here represented, the Editor feels bound to say that,
notwithstanding much confirmatory evidence, many years passed and many
facts were communicated before all doubts were completely removed from
his mind.

One great obstacle to the reader's belief that an authentic description
of another world is before him will arise from the circumstance that the
means by which such extraordinary experience was acquired are not
included in the sphere of his knowledge, and that any attempt to explain
them at present would only increase his incredulity. He would only see
one enigma solved by another apparently more insoluble than itself. The
Editor, therefore, would call especial attention to the practical value
of the revelations here communicated, convinced as he is that they are
so replete with instruction to terrestial mankind, that the difficulty
of giving credence to them ought not to be augmented by premature
disclosures. Ultimately satisfied as to the origin of the fragments, he
entreats the reader not, indeed, to surrender, but simply to suspend his
judgment until he has carefully examined them, conceiving that, apart
from all external proof, they rest upon an intrinsic evidence, the force
of which it will be difficult to resist. Nay, he is even of opinion that
an impartial student will find it easier to believe in their planetary
origin than in their emanating from an ordinary human brain. The
practical value of the facts, considered apart from their source, will
excuse his request not to be too hastily judged.

The people to whom the fragments relate are, it will be found, not only
human, but constituents of a highly civilized and even polished society.
Their notions of good and evil, of happiness and misery correspond to
ours, and though they employ different means, the objects they pursue
are the same with those sought by terrestrial philanthropists. Health,
education, marriage, the removal of disease, the prevention of madness
and of crime, the arts of government, the regulation of amusement, the
efficient employment of physical forces--themes so often discussed
here--have equally occupied the attention of our planetary brethren,
although, as will be seen, in the results of our studies we differ not a
little. This is not a story of Anthropophagi, or men whose heads do grow
beneath their shoulders, which can merely excite wonder, but a record of
actual men, who, widely separated from us in the ocean of space, are
beings