planet of the same size as the Earth, with mountains and valleys, days and nights, and years analogous to our own, astronomers could not fail to think it probable that she was inhabited like the Earth; and the absurdity of believing that she had no inhabitants, when no other rational purpose could be assigned for her creation, became an argument of a certain amount that she was like the Earth, the seat of animal and vegetable life. When Jupiter was discovered, and was found to be so gigantic a planet that it required four moons to give him light, the argument from analogy that he was inhabited became stronger, from the fact of his having moons, and the argument for a plurality of worlds became stronger also, because the analogy was extended to two planets. In like manner, every discovery of a new planet, either with new points of analogy, or with those previously existing in other planets, became an additional argument from analogy; and when the system was completed with Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and their numerous satellites, and when astronomers had discovered the existence of atmospheres, and clouds, and arctic snows,

and trade winds in Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus, the argument from analogy attained a degree of force which it had not in the time of Fontenelle; and the absurdity of the opposite opinion that planets should have moons and no inhabitants, atmospheres with no creatures to breathe in them, and currents of air without life to be fanned, became a formidable argument which few minds, if any, could resist.

Considering then the Solar system as stationary in space, and unconnected with any other system, the argument for the existence of inhabitants on its planets, has a certain fixed value compounded of the argument from analogy, and the degree of absurdity which attaches to the idea of the planets being lumps of moving matter shone upon, and shining in vain. But when we have proved that this Solar system is revolving round some distant centre in an orbit of such inconceivable dimensions that millions of years might be required to perform one single round:-When we consider that this distant centre must be a sun, with attendant planets like our own, revolving in like manner round our sun, or round their common centre of gra

vity, the mind rejects, almost with indignation, the ignoble sentiment that man is the only being that performs this immeasurable journey, and that Jupiter, and Saturn, and Uranus, and Neptune, with their bright array of regal trainbearers, are but colossal blocks of lifeless clay. encumbering the Earth as a drag, and mocking the creative majesty of heaven.

It is hardly necessary to illustrate these views by more familiar similitudes. The architect of a solar system stationary in space, and with but one of its smallest planets inhabited, may in some degree be likened to a sovereign, who, in sending a military colony to cultivate and defend an island in the Pacific, engaged twentyfive soldiers, one of whom was a light infantry man, who did all the honours and duties of the island, while the other twenty-four were tall and powerful grenadiers, who enjoyed themselves day and night upon merry-go-rounds, heated by genial fires, and lighted by brilliant chandeliers of gas, but performing no useful work, and doing no honour to their king. The Creator of the same solar system launched into an orbit of immeasurable circuit, and wheeling

through ether with the velocity of fifty-seven miles in a second, may have some resemblance to a mighty autocrat, who should establish a railway round the coasts of Europe and Asia, and place upon it an enormous train of firstclass carriages, impelled year after year by tremendous steam power, while there was but a philosopher and a culprit in a humble van, attended by hundreds of unoccupied carriages and empty trucks!

Since every fixed star, considered as the centre of a system, must have planets upon which to shine, we are furnished with a new argument from analogy, from the fact of our Solar system revolving round a similar system of planets, for as there is at least one inhabited planet in the one system, there must for the same reason be one inhabited planet in the other, and consequently, there must be more inhabited worlds than one-as many indeed as there are systems in the universe. This argument will be better understood when we have treated, in a future chapter, of binary systems of stars, to which the Newtonian law of gravity has been found applicable.

CHAPTER VII.

RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES.

It is as injurious to the interests of religion, as it is degrading to those of science, when the votaries of either place them in a state of mutual antagonism. A mere inference or a theory in science, however probable, must ever give way to a truth revealed; but a scientific truth must be maintained, however contradictory it may appear to the most cherished doctrines of religion. In freely discussing the subject of a plurality of worlds, there can be no collision between Reason and Revelation. Christians, timid and ill-informed, have, at different periods, refused to accept of certain results of science, which, instead of being adverse to their faith, have been its best auxiliaries; and infidel writers, taking advantage of this weakness, have vainly arrayed the discoveries and infer