12 evolution: the ages and tomorrow 



microcosm, together with the revelation of something of 

 the vast geography of the universe and the distribution of 

 galaxies all apparently rushing away from each other into 

 deep space, places before us an awe-inspiring picture. The 

 earth is reduced to a "cosmic pebble" in one of millions of 

 island universes, each with billions of stars— a pebble, how- 

 ever, that is of tremendous importance in the evolution of 

 the mind in matter-energy substance. It is only on the earth 

 and in similar situations in the universe that a high-level ex- 

 pression of mind is possible. The necessary conditions are 

 exceedingly peculiar— so much so that, perhaps, only a few 

 comparable situations occur in a whole galaxy of stars. In 

 our own solar system only the earth is so favored, although 

 there may be some possibility of low forms of life on Mars. 

 Questions as to the origin of the earth are of high interest 

 and are a matter of concern to our theses: one would not 

 wish to confine the evolution of the mind to a few scattered 

 locales in an infinite waste. 



The "riddle of the universe" is, perhaps, the most difficult 

 problem of science and will not easily be solved. Was the 

 universe formed "catastrophically" when all the matter in 

 space, after being concentrated in one superatom, exploded 

 outward in a holocaust of billions of degrees temperature? 

 A universe finite in time and in space; born yesterday to die 

 tomorrow. 



Or, is it cyclic, being bom to die to be bom again— matter 

 concentrating to explode to be concentrated again endlessly? 

 A cosmos such as this reminds one of the intensely cyclic 

 religion of the Hindus who see Brahman exhaling and in- 

 haling the universe eon after eon. 



Or, has it always been somewhat like its present form, 

 changing only locally in an endless birth and death of gal- 

 axies, suns, and earths— an eternal succession of stages upon 

 which the drama of life may be played for awhile? This 

 hypothesis is the more pleasing philosophically since it does 

 not involve the dire prediction based on the second law of 



