16. Perhaps it may be said, that all which we have urged to show that other animals, in comparison with man, are less worthy objects of creative design, may be used as an argument to prove that other planets are tenanted by men, or by moral and intellectual creatures like man; since, if the creation of _one_ world of such creatures exalts so highly our views of the dignity and importance of the plan of creation, the belief in _many_ such worlds must elevate still more our sentiments of admiration and reverence of the greatness and goodness of the Creator; and must be a belief, on that account, to be accepted and cherished by pious minds. 17. To this we reply, that we cannot think ourselves authorized to assert cosmological doctrines, selected arbitrarily by ourselves, on the ground of their exalting our sentiments of admiration and reverence for the Deity, _when the weight of all the evidence which we can obtain respecting the constitution of the universe is against them_. It appears to us, that to discern one great scheme of moral and religious government, which is the spiritual centre of the universe, may well suffice for the religious sentiments of men in the present age; as in former ages such a view of creation was sufficient to overwhelm men with feelings of awe, and gratitude, and love; and to make them confess, in the most emphatic language, that all such feelings were an inadequate response to the view of the scheme of Providence which was revealed to them. The thousands of millions of inhabitants of the Earth to whom the effects of the Divine Plan extend, will not seem, to the greater part of religious persons, to need the addition of more, to fill our minds with sufficiently vast and affecting contemplations, so far as we are capable of pursuing such contemplations. The possible extension of God's spiritual kingdom upon the earth will probably appear to them a far more interesting field of devout meditation, than the possible addition to it of the inhabitants of distant stars, connected in some inscrutable manner with the Divine Plan. 18. To justify our saying that the weight of the evidence is against such cosmological doctrines, we must recall to the reader's recollection the whole course of the argument which we have been pursuing.