In short, all observers of Venus agree in thinking that her atmosphere, to a greater or less extent, serves as a mask to conceal her real features, and the possibilities of so extensive an atmosphere with reference to an adjustment of the peculiar conditions of the planet to the requirements of life upon it, are almost unlimited. If we could accurately analyze that atmosphere we would have a basis for more exact conclusions concerning Venus's habitability. But the mere existence of the atmosphere is, in itself, a strong argument for the habitability of the planet, and as to the temperature, we are really not compelled to imagine special adaptations by means of which it may be brought into accord with that prevailing upon the earth. As long as the temperature does not rise to the _destructive_ point, beyond which our experience teaches that no organic life can exist, it may very well attain an elevation that would mean extreme discomfort from our point of view, without precluding the existence of life even in its terrestrial sense. And would it not be unreasonable to assume that vital phenomena on other planets must be subject to exactly the same limitations that we find circumscribing them in our world? That kind of assumption has more than once led us far astray even in dealing with terrestrial conditions. It is not so long ago, for instance, since life in the depths of the sea was deemed to be demonstrably impossible. The bottom of the ocean, we were assured, was a region of eternal darkness and of frightful pressure, wherein no living creatures could exist. Yet the first dip of the deep-sea trawl brought up animals of marvelous delicacy of organization, which, although curiously and wonderfully adapted to live in a compressed liquid, collapsed when lifted into a lighter medium, and which, despite the assumed perpetual darkness of their profound abode, were adorned with variegated colors and furnished with organs of phosphorescence whereby they could create for themselves all the light they needed. Even the fixed animals of the sea, growing, like plants, fast to the rocks, are frequently vivid with living light, and there is a splendid suggestion of nature's powers of adaptation, which may not be entirely inapplicable to the problems of life on strange planets, in Alexander Agassiz's statement that species of sea animals, living below the depths to which sunlight penetrates, "may dwell in total darkness and be illuminated at times merely by the movements of abyssal fishes through the forests of phosphorescent alcyonarians." In attempting to judge the habitability of a planet such as Venus we must first, as far as possible, generalize the conditions that govern life and restrict its boundaries.