MARS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In your article in the Spectator of August 20th, on what I think the insanely-foolish notion of trying to open communication with the inhabitants of Mars, you express the opinion that the effect of " the widening of our horizon" by astronomical discovery has been to deepen in an injurious degree the sense of human insignificance. That is not my feeling. The same truth may affect different minds differently, and in " The Scientific Bases of • France of To-Day : a S rn.v. Comparative and Retroxpect.roo. Ry M. Retham- Faith," published twenty years ago, I wrote It not only Percival and Co. 1192.
magnifies the Creator's glory, but to my mind it lessens the weight of the moral perplexities of this earth to ' Look up through night : the world is wide ; ' to reflect that the same laws of matter and force are at work in our planet and in every one of ' Yonder hundred million spheres ; ' and to think it possible that many of the worlds around us are portions not only of the same material universe, but also of the same moral and spiritual universe, with our own world; and that, as the laws of life are the same in organisms of diverse kinds,.so the same mental, moral, and spiritual laws may be working in many worlds, to different results in each, and all of them admirable."—I am, Sir, &c.,
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