The Heavenly Bodies. By William Miller. (Hodder and Stoughton.) —Mr.
Miller discusses at great length what we cannot bat think a somewhat unprofitable question,—the plurality of inhabited worlds. We call it "unprofitable," not in the sense in which all astronomical questions are "unprofitable," but as starting with a radical fault, that we are forced to transfer conditions with which we are acquainted to places where we have no right to suppose such oon- ditions. We cannot live, it is true, with a temperature at boiling heat, but there may be, for all that we know, beings who can. How- ever, any one who wants to see what has been said on the subject, and what astronomers have discovered about the conditions of atmosphere, heat, &c., in the planets, can find what he wants to know in Mr. Miller's carefully compiled book,—we say compiled, for we understand that his knowledge of these matters is not first-hand. The most reasonable belief on the subject seems to be that at some time in the history of a world, not necessarily of all worlds, but possibly and probably of more than one (we know absolutely nothing about the worlds which probably depend upon the fixed stars), there is a period during which life is possible. The Moon, possibly, has had such a period ; so, possibly, has Mars ; whereas, Jupiter may have one yet in the future.
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