of these flowers be conclusive?--it would have a better foundation than that of the ancients respecting the celestial bodies; and had there never to this day been observed any change in the heavens, though they should appear likely to remain much longer without alteration, I would not yet decide on them; I should think more experience necessary. Should the term of our existence, which is but a moment, be the measure for other durations? Ought we to assert that what has lasted a hundred thousand times longer than we, must last for ever? No, ages on ages of our duration would scarcely be any indication of immortality. Truly, said the Marchioness, I think these worlds can have no pretensions to it. I shall not do them the honour to compare them with the gardener who outlives so many transient flowers; they are but as those flowers themselves, springing up and fading away, one after another: for I suppose, if old stars disappear, new ones become visible; the species cannot otherwise be continued. Yes, answered I, we need not fear the extinction of the species. Some will tell you these new stars are only suns which re-approach us after having been for a long time at a distant part of the heavens. Others think they are suns that have broken through the crust that began to cover them. I easily conceive the possibility of all this; but I think it equally possible for new suns to be created. Why should not the matter that is fit to compose a sun, after having been dispersed in various places, be at length gathered together in one spot and then become the foundation of a new system of worlds? I am the more inclined to this opinion because it answers better to the grand idea I entertain of the works of nature. Has she no way of producing and destroying plants and animals but by a continual revolution? I am persuaded, and I doubt not that by this time you are so too, that she exerts the same power with respect to the worlds. But on such subjects we can only form conjectures. The fact is that for nearly a century past, in which, by the help of telescopes, almost a new heaven has been discovered, unknown to the ancients, there have been few of the constellations in which some sensible alteration has not taken place;[55] the greatest number of changes is observed in the milky-way, as if more motion and bustle existed among this heap of worlds. Really, said the Marchioness, I find the worlds, in short all the heavenly bodies, so liable to change that I have quite overcome the horror I felt at the idea of the suns being extinguished. Well, replied I, to prevent you from relapsing, we will say no more about them, we are arrived at the uppermost part of the heavens, and to inform you whether there are any stars beyond that, exceeds my skill. You may place more worlds or not; just as you are disposed. These invisible countries should, in propriety, be left to the philosophers: they may imagine them to exist, or not exist, or to exist in any way they chuse.