same myth can be sensed in two opposite
ways, e.g., in the case of the idea
of Eternal Return.
There are, after all, pathological cases:
obsessions
which cannot be judged as preferences, but as feelings
of
disgust and terror; there also exist minds that are
perverted or paralyzed
by the dominant world view
of their times. In fact, different sorts of
individual
characters are encouraged or modified by the spirit of
the
times. Philosophical influences play their role in
the predominance of
different types of imagination,
e.g., whenever the Platonic influence is
foremost, the
heavens claim more attention; on the other hand, the
Aristotelian influence turns the mind away from too
eager concern about
outer space. Furthermore, in the
interaction of scientific research and
cosmic dreams,
the scale of science and imagination is displaced to
the extent that the former makes itself independent
of the latter. Man's effort to confine science to involve-
ment with his deeper wishes becomes
more and more
difficult, although never discouraged.
4.
For we must take into account a phenomenon
often noted but never
explained: a sort of respiratory
rhythm in history, a psychological
balancing-wheel,
which creates kinships between one epoch and another,
separated by long intervals. According to E. d'Ors, a
classical era is
followed by a baroque era; in the cos-
mological imagination, a Parmenidean era is followed
by a
Heraclitean era. Intellectual rigor gives way to
an insurgence of
instinctive forces. There are whole-
some but
harsh disciplines (like Aristotelianism) which
are obstacles to such
revolts; then the day comes when
the barrier collapses. It was maintained
by timidity;
all of a sudden fear has disappeared, and the attractive
but disturbing doctrines regain their sway and release
an enormous internal
flood of images. These move-
ments are
difficult to explain, for social causation does
not help; neither do the
discoveries of new worlds or
of Greek manuscripts. But they must be
recognized
and taken into account.
We can indicate summarily some of these intellectual
rhythms. The triumph of
scholastic philosophy in the
thirteenth century inaugurated a Parmenidean
era in
cosmology. The Florentine Renaissance in the fifteenth
century
inaugurated a Heraclitean era which was
joined with the Neo-Platonism of
the first centuries;
the new spirit kept growing stronger making
possible
the infinite worlds of Bruno's cosmology and the dis-
coveries of Kepler and Galileo. The
seventeenth cen-
tury saw the opposition between
classical French
thought dominated by Descartes and British thought
dominated by the appeal of the infinite. Newton rec-
onciled temporarily the two tendencies by satisfying
both. But
the eighteenth century, in the main super-
ficially classical, marked a return to the Renaissance,
to a
taste for magic and the occult; Leibniz' philoso-
phy, whose influence was enormous, strengthened the
renewed need
for Plenitude, infinite Diversity, and
creative profusion. And the
nineteenth century, despite
the steady progress of pure science, was to
see, about
every twenty years, a return of this Leibnizian intel-
lectual outlook accompanied by the
flourishing growth
of the same dreams; for example, the plurality of in-
habited worlds offered itself to a plurality
of existing
beings in a continuous ascent towards an unattainable
Perfection.
The relations between imagination and astronomy
will be studied here from
two points of view: how
imagination favors or obstructs the efforts of true
sci-
entists; and how, among
nonspecialists, it takes posses-
sion of
discoveries, distorts them, and supplements
them in its own way. We shall give only some attention
to the
second point of view.
