nets, while the appearance of a new star may, in like
manner, be the occasional creation of a new system of planets. "We ought
perhaps," says Herschel, "to look upon certain clusters of stars, and
the destruction of a star now and then in some thousands of ages, as the
very means by which the whole is preserved and renewed. These clusters
may be the laboratories of the universe, wherein the most salutary
remedies for the decay of the whole are prepared(73)."

(73) Philosophical Transactions for 1785, p. 217.

All this must appear to a sober mind, unbitten by the rage which grows
out of the heat of these new discoverers, to be nothing less than
astronomy run mad. This occasional creation of new systems and worlds,
is in little accordance with the Christian scriptures, or, I believe,
with any sober speculation upon the attributes of the creator. The
astronomer seizes upon some hint so fine as scarcely by any ingenuity to
be arrested, immediately launches forth into infinite space, and in an
instant returns, and presents us with millions of worlds, each of them
peopled with ten thousand times ten thousand inhabitants.

We spoke a while since of the apparent unfitness of many of the heavenly
bodies for the reception of living inhabitants. But for all this these
discoverers have a remedy. They remind us how unlike these inhabitants
may be to ourselves, having other organs than ours, and being able to
live in a very different temperature. "The great heat in the planet
Mercury is no argument against its being inhabited; since the Almighty
could as easily suit the bodies and constitutions of its inhabitants to
the heat of their dwelling, as he has done ours to the temperature of
our earth. And it is very probable that the people there have such an
opinion of us, as we have of the inhabitants of Jupiter and Saturn;
namely, that we must be intolerably cold, and have very little light at
so great a distance from the sun."

These are the remarks of Ferguson(74). One of our latest astronomers
expresses himself to the same purpose.

(74) Astronomy, Section 22.

"We have no argument against the planets being inhabited by rational
beings, and consequently by witnesses of the creator's power,
magnificence and benevolence, unless it be said that some are much
nearer the sun than the earth is, and therefore must be uninhabitable
from heat, and those more distant from cold. Whatever objection this may
be against their b