OCR Text |
Show FAUNA AND FLORA O FTHE HEAVENS When men believed that the enrth was a flit surfaco ano that its bulk rested on a tortoise, which resitd on somothing elso, which floated on a sea, and that the' stars and planots were small pretty "little lamps Bet m a concave flrmamont for man'B exclusive ex-clusive convenience, they didn't bother both-er their hoads to know whether or not the little lamps were inhabited by lilng crenturos. But ever since that old Polish monk, Koppernigk. showed them that the earth was a mero speck of matter floating in infinite in-finite space, and that the little lamps were vast gloBes, in many cases thousands thou-sands of times larger than the sun, the human mind has nover been at ease on this subject of life in tho heavenly boaies, and specially In the ether planets which revolve around tue same grett luminary, which gives light and life io" the earth. There Itn't any question which could bo of less vital interest; but It is a peculiarity pecul-iarity of the human mind to ironhlo 'tself most about things which really concern it least. 'Hie certain discovery discov-ery tomorrow thaf oil the planots and all the stars were populated oy boiugs like ourselves o- were empty balls of dead matter would not add tc or detract de-tract rom the happiness of any liu-an liu-an being by a hair But a French pclomist b.ti been lately puttering oyer the subject ho is a zoologist, not an astronomer nnd has come to the conclusion that, while the greater outer planots have conditions which make both vegetable vegeta-ble a,nd animal life impossible, and that while Mercury is too hot, Venus and Mars approximate to the earth so closely as to make some sort of animal ani-mal life quite likely on their surfaceb h Is evident to him, howoer, that such beings as could exist In the conditions con-ditions of these planets could not possibly have reached the state of development de-velopment we have on earth we presume pre-sume from our point of view, he means and so we are left in the fond assurance that the genus homo sapiens sap-iens Is the paragon of the solar system sys-tem as well as of the earth A little reflectlou, however, will show that this Ib n vry slight thing to boast of If we must bother ourselves our-selves about the life on other planets in our system, it requires but a slight effort of tho imagination to soar into the infinite number of stars that confront con-front our vision' every clear night. Each of these Is a vast sun, some of them thousands of times bigger than our sun, and around each float planets plan-ets approximately like our own. Infinite In-finite space, infinite time, infinite variety va-riety of temperature, soil and climate, and you have as n necessary consequence conse-quence an Infinite variety of fauna and flora, among which theie may be beings be-ings as superior fo man as man thinks himself to the miscroscopk: cell. There i"; room for the imagination if anybody any-body cares to indulge It. Why might not some of the'' creatures inhabiting other systems be so much above ub that we would regard them as gods if we could cctao in contact with them? Detroit Free Pi ess |