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found to contain gold and silver, coal and iron, and excellent harbours, such as exist in our inhabited island. We, the islanders, may suppose also, that the islands either have been or will be inhabited, and we are entitled to make this supposition, because we must have been originally created upon it, and not brought there by the art of navigation; and consequently the same creation of inhabitants may have taken place, or may yet take place, in the uninhabited ones. It is obvious, from these remarks, that the previous knowledge of the reader, to whom the appeal is made, influences what he conceives would be the speculation of the islander; and the confusion of ideas which thus takes place, renders the illustration illusory.

The best illustration which we can conceive, is to suppose a philosopher contemplating from a distance the bodies of the Solar system, and wholly ignorant of their condition. He examines them so as to acquire all the knowledge which we possess of their size-their motions-the influences they receive from the sun, and all the phenomena disclosed by the telescope. He knows nothing about their being inhabited or uninha

bited, but being permitted to visit the Earth, he finds it inhabited, and observes the relation which exists between vegetable, animal, and intellectual life, the influences which emanate from the sun and moon, and the days and nights, and seasons and atmospheric changes which characterize our globe. He then takes his place in the distance, and pondering over all the bodies of the system, he will doubtless conclude that they are all inhabited like the Earth. Had he first visited Jupiter, with its gorgeous magnitude and numerous satellites, and found it inhabited, he might have conceived it possible that as the monarch of the system, it might alone have enjoyed the dignity of being the seat of life; but even in this case, the force of analogy would have compelled him to view the Solar system as one great material scheme planned by its Creator, as the residence of moral and intellectual life.

CHAPTER XI.

REPLY TO OBJECTIONS DRAWN FROM GEOLOGY.

In the preceding chapters we have submitted to the reader the facts and arguments by which the doctrine of a plurality of worlds may be maintained, and we have, at the same time, endeavoured to answer a variety of objections of a moral and scientific nature, which naturally presented themselves in discussions involving so many considerations. We have now, however, a more arduous duty to perform. The author of the Essay to which we have frequently had occasion to refer, has devoted a whole volume to an elaborate attack upon the doctrine we have been supporting. With acquirements of the highest order, and talents of no common kind, which, we think, might have been more usefully employed, he has marshalled all the truths and theories of

geology, and all the facts of astronomy, against popular and deeply cherished opinions-opinions which the humblest Christian has shared with the most distinguished philosophers and divines, and which no interests, moral or religious, require us to surrender. In questions of doubtful speculation with which vulgar error is largely mingled, we applaud the writer who boldly girds himself for the task of exposing presumption and ignorance, however generally they may prevail; but in the case with which we are dealing, where the opinions assailed are entrenched in right feeling and embalmed in the warmth of the affections, and where they are as probable as the theories and speculations by which they are to be superseded, we can ascribe to no better feeling than a love of notoriety any attempt to ridicule or unsettle them.

The first and the most plausible of the arguments maintained by the Essayist is drawn from geological facts and theories. We have already, in a preceding chapter, explained these facts, and admitted, with certain limitations, (which, to give our opponent every advantage,

we at present abandon,) that during a long period of time when the Earth was preparing for the residence of man, it was the seat only of vegetable and animal life.

Since the Earth, then, was during a very long time (a million1 of years we shall say) uninhabited by intelligent beings, our author draws the conclusion that all the other planets may be occupied at present with a life no higher than that of the brutes, or with no life at all; that is, that there is not a plurality of worlds inhabited by rational beings. Now this is not the conclusion which the premises authorize. If God took a million of years to prepare the Earth for man, the probability is, that all the planets were similarly prepared for inhabitants, and that they are now occupied by rational beings. If one or more of them are only in the act of being prepared, and are not yet the seat of intelligence, analogy forces us to the conclusion, that they will be inhabited like the Earth. The assertion that they may be occupied by no life at all, is contrary to all analogy, unless we

1 We use this number to avoid circumlocution. The Essayist uses the word myriads of years, as the period of only one of the earliest formations!

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