Of what nature are the inhabitants of Venus? Do they resemble us in physical form? Are they endowed with an intelligence analogous to ours? Do they pass their life in pleasure, as Bernardin de St. Pierre said; or, rather, are they so tormented by the inclemency of their seasons that they have no delicate perception, and are incapable of any scientific or artistic attention? These are interesting questions, to which we have no reply. All that we can say is, that organized life on Venus must be little different from terrestrial life, and that this world is one of those which resemble ours most. It should, then, be inhabited by vegetable, animal, and human races but little different from those which people our planet. As to imagining it desert or sterile--this is an hypothesis which could not arise in the brain of any naturalist. The action of the divine sun must be there, as in Mercury, still more fertile than his terrestrial work, already so wonderful. We may add that Venus and Mercury, having been formed after the earth, are relatively younger than our planet. It is believed also that the axis of Venus, instead of being slanted only as much as the earth’s axis, is tilted much more. Even if the tilting is less than some have supposed, it is probably very considerable. If Venus really does “lie over” in such a manner, certain startling changes of climate on its surface--unpleasant changes, according to our ideas--would take place. Like earth, Venus would have her two arctic regions, where a burning summer’s day would succeed a bitter winter’s night, each half a year in length. She would have also her tropical region--only in that region intense cold would alternate with intense heat, brief seasons of each in turn. And between the tropics and the arctic regions would lie wide belts, by turns entirely tropical and entirely arctic. The rapidity and severity of these changes, following one another in a year about as long as eight of our months, would seem to be too much for any human frame to endure. But it all rests upon an _if_. And we may be quite sure that _if_ there are any manner of human beings in Venus, their frames are well suited to the climate of their world. Though Mars is one of the inner group of four small planets, divided by the zone of asteroids from the outer group of four great planets, yet he belongs to the outside set of Superior Planets. His orbit surrounds ours, being at all points farther off from the sun. Very slight “phases” have been seen in Mars. He turns to us, from time to time, just enough of his dark side to prove that he _has_ a dark side, and that he does not shine like a star by his own light. But the phases on that planet are by no means marked as they are with Venus.