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little more than the transplanting of civilization. It is social reproduction, and the universal condition to reproduction is decay. Social evolution is in this respect identical with organic evolution. The great types of animals and plants, as shown by their geological history, have similarly had their rise, culmination, and decline. But out of them have arisen new and more vigorous types that have successively carried forward the work of structural development until the present floras and faunas of the globe are far higher than those of any past epoch. Pteridophytes succeeded thallophytes, spermatophytes succeeded lepidophytes, angiosperms succeeded gymnosperms, and dicotyledons at last crowned the series of vegetal dynasties. Vertebrates succeeded trilobites and molluscs, amphibians succeeded fishes, reptiles succeeded batrachians, birds and mammals succeeded reptiles. Finally the higher mammals succeeded the lower, and man came last to crown the animal series. It is true that the lower types did not become extinct, but in almost every case, both in the vegetable and in the animal kingdom, the leading form of each type perished, and only the less specialized forms have come down to us. Witness among plants, the Lepidodendron, Sigillaria, and Calamites of the Carboniferous, the Bennettitean cycads of the Mesozoic; and among animals, the trilobites, the ganoid fishes, the dinosaurs, and the mammoth.

To maintain that because human races decline and degenerate the human species must also do so, is the same as to maintain that because many types of vegetation and of animal life have become extinct all plants and all animals must ultimately do so. The logic is unsound, and there is nothing to prove that not only life but also man may not continue indefinitely.

From any such standpoint as that from which we are now viewing the races of men the world appears to be in an infantile state. Europe and North America, where the highest civilization is found, form much less than half the globe, and the population of those areas is proportionally still less. By far the greater part of the earth has scarcely been touched with the spirit of science. That this influence is destined to spread over the whole earth is scarcely open to doubt. But the scientific

achievements of the most advanced races, great as they may seem when compared with pre-scientific ages, are really trifling when looked at from the standpoint of possibilities.

Everyone has seen a map of the surface of the planet Mars with its wonderful canals. Schiaparelli was perfectly right in saying that they indicate the action of intelligent beings. The chief objection to this view is the gigantic scale on which these works are projected. It is said that man has never undertaken anything so colossal. The comparatively trifling task of cutting a channel large enough for ships to pass through the narrow Isthmus of Panama has well-nigh baffled his powers. What can be thought of a scheme of making a whole continent a network of great rivers many miles in width? Without pretending to any knowledge of areography, and without expressing any opinion as to the nature of the Martian canals, I will merely use this as an illustration of the possibilities of an intelligent being occupying a planet for a sufficiently prolonged period. If these canals really represent gigantic engineering operations, their magnitude is no obstacle to our understanding them. Mars, from his position in the solar system, is many million years older than the earth. Assuming that he has had an approximately parallel experience with that of the earth, his Tertiary period began ages earlier than ours. If the intelligent being, whatever its physical form, was developed there at the same relative date as man, that being has been in existence millions of years longer than man. The age of race differentiation need not have been longer than that of man. All the rest of that vast period has been passed in race integration and whatever followed this. We may suppose that an era of science was evolved there as here and at approximately the same stage in the history of the species. But that era has lasted thousands of times as long as has ours. Man has only just begun the conquest of nature. We may suppose that in Mars the conquest of nature is complete, and that every law and every force of nature has been discovered and utilized. Under such conditions there would seem to be scarcely any limit to the power of the being possessing this knowledge to transform the planet and adapt it to its needs.

The lesson is that man may also do this. With any considerable part of the time that the supposed inhabitants of Mars have had, man can scarcely fail to reach a stage at which he will become absolute master of his physical environment, and at which the operations which he now performs will seem like the work of ants. Just as he has now learned that in union is strength, and that the way of safety, success, and achievement lies through association, so he will then have learned that this is as true of races as of individuals, and that the union, association, and complete fusion of all races into one great homogeneous -is the final step in social evolution.1 LESTER F. WARD.

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WASHINGTON, D. C.

I This article was finished in its present form on September 19, 1902. On the 20th the following item appeared in many of the newspapers of the country:

"THE INHABITANTS OF MARS.

