14. The answer which Chalmers gives to this objection, is one drawn, in the first instance, from our ignorance. He urges that, when the objector asserts that other worlds may have the like need with our own, of a special provision for the rescue of their inhabitants from the consequences of the transgression of God's laws, he is really making an assertion without the slightest foundation. Not only does Science not give us any information on such subjects, but the whole spirit of the scientific procedure, which has led to the knowledge which we possess, concerning other planets and other systems, is utterly opposed to our making such assumptions, respecting other worlds, as the objection involves. Modern Science, in proportion as she is confident when she has good grounds of proof, however strange may be the doctrines proved, is not only diffident, but is utterly silent, and abstains even from guessing, when she has no grounds of proof. Chalmers takes Newton's reasoning, as offering a special example of this mixed temper, of courage in following the evidence, and temperance in not advancing when there is no evidence. He puts, in opposition to this, the example of the true philosophical temper,--a supposed rash theorist, who should make unwarranted suppositions and assumptions, concerning matters to which our scientific evidence does not reach;--the animals and plants, for instance, which are to be found in the planet Jupiter. No one, he says, would more utterly reject and condemn such speculations than Newton, who first rightly explained the motion of Jupiter and of his attendant satellites, about which Science _can_ pronounce her truths. And thus, nothing can be more opposite to the real spirit of modern science, and astronomy in particular, than arguments, such as we have stated, professing to be drawn from science and from astronomy. Since we know nothing about the inhabitants of Jupiter, true science requires that we say and suppose nothing about them; still more requires that we should not, on the ground of assumptions made with regard to them, and other supposed groups of living creatures, reject a belief, founded on direct and positive proofs, such as is the belief in the truths of Natural and of Revealed Religion.