ARE THE PLANETS INHABITED?

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE QUESTION STATED 1

II. THE LIVING ORGANISM 6

III. THE SUN 20

IV. THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE ELEMENTS IN SPACE 33

V. THE MOON 43

VI. THE CANALS OF MARS 57

VII. THE CONDITION OF MARS 71

VIII. THE ILLUSIONS OF MARS 96

IX. VENUS, MERCURY AND THE ASTEROIDS 111

X. THE MAJOR PLANETS 122

XI. WHEN THE MAJOR PLANETS COOL 133

XII. THE FINAL QUESTION 143

INDEX 163

ARE THE PLANETS INHABITED?

CHAPTER I

THE QUESTION STATED

The first thought that men had concerning the heavenly bodies was an
obvious one: they were lights. There was a greater light to rule the day;
a lesser light to rule the night; and there were the stars also.

In those days there seemed an immense difference between the earth upon
which men stood, and the bright objects that shone down upon it from the
heavens above. The earth seemed to be vast, dark, and motionless; the
celestial lights seemed to be small, and moved, and shone. The earth was
then regarded as the fixed centre of the universe, but the Copernican
theory has since deprived it of this pride of place. Yet from another
point of view the new conception of its position involves a promotion,
since the earth itself is now regarded as a heavenly body of the same
order as some of those which shine down upon us. It is amongst them, and
it too moves and shines--shines, as some of them do, by reflecting the
light of the sun. Could we transport ourselves to a neighbouring world,
the earth would seem a star, not distinguishable in kind from the rest.

But as men realized this, they began to ask: "Since this world from a
distant standpoint must appear as a star, would not a star, if we could
get near enough to it, show itself also as a world? This world teems with
life; above all, it is the home of human life. Men and women, gifted with
feeling, intelligence, and character, look upward from its surface and
watch the shining members of the heavenly host. Are none of these the home
of beings gifted with like powers, who watch in their turn the movements
of that shining point which is our world?"

This is the meaning of the controversy on the Plurality of Worlds which
excited so much interest some sixty years ago, and has been with us more
or less ever since. It is the desire to recognize the presence in the orbs
around us of beings like ourselves, possessed of personality and
intelligence, lodged in an organic body.

ARE THE PLANETS INHABITED?