s alike with the
planets, and wherever an earth is, there are men inhabitants; for man
is the end for which every earth was created, and nothing was made
by the great Creator without an end." [456] If any are still sceptical,
Sir William Herschel, an intellectual light of no mean magnitude,
may reach them. He writes: "While man walks upon the ground, the
birds fly in the air, and fishes swim in water, we can certainly not
object to the conveniences afforded by the moon, if those that are to
inhabit its regions are fitted to their conditions as well as we on this
globe arc to ours. An absolute or total sameness seems rather to
denote imperfections, such as nature never exposes to our view;
and, on this account, I believe the analogies that have been
mentioned fully sufficient to establish the high probability of the
moon's being inhabited like the earth." [457] The voice of Dr.
Dwight, the American theologian, will not be out of harmony here.
In discoursing of the starry heavens, he says of the planets: "Of
these inferior worlds, the moon is one; and to us, far the most
interesting. How many important purposes which are known does
this beautiful attendant of our earth continually accomplish! How
many more, in all probability, which are hitherto unknown, and
which hereafter may be extensively disclosed to more enlightened,
virtuous, and happy generations of men! At the same time, it is most
rationally concluded that intelligent beings in great multitudes
inhabit her lucid regions, being far better and happier than
ourselves." [458] Whewell's _Bridgewater Treatise_ will furnish us
a fitting quotation. "The earth, the globular body thus covered with
life, is not the only globe in the universe. There are, circling about
our own sun, six others, so far as we can judge, perfectly analogous
in their nature: besides our moon and other bodies analogous to it.
No one can resist the temptation to conjecture, that these globes,
some of them much larger than our own, are not dead and barren:
--that they are, like ours, occupied with organization, life,
intelligence." [459] In a most eloquent passage, Dr. Chalmers, who
will always be heard with admiration, exclaims: "Who shall assign a
limit to the discoveries of future ages? Who shall prescribe to
science her boundaries, or restrain the active and insatiable curiosity
of man within the circle of his present acquirements? We may guess
with plausibility what we cannot anticipate with c