degree depending upon the rigidity. The folds have been
overthrown and drawn out; those which lay originally most to the
south have become the uppermost; and, experiencing the maximum
amount of displacement, overlap those lying beneath. There has
also been a certain amount of upthrow owing to the hydrostatic
pressure. This last-mentioned element of the phenomena is of
highly indeterminate character, for we know not the limits to
which the hydrostatic pressure may be transmitted, and where it
may most readily find relief. While, according to some of the
published sections, the uplifting force would seem to have
influenced the final results of the orogenic movements, a
discussion of its effects would not be profitable.
161
OTHER MINDS THAN OURS?
IN the year 1610 Galileo, looking through his telescope then
newly perfected by his own hands, discovered that the planet
Jupiter was attended by a train of tiny stars which went round
and round him just as the moon goes round the Earth.
It was a revelation too great to be credited by mankind. It was
opposed to the doctrine of the centrality of the Earth, for it
suggested that other worlds constituted like ours might exist in
the heavens.
Some said it was a mere optic illusion; others that he who looked
through such a tube did it at the peril of his soul—it was but a
delusion of Satan. Galileo converted a few of the unbelievers who
had the courage to look through his telescope. To the others he
said, he hoped they would see those moons on their way to heaven.
Old as this story is it has never lost its pathos or its
teaching.
The spirit which assailed Galileo's discoveries and which finally
was potent to overshadow his declining years, closed in former
days the mouths of those who asked the question written at the
head of this lecture: "Are we to believe that there are other
minds than ours?"
162
Today we consider the question in a very different spirit. Few
would regard it as either foolish or improper. Its intense
interest would be admitted by all, and but for the limitations
closing our way on every side it would, doubtless, attract the
most earnest investigation. Even on the mere balance of judgment
between the probable and the improbable, we have little to go on.
We know nothing definitely as to the conditions under which life
may originate: whether these are such as to be rare almost to
impossibility, or common almost to certainty. Only within narrow
limits of temperature and in presence of certain of the elements,
can life like ours exist, and outside these conditions life, if
such there be, must be different from ours. Once originated it is
so constituted as to assail the energies around it and to advance
from less to greater. Do we know more than these vague facts?
Yes, we have in our experience one other fact and one involving
much.
We know that our world is very old; that life has been for many
millions of years upon it; and that Man as a thinking being is
but of yesterday. Here is then a condition to be fulfilled. To
every world is physically assigned a limit to the period during
which it is habitable according to our knowledge of life and its
necessities. This limit passed and rationality missed, the chance
for that world is gone for ever, and other minds than ours
assuredly will not from it contemplate the universe. Looking at
our own world we see that the tree of life has,