28 TWO NEW WORLDS 



It follows that whatever advance is possible must 

 be looked for in our own universe. Our universe is 

 the complete epitome of sentient possibilities. It 

 commands a distant view of the universes next 

 below and next above in the universal scale of 

 magnitude. Next bolow us we have the "infra- 

 world," which to us appears in the shape of mole- 

 cular phenomena. Next above us we have what 

 may be called the " supra- world," which appears to 

 us as a stellar universe, just as we appear to the 

 inhabitants of the infra-world, if such there be. 



The whole gamut of possible experiences is thus 

 within our reach. Our physical organisation attaches 

 us to the surface of a rolling globe, and if we ascend 

 or descend in the scale of magnitudes we find no 

 similar possibility of existence until the ratio becomes 

 10 22 to 1. Life as we know it is confined to surfaces 

 of planets. If there are other types of life (which is 

 quite conceivable) they are as inaccessible to us as 

 the inner life of a tree or a flower. 



No life remotely resembling our own is possible 

 on any scale intermediate between us and the infra- 

 world. But if the main thesis of this essay is true, 

 and the infra-world is a habitable universe not 

 essentially different from our own, then there is no 

 valid argument, either in physiology or psychology, 

 to show the impossibility of our having been inhabi- 

 tants of the infra-world previous to our birth into 

 this world. A life of " seventy years " in the infra- 



