Plurality of existences and of inhabited worlds.

We owe to the kindness of one of our correspondents from Bordeaux the interesting passage that follows, extracted from a work entitled: Exposition of the grandeur of the universal creation, by Dr. Gelpke, published in Leipzig in 1817.

“…If, then, the construction of all the worlds that shine above us could be submitted to our examination, with what admiration would we not be seized, seeing the diversity of those globes, each of which is organized in a manner different from its nearest neighbor in the order of creation! And, as I have already said, the number of worlds being incalculable, their construction must also be infinitely different.

“Moreover, since on each world depends the organization of the beings that inhabit it, these must, both internally and externally, differ essentially on each globe. Now, if we consider the multiplicity and the immense variety of the creatures on our Earth, where not even one leaf resembles another, and if we admit so great a variety of creatures on each world, how prodigious will the multitude appear to us in the immeasurable kingdom of God! “What, then, will one day be the plenitude of our happiness, when, under ever more perfect envelopes, we shall successively penetrate further the mysteries of creation and find endless worlds, peopling an endless space! Then, how much more adorable will God appear to us still, He who drew all this from nothing, He whose boundless goodness created all this solely for the satisfaction of living beings and whose wisdom ordained all this in so admirable a manner! “But can our present residence and our present conformation procure us such happiness? For this we need another dwelling, which would place us sooner in the domain of creation, and a much more subtle and more perfect envelope, which would not hinder our Spirit in its progress toward perfection, and by means of which it would be able to see, without aid, in the universal whole, far beyond what we can from here with our best instruments? “But why would the Creator not give us, after several degrees of existence, an envelope which, similar to the lightning, could rise from worlds to worlds, thus permitting us to look at everything more closely and, at the same time, to better embrace the whole by thought? Who would dare to doubt it, when we see the brilliant butterfly born from the caterpillar, and the tree dazzling with flowers come from a seed! If God thus develops little by little the caterpillar and shows it to us splendidly transformed, if He also develops the germ by degrees, how much will He not make us men progress, kings of the Earth, and advance in Creation!” Plurality of inhabited worlds, plurality of existences, perispirit, continuous and infinite progress of the soul, all is there.