4 



274 INHABITED WORLDS. 



myriads of years were still destined to pass before 

 the first appearance of man upon her great conti- 

 nents. AVe know, in short, that the vastest ex- 

 panses of space and time are ordered by Supreme 

 Wisdom without any apparent reference to the 

 existence of sentient or rational creatures. Enor- 

 mous orbs revolve for immense periods througli 

 inconceivable abysses of empty aether, devoid of 

 life or feeling in any form upon their wide sur- 

 faces. Evidently, tliough life is everything to us, 

 mere specks upon the outer crust of a minor 

 planet of a petty sun, it is not everything in the 

 vast Divine scheme of the material universe. We 

 suppose it to be so only because of our narrow 

 human iutelligence, forgetting that the heavens 

 may declare the glory of God just as much in 

 barrenness and vastness as in jjopulousness with 

 tiny creatures like ourselves — that tlie universe 

 as a whole is not necessarily constructed in ac- 

 cordance with our finite human conceptions of fit- 

 ness and usefulness. To us nothing is good which 

 does not subserve human happiness and human 

 comfort. But is it needs so with the entire 

 cosmos ? Are we tiny ants in our human ant-hills 

 to be regarded as the sole measures, moral and 

 physical, of the great and marvellous galaxy 

 around us? The idea is simply ridiculous. Our 

 doubt whether life does or does not exist upon 

 other worlds affects iii no way the grandeur and 



