THE FUTURE HABITABILITY OF THE EARTH. 1 



By Thomas Chrowdee Chamberlin, 

 Of the University of Chicago. 



Ever since the human race came to have a virile desire for intelli- 

 gence it has tried to peer into the future that it might satisfy its 

 curiosity and guide itself by foresight. Now and then it has tried 

 to prolong its vision beyond the immediate future that it might fore- 

 cast the destiny of the race and the fate of the earth on which it 

 dwells. In all these endeavors the depth of its penetration into the 

 unknown before it, has been closely measured by the depth of its 

 vision into the history behind it, and both the look before and the 

 look behind have been close akin to the depth of its vision into the 

 things about it. The light of the present and the lamp of the past 

 have been its guides in the forecast. Beyond question this is the true 

 method, and doubtless it will always remain the true method, for 

 only as the race sees far into the past, and probes deeply and widely 

 into the present, has it any firm basis for a sure prophecy of the 

 future. 



The race did not fail to note even in its early days that the existing 

 forms come into existence, live their day, and pass away. Why not 

 then the race and the earth on which it dwells? "While it was felt 

 that this might not be true of the ultimate entities, it seemed clearly 

 to be the order of things with the tangible forms. And so it will 

 doubtless continue to be as the race grows into its fuller intellectual 

 maturity and the horizon of its vision is enlarged, for there will no 

 doubt remain the conviction that there has been a beginning of the 

 current order of things and a like conviction that there will be an 

 end. The increased breadth of vision that will come from research 

 will only serve to bring into view still greater multitudes of organ- 

 isms that have come into form, endured for a time, and passed away. 

 And so any future change in the mode of building up the forecast 



iThis paper is essentially the same in substance as the presidential address before 

 the American Association for the Advancement of Science delivered at Boston Dec. 27, 

 1909, but it has been freely revised and given a briefer title for publication in the 

 Smithsonian Report. — T. C. Chamberlin. 



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