230 



♦ KNO^A^LEDGE ♦ 



[August 1, 1888. 



another it carried off the four kittens. They were taken at 

 first with a strange drowsiness, then, after moping about 

 for a short while, they went off into the woods to die. This 

 had liappened to all the four, when Kitty was herself 

 taken with the distemper. Her younger kittens were 

 below stairs, and the first intimation that we had that she 

 was seized with the malady was the discovery that she had 

 carried the little fellows up to our chamber, and deposited 

 them in the drawer of a bureau which liappened to be 

 open. We had been fearful of this, and only the day 

 before had asked medical advice against such an emergency ; 

 and now, with the medicines in our hands, we hastened to 

 the woods, where we knew she had secreted herself. After 

 a long search we found her hidden away in some under- 

 growth, in a comatose condition, and scarcely conscious, but 

 still able to give a slight wag of the tail when her mistress 

 asked, " Are you a good little Kitty 1 " We then gave her 

 the proper remedies, and bore her back to the house, where 

 she was given every possible attention. By constant care 

 we managed to keep the breath of life in her body ; but she 

 refused all food, and for fully ten days lay in a lethargic 

 condition. Meanwhile her kittens had to be drowned, for 

 tliey were too young to take any nourishment except from 

 their mother. At last she came to herself, and then the 

 first thing she did was to go up to the bui-eau where she 

 had deposited her kittens, and the look of distress that came 

 upon her face when she discovered they were gone was 

 almost human. 8he mourned for them for many days, and 

 she would not be comforted. 



After this event Kitty would scarcely let her mistress go 

 out of her sight. Ever since she has clung to her with a 

 strange tenacity, and day by day has shown for her a con- 

 stantly growing affection that is most remarkable. It was 

 on this account that we this autumn brought her with us 

 when we moved into our winter home, instead of leaving 

 her, as heretofore, with the farmer at our summer residence. 

 She has adapted herself to her new home, and to the change 

 from country to city life, with a readiness that entirely dis- 

 proves the common opinion that cats are more attached to 

 places than to persons. 



LIFE IN OTHER WORLDS. 



T is not general!)' noticed, I think — or rather it 

 is not generally remembered — that the ques- 

 tion of life in other worlds belongs altogether 

 to modern times. I do not say it belongs to 

 modern science, for in reality it is not a 

 .'scientific question at all, belonging rather to 

 the domain of philosophy than of science. 

 But it never was discussed as a question either of science or 

 philosophy until some three hundred years ago. Before 

 that time men no more imagined that besides our earth 

 there may be other worlds, like her the abode of thousands 

 of races of animal life, and myriads of forms of vegetable 

 life, than they conceived the possibility that the earth, the 

 heavens with all their thousands of stars, with the sun the 

 glory of day and the moon the light of night, were intended 

 for any other purpose than to adorn and benefit the earth. 

 The supposition that among the orbs in the heavens there 

 might be some akin to the earth in character and dimen- 

 sions, or even much larger than her, while the fixed stars 

 themselves might belong to an even higher order in the 

 scale of creation — being suns like our own and the centres 

 of families of worlds akin to the solar system — would have 

 seemed wild and fanciful in the extreme. 



We find the same ideas in this respect, whether we 



examine those parts of ancient literature which have been 

 gathered together into a book regarded as sacred, or those 

 other portions which are called profane — the recondite 

 reasons for which distinction do not concern us here. 



In Hesiod, Herodotus, and Thucydides, Virgil and Horace, 

 as in the ancient Egyptian, Assyrian, Indian, and Chinese 

 records, we nowhere recognise a trace of any idea that our 

 earth is not the only world. Rej^eatedly we find references 

 to other races of beings than men, gods and goddesses, beings 

 angelic and beings demoniac, unseen beings having their 

 abodes in the mountain, the sea, and the rivers, dwelling in 

 trees and ia animals ; in fine, wherever the lively fancy of 

 the child man could conceive them. It was not for want of 

 imagination that the ancients failed to picture other worlds 

 in the planets and other suns in the stars ; it was simply 

 that they knew of nothing to .suggest the thought, and in 

 like manner in the various books, both of the Old Te.stament 

 and the New, there is no suggestion of other worlds. Sun 

 and moon are pictui'ed as made for the earth's sole benefit. 

 " He made the stars also " for the earth alone, " to be for 

 signs " (in the astronomical sense) " and for seasons and for 

 days and years." The possibility was not even thought of 

 that our earth is an orb moving in the skies of other worlds 

 as Jupiter and Saturn, Venus, Mars, and Mercury move in 

 ours, or that the sun which rules our day is one among those 

 other suns, " the stars also," which shine in the .skies of the 

 thousands of worlds within such distances from our system 

 that our sun is as a star foi- them. 



I know it has been suggested that where, in the Bible, 

 reference is made to " the host of heaven," the suns and 

 worlds peopling space may be inferred to. But the best 

 proof that this is not so is that the words were never so 

 understood, nor was any suggestion ever made that they 

 should be so understood, until discoveries had been effected 

 of which neither the writers nor the readers of those words 

 in ancient times had any inkling. It is but a feeble way 

 of defending those ancient writers from purely imaginary 

 discredit for not knowing what they could not know, to 

 maintain that they could not write so as to be rightly under- 

 stood. Manifestly, however, their writings corresponded 

 (in this respect as in all others) with the condition of know- 

 ledge as it existed in their day. 



It could not be until the Copernican theory had been 

 established that the idea should begin to gi-ow upon the 

 minds of the more thoughtful that since our earth is but 

 one of the sun's family of planets, she is probably but one 

 among God's worlds. Of course this idea ought logically to 

 have found favour at once. Yet I apprehend that no one 

 who has noticed how slowly even in these scientific days 

 the consequences of newly discovered truths are appreciated, 

 will be disposed to wonder that many years passed before 

 even Copernicans began to admit the doctrine of other worlds 

 than ours. It was not until the power of measuring the 

 solar system, and comparing the various planets together 

 and with the earth, that men began clearly to perceive our 

 earth's position as but one among a family of orbs, some of 

 which, indeed, are smaller than herself, but two of which 

 could be seen even in these days to be very much larger. 

 Even if they had supjiosed our earth to be priiims inter pares, 

 they would still have been obliged to regard the others as 

 in all probability akin to her. But when she was perceived 

 to be neither first nor last in size and importance, the more 

 thoughtful perceived the absurdity of regarding her as the 

 only one among the planets which is the abode of life. An 

 insect living in a tree in the midst of a forest might as 

 reasonably think his tree the only possible home for insect 

 race. 



As astronomers penetrated more and more profoundly 

 into the depths of space, the belief in other worlds and other 



