Part 9 (1/2)
”One thing that you will doubtless soon undertake is the study of the speech of animals, which will go hand in hand with the development of their intelligence. Both of these will claim much attention, but very inadequate results will be obtained until after you have tamed and domesticated the various species. You will want to discover how far animals can be educated and whether their intelligence can ever be developed into mind. As you progress in this study you will feel the necessity of understanding their conversation and you will learn what you can of their language. These tasks will seem of more importance to you when the lower animals are all reclaimed and become the companions and friends of man. You will try to discover the particular purpose for which each species was created, and you will even be led to inquire, by a long series of experiments, whether they possess the faintest shadow of moral perceptions.
”Then there is the great subject of plant life. Does the sensitiveness of plants ever amount to sensibility or feeling? If so, is it a feeling you are bound to respect? That is, should a wounded and bleeding tree excite in you even the slightest shade of that sympathy you feel with a distressed animal? These are inquiries which you doubtless think of little moment now, but we have spent many years pursuing them.
”These are only a few faint indications of the mult.i.tude of questions which lie before you for study. In every investigation which you follow, whether connected with the mysteries of your own complex being or with the unexplored depths of creation around you, a chief source of interest will be the constant discovery of a perfect adaptation in the works of G.o.d. Of course you know something of it already, but you will never cease to wonder at the unfolding of this truth, as you come to realize more and more fully that creation is one, and is moved and ruled by one intelligence.
”Oh, do not imagine that in the ages to come there will be nothing to make life interesting. As your civilization advances and you are released gradually from trouble and care, and from those petty affairs which now so occupy you, your minds and souls will grow, and you will see far more ahead of you worth striving for than you now do. Your happiness can still consist largely in the pursuit of happiness.”
CHAPTER X
MORE WORLDS THAN TWO.
It was now so late in the day that further conversation was postponed, and after a plain but exceedingly enjoyable supper we were shown to luxurious rooms, where we spent our first night in Mars in great comfort.
In the morning Thorwald told us we would reach our port in a few hours, and so we sat down as early as we could after breakfast for a short talk.
The doctor furnished the text by opening the conversation with this remark:
”It is wonderful to think we should find on this planet a race of people so advanced, when so little thought is given, on the earth, to the idea of life in other worlds.”
”What has been the general opinion among you on that subject?” asked Thorwald.
”The subject has not had standing enough to call forth much opinion,”
the doctor answered. ”There is an almost universal indifference in regard to the matter. I think the common notion is that the earth is about all there is in the universe worth considering.”
”But what are your own views, Doctor?”
”I have been one of those,” he replied, ”who believed the notion of life outside the earth to be a beautiful theory without one shred of scientific basis. We knew the earth was inhabited and the moon was not, and there we stopped. We did not know, and thought we never could know, anything that could be called evidence pointing to the existence of life in the other planets or elsewhere, and we held that there was no advantage in speculation. We thought it unwise to spend much time or thought on a subject about which we could know nothing. On coming here and finding you I have learned that Mars is inhabited, but I do not know any more about the other planets or stars.”
”Does not the mere knowledge that there are two life-bearing bodies lead you to believe that there are more, among the vast numbers of worlds which you have not visited?”
”I don't see why it should. How can we believe anything without evidence? No one has ever come to us from those distant globes, and they are too far away for us to see what is taking place on their surface.”
”It seems strange, Doctor, to hear you reason in that way, but I suppose some of our race were just as narrow, if you will pardon me for using that word, as you are, before our wonderful successes in astronomy. I believe you have not properly considered the subject, for it seems to me you had knowledge enough, before you left the earth, to justify you in holding to a strong probability of life beyond your own globe.
”Let us see what some of that knowledge is. You know, to begin with, that one world is inhabited. Then if you should find other bodies as large as the earth and bearing any resemblance to it, there would be no improbability in the thought that they or some of them were filled with life. The improbability is certainly taken away by the knowledge that one such body, the earth, is inhabited.
”You start, then, without prejudice, on a voyage of discovery, aided by your telescope and your reasoning faculties.
”First you find, within distances that you can easily measure, a small group of dark bodies, which you have called planets, all apparently governed by a common law, in obedience to which they are circling around a large body of quite different character, which gives them light and heat. Of these dark bodies, which s.h.i.+ne in the sky only by reflected light, the earth is one, and, you are surprised to find, not the most important one, judging from all you can discover. Some of the others are much larger and are attended by more satellites. In fact, the earth is indistinguishable in this little group. While it is not the largest, neither is it the smallest. It is not the farthest from the sun nor the nearest to it. It is merely one among the number. And how much alike the members of this family are. Your telescopes do not point out any material differences, although each has its individual characteristics.
Let us enumerate some of the many points of resemblance. They all turn on themselves as well as revolve around the sun. All see the night follow the day, and in most of them there must occur the regular succession of seasons. To each one the sun is the source of light and heat, many of them have moons, and all can see the stars. Nor does the resemblance stop here. For you have discovered that one has an atmosphere, another is surrounded with clouds, while on the surface of our own globe you see the polar snows increase in winter and melt away in summer. Is it not probable that if you could get nearer to these globes you would find still closer resemblances? And if they are like the earth in so many ways, is it at all unlikely that they may, at some period of their existence, be the abode of intelligent life? For what other purpose were they made, Doctor?”
”They make very pretty objects for us to look at,” replied my companion.
”Yes, those that can be seen,” said Thorwald; ”but is that all? Were those great worlds, some of them hundreds of times larger than your own globe, created merely to add a little variety to your sky, and to give you the pleasant task of watching their movements under the pretty t.i.tle of morning and evening star?”
”Speaking from the knowledge I had when I left the earth,” the doctor answered, ”I can say I never heard that they were put to any other use.
No one ever came down to us from any of them to tell us they were inhabited.”