THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. I5 



side is never turned towards us, and therefore it is that the con- 

 ditions of the other side of the moon may be habitable. As to 

 the planets, why we may ask have they received years and 

 seasons and movements and material just like ovir mother 

 earth? Why do the snows of Mars melt each spring and des- 

 cend to fertilize its continents.'' Why exist the clouds of Jup- 

 iter which spread freshness and shade over its immense plains? 

 For what purpose is the atmosphere of Venus which spreads 

 like a garment over its valleys and mountains? Dr. Whewell 

 argued that the excessive heat of Mercury and Venus rendered 

 them as unfit for habitation, as the excessive cold would Jupiter 

 aiid Saturn, and so he drew dismal pictures of icy sterility and 

 giant masses of snow and ice and perpetual fog. Bvit Tyndall 

 has since taught us that heat and cold do not depend so much 

 on distance from the sun as on the atmospheric envelope which 

 folds the planet. Thus the inhabitants of Venus, Mercury and 

 even Neptune may enjoy a climate as kindly as that of our own 

 earth. We know more of Mars than of any of our sister 

 worlds. The conditions of Mars and the earth are analogous. 



Vapor has been proved to float in Mars' atmosphere, so 

 water must exist in Mars. Clouds covering extensive regions 

 have been observed to melt away with the progress of the mar- 

 tial day exactly as morning mists fly by the advancing heat of 

 our own summer days. If Mars be uninhabited, then, indeed, it 

 exhibits to us physical relations, fulfilling no purpose that 

 human reason can conceive, lamps lighting nothing, waters 

 quenching nothing, clouds screening nothing, breezes fanning 

 nothing, and everything, mountain and valley, hill and dale, 

 continent and ocean, all meaning nothing. The Creator wastes 

 nothing. 



Nature is exviberant, but yet full of economy. These mil- 

 lions of blazing M^orlds do not roll and shine only for all moi^tals 

 to gape and wonder at and for a fe\v, a very few, of us to 

 study. God's Son said, speaking to His disciples : " Other 

 sheep I have which are not of this fold." Where are the other 

 folds? Do they float in the liquid blue around us, far, far be- 

 yond the lazy-pacing clouds? Is this world the single lost one 



