gent person ought to know from many things that he
does know that there are many earths inhabited by men; for it may be
reasonably inferred that immense bodies like the planets, some of
which exceed this earth in magnitude, are not empty masses created
merely to be borne through space and to be carried around the sun,
and to shine with their scanty light for the benefit of a single
earth, but must have a more important use. He that believes, as
everyone must believe, that the Divine created the universe for no
other end than that the human race might exist, and heaven therefrom,
for the human race is a seminary of heaven, must needs believe that
wherever there is an earth there are men. That the planets visible to
us because they are within the limits of our solar system are earths
is evident from their being bodies of earthy matters, which is known
from their reflecting the sun's light, and from their not appearing,
when viewed through telescopes, like stars, sparkling with flame, but
like earths varied with darker portions; also from their passing like
our earth around the sun and following in the path of the zodiac,
thus making years and seasons of the year, spring, summer, autumn,
and winter, also revolving on their axes like our earth, making days
and times of the day, morning, mid-day, evening, and night; also from
some of them having moons, called satellites, that revolve around
their earth at stated times, as the moon does around ours; while the
planet Saturn, being at a greater distance from the sun, has also a
large luminous belt which gives much light, though reflected, to that
earth. Who that knows all this and thinks rationally can ever say
that the planets are empty bodies? Moreover, I have said to spirits
that man might believe that there are more earths in the universe
than one, from the fact that the starry heaven is so immense, and the
stars there so innumerable, and each of them in its place or in its
system a sun, resembling our sun, although of a varying magnitude.
Any one who duly weighs the subject must conclude that such an
immense whole must needs be a means to an end that is the final end
of creation; and this end is a heavenly kingdom in which the Divine
may dwell with angels and men. For the visible universe or the heaven
illumined by stars so numberless, which are so many suns, is simply a
means for the existence of earths with men upon them from whom the
heavenly kingdom is derived. From all