So soon as we had acquired the language of that Higher Life which we had now entered, a vast world of new knowledge, of course, was at once opened upon us. We were now made aware, for the first time, that the intelligent universe was mainly divided into those worlds which had attained, through science, to the higher life, and those which were still short of it. There was also, to be sure, a great section of worlds, to be styled unintelligent, because man had not yet arisen upon them, and of which our own system furnished examples in some of its outer planets and moons, as we shall afterwards have occasion to see. We shall also have to speak of a phase of human life still higher than the so-called higher life; but as to this and other kindred subjects we will not now further interrupt our main narrative.
Allow me, however, just this general remark, in passing, to the effect that the attainments of worlds, as we all now know so well, depend upon their relative position in their system as to heat and light supply, their size or mass, and the greater or less interval for progress, since their attainment, respectively, to dynamic equilibrium. As the rule, progress begins with those members of a system which are nearest to their sun. Thus Venus, although our earth equalled or surpassed her otherwise, had a more advanced development as being nearer to the light-source; while we, for like reasons, were in advance of Mars. According to higher-life rule, the outside world that lies nearest to a higher-
