Such flights of the imagination are justified in that it gives one a chance to appreciate the weakness of some of the arguments urged against the idea of intelligence in Mars.
It will be objected that some of the names herein quoted are not recognized as astronomers. I can only say that in every instance I have found references to the writings and essays of those that might be objected to in the pages of the "Observatory," and other reputable astronomical journals, and in no instances accompanied by adverse comment or criticism. If astronomers—even the distinguished Schiaparelli—quote these names in scientific memoirs, I may venture to do the same in a book written for the general reader. The objection, however, has always presented itself with every controversy; it was conspicuously marked in the passionate discussions over Darwin's "Origin of Species." The intelligent laity recognized the truth of Darwin's proposition long before the zoölogist began to waver. Essays by the unprofessional supporting Darwin's contention were discredited because the writers were not trained naturalists. The history of invention is crowded with instances where devices and processes have been invented by men whose trades or professions were the least likely to enable them to originate such ideas.
[II]
IMMEASURABLE DISTANCES OF SPACE
It is therefore perfectly reasonable to suppose that beings not only animated but endowed with reason inhabit countless worlds in space.
Simon Newcomb.
Until within recent centuries, man has not only believed that he and his kind were the only intelligent creatures in the universe, but that the little round ball on which he lived was the dominant part thereof. So rooted for ages was this conviction that it became fixed in man's mental structure, and hence the survival of the idea that still lingers in the minds of a few to-day. The conclusion was natural, however, for the behavior of the starry heavens and the Sun and the Moon seemed sufficient evidence that man, and the surface upon which he lived, was the centre of the universe. The stars were bright points of light, the Moon a silver disk, and the Sun a heat and light giving ball of fire, equally diminutive and not far away. Let one realize for a moment the experience of these early people. Everything aerial, with the exception of feathery birds, fluffy bats and flying insects, was composed of the lightest particles—cottony seeds, reluctantly falling snow-flakes, motes in the air, smoke and vaporous cloud, and, in contrast, the rock-foundationed and irregular surface upon which the people dwelt, and flat as far as man had reached. What wonder, then, that man viewed these brilliant points and dazzling disks as objects of no great size and not far away, hauled across the heavens by unseen spirits of some kind. The marvel of it all is, not that they believed as they did, but that any other views of cosmography could have been established. And yet the successive increments of astronomical knowledge, founded apparently on the soundest mathematics, were adopted in their turn. What more convincing than the epicyclic theory of Ptolemy, buttressed by figures so ingenious and convincing, that the theory might have lasted till now except for the truer understanding of planetary movements in relation to that of the Earth? All through this history are found traces of the barriers erected by prejudiced conservatives, of which the attitude of Tycho Brahe is a good example, though in this case it was probably his belief in the Hebraic conception of the universe which excited his opposition to Kepler's views, a conception which, unfortunately for the progress of astronomical research, still lingers among certain observers to-day and places them in precisely the same category with Tycho Brahe.
With the gradual accumulation of knowledge it was found that of all the innumerable illuminated bodies in the heavens, only one,—just one,—the Moon, revolved around the Earth, and that the Earth instead of being all dominant in the affairs of the universe, played a very minor part, and, instead of being master, was a very humble midget revolving around the Sun; that, indeed, with the exception of the Moon, there were visible to the naked eye only three bright points of light in the whole range of the heavens more insignificant in size,—Mercury, Venus, and Mars,—while the other planets were vastly larger, and had many more satellites revolving around them. Then it was found that, with the exception of the few planets, the myriad stars had no connection with the Sun whatsoever, that the Sun was no longer the centre of a great universe. Later it was discovered through spectroscopic analysis that all the myriad of stars were composed of chemical elements similar to our Sun. Here, then, was the startling revelation that our Sun was simply a star, and that the stars represented a "universe of Suns," and, if we could get near any one star of the millions that sparkle in the heavens telescopically, we should see it as a round ball emitting light and heat. It was perhaps humiliating to find that our Sun was so insignificant in size that from Sirius, for example, it could not be seen with the naked eye, so small indeed that in the close companionship of other stars it would be swallowed up by their greater size and brilliancy.
To assume, then, that our Sun, so identical to the stars in heat and light emitting properties, was the only Sun that had revolving around it a few minute balls, would be as absurd as if one should go on a pebbly beach, extending from Labrador to Florida for example, and picking up a single pebble, should have the hardihood to assert that this pebble was the only one, among the millions of pebbles, upon which would be found the bits of seaweed and little snails which it might support. The overwhelming vastness of the universe is entirely beyond the grasp of the human mind. The mere statement that it requires so many years for the light to reach us from a certain star, the parallax of which has been rudely established, affords one only a faint glimmer of the truth. The swing of our Earth about the Sun gives us a base line of 186,000,000 of miles, and yet, with this enormous base from which to subtend an angle, only a very few of the myriad of stars show the slightest displacement; the others exhibit no more signs of divergence than if while looking at them we had simply moved our heads from one side to the other! Fixed stars they appear to be, and are so called, though we are told they are all drifting in various directions, as our star-Sun is.
Only by reducing all these vast distances and dimensions to a minute scale can the mind realize the futility of ever comprehending the illimitable distances of space.