OUR PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 393, 24 March 1908, Page 4

OUR PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE.

By Sir Oliver Lodge. On this planet we are the highest of the forms of life that we see. You are apt to think that you are the highest that exists, whereas there is no reason for thinking so at all. We are sometimes asked whether other planets are inhabited. I think we may say we know that the moon is not; any life there may once have been on it appears now to be extinct; its whole surface looks dead and inert. We sometimes think that the planet Mars is inhabited. Perhaps it is; but I venture to think that on the whole it is most probable that we are at the present time the only intelligently inhabited planet in the solar system. , , Men Eave not been here long. I do not pretend to say how long. I may take it that the earth has gone through a long labour of preparation for the existence of the human race. 'We know less about the history of the human race than we know about the history of the planet. Thus, then, the chances are that if we visit a planet, chosen at random, we shall find either in the labour of preparation or in the state of rest after activity. The duration of the existence of a race akin to the human race may be but an episode in the life of a planet, and if the earth, has been inhabited for only 1,000,000 out of 20,000,000 years, it may be conjectured that there is a chance of only x in 200 in favour of any other planet chosen at random being similiarly inhabited. There is a great deal more to be said , that is only the first word, as it were, of an argument, but it is not to be wholly overlooked. In our solar system, however, there are planets of all sizes one a thousand times larger than the earth ; and there are still smaller lumps of matter capering around the sun, of which one occasionally falls on the earth and can be dug up. There are also large quantities of minute particles, down even to separate atoms. The sun is so large" that it has not had time to cool even on the surface. It is a blazing mass of gas, and is not likely to be inhabited ; nor is Jupiter, Others are cool enough to be inhabited, but it is not clear whether they have reached a period at which something recoguisably higher than the human race is existing upon itThe solar system is but a fragment of the universe. Every star is a sun with a solar system. It is possible that there may be millions of planets inhabited by human beings higher or lower than ourselves. What we see going on is what we call the process of evolution-—from broken fragment to coherent masses, and to inhabited worlds — from chaos to cosmos; a struggle upward of the universe; from something low and disorganised to something higher and organised.

As to „how life orginates on these planets, science is ignorant at present. It is an entire mystery. I would not have you build too much on that. Ido not think it will always remain a mystery, nor would I have a theologian shaken in his views if science should discover something about the nature and origin of life. I want you to realise that this process of evolution is not a process which negatives or excludes the idea of divine activity. It is the way the Deity works.

The attempt to show that evolution is unguided —that it is the result of absolute chances —fails. What is pointed to is not unguided Random change, , but guided change. The other could not be done in time.

What we have to realise in regard to our place in the universe is that we are intelligent, helpful, and active parts of the cosmic scheme. We are among the agents of the Creator. One of the most helpful ideas is co-operation —helping one another. Co-opera-tion —this in a new and stimulating sense —co-operation with the Divinity himself.