Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-04-17

clad in the skins of beasts, his brain behind
his ears, his hands like claws, hairy a.
chimpanzee, his language but few removes
from that Of the cultural gorilla, his jaws
] with scarce concealed fangs-all this, yet
destined in 100000 years or so, to wear .
hat and stylish pantaloons, twirl cane,
talk Of lineage, boast of genealogy, speak of
religion, OF art, of government. to have
| formulated record of his pranks dignifed
terror to his kind and making the earth
groan with WEAKNESS in recounting his
exploits which he facetiously denominates
| as news
This is no fanciful picture, and some of
the stronger colors are left undrawn. Yet,
| 1t required very stable terrestrial conditions,
for at best a quarter of a million years, with
nothing more serious than occasional jars
| and local out-belchings, the slow surface
erosions and imperceptible lifting and lower
ing OF coast lines, to develop the human
and lift him to an intellectual horizon
capable of graphing with so simple and
harmless thing as decimal fraction. We
can conceive of the CONSERVATION of the
cave-dwelling gentleman had he been con-
fronted in some lonely place with an aggra-
vatlng problem In long division. Yet to-
day, there is still a sufficient stock of speci-
mems OF this tribe on the earth to fill up a
great many cabinets of natural curiosities.
If Earth Were as Crazy as Mars
But if the continent Of North America
were oval one year, triangular the next,
then round or square; il the Atlantic Ocean
should once in while display bisecting
lines IS miles wide. cutting north and south,
east and west; if the Ohio and Mississippi
rivers should, about sexennially, in play
full way duplicate their channels to the
Gulf, and other rivers make crosscuts from
the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts, crossing
the Mississippi and all other intervening
rivers "on grade about, as near as
we can figure, would be the average mental
condition OF the average human that would
be compelled to bear witness to all this?
Whatever he might be, he would not be
apt to be hilariously commercial He might
gaze at the watered stock and grieve az his
inability to. unload, but the chances are
that he would sadly sit by the solemn waves
and wall himself away
Yet such is about the menu to which
astronomers would treat the luckless sup
posed inhabitants of the kaleidoscopical
Mars 1t is not surprising that man, hav-
ing descended from progenitora that shook
and quaked in mortal terror when continents
were swept in wide-reaching catastrophes-
1t is not to be wondered at that he has still
that inbred, instructive, hereditarily trans
mitted and well-nigh ineradicable fear, and
that his conception of the acme of ali the
horrible, is associated with the collapse Of
the terra frma on which he treadsi
Here lies the foundation of all the end of
the world pauics and crazes, on which the
Millers, the-Tottens and others play. 1t is
not facts now, but transmitted fears that
are hurting him, and this is true in every
department OF his mentality. And this,
under like conditions, must be Just az true
on any other world as on this.
No, Messrs. Astronomers, with all defer
ence to your noble and interesting science,
with all respect to yourselves for the celes-
tial phenomena you reveal to US, yet, when
it comes to deducing from the observations
series of logical consequences, it will be
found to be an anthropological and not an
astronomical problem that awaits solution.
There is an intimate relationship between
life and physical environment; there is
correspondence between either and the
other, and the conditions which are deduct
Bile from the phenomena you aver as exist
Ing on the planet that has been considered,
carry no warrant of the association with
them of any high order of animal develop
ment.
As to considering any proposed method of
inter-stellar communication, this would fall
into an entirely different domain of physics
and would require separate e1amina-
tion. N