o know their role and to thank the Author of nature. He
has scattered across this universe a profusion of varieties with a
kind of admirable uniformity. For example, all the thinking beings
are different, and all resemble one another in the gift of thought
and desire. Matter is extended everywhere, but has different
properties on each planet. How many diverse properties do you count
in yours?"

"If you mean those properties," said the Saturnian, "without which we
believe that the planet could not subsist as it is, we count 300 of
them, like extension, impenetrability, mobility, gravity,
divisibility, and the rest."

"Apparently," replied the voyager, "this small number suffices for
what the Creator had in store for your dwelling. I admire his wisdom
in everything; I see differences everywhere, but also proportion.
Your planet is small, your inhabitants are as well. You have few
sensations; your matter has few properties; all this is the work of
Providence. What color is your sun upon examination?"

"A very yellowish white," said the Saturnian. "And when we divide one
of its rays, we find that it contains seven colors."

"Our sun strains at red," said the Sirian, "and we have 39 primary
colors. There is no one sun, among those that I have gotten close to
that resembles it, just as there is no one face among you that is
identical to the others."

After numerous questions of this nature, he learned how many
essentially different substances are found on Saturn. He learned that
there were only about thirty, like God, space, matter, the beings
with extension that sense, the beings with extension that sense and
think, the thinking beings that have no extension; those that are
penetrable, those that are not, and the rest. The Sirian, whose home
contained 300 and who had discovered 3,000 of them in his voyages,
prodigiously surprised the philosopher of Saturn. Finally, after
having told each other a little of what they knew and a lot of what
they did not know, after having reasoned over the course of a
revolution around the sun, they resolved to go on a small
philosophical voyage together.

CHAPTER III.

Voyage of the two inhabitants of Sirius and Saturn.

Our two philosophers were just ready to take off into Saturn's
atmosphere with a very nice provision of mathematical instrument when
the ruler of Saturn, who had heard news of the departure, came in
tears to remonstrate. She was a pretty, petite brunette who