WORLDS AND OTHER WORLDS. 



of all the firmaments for remember our starry heaven itself 

 is but a nebula that we must establish an interchange of 

 ideas, if you would have your power, and civilisation, and 

 intellectual royalty, something more than a mere optical 

 illusion of your pride. 



You do not cease to proclaim as an axiom that " there are 

 no abrupt intervals in Nature;" that Nature never ventures 

 upon sudden leaps or bounds (" in natura non datur saltus "), 

 and yet you would make an exception for the world of thought 

 a world which no more lies outside the laws of nature than 

 does the physical world. The former ought even to secure our 

 preference; it is there only that we are free, that we can 

 become true creators, by creating for ourselves our own 

 happiness ; that we can grow great before our own eyes, by 

 following, not the tyrannous will of the brute, but the tender 

 voice of the angel ; by listening to conscience that pure and 

 infallible counsellor conscience, the foundation of all justice, 

 the latent force of generations passing away and coming, the 

 universal gravitation of our species as of all the ultra-terrestrial 

 humanities. 



But how can the humanities, with which we suppose the 

 universe to be peopled, how can they communicate with one 

 another ? 



The law of attraction comprehends not only the celestial 

 bodies, but also their intervals, the intersidereal spaces. Do 

 these spaces present a void to the thinking beings who pro- 

 bably people the stars ? 



