er climate. But when he saw them stop and fight, and
destroy one another, and was assured that they were actually engaged in
the solemn game of death, and this at such a distance from their own
homes, he would wonder at the causes of these movements, and the reason
of this destruction, and, not knowing that they possessed rational
faculties, he would probably consider them as animals, destined by
nature to live upon one another.

I think the first question he would ask would be, And from whence do
these fightings come? It would be replied of course, that they came from
their lusts; that these beings, though diminutive in their appearance,
were men; that they had pride, and ambition; that they had envy and
jealousy; that they indulged also hatred, and malice, and avarice, and
anger; and that, on account of some or other of these causes, they
quarrelled and fought with one another.

Well, but the superior being would say, is there no one on the earth,
which I see below me, to advise them to conduct themselves better, or
are the passions you speak of eternally uppermost, and never to be
subdued? The reply would of course be, that in these little beings,
called men, there had been implanted the faculty of reason, by the use
of which they must know that their conduct was exceptionable, but that,
in these cases, they seldom minded it. It would also be added in reply,
that they had a religion, which was not only designed by a spirit from
heaven, who had once lived among them, but had been pronounced by him as
efficacious to the end proposed; that one of the great objects of this
religion was a due subjugation of their passions; and this was so much
insisted upon, that no one of them was considered to have received this
religion truly, unless his passions were subdued. But here the superior
being would enquire, whether they acknowledged the religion spoken of,
and the authority from whence it came? To which it would of course be
replied, that they were so tenacious of it, notwithstanding their
indulgence of their passions, and their destruction of one another, that
you could; not offend them more grievously than by telling them, that
they did not belong to the religion they professed.

It is not difficult to foresee what other questions the superior being
would ask, and probably the first of these would be, the duration of the
lives of these little beings, and the length and frequency of their
wars? It would be replied to thi