LETTER XVIII. 



195 



Divine Nature, of the ''blood royal of creation;"* 

 invested with kingly dignity— crowned with glory 

 and honour and immortality. 



10. Can we go further ? AVe may at least inquire 

 whether man's position in creation be not '^unique;" 

 whether, — excepting the angels which are but mini- 

 stering spirits, and unto none of which hath God 

 ever said Thou art my son," — man be not at once 

 the only and the highest of created intelligences ? 

 Whether this earth be not the only world that is 

 inhabited by rational creatures ? Such is the view 

 recently put forth by the author of the Essay Of 

 the Plurality of Worlds^'' and argued by him with 

 an ability which has at least excited the attention, 

 if it has not commanded the assent, of the greatest 

 of our philosophers. Such a view, I need scarcely 

 say, would, if well-founded, lend the strongest con- 

 ceivable support to the speculation which forms the 

 proper subject of this letter. 



11. But we need not rest the speculation on so un- 

 stable a footing as this. Revelation is silent on the 

 question of a plurality of inhabited worlds, and phi- 

 losophers are not agreed. Our whole race occupies 



but a spec in space, and as yet a spec in time.^f 

 It may be, that there are other intelligences be- 

 sides the race of man, and other worlds inhabited 



* Rev. R. C. Trench, B. D. Hulsean Lectures for 1846, Lec- 

 ture iii. 



f Professor Powell. 



