PREFACE.

The fact that there is a plurality of worlds, that, in other words, the
planets of our solar system are inhabited, has been so generally
maintained by modern astronomers, that it almost takes its place among
the truths commonly accepted by the large body of educated persons. As
two among the many works, which bear directly on the subject, it will be
here sufficient to name Sir David Brewster's 'More Worlds than One, the
Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian,' and Mr. B.A.
Proctor's 'Other Worlds than Ours.'

A fragmentary account of some of the ways peculiar to the inhabitants of
one of these "star worlds," and of their moral and intellectual
condition is contained in the following pages.

When the assertion is made that the account is derived, not from the
imagination, but from an actual knowledge of the star, it will at first
receive scant credence, and the reader will be at once inclined to class
the fragments among those works about imaginary republics and imaginary
travels which, ever since the days of Plato, have from time to time made
their appearance to improve the wisdom, impose on the credulity, or
satirize the follies of mankind.

Nor can the reader's anticipated want of faith be deemed other than
natural; for, although tests applied daily during a period extending
over nearly a lifetime have proved the source of the fragments to be