27. That we need not discuss the question, whether there are intelligent beings living on the surface of Mars, perhaps the reader will allow, till we have some better evidence that there are living things there at all; if he calls to mind the immense proportion which, on the earth, far better fitted for the habitation of the only intelligent creature which we know or can conceive, the duration of unintelligent life has borne to that of intelligent. Here, on this Earth, a few thousand years ago, began the life of a creature who can speculate about the past and the future, the near and the absent, the Universe and its Maker, duty and immortality. This began a few thousand years ago, after ages and myriads of ages, after immense varieties of lives and generations, of corals and mollusks, saurians, iguanodons, and dinotheriums. No doubt the Creator might place an intelligent creature upon a planet, without all this preparation, all this preliminary life. He has not chosen to do so on the earth, as we know; and that is by much the best evidence attainable by us, of what His purposes are. It is also possible that He should, on another planet, have established creatures of the nature of corals and mollusks, saurians and iguanodons, without having yet arrived at the period of intelligent creatures: especially if that other planet have longer years, a colder climate, a smaller mass, and perhaps no atmosphere. It is also possible that He should have put that smaller planet near the Earth, resembling it in some respects, as the Moon does, but without any inhabitants, as she has none; and that Mars may be such a planet. The probability against such a belief can hardly be considered as strong, if the arguments already offered be regarded as effective against the opinion of inhabitants in the other planets, and in the Moon.