Man introduces benevolence, mercy, altruism, into the world, and he
pays the price in his added burdens; and he reaps his reward in the
vast social and civic organizations that were impossible without
these things.
I have no doubt that the life of man upon this planet will end, as
all other forms of life will end. But the potential man will
continue and does continue on other spheres. One cannot think of one
part of the universe as producing man, and no other part as capable
of it. The universe is all of a piece so far as its material
constituents are concerned; that we know. Can there be any doubt
that it is all of a piece so far as its invisible and intangible
forces and capabilities are concerned? Can we believe that the earth
is an alien and a stranger in the universe? that it has no near kin?
that there is no tie of blood, so to speak, between it and the other
planets and systems? Are the planets not all of one family, sitting
around the same central source of warmth and life? And is not our
system a member of a still larger family or tribe, and it of a still
larger, all bound together by ties of consanguinity? Size is
nothing, space is nothing. The worlds are only red corpuscles in the
arteries of the infinite. If man has not yet appeared on the other
planets, he will in time appear, and when he has disappeared from
this globe, he will still continue elsewhere.
I do not say that he is the end and aim of creation; it would be
logical, I think, to expect a still higher form. Man has been man
but a little while comparatively, less than one hour of the twenty-
four of the vast geologic day; a few hours more and he will be gone;
less than another geologic day like the past, and no doubt all life
from the earth will be gone. What then? The game will be played over
and over again in other worlds, without approaching any nearer the
final end than we are now. There is no final end, as there was no
absolute beginning, and can be none with the infinite.
THE END
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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