'To what other
end,' proceeds this most convincing reasoning, 'can be so immense a
heaven with such a multitude of stars? For man is the end for which the
universe was created. It has been ascertained by calculation that
supposing there were in the universe a million earths, and on every
earth three hundred millions of men and two hundred generations within
six thousand years, and that to every man or spirit was allotted a space
of three cubic ells, the collective number of men or spirits could not
occupy a space equal to a thousandth part of this earth, thus not more
than that occupied by one of the satellites of Jupiter or Saturn; a
space on the universe almost undiscernible, for a satellite is hardly
visible to the naked eye. What would this be for the Creator of the
universe, to whom the whole universe filled with earths could not be
enough' (for what?), 'seeing that he is infinite.' However, it is not on
this reasoning alone that Swedenborg relies. He tells us, honestly
beyond all doubt, that he knows the truth of what he relates. 'The
information I am about to give,' he says, 'respecting the earths in the
starry heaven is from experimental testimony; from which it will
likewise appear how I was translated thither as to my spirit, the body
remaining in its place.'

His progress in his first star-hunt was to the right, and continued for
about two hours. He found the boundary of our solar system marked first
by a white but thick cloud, next by a fiery smoke ascending from a great
chasm. Here some guards appeared, who stopped some of the company,
because these had not, like Swedenborg and the rest, received permission
to pass. They not only stopped those unfortunates, but tortured them,
conduct for which terrestrial analogues might possibly be discovered.

Having reached another system, he asked the spirits of one of the earths
there how large their sun was and how it appeared. They said it was less
than the sun of our earth, and has a flaming appearance. Our sun, in
fact, is larger than other suns in space, for from that earth starry
heavens are seen, and a star larger than the rest appears, which, say
those spirits, 'was declared from heaven' to be the sun of Swedenborg's
earthly home.

What Swedenborg saw upon that earth has no special interest. The men
there, though haughty, are loved by their respective wives because they,
the men, are good. But their goodness does not appear very manifest from
anything in the