The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-07-05
SAVANNAH MORNING NEWS: SUNDAY JULY s. 1903

SAVANNAH MORN
show its successive years. And at last
man fights himself upward from it all.
Our ancestors of the glacial period,
who hunted the mammoth, stood bare
~ as high in culture as the Eskimo
stands to-day. And yet I'VE" devel-
oped from them, I'VE" in the electric
gloWs of our Twentieth Century, with
our poetry and ethics-the Eskimo who
has become Shakespeare and Goethe.
The natural philosopher deduces the
unknown from the known.
Nothing can hinder him from seeing
in this act of acknowledgement only
one act Of q development that includes
the whole universe. The evolution of
man has cosmic significance.
Throughout the whole immensely of
time there must have flowed an I'M
broken course of events, only one part
of which was the development of our
selves. 1t is entirely impossible that
this course could have been broken
even second in all that time, for if it
had the results would have been inn
possible.
In twilight of imagination we can
surmise something beyond our own
chain of life. A mighty course of
events was necessary to develop the
first cell, to develop at all that which
we know now as life"
We do not know what life" really
is. Perhaps it's elements and proper
ties are properties of cosmic matter
itself.
At any rate, the first cell-formation
was an evolutionary achievement of
the first rank. This first life manifest
ed itself in a form that was, doubtless
the best adapted to the temperature of
the earth at that time. But the con-
ditions that led 20 that formation of
the first life must themselves have
developed mu-n earlier. And, before
that, the eartn probably was red-hot
like the sun to-day. We cannot con-
ceive that the protoplasm known to
US, and Of which the animal and veg
etable cell consists to-day, could have
lived III that fire-period. Yet it's origin
must absolutely have been in that
time.
The whole beginning of time prime
val thus becomes part of our chain.
Now it may be that the glowing earth
was a piece of the sun, left behind by
it as a ring when the sun shrank, and
finally whirled together into a sphere.
Hence our story of life may lead us
back into the sun itself. And the sun
was a part of the primeval mists from
which the systems of the Milky Way
sprang. So we look back to our home
in the Milky Way, and thence into the
infinity of the cosmos.
1 think, then, that when we look
clearly at those things of the past we
approach the matter of the world-end
in manner quite different from that
| which is usual to humanity.
That chain of development that led
to humanity has withstood the enor-
nous changes that made fixed stars
out of the etheric mist: it has with
stood the tremendous shock of the frag-
menting of such a fixed star into pieces
that became planets; it has withstood
the formation of an earth out of fiery
mass; on that slowly cooling globe it
has created one wondrous shape after
another, from the first cell to man.
Now we hear that in further millions
of years--we can say billions with per-
feet truth-certain new alterations oil
this planetary system win become facts
| changes which, sooner or later, will
take the earth-star back to the sun
again, or will take away from it the
light and heat of that sun. Now what
shall we ask?
1 think that it is in no petty, small
spirit that we may ask: rs this, then
to be the end of that final progress OF
development? Nay. Let us ask fur
Their: What new, wonderful links viii
be fitted into the immortal chain witt
the new, vast change of the planets
That we can put this question is il
itself one of the most importan
achievements of philosophy. To seel
the answer means to dream-to dream
ahead for billions of years.
Not Death, But Greater Life.
i'll may dream can see two ways
in which the human genius can mo-
only survive the threatening future
but can actually make it further in.
strument in the progress toward per-
lection.
The mind of man may develop Itself
so enormously in those billions OF
years that space and distance shall be
immateriaI and meaningless to it. The
very fact of a decrease in the earth's
| speed or a lessening of the suns heal
might give him the impulse that vii
| make him dare to steer out into the
universe The separate intelligences oil
the various planets may conceivably
cooperate. And in the end man would
leave this sinking ship of the planet
system. Darling swiftly as light Oh
wondrous machines. man" speeds tC
distant, happier stars-perhaps to that
lation of the Centaur, which is only
four billions of miles away from US.
There is another solution somewhat
more difficult of apprehension.
Suppose this outward picture of hui
mainly were wiped out some day
The earth has rolled into the sun end
a new gaseous sphere has been form
ed. But in it's new development there
appear wonderful provisions. Matter
after wandering for billions of years
through human brains, in billions OF
generations of thinking creatures, has
| changed!
Is the matter that has wandered
through the brain of a Shakespeare OF
a Goethe the same in its innermost
properties as it was? Or is ii some.
thing else?
The chemist says: 1.-THE proportions
of weight of atoms of iron and so forth
are unchanging." But the weight OF
the atoms in a raw block of marble
may be exactly the same as in the
! Venus of Milo. Is there no difference
Imagine then that through kind OF
| world bequest certain things had beer
! made easier for this new gaseous
world. Then the chain of evolution