The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1897-08-20
ARE THERE PEOPLE ~ MARsq


The discovery Of the philosophers
stone, surprising that phrase to imply
a working scheme for transmitting an
inferior metal into gold. would prob
ably produce nothing beyond a period
of terrible economic confusion or per
haps, a vast and disastrous, because
ever-rapid, transfer of property. but
the attainment of certainty that senti-
ent beings with corporal incase-
ments, acting by effort and not by
! pure violition, existed in any one
other planet would only enlarge the
range of human thought and the force
of the human Imagination. Such Il
certainty would either increase to an
extraordinary degree the reverence
! for the Creator for we are all so
| limited that we reverence powers
which we see exerted more than pow
ers which we know in theory must
eXist-or would compel materialists
to revise and widen their whole
theory of the relation of matter to
could exist under conditions hitherto
deemed impossible.
There are certainly millions and
possibly billions of worlds ofwhich
no two are the same, and if sentient
! beings were found past question in
any other world than ours the pre-
| sumption that they existed under a
variety of conditions and probably,
therefore, in variety of forms, prac-
| tically unlimited, would become so
violent that to reject the theory
would soon be regarded as an evil
dence of foolish, popular habit of
disbelief in the unseen.
Man has some internal dislike to be-
lieve that limited beings with senti-
ence can exist under conditions other
! than his own, and habitually assumes
| that a world without air is Il dead
world. Yet there is no proof that the
| ether, which we know to be every
where cannot support life, or that
! circumstances of which we know
nothing may not modify either it's in
tolerable cold or the effect of that
cold.
In Mars itself there is some po-
tency at work, which, to the despair
for the moment of terrestrial science,
produces warmth where cold ought to
reign permanently supreme. 1t is as
certain as any deduction from analogy
can be that air in Mars. though it eX-
lists, is as rareiied as it would be at
the top of mountain twice as high
as Mount Everest, and that conse-
quently the normal and permanent
degree of cold ought to be terrible.
The thermal income of Mars is less
than half that of the earth, and its
theoretical mean temperature is con-
sequently-taking into account its
low ''albedo" or reflective power per
unit of area 80 degrees centigrade
below freezing. Yet the actual eli
mate of Mars is mild. Snow certainly
melts rapidly-that is patent to the
telescope-vapor certainly rises-that
is clear from the spectrum analysis
water flows, and there are indications,
if not proofs, that a sudden vegetation
follows the sudden thawing of the
snow. What warns the air is un-
known, but it is warmed past all
question or doubt, and all arguments,
therefore, as to the inevitableness of
cold in other worlds must be pros
nounced imperfect, as are those which
show the impossibility of sustaining
corporeal life. All we can say with
certainty is that, if sentient beings
with corporal frames exist in Mars,
the relation of the lungs to the body
cannot be identical with their rela-
ton in man, which, as we are aware
of fishes, is not an impossible eXer-
else of imagination.