the globe of earth,
to fashion other worlds of which we have no direct knowledge. Finding
that there is no part of the soil of the earth into which our wanderings
can penetrate, that is not turned to the account of rational and happy
beings, creatures capable of knowing and adoring their creator, that
nature does nothing in vain, and that the world is full of the evidences
of his unmingled beneficence, according to our narrow and imperfect
ideas of beneficence, (for such ought to be our premises) we proceed to
construct millions of worlds upon the plan we have imagined. The earth
is a globe, the planets are globes, and several of them larger than our
earth: the earth has a moon; several of the planets have satellites: the
globe we dwell in moves in an orbit round the sun; so do the planets:
upon these premises, and no more, we hold ourselves authorised to affirm
that they contain "myriads of intelligent beings, formed for endless
progression in perfection and felicity." Having gone thus far, we next
find that the fixed stars bear a certain resemblance to the sun; and, as
the sun has a number of planets attendant on him, so, we say, has each
of the fixed stars, composing all together "ten thousand times ten
thousand" habitable worlds.

All this is well, so long as we view it as a bold and ingenious
conjecture. On any other subject it would be so regarded; and we
should consider it as reserved for the amusement and gratification of
a fanciful visionary in the hour, when he gives up the reins to his
imagination. But, backed as it is by a complexity of geometrical right
lines and curves, and handed forth to us in large quartos, stuffed with
calculations, it experiences a very different fortune. We are told that,
"by the knowledge we derive from astronomy, our faculties are enlarged,
our minds exalted, and our understandings clearly convinced, and
affected with the conviction, of the existence, wisdom, power, goodness,
immutability and superintendency of the supreme being; so that, without
an hyperbole, 'an undevout astronomer is mad(e)(70).'"

(70) Ferguson, Astronomy, Section I.

It is singular, how deeply I was impressed with this representation,
while I was a schoolboy, and was so led to propose a difficulty to the
wife of the master. I said, "I find that we have millions of worlds
round us peopled with rational creatures. I know not that we have any
decisive reason for supposing these creatures more exalted, th