"In his recent expressions as to the habitability of the planet Mars, Professor Hough, of Northwestern University, has the weight of authority with him, though many astronomers will question seriously his bold declaration that the planet is actually inhabited with sentient beings of a high type. The whole tendency of recent investigation has been to strengthen the view that Mars both in its atmosphere and in its chemical character is fitted to support animal life.

"The point of interest in Professor Hough's announcement is the declaration that, as the law of evolution has resulted in the development of a sentient race on earth, that law, operating in the case of the Martians, must have produced there a race now greatly superior to the people of earth in intellectual development. Mars, Venus, and Mercury, he reasons, are old planets, and presumably habitable. Mars, being very much older than the earth, and having solidified and cooled long before the earth was fit for animal habitation, the process of evolution there presumably began much earlier. Judging from the published excerpts from Professor Hough's report, he is ready to believe that the Martians have advanced to a stage of cultivation and intelligence which is hardly conceivable to the minds of earthly races."

Struck by the coincidence both in the date and in the idea expressed, but wishing to be sure of its authenticity, I immediately wrote to Professor James, president of Northwestern University, who kindly turned my letter over to Professor Hough. In due course of mail I received a letter from him to the effect that what he had to say as to the habitability of other planets had not yet been put in shape for publication, and that the newspaper report was simply dictated to the reporter.

SHORTENING THE COLLEGE COURSE: THE SOCIAL

POINT OF VIEW.

EVERYONE at all familiar with the history of modern education knows that during the past four or five centuries all progressive peoples have been steadily strengthening and enriching their systems of public instruction. To provide a more extended and a better training for all children has been the aim constantly before enlightened statesmen and ruling bodies. One cannot fail to be impressed with the vigor of this movement, if he will compare what is being done today in America, or England, or France, or Germany with the best that was done anywhere in the world, even as late as in the time of John Locke, who has told us much of the ideals and practices of his age. Then a boy was thought to be well equipped for life if he received eight or ten years of tuition in the classics; and only the favored few, the élite, who had leisure, were expected to have such an elaborate schooling as this. But now in most of the great nations every child is given the privilege of, and is even required to pursue, a long course of training at public expense. In our own country and in some others it is not only the common or elementary school that is free to all children; but anyone who chooses and is qualified therefor may spend four years more in the high school as a ward of the public, and many in every community avail themselves of this opportunity. And this is not all; among us nearly every commonwealth maintains its university, which is practically free to the youths of the state who have mastered what is presented in the schools below; and here they may remain at least a half-dozen years, if they wish and have the ability to take advantage of the opportunities offered them.

The ambition everywhere, these later years, has been to lengthen the school period for all children. Public sentiment has approved every effort that has been made to achieve this end. The cry has come from all quarters: "Keep the boy at school." Parents have sacrificed their own comforts that they might

give their offspring a "better schooling than they had themselves;" communities have sacrificed present advantage that the rising generation might be more broadly and thoroughly disciplined than the one passing off the stage. Theorists have taught that the well-being of any nation is in the long run always dependent upon the breadth and depth of its educational régime, and lawmakers have written upon the statute-books provisions. which are designed to compel indifferent or hostile men, if there are any, to put themselves into line with this tremendous upward tendency in every department of educational activity. Statesmen everywhere have indorsed the sentiments of Lord Brougham: "The schoolmaster is abroad, and I trust to him, armed with his primer, against the soldier in full military array."

In recent times there has been heard above the general acclamation hardly a voice raised in opposition to the multiplication of school advantages and the extension of the educational period for all persons. But just now there are some indications of disaffection which are quite threatening. A few people occupying high positions in the councils of the nation have discovered that it is possible to carry the educational business too far. It has been pointed out that in Germany, for instance, the thing has been overdone, and there have been produced already a good many learned paupers, doctors of philosophy who have to beg for bread. The universities are charged with having spoiled many good carpenters and mechanics and clerks; and some think the presence of this large body of men whose wits have been sharpened, but who are putting them to no good use, and who are restless and dissatisfied, is a source of danger to the empire. One distinguished German educator recently expressed grave doubts respecting the wisdom of the United States accepting the Carnegie and other gifts, because of the danger of our getting on our hands a lot of overeducated men who could not be utilized to advantage in the social organism.

Among us it is being said that boys do not get into practical work early enough. Our grandfathers set up for themselves at twenty-one, but the young men of today are working over their

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