after they have acquired more experience they will pay us a visit, and heaven knows what surprise it will occasion us! You are insupportable, exclaimed she, to combat me with such chimerical arguments. Take care, said I; if you provoke me I shall easily corroborate them. Remember the earth has been made known to us by little and little. The ancients positively asserted that the torrid and frozen zones were uninhabitable from the excessive heat of the one, and cold of the others; and in the time of the Romans the general chart of the world was made little larger than that of their own empire, this at once shewed the grand idea they had of themselves, and their extreme ignorance of the earth. Men were however discovered, in these extremely hot, and intensely cold, climates, which discovery has greatly augmented the number of inhabitants on our globe. At one time it was believed that the ocean covered every part of the earth except what was then known. Antipodes had never been heard of, and who could imagine that men would be able to walk with their heads downwards? Yet after all, the antipodes were found out. Now the map must be altered; a new half added to the earth!--You understand, madam, what I am aiming at; these antipodes, so unexpectedly discovered, should teach us to think modestly of our attainments: we may yet know much more of our own world, and then become acquainted with the moon; till that time we must not expect it, because our knowledge is progressive: when we understand our own habitation, we may be permitted to study that of our neighbours. In truth, said she, viewing me attentively, you enter into the subject so deeply that one cannot but imagine you in earnest. Indeed I am not, answered I; I only wished to shew you the possibility of maintaining an extravagant opinion, so as to embarrass, though not convince, a person of sense. Truth alone makes her way to the understanding; she can even convince without exhibiting every proof: she is so adapted to our capacities, that when first discovered, we seem only to have met with an old acquaintance. [Footnote 25: Montgolfier's balloons, invented in 1783, have gone a great way towards the fulfilling of this prediction, but it is evidently impossible for it to be accomplished; these globes can only carry us to a certain height, beyond that we could not breathe.] Ah! this restores my tranquillity, said she. Your sophistry disturbed my imagination. Let us retire; I am now composed and inclined to go to rest. ══════════════ _THIRD EVENING._ ══════════════ The Marchioness wished to pursue our astronomical researches during the day; but I told her that as the moon and stars were the subjects of our whimsical conversations, they ought to be our only confidants; we therefore waited till evening, and then took our usual ramble in the park, which thus became sacred to learning.