Oh! you wrong us, interrupted the Marchioness; we are not so stupid as your citizen; when he sees that St. Dennis is constructed exactly on the same plan as Paris, he must be out of his senses not to believe it inhabited: but the moon is very different from the earth. Be cautious, madam, said I; if the moon's resemblance to the earth prove it habitable, I shall force you to believe that it is inhabited. I confess, answered she, that if you can shew me the similarity, I cannot pretend to deny its being inhabited, and I see so much confidence in your looks that I am afraid you will be triumphant. The two different motions of the earth, which I never before knew any thing about, make me fearful of hastily rejecting any other opinion; but still, can it be possible that the earth is luminous like the moon?--that you know is essential to their similarity. Indeed, madam, I replied, the luminous quality of planets depends on less than you imagine. The sun alone is, in his _nature_, luminous; but the planets only reflect the light they receive from him. He enlightens the moon; the moon reflects his rays on the earth, and the earth is undoubtedly in the same manner a source of light to the moon; it is not farther from us to the moon, than from the moon to us. But, enquired the Marchioness, is the earth equally capable of reflecting the sun's light? I see, answered I, you have an invincible partiality for the moon. Light is composed of globules which rebound from a solid substance, but pass through any thing in which they find interstices, such as air or glass: the moon, therefore, gives us light in consequence of being a hard, solid body, which sends back these globules. I suppose you will not dispute the hardness and solidity of the earth. See then the effect of an advantageous situation--because the moon is at a distance we only view her as a luminous body instead of a large mass of matter similar to the earth. Our globe, on the contrary, from having the ill luck to be more closely inspected, appears only a mass of dark soil, fit for nothing but to produce food for animals; we do not perceive the splendour of her light, because we cannot remove to a distance from her. So it is, answered the Marchioness, with the different ranks of society: we are dazzled with the grandeur of situations superior to our own, without considering how much every condition of human life resembles all the rest.