XXIV. 



INHABITED WORLDS. 



Ever since astronomy first definitely settled 

 the question that our own planet was but one 

 among many, a single small and unimportant 

 member of a large family, all revolving alike 

 around a third-rate sun, in a minor corner of this 

 illimitable universe, the human mind has naturally 

 exercised itself more or less foolishly and persis- 

 tently over the abstruse question whether any of 

 the other stars or planets were inhabited like our 

 own by rational beings. It seems to us, poor little 

 mundane mortals, in our feeble fashion, that a 

 world or a star not peopled with creatures formed 

 essentially after our own pattern must be in so far 

 waste and useless. The sole object of a planet or 

 other orb, we imagine, must be either to contain 

 and support human beings, like our own earth, 

 or else at least to warm them, light them, and 

 supply them daily with fresh stores of radiant 

 energy, as is the case with the sun, the centre and 

 ruler of our petty system. This narrow mode of 

 envisaging the universe to ourselves is almost 

 inevitable from the very constitution and circuui- 



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