THE PLANETS, ARE THEY INHABITED \ 



published in the " Transactions of the Royal Astronomical 

 Society ;" and to Chapter XV. of Dr. Lardner's " Astronomy." 



14. 



16. We have thus presented the reader with a brief and rapid 

 sketch of the circumstances attending the two chief groups of 

 globes which compose the solar system, and have explained the 

 numerous and striking analogies which, taken together, amount 

 to a demonstration that, in the economy of the material universe, 

 these globes must subserve the same purposes as the earth, and 

 must be the dwellings of tribes of organised creatures, having a 

 corresponding analogy to those which inhabit the earth. 



17. The differences of organisation and character which would 

 be suggested as probable or necessary by the different distances 

 of the several planets from the common source of light and heat, 

 and the consequent differences of intensity of these physical 

 agencies upon them, by the different weights of bodies on their 

 surfaces, owing to the different intensities of their attractions on 

 such bodies ; by the different intervals which mark the alter- 

 nations of light and darkness ; are not more than are seen to 

 prevail among the organised tribes, animal and vegetable, which 

 inhabit different regions of the earth. The animals and plants 

 of the tropical zones differ in general from those of the temperate 

 and the polar zones ; and even in the same zone we find different 

 tribes of organised creatures flourish, at different elevations above 

 the level of the sea. There is nothing more wonderful than this in 

 the varieties of organisation suggested by the various physical 

 conditions by which the planets are affected. 



But these arguments and analogies will acquire great additional 

 force, when it is shown that the other bodies composing the solar 

 system are not furnished with like provisions, and exhibit none 

 of the fitness, for the dwelling-places of such tribes. 



18. The Sun, as will be shown in another part of this series, is 

 a vast globe, invested with an ocean, or rather an atmosphere, 

 of flame, in which the most astonishing convulsions and eruptions 



62 



