Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/303

 friend was a very big fellow compared to us, had had a longer life, and knew a deal more than we did. We have, in fact, ever since kept up mutual friendly relations, as our widely circulated Sirius Herald, every morning on my breakfast table, may serve to show. We were much interested, through this case, in the effects of size or mass, as well as time, upon human progress, and ultimate attainments; because, as we very well know, the Sirius system, and for that matter a good many others, are upon a much greater scale than ours. But mere mass, although giving a stronger material frame, does little towards the higher intelligence, which depends more upon equilibriated heat and light, the latter especially. But again, speaking generally, the stronger the totality of force, the better eventually the human prospect. A very small world, such as any one of the inhabited asteroids, with its slight gravity force, and attenuated elements, will have a weakly human framework, as compared with the broad squat figures and herculean strength of our Siriusite friends. The heads, or rather the brains, surmounting in either case, are not, perhaps, in the abstract, greatly different, but then they are worked respectively by very different engine powers, and there is a different progress proportionately.

Sirius was comparatively our next-door neighbour, amongst systems of the outside universe. We had some much further off acquaintanceships, and several of the remoter ones were of our own independent looking up. In most cases of the ordinary instances, we joined in communications already established; and in this way, through Venus, or at times through other-world friends outside, we were placed in connection