Let it be distinctly understood that on the degree of organic development depends whether they have reached our height of perfection of nervous development, or the development of a substance capable of performing functions similar to the brain substance animals are endowed with on this earth, with physiological action the same or similar—whether undergoing gradual changes, and accumulating experience, they may have arrived at that degree of perfection to be capable of thinking and reflecting, may have acquired understanding of a nature possessing all the fear, wonder, and ignorance of certain states of nervous development, where the ideas are just forming and imagination barely assuming form. They may, I say, have begun evolving their gods, or images representing the same, or may have reached that state of perfection that every creature is endowed with such powers, understanding, and reasoning, acquired by millions of years of training and education, that they constitute gods in themselves.
Or the creatures inhabiting these planets may be in a condition like that of creatures many, many ages past upon earth—may have no knowledge of gods or God, but are undergoing the necessary evolutionary changes that will ultimately bring them to that happy elysium, when they will be capable to produce their God or gods, as we have done on this earth.
Why is it not possible that a higher order of beings inhabiting Saturn are at this moment employing instruments in order to ascertain the constitution and condition of this terrestrial globe, speculating on the probability whether this earth is inhabited or not? They may have positive knowledge that this planet has an atmosphere several hundred miles in depth. They may know its size, diameter, its distance from the sun, and that this planet revolves in an ellipse as the planet Saturn does. They may also know that the elements are of the same nature; and that there are mountains, seas, an equator, a north and a south pole, but only one moon. Looking at this planet as a star of this solar system, of perhaps the third or the fourth magnitude, nothing compared with their own, either in size, moons, belts, or other important features, these higher organized beings on Saturn may be able to behold worlds beyond themselves far more vast than their own, and regard this planet, Venus, Mercury, etc., as very insignificant affairs.
Why may they not have appliances, modes of travel or communication, as far removed in intelligence from our highest order of beings, as the difference between a frog and the pope?
We have no reason to exclude any supposition, however wild and extravagant, as to the conditions of other planets. It is not entirely imaginary. Inferences may be drawn from what we know, and deductions made from our practical experience. This problem is safer to speculate on, having a solid basis to start with. Those who believe in the actuality of an existing God have not a thing to base his existence on, except the natural functions of the brain.
But if we concede that this earth has a God, what right have we to assume that each other planet has not a god of its own? We have no evidence to the contrary. Who dares to state positively that they have not a god? Why should this insignificant terrestrial planet God presume, or persons for him, that he controls and governs planetary bodies hundreds of times larger, and perhaps far more important, than this small solar system?
How do we know that the inhabitants of other planets have not had angels, saints, and saviors? How do we know that they have not had beings who pretended to know all about their god, and were as brutal, as savage, and as demented as some of the persons figuring in scripture, or the tyrannical, bloody papists of the Dark Ages?
The imagination of man supplied us with Gods or a God on earth; the imagination is justified in supplying other planets with a god or gods. The god of Jupiter, Mars, or Saturn, etc., may with as much force and propriety say, “I am that I am; I am the great I am, the creator of all things. You, Planet Earth, may be a little older, riper, more solidified, have a solid crust, yet remember our god is just as good as yours, and better. You have only one moon—a fossil world, a mere cinder. And, moreover, our god is fourteen hundred times larger than yours, because our globe is that much larger. Our globe has a diameter of ninety thousand miles. And we have four satellites, or moons. Our largest is as big as your whole earth. Therefore, it is ridiculous for you to claim superiority. As to my neighbor Saturn, with his eight moons and belts, his god smiles at your presumption. I, the god of Jupiter, agree with the great god of Saturn and others, that your terrestrial affected greatness is too ridiculous to be worthy of our serious consideration. In fact, it is absurd for your earthly godship to claim to have made the sun that great luminary that gives us all heat, light, and life.”
Let us go but one step farther into space to show the fallacy of the assumption that this terrestrial God created all planets, stars, etc. At the present time it is considered that the star Alpha (α) Centauri in the southern hemisphere is the nearest to the earth. Its distance is more than 200,000 times that of the earth from the sun, or twenty trillions of miles. Light would require about four and a half years to travel this enormous distance. The stars which we see at such immense distances are suns. The vast distance at which the stars are known to be, precludes the thought of their shining, like the planets or the moon, by reflecting back the light of our sun. They must be self-luminous, and are doubtless each a center of a system of planets and satellites.
Our sun is but a star. As we see only the suns of these distant systems, so their inhabitants see only the sun of our system, and that as a small star.