me, that no mortal will ever finish studying in all his days. With ever-increasing inward bliss I will turn over its pages, until my days shall end [...]
I know nothing, but I do know that our round earth has made this wide circle round the sun 61 times during my existence, and that it turns itself round every 24 hours. That for many years I believed as the majority of people still do, that the sun goes round the earth. But since the worthy astronomers have made me a little acquainted with the planets and their movement, it seems to me much more natural that the earth turns round so that the sun can shine on all its surface, than that the sun turns. It seems much more natural to me that the so much smaller body should turn around the so many thousand times greater body, than the latter enormous body should turn round the smaller. I am convinced that our earth turns round every 24 hours. But not so much concerning its yearly journey round the sun. This I cannot rightly comprehend yet. I still think that the sun draws back until it makes our shortest day. Then it comes closer to us again, until it makes our longest day, or our earth draws closer to the sun again. How the earth makes its journey in 365 days, I cannot rightly imagine. But the astronomers will know best about that.
Shall then this incomprehensibly wise Architect have hung in the immeasurable space of the heavens millions of other worlds like our own, smaller and far larger too, just to light up our planet? I do not conclude that so many millions of shining bodies should be all lifeless and barren bodies, I think that the eternally wise, all-powerful and active Spirit, that has goodwill towards all His works. will certainly have peopled these great bodies also, and that with reasoning creatures, not only with ravening beasts of all kinds. We see on our earth that the inexpressibly wise Creator loves diversity and difference in all His works. In all his activity we see only wisdom and goodness. And so I allow myself to conclude boldly that other millions of worlds are filled with people, with reasoning creatures. [...]
I do not suppose that our earth carries the worst of human beings, but certainly also not the best, by far. So as we on our earth see higher and lower grades of men, so that the lowest grade is so close to the animal kingdom that one can hardly tell the difference, so the best and wisest people are so near to the higher beings, who as I suppose on some planets stand at the lowest rung, who from that point on rise into the heights until they are near to the likeness of God. With blissful feelings I suppose that there are a number of heavenly worlds that have no evil inhabitants, where on the different levels there are higher, better, wiser creatures who in understanding at the lowest step far outpass the wisest of ourselves. What capacities these must enjoy, to know more nearly the incomprehensibly wise and all-powerful Architect of the whole created universe...
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Hast thou, O all-seeing, all-knowing One, not also created even my spirit for immortality!" [Voellmy, v 2 pp 237-241]
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Speculation that there might be life on other planets, or on the moon, was not a new idea in the 18th century. Nearly a century before Bräker's birth, in 1638, John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, thought it probable that the moon was inhabited because Providence had "furnished [it] with all such Conveniences of Habitation" i.e. (as he thought) hills, water and air (though he knew that air was thinner at high altitudes). He could even confidently envisage "a Flying-Chariot, in which a Man may sit, and give such a motion into it, as shall convey him through the Air". [Wilkins, pp 105, 132-3]. Ideas on this subject date back to ancient writers such as Plutarch (a favourite author of Bräker's) but tend to become confused with the idea that the planets are inhabited by angelic non-human spirits.
