ABSTRACT
Religious controversy helped spread the idea of a plurality of worlds. A voyage to the moon increasingly was used as a literary convention, with the social and political organization of the lunar inhabitants becoming either the model of a perfect society or the reflection of all the vices of the earth’s society. Literary voyages to the moon helped to spread the new ideas and, not incidentally, furnished the critics some defense against outraged monarchs. Also helping publicize the concept of a plurality of worlds was the outburst of enthusiasm in England in response to persistent rumors that England intended to colonize the moon. The plurality of worlds, initially a doctrine more familiar to philosophy and literature than to science, was eventually accepted by astronomers as well. In addition to the philosophical probings associated with many-worlds quantum theory, the twentieth-century revolution in cosmological thought has brought about challenges to the most general philosophical framework of physics itself.
