ve
range of sensations and endowed with extraordinary power and
intelligence. I could transport you to the different planets and show
you in each peculiar intellectual beings bearing analogies to each other,
but yet all different in power and essence. In Jupiter you would see
creatures similar to those in Saturn, but with different powers of
locomotion; in Mars and Venus you would find races of created forms more
analogous to those belonging to the earth; but in every part of the
planetary system you would find one character peculiar to all intelligent
natures, a sense of receiving impressions from light by various organs of
vision, and towards this result you cannot but perceive that all the
arrangements and motions of the planetary bodies, their satellites and
atmospheres are subservient. The spiritual natures therefore that pass
from system to system in progression towards power and knowledge preserve
at least this one invariable character, and their intellectual life may
be said to depend more or less upon the influence of light. As far as my
knowledge extends, even in other parts of the universe the more perfect
organised systems still possess this source of sensation and enjoyment;
but with higher natures, finer and more ethereal kinds of matter are
employed in organisation, substances that bear the same analogy to common
matter that the refined or most subtle gases do to common solids and
fluids. The universe is everywhere full of life, but the modes of this
life are infinitely diversified, and yet every form of it must be enjoyed
and known by every spiritual nature before the consummation of all
things. You have seen the comet moving with its immense train of light
through the sky; this likewise has a system supplied with living beings
and their existence derives its enjoyment from the diversity of
circumstances to which they are exposed; passing as it were through the
infinity of space they are continually gratified by the sight of new
systems and worlds, and you can imagine the unbounded nature of the
circle of their knowledge. My power extends so far as to afford you a
glimpse of the nature of a cometary world." I was again in rapid motion,
again passing with the utmost velocity through the bright blue sky, and I
saw Jupiter and his satellites and Saturn and his ring behind me, and
before me the sun, no longer appearing as through a blue mist but in
bright and unsupportable splendour, towards which I se