MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
extended along the plane of the Milky Way, would appear 
about five times as wide as its hub. Within this lens- 
shaped star cluster, which we call our galaxy, the stars, if 
we could count them all, would probably number some 
thirty billions. 
As we gazed about us from our supposed observing point, 
a million light-years distant, we should see still other clus- 
ters of stars not belonging to our system, for our galaxy 
is not the only one in space. There are, indeed, hundreds 
of thousands of other island universes, each of multitudes 
of stars, besides that one which contains the well-known 
constellations, the solar system,and the world of man. Do 
other stars within our own galaxy have planets revolving 
about them? If so, are these planets inhabited by con- 
scious beings? Do other island universes far outside our 
galaxy contain still other inhabited worlds? In short, is it 
reasonable to believe that among the hundreds of thou- 
sands of galaxies, each containing its millions or billions 
of stars, only one world supports creatures equal to man? 
So much for the world’s setting in regard to space. What 
of its extension in the domain of time? “The days of our 
years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of 
strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength 
labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” 
So writes the Psalmist of the individual. As the history of 
the ancient world is recovered in written inscriptions on 
walls and tablets, we are carried back to a time six thou- 
sand years ago when men already built great works, mar- 
shaled armies, and carried on industries. Dating from 
many thousands of years before this earliest recorded his- 
tory, evidences of human skill and fossil human remains in 
cave dwellings are still preserved. These indications grow 
less and less evidential of high intelligence in man with in- 
creasing antiquity, until at last, at a time estimated at 
much less than a million years ago, man fades from the 
scene. Back of that period, animal and vegetable king- 
doms persisted for periods estimated at several hundreds 
[2] 
