And there is nothing surprising in this. The inhabitants of the
Earth take no interest in the Heavens. Ninety-nine per cent, of them
among the 1,500 million Earth-dwellers do not know what they walk
on and have no conception of the reality. They are busy with eating,
drinking, and reproducing themselves, with amassing various objects,
with patriotically devouring each other, and with dying. But as regards
asking where they are or what is the universe, that is no concern of
theirs. Their native ignorance suffices them. They live in the middle
of the Heavens without knowing it and without the slightest enjoyment
of intellectual happiness which some select spirits find in the
recognition of truth.
The inhabitants of Mars, on the other hand, being more ancient than
ourselves, can be much more advanced in the way of progress and can
live an enlightened and intellectual spiritual life. We are safe in
supposing that they know our world much better than we know theirs, and
that our astronomical science is only child’s place beside theirs. If,
therefore, the people of Mars, living perhaps for a long time already
in the harmony of a peaceful and intelligent life, had thought of
attempting to send signals to the Earth, with the idea that perhaps our
planet is also inhabited by an intellectual race, then since they have
never received any answer from us they will have concluded that we are
not on their level, that we do not busy ourselves with the matters of
the sky, that astronomy and optics are not very advanced among us, and
that in all probability we have not yet emerged from clumsy material
instincts. Is their conclusion very far from the truth?
Perhaps also the Martian academies declare the Earth uninhabitable and
uninhabited: (1) because it is not absolutely identical with their
planet, (2) because we have only one Moon whereas they have two, (3)
because our years are too short, (4) because our sky is very often
overcast, whereas theirs is almost always clear, (5 and 6) for a
thousand other reasons, each as cogent as the rest.