Professor Newcomb in his "Reminiscences" describes his first sweeping the heavens, at random, with the then new twenty-six inch refractor at the Naval Observatory and discovering a little cluster of stars so small and faint that the individual stars eluded even the great power of this instrument. He says: "I could not help the vain longing which one must sometimes feel under such circumstances, to know what beings might live on planets belonging to what, from an earthly point of view, seemed to be on the border of creation itself." One would suppose that this expression of a longing to ascertain the character of the beings inhabiting planets circling these distant suns would induce one to study a planet analogous to our Earth, and so near in comparison to these unimaginable distances as to be within a hand's grasp, so to speak. The little interest Professor Newcomb has taken in the subject is well expressed in his late book "Astronomy for Everybody." In his chapter on Mars, in which _Everybody_ is certainly interested, he says: "The reader will excuse me for saying anything in this chapter about the possible inhabitants of Mars. He knows just as much of the subject as I do, and that is nothing at all." He might at least have given the various pronouncements of Schiaparelli, Lowell, and others as to the probable character of these remarkable markings on Mars, and their supposed significance. While Professor Newcomb's attitude on the question of the plurality of worlds has been somewhat conservative in the past he has lately, however, expressed himself on the question in no uncertain terms. In a recent article in "Harper's Magazine," entitled "Probability of Life in Other Worlds," he has lent his sanction to the rational idea that other worlds may be the abode of intelligent creatures. His recognition of the principle will do much to offset the influence if it ever had any, of a recent book published in England by Alfred Russel Wallace, in which the distinguished author attempts to show that this world stands alone as the abode of intelligent life. Despite his epoch-making work with Darwin, nearly fifty years ago, which must forever merit our gratitude, and the charm of his various essays on protective coloring, mimicry, theory of birds' nests, etc., he has since those lucid days expressed convictions of such a nature that if a future DeMorgan should write on human paradoxes he would classify Mr. Wallace as chief among them. A profound believer in evolution, he exempts man from the inexorable logic of the principle with about as much reason as if, confessing his belief in the nebular hypothesis, he should insist that the Earth was an exception.