CXll. PROLEGOMENA. 



to show the poverty of philosophy therciu ; 1 

 shall now speak of one more very curious enquiry 

 as to their use. Fontenelle has written a lively 

 book on the Plurality of Worlds ; and both 

 reason and analou^y would point out the pro- 

 bability that the other planets, and, if them, those 

 which probably revolve round the fixed stars, may 

 be, like our globe, inhabited by animal life, and 

 if so by those more perfect animals, made in the 

 image of God, and having eternal souls like our 

 own — in other words, by men. I mention this 

 in order to confute a vile piece of atheistical 

 sophistry frequently made use of to destroy 

 religion. It has been asked, how can we believe 

 that the Creator of such an immensity of worlds 

 serving for the universality of life and mind, should 

 have been sacrificed in the atonement for the 

 disobedient inhabitants of this little globe ? God 

 has permitted this question to be put by the 

 Devil, as a trial of our faith ; but it is only on a 

 superficial view of it, and before the first sur- 

 prise is over, that it can derange our belief in 

 the truths of religion ; for since all we assert 

 respecting the population of the stars is con- 

 jectural ; so we may also conjecture, and with 

 equal probability, (since analogy is the common 

 foundation of both conjectures) that good and 

 evil are universal principles, and that some grand 

 scheme of the creation, fall, and redemption of 



