Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1875-07-22
Does Life Exist i'm the Planets

life, that is, of living organisms, has long
been received with favor, and, although
the question would appear to be bevond
| the limits of argument even, vet it has
been made the subject of many a learned
essay or poetic efiusion. In a recent num-
Der of the Corn1taU W0gnsine Richard A.
Proctor ventures again to approach the
subject reviewing it under the title:
. Life, Past and Future, in Other
| Worlds" Deeming it probable that many
of our readers may fail to meet with the
paper in full, we are prompted to give ex-
tended space to condensed review Of its
main pOints-cOnvinced that they will
recognize in the authors line OF reasoning,
though necessarily one of analogy, many
points in favor of the conclusion, viz {:
that it is more probable that life is want
ing than that life exists at this present
time in other worlds than ours. At the
close of brief reference to opinions ex-
pressed in former essays, and at variance
with those now advanced the writer adds {:
Let the matter be explained as it may, it
was only gradually that both the Brews-
terrain and Whewellite theories of life in
other worlds gave place in the writers
mind to a theory in one sense intermediate
to them, in another sense opposed to both,
which seems to accord better than either
with what we know about our own earth,
about the other members of the solar sys-
| tenn, and about other suns which people
space. What we now propose to do is to
present this theory as specially illustrated
| by the two planets which adorn our
evening skies during the summer
months of the present year, The
| made are Jupiter and Mars, and their past
present and future conditions are made
the subject of thoughtful consideration.
The groundwork upon which Prof. Proc
tor bases his whole argument against the
probable present existence Of life in other
worlds may be stated as follows: Organic
life is but natural phenomenon and de-
ponds upon congenial physical conditions
without which there could be no life In
other words, to prove that life abounds on
any planet we must first accept the fact
that the physical conditions on that planet
are " life-supporting. Returning now to
the main argument, the writer notices at
length the various forms of life upon our
globe and the possible conditions under
which it exists, giving special attention to
the evidence that " Nature possesses a
power of modifying the different types in
accordance with the varying conditions
under which they subsist. STILL"
he adds, and in this sentence sounds the
keynote of all subsequent reasoning,
there must be limit beyond which the
change Of the earths conditions, whether
through the cooling of her own globe or
the diminutiOn of the suns heat, will be
such that no conceivable modification of
the types of life now existing could render
life possible. The struggle for life
involves the repeated victory of death.
Nature, wasteful of Individual
life, is equally wasteful of types of life"
and 6 at length the time comes when the
struggle for existence can manifestly have
but one end, and then, though the type
may linger long before it actually disap-
pears, its disappearance is only question
of time" Admitting the justice of this gen
eral proposition, the writer arrives naturally
at the following conclusion: eve have
also only to consider that life on the earth
necessarily had a beginning to infer that
it must necessarily have an end. Clear
est evidence shows how our earth was
once a fluid haze of light and how for
countless icons afterward her globe was in
stinct with fiery heat amid which no form
Of life could be conceived to exist, after
the manner of life known to US, though
the germs of life may have been present
in the midst of the fire. Then followed
ages in which the earth's glowing crust
was drenched by showers Of muriatic,
nitric and sulphuric acid, not only intense
ly hot, but fiercely burning through their
chemical activity. Only after periods in
finite to our conceptions could life such as
we know it, Or even in the remotest de-
gree like what is now known to US, have
begun to exist upon the EARTH. The
reader will discover that Prof. Proctor an
ticipates the vague objections Of the pure
ly imaginative opponents by limiting his
definition of life to that which exists
LATTER the manner known to us" If we
have succeeded in the rather difficult task
of condensing an already succinct argu-
ment, the reader will be ready to follow
the author in his next step, and, as he has
defined the nature of this step in a few
brief sentences, we give them, as follows:
'We see our earth passing through vast
period, from its first existence as a sepa-
rate member of the solar system to the
time when life appeared upon its surface;
then began comparatively short period,
now in progress, during which the earth
has been and will be the abode of life; and
after thatmust follow period infinite to our
conceptions, when the cold and inert globe
of the earth will circle as litelessly round
the sun as the moon now does. We NAV,
if we please, infer this from analogy, see
ing that the duration of life is ALWAYS in
tnitely small by comparison with the du-
ration of the region where life appears; so
that, by analogy, the duration Of life on
! the earth would he infinitely short oo,,,