And all of those who think and sympathize with their fellow creatures are busy with the problem of putting things right on this little desert island that carries us along in the wake of the sun.
Most of us imagine that the most important work for men is the organization of life on this little planet. That is a very small and mean idea of man"s real destiny.
When a man builds a house, the planning of sanitary arrangements must first be attended to. After that begin the real life and the real interests. That real life and those real interests are not confined to the front yard or the back yard of the man that owns the house. ----
So it will be some day with us who are now engaged in the detailed organization of the little home which we call the earth.
We are fixing up our moral plumbing--fighting poverty, injustice, and, above all, ignorance. We are fighting the meanness that comes of compet.i.tion and the greater meanness that is based upon the dread of poverty in the future. Some of us are piling up millions that we can never use, while others suffer for lack of that which could be abundantly supplied.
All these little earthly questions that seem so big will be settled in time.
But a few years in the sight of Time--a few hundred centuries, perhaps, as we count them--and our earthly habitation will have been made fit to live in. We shall have eliminated the unfit--not by killing them off, but by educating them. We shall have solved the question of poverty by solving the question of production, and especially of distribution. We shall have developed a citizenship capable of earnest work, of sobriety and of moral decency, without the spur of want, imprisonment or the scaffold as necessary adjuncts.
In time the human race will have solved its little problems here--the problems that seem so vast to-day.
When that time comes we shall be like the man who has put his house in order, and our thoughts will not be confined to this little piece of ground. Then we shall appreciate the cosmic wisdom which has divided our day into darkness and light--the light for the enjoyment of the material beauties of our earthly home; THE NIGHT FOR THE STUDY AND ENJOYMENT OF THE VAST, MYSTERIOUS UNIVERSE SPREAD OUT AROUND US.
Everybody knows that the aged require less sleep than the young.
In the future, this will make old age what it ought to be, a blessing, because it will give to the old more hours of the night for contemplation of the Infinite and all its wonders.
Those of us who now think themselves very abstract when they speculate on the North Pole, or when they discuss the possibility of reclaiming the Desert of Sahara, will have their minds many millions of miles away from this earth a great deal of the time.
We shall communicate, perhaps, with our sister-planet, Venus--the planet most like ours in physical arrangement. We shall be intensely interested in that world, where it is always night on one side of the planet, and always day on the other.
We shall realize with deepest envy the fact that the constant, terrific currents of air whirling around Venus, in consequence of the extreme heat and the extreme cold on opposite sides of the planet, have developed a race as far superior to us as the trout in the swift-flowing brook is superior to the heavy-eyed catfish in the bottom of the pond. ----
We shall humbly beg for information from the superior inhabitants of other worlds, and perhaps wait with impatience for release from duty here which shall take us to a higher planetary existence. If we look backward at all, we shall consider our present selves simply as refined cannibals, who lived upon the labor and the suffering of our fellows instead of feeding upon their bodies. ----
It may seem ridiculous to predict that the time will come when the intelligent man"s interests will be nearly all outside of the earth on which he lives.
But to the savage of the Congo, squatted beside a decaying hippopotamus, gorging himself with the meat, with not a thought beyond that carca.s.s or beyond the edge of the river, it would seem preposterous to speak of men whose interests range out over the entire world.
We look upon a man as very small to-day unless all knowledge interests him, unless his mind roams daily all over the civilized globe, sharing in the interests of all nations, in the literature, the discoveries and the activities of all nations.
To-day we, with our minds on little, material problems, our thoughts centred on this one little planet, as we lead our selfish lives, are like that Congo savage hacking away at the dead hippopotamus.
When night comes, we shut our eyes like the chickens, waiting for the light that means money-making or pleasure of the senses; or we go to theatres or to b.a.l.l.s, or elsewhere, to shut out as far as possible all knowledge of that marvellous, unlimited creation to which we belong, and which it is our greatest privilege feebly to study. ----
The geography cla.s.s of the future will be a cla.s.s in astronomy.
The real problems of the future will be the problems outside of this earth, and the real interests of the future will be interests connected with the universe at large.
We shall make of this earth a beautiful garden, inhabited by safe, happy human beings. We shall take pride in it, and enjoy it by day. Our intellectual lives will begin with the going down of the sun and the gradual appearance of those mighty neighbors in s.p.a.ce that alone will interest the thinking man of future days.
LAST WEEK"S BABY WILL SURELY TALK SOME DAY
It is believed by scientists that the planet Mars may be striving at this moment to communicate with us. Lines of light are seen on her surface--on the border of that part of Mars known as Lake Iscarie--and men of learning believe that the Martians are trying to signal our earth.
Possibly they are trying.
Of this you may be sure: Sooner or later we shall communicate with all the planets, and perhaps through the giant sun receive news of outside solar systems.
We have lived comparatively but a few hours on this earth. The civilization on Mars is millions of years older than our own.
Although we are still primitive savages, we have done wonders already.
We can talk instantaneously with a Chinese sitting cross-legged on the under (or upper) side of our earth. We can send a message around the earth in a few seconds.
Of course we shall talk to Mars as soon as we get out of our cradle down here.
Look into an ordinary cradle where a week-old baby lies nursing his wrath or trying to talk to his toe. There are around him eighty millions of other human beings--fourteen hundred millions if you count all on earth--and he, the baby, cannot say one word to any of them. He does not even know his own mother.
Like humanity on this earth, he is busy growing up. He has not had time to spread out and get an interest in his surroundings.
His liver must get small--at the end of his milk diet. His legs must get straight and strong. He must learn to creep and walk.
After a period as extensive in his life as a thousand centuries in the life of the race, he begins to talk to those about him.
We do not believe that the time has yet come for us to talk to the Martians, or to the inhabitants of any other older planet.
They may possibly be signalling to us up there, as a man inexperienced will signal to a new-born baby or even try to make it understand what he says.
It is probable, however, that Mars, far advanced in science, as superior to us as we are to new-born infants, would use the light only to attract our interest and let us know that when the time comes we have an old brother planet anxious to chat with this baby earth.
It will be most interesting when the talking time does come. The men who have lived, studied, experimented millions of years ahead of us will be able to tell us many things that we need to know.
Like the baby in the cradle, we are compelled now to discover everything for ourselves. Our old brother Mars, as soon as we can understand, may help us to take giant steps forward, just as a younger brother, as soon as he can speak, is taught by his elder in one of our families. ----
It will be interesting, also, to observe how we shall probably reject the good advice given us, as the young person here rejects the words of experience.
Suppose we could talk to Mars, and suppose the wise old people up there should tell us that millions of years of experience had made clear the fact that making money is a foolish occupation.
How many of us would cease striving for money? The very scientist giving us the message would patent his interstellar talking process and die happy with a huge fortune.
How cheerful also will it be a million or so years hence! We shall then be like a very young child among the planets. Two of the older worlds will be talking, and we shall be permitted to listen, but not to interrupt.
We shall hear questions put as to our origin and destiny.
We know now that the sun, flying through s.p.a.ce, is dragging us toward some unknown spot in the universe. Our older brothers in s.p.a.ce will have definite ideas as to where we are going and why we are going there.
It will be interesting to follow their speculations, and occasionally, if permitted, to offer our feeble little ideas, as the smart boy occasionally speaks up before his elders.
Our future as one of a family of planets freely communicating with each other cannot be doubted.
He must have a dull imagination who believes that the eternal Law regulating matters here has put such limits to our possible development as would shut us out from a share in the big solar family life to which we belong.
THE GOOD THAT IS DONE BY THE TRUSTS THE MAMMOTH MADE OUR FIRST PATHS THROUGH THE FOREST