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E. WALTER MAUNDER^ F.R.A.S., OX THE 



and they also adniit to combination, but in smaller proportions, 

 a number of the other elements, of which we may take sulphur 

 as an example. 



This fact disposes at once of the vague plea which is some- 

 times raised, " Is it not possible that there may be life upon 

 other worlds under physical conditions totally different from 

 those which prevail here ? " We cannot think it, for the 

 evidence of the spectroscope hns shown us that the same 

 elements that are familiar to us here are present, not only in 

 our sun, but in the most distant stars. And more than that, 

 the elements have the same properties there as here. For the 

 evidence of the spectrum of a body is evidence of its essential 

 structure, far more searching than any chemical analysis could 

 possibly give ; it reveals to us the qualities of its ultimate 

 molecules. 



The same elements therefore exist throughout space, and exist 

 with the same qualities. Xor are we able to call into imagined 

 existence other elements of which we know nothing with 

 properties quite unrelated to those of the known elements. 

 For the Periodic Law has shown us that the elements do not 

 exist as isolated phenomena, to which we could in imagination 

 add indefinitely in any direction, but that they are strictly 

 related to each other in all their properties. If, therefore, 

 organic Hfe on another world could be built up of elements 

 other than the four which form its chief basis here, we should 

 have the same phenomenon occurring within our own experi- 

 ence. We may therefore dismiss, as a wholly chimerical 

 hypothesis, the suggestion that the conditions of life as we find 

 them here may be abrogated elsewhere. 



What are the conditions of habitability here on this world ? 

 They have never been more happily stated than by Euskin ir 

 his Modern Painters. 



" When the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of 

 man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between 

 him and its darkness ; in which were joined, in a subdued 

 measure, the stability and the insensibility of the earth and the 

 passion and perishing of mankind. 



" But the heavens also had to be prepared for his habitation. 

 Between their burning light — their deep vacuity — and man, as 

 between the earth's gloom of iron substance and man, a veil had 

 to be spread of intermediate being — which should appease the 

 unendurable glory to the level of human feebleness, and sign 

 the changeless motion of the heavens with the semblance of 

 human vicissitude. Between the earth and man arose the 



