be a brilliant object, but the firmament would appear black, and dotted with stars; there would be neither life nor sound, and the Earth would circle round the Sun, a frozen ball, devoid of everything which would render life on it agreeable, even if it were possible.
Observations that have been made, establish conclusively the fact that other planets are enveloped in atmospheres. The two planets most favourably situated with respect to us for telescopic examinations, are Venus, Jupiter, and Mars. Surrounding Venus, we perceive what many astronomers consider to be a thick atmosphere,—so dense indeed that the twilight has been perfectly distinguished there; and this, together with its position, and the masses of cloud which float in it, denoting the presence of water, render the discovery of anything relative to the configuration of its surface highly improbable, beyond the fact that it has its chains of mountains, resembling those on the Earth. In the case of Mars, we are able to go beyond this. With a telescope possessing the requisite power, we can trace the boundaries of oceans and continents, and even the snow which lies at its polar circles, and the extent to which it is dissolved by the summer sun. By means of the lights and shadows on its surface, the fact that it rotates on its axis in as nearly as possible the same time as the Earth, has been proved; the same may also be said of the other planets, the differences in the time occupied in their respective revolutions being so trifling that it is not necessary to specify them.
Thus the existence of atmospheres round the other planets of our system being so highly probable, we have good grounds for believing that they are suited for the habitation of beings like ourselves. Objections on the ground of insufficient warmth are overruled at once: the degree of heat will be regulated by the density of the atmosphere. We know that we have only to ascend a mountain till we attain an altitude of 14,000 feet above the level of the sea, to find snow at the same time that the country at its foot is parched with heat, which is accounted for by the fact that the atmosphere is much more dense at the surface of the earth than at an elevation of three miles above it. If, then, our own experience enables us to prove that so slight a change of position in our atmosphere makes all the difference between life and death, surely no sane person will continue to urge the want of warmth in the more distant planets, as a reason for their being uninhabitable, when by a slight increase of density in their atmospheres their temperature would be raised to an equality with ours; moreover, we do not yet know that the heat we enjoy emanates entirely from the sun, or from the combined action of the sun’s rays and terrestrial agencies.
Having urged the preceding facts by way of proof that there is no essential difference between the physical condition of the Earth and that of the other planets of the system, it can be hardly necessary to pursue the argument of the extreme probability of their being inhabited by beings organised as we are.
The proofs that the globe we inhabit was expressly designed as a dwelling for us abound so thickly, that for any person to maintain that it was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, is preposterous; and the evidences of design are not stronger in the case of the Earth than as regards other planets. We all remember how a distinguished German philosopher, who had been reflecting on this subject in his study, on entering his dining-room and perceiving a salad, suddenly exclaimed, “So, then, if lettuce, chervil, beetroot, and the other vegetables I see there, had been flying about in space with eggs, oil, and vinegar, they might at last have formed a salad!” “Yes,” answered his wife, “but not a salad like that before you.” The lady was undoubtedly right.—Simple as such a result might have appeared, the probabilities against the substances mixing themselves together in the proportions to form a good salad would puzzle a Quetelet to calculate.
If Chance had had anything to do with the formation of the Earth, there would be no reason why it should rotate on its axis in twenty-four hours, and yet a comparatively slight increase of that period might have rendered it uninhabitable. A very slight deviation from the actual inclination of its axis would have had a similar effect. Without an atmosphere we could not, of course, exist at all; but a very slight addition to one of the gases of which it is composed would destroy every living thing on the Earth’s surface, and its abstraction would reduce the globe to a mass of ashes. Everything, then, being so nicely adapted to the maintenance of life, and such an apparently trifling modification being capable of extinguishing it altogether, it is impossible to reflect on these matters without being driven to the conclusion that the Earth was formed expressly as a dwelling for us. And can we then, doubt that the same Creator who formed this globe created the others for a like purpose? That their inhabitants resemble us physically is only a reasonable supposition, considering the close resemblance of the different orbs: how far they may differ from us morally can only be imagined.
MY CONFESSION.
Wife! long true to me,
Through good and ill:
Hear my confession,
And love me still!
I was not false, dear,
When, years ago,
Thinking I loved you,
I told you so.
Yet, my gift to you
I lived to see
Was not fair payment
For yours to me.
You did not know it;
You guessed not how
I was your debtor,—
As I am now.
I dare not own it,
This later day,
Were I not able
Some part to pay.
