io6 CORRELATION OF PHYSICAL FORCES. 



of this planet oscillates about that of the freezing-point of 

 water, as do the analogous zones of our planet. It is true in 

 this we assume that the substance thus changing its state 

 is water ; but considering the many close analogies of this 

 planet with the earth, and the identity in appearance of these 

 very effects with what takes place on the earth, it seems not 

 an improbable assumption. 



So it by no means necessarily follows, that because Venus 

 is nearer to the sun than the earth, that planet is hotter than 

 our globe. The force emitted by the sun may take a differ- 

 ent character at the surface of each different planet, and 

 require different organisms or senses for its appreciation. 

 Myriads of organised beings may exist imperceptible to our 

 vision, even if we were among them ; and we might be 

 equally imperceptible to them ! 



However vain it may be, in the present state of science, 

 to speculate upon such existences, it is equally vain to assume 

 identity or close approximations to our own forms in those 

 beings which may people other worlds. Reasoning from 

 analogy, or from final causation, if that be admitted, we may 

 feel convinced that the gorgeous globes of the universe are 

 not unpeopled deserts ; but whether the denizens of other 

 worlds are more or less powerful, more or less intelligent, 

 whether they have attributes of a higher or lower class than 

 ourselves, is at present an utterly hopeless guessing. 



Specific gravity and intelligence have no necessary con- 

 nection. On our own planet five senses, and a mean density 

 equal to that of water, are not invariably associated with 

 intellectual or moral greatness, and the many arguments 

 which have been used to prove that suns and planets other 

 than the earth are uninhabited, or not inhabited by intel- 

 lectual beings, might, mutatis mutandis, equally be used by 

 the denizens of a sun or planet to prove that this world was 

 uninhabited. 



Men are too apt, because they are men, because their 

 existence is the one thing of all importance to themselves, to 

 frame schemes of the universe as though it was formed for 

 man alone : painted by an artist of the sun, a man might not 



