different  soever  they  may  be  from  terrestrial  species  of  living
beings,  must,  by  the  necessities  of  the  case,  have  been  devel-
oped in  the  direction  of  sensitiveness  and  of  intelligence,  and
have  gone  in  that  direction  sometimes  not  as  far  as  we,  some-
times farther.  Note  also  that  even  on  our  globe  the  excessively
odd  and  monstrous  types  produced,  like  those  of  the  tertiary
period,  as  it  were  in  obedience  to  a  sort  of  apocalyptic  imag-
ination, have  proved  unable  to  maintain  themselves.  The
most  enduring  species  have  generally  been  the  least  eccentric,
the  closest  to  a  uniform  and  aesthetic  type.  It  is  not  excessively
improbable,  therefore,  that  the  universe  contains  an  infinite
number  of  human  species  analogous  to  humanity  as  we  know
it,  in  all  essential  faculties,  although,  perhaps,  very  different  in
the  form  of  their  organs  and  in  the  degree  of  their  intelligence.
They  are  our  planetary  brothers.  Perhaps  by  comparison  with
us  they  are  gods  ;  and  in  that  fact  lies,  as  we  have  said,  the
kernel  of  possible  or  actual  truth  in  the  ancient  beliefs  in  re-
gard to  the  divine  inhabitants  of  the  skies.'

'  To  understand  the  enormous  differences  which,  in  spite  of  the  analogies,  may
exist  between  the  organization  of  the  planetary  or  stellar  beings  and  our  own,  it
suffices  to  consider  the  immense  variety  which  obtains  among  terrestrial  species.
