The Yellowstone journal. [volume] (Miles City, Mont.) 1893-1901, 1893-12-27
THE UNIVERSE.
Other .yorIds. Ours and Man From the
Standpoint of Evolution.


Standpoint of Evolution.
Are there other worlds: The answer
must be yes. The deductions of science
demand it Enthusiastically. 1t may be diff
ficult or impossible to determine just
what particular orbs are habitable or in
habited or to what plane their animated
structures may have advanced in the
creative scale, but as the universe eter-
nally was, since this succession of world
development and decadence has been in
eternal operation. the conclusion is ire
sistible that there never has been a time
there was not an infinity of spheres in
habited. Are we then to conclude that
every orb in the skies is the abode Of life:
Certainly not; nor can we conclude
that they are all habitable, for that mat.
ter.
We must disabuse our minds of the
idea that the universe is solely run to
accommodate our little earth and its
fighting biped known as man-that the
universe is simply stage on which he
may sicken the gods with his bombastic
exploits.
Man, wherever he presents himself,
must be simply response to conditions
that invite him, and he is an amazingly
long time in responding. Nothing ls
clearer in mathematics than is this fact
in anthropology. Long after the ear,h's
crust was cool, after ages of aqueous
and igneous warfare, when vegetation
was exuberant and huge animals dis
ported themselves i'll the great marshes
and lagoons, no man was present.
Volcanic Niagara of molten matter
shot from the earth's interior, painting
in awful grandeur the nocturnal skies
with reflected conflagrations, the noun
tains commenced to wrinkle. and still
there was no man. The cooling contin-
ued. the crust thickened, cataclysms
ground the rock into drift; the terrors of
the convulsive storms grew wider and
wider apart, and still there was no hui
manlty to grace the scene. Huge and
uncouth life was that, savage and coarse;
hoarse cries of savagery, and night was
hideous with sanguinary uproar. but no
mamma,ia yet stood erect.
From some other world man may have
gazed at the earth through his glass and
speculate as we do when we gaze on
Mars, and thus, while hundreds of gen
erations may have observed, they looked
on a sphere where the elimination of
the creative process in human evolution
had not yet taken place.
But man finally came. He stood up.
but he was II picture. Behold yet his
congeneric brethren i'll Africa and parts
of Asia-suspicious heels, suspicious
hands. Jaw. face, eyes, brain. general
contour, all these We're lessons. but ig-
norance, if not altogether bliss. had t.
be eliminated. as slowly through tn
ages did he journey up. His crude brain
developed with his ceaseless planning to
clrcumvent his lower congeners slrug-
Cling for existence. Organ after organ
was developed. as new impressions force
themselves. until finally he began t.
have vague idea of most rustic pro-
priety and "A dim conception of a crude
respectability.
Such on the earth, has been man !,
genesis. On other worlds his carer
must be analogous to this. If, then, we
would know aught of man elsewhere we
must be able to trace his pedigree here.
Knowing the slow stages involved III
terrestrial development as regards the
evolutions of the spheres, we may know
approximately at least ats animal de-
velopment.
But true knowledge, like true charity.
must begin at home. This world is the
key with which we must unlock the
problems of the stellar worlds.