INHABITED WORLDS. 271 



for certain. Our own earth existed for countless 

 millions of ages before man at last appeared upon 

 its surface. Period after period rolled slowly on, 

 from the remote past of the lifeless epoch, tlirough 

 the days w'ien first tlie fishes, then the re[)liles, 

 then the birds, and then the quadru^jeds api)eared 

 upon the scene, before a human form or a human 

 mind ever graced the wilds of our planet. Yet 

 nobody looks u[)on those long eras of geological 

 time as in any sense wasted, merely because man 

 was not yet evolved or created. Wby^ then, 

 should we think it absurd that other worlds might 

 go forever without rational inhabitants? Not, of 

 course, that we would dogmatically deny the exis- 

 tence of such inhal)itants at some time or other in 

 the various planets. On tlie contniry, it seems to 

 us more reasonable to be1ie\e by analogy that life 

 of some sort or another will always be develojicil 

 on the surface of every world where the condi- 

 tions are fitted for it, and that the larger the 

 world and the long(!r the duration of its life-bear- 

 ing stage, the higher will be the types of life pro- 

 duced upon it. If we were to trust to analogical 

 reasoning at all in so uncertain a matter, we 

 should say it is most i)robable that rational crea- 

 tures will ultimately inhabit Jupiter and Saturn, 

 of far greater perfection and nobility and virtue 

 than any of ourselves in this tiny spheroid. But 

 to say that they would resemble man in any way 



