Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/35

Rh fact the chemistry of the sun is of so different an order from any that we have experience of, that we can not reconcile it with any of our notions of life. But if such a vast fund of energy can run to waste without producing life except in distant planets, there must be in nature an extravagance such as almost to justify those persons who imagine our own world to be the only one bearing life, and the whole universe to be made for man.

These few particulars, which we have learned concerning the physical conditions prevailing in other worlds of our solar system, are distinctly against the probability of their possessing life similar to that existing in this world. If they contain life, even life depending on the same principles, it must be quite different in its manifestations, and not easily recognizable with the telescope. If any germ of life should escape from this world and land upon another member of the solar system, it must pretty certainly perish for want of the necessary conditions. The same might be said of a germ from another world landing on our earth—if indeed we have any right to speak of a 'germ' from another world, since the word is geomorphic, and actually assumes that similarity which we hold to be improbable in life under different conditions.

Whether any members of other solar systems resemble our own in physical conditions is naturally a matter of pure speculation; but there is no a priori impossibility, since the spectroscope shows that many of the fixed stars contain the same elements as our sun, and have about the same temperature.

We are considering only such life as depends on the same principles as earthly life. We may admit the possibility of other kinds of life, having nothing in common with such life as we know, but at present we have no grounds for speculation concerning them. Keeping within the bounds of legitimate induction, we are led to the following conclusions:

1. If life is essentially a function of the elements nitrogen, oxygen, carbon and hydrogen, acting together, then it can probably occur only on exceptional worlds, with conditions closely resembling those of our own earth. Such conditions are not present in any other world in our solar system, nor can they be expected to occur frequently in members of other systems.

2. On the other hand, if different conditions can awaken a capacity for exalted energy traffic among other elements than those just named, then the universe seems to provide immense possibilities of life, whose variety and magnificence may far exceed anything that we can imagine.