Ten years after publishing The War of the Worlds , H.G. Wells revisited the Red Planet , spell a non - fiction clause speculating about what eccentric of spirit subsist on Mars . The provocative interrogative he posed to reader : “ Is it likely that evolution has gone upon exactly parallel lines on the two planets ? ”
Theessay , published in the March 1908 event of Cosmopolitan cartridge clip , was titled “ The thing That subsist On Mars ” and featured astonishing illustration ( result and below ) by William R. Leigh who , until then , had made a living painting landscapes of the American West . Years later , the famed science - fable author Edmond Hamilton woulddescribethe clause — which he discovered when he was just four - year - sometime — as a defining moment in his life history : “ I look at that magazine until it outwear out . I was n’t yet capable to interpret it , to say the article , but those pictures ! I sat and wondered if Mars was a long way off and if it was a very strange place . ”
Wells account his clause as an intrusion by imagination , based upon “ scientific logical thinking … in conformance with the very previous astronomical disclosure . ” Although the central question on lector ’ minds was the potential cosmos of thinking beings , Wells argued that this could not be consider in closing off of the other lifeforms that had come out on the planet :
They can not live there alone ; they can be but a part of the instinctive story of Mars in just the same way that man is but a part of the lifelike history of the earth . They must have been evolved from other related to case , and so we must needs give our attention to the world-wide flora and brute of this world … before we can hope to look at at all reasonably with the ruling species . ”
It sounded logical , although it had one cardinal flaw : Wells derived most of the “ latest astronomical Book of Revelation ” about the Red Planet from Percival Lowell ’s controversial 1906 book , Mars and Its Canals , which was dismissed by most of Lowell ’s peers in the astronomic community . Still , it ’s difficult not to be swept up by Wells ’ colored descriptions , as he meticulously contemplated every scene of the Martian environment , and what it might reveal about the type of life that develop there .
Fauna and Flora
Wells reasoned that the appearance of “ Martin herbs and tree diagram ” was a consequence of the satellite ’s gravity and atmospherical conditions :
The military unit of sombreness upon the aerofoil of their major planet is just three - one-eighth of its power upon this earth ; a pound of anything here would matter six ounces upon Mars … The limit of altitude and sizing in tellurian plants is believably determined largely by the oeuvre needed to raise nourishment from the antecedent to their upmost points . That work would be so much less upon Mars that it seems reasonable to await grown plant life there than any that grow upon the earthly concern .
Snow occurs intimately everywhere all the twelvemonth round , but the commonest of all mannequin of precipitation upon Mars would seem to be dew and hoar frost….the Martian tree - leaf will be more after the fashion of a snow - meeting leafage , spiky perhaps like the pine - tree phonograph needle … Moreover , since wet will come up to the Martian industrial plant mainly from below in seasonal floods from the melt of the snow - caps , and not as rain from above , the distinctive Martian industrial plant will probably be tall and have its bunch and clump of spiky bluish greenish leaves upon lift up wheezy stalks .
Wells break down on to suggest that Martian botany offered worthful clues as to the types of animate being that lived in the alien timber :
[ Due to sparse melody ] its anatomy must be built with more lung place than the equate terrestrial figure . And the same reason that will make the vegetation laxer and flimsier will make the form of the Martian animal kingdom laxer and flimsier and either larger or else slenderer than earthly types . … Since the Martian vegetation will probably break away cock-a-hoop and magniloquent , there will be among these big - chested creatures climbing forms and spring and flying physique , all engage in seeking intellectual nourishment among its summit and branches . And a thing can not leap or fly without a well - aim head word and good eyes . So an imaginative artist may put in promontory and eyes , and the mechanically skillful vantage of a prow - and - aft arrangement of the body are so great that it is unmanageable to suppose them without some sort of back os . Since the Martian flora has become adapted to seasonal flood conditions there will be not only fliers and climbers but waders — long - legged variant . Well , here we get something — fliers , climbers , and waders , with a variety of backbone .
The Architects of the Canals
Having described the animal and flora life on Mars , Wells contend that it was now easier to speculate about the rule inhabitants who had made the mammoth canal - arrangement that Lowell envisioned :
Clearly these rule organism will have been evolved out of some mintage or other of those mammal - alike animals , just as mankind has been develop from among the land animals of this orb … How far are these beings likely to resemble telluric humans ? There are certain features in which they are potential to resemble us . The quasi - mammalian beginning we have supposed for them implies a quasi - human appearance . They will probably have heads and eyes and backboned bodies , and since they must have swelled brains , because of their high intelligence , and since almost all creatures with big brains incline to have them frontwards in their head near their . eyes , these Martians will probably have big shapely skulls . But they will in all likelihood be larger in size than humanity , two and two - thirds time the mass of a man , perhaps … Will they tolerate up or go on four legs or six ? … A multitude of eccentric , like the squirrel , the rat , and the monkey , can be find which be given to employ the hind stage chiefly for walking and to sit down up and manage things with the fore limb . Such species tend to be exceptionally intelligent . There can be no dubiousness of the vast part the development of the hand has played in the educational activity of the human intelligence . So that it would be quite rude to imagine the Martians as big - head up , deeply - chested bipeds , grotesquely caricaturing humankind with arms and hands .
Finally , here is a thought that may be reassuring to any reader who finds these Martians alarming . If a man were remove suddenly to the surface of Mars he would find himself vastly exhilarated so shortly as he had fetch over a slight good deal sickness . He would weigh not one - half what he does upon the earth , he would sashay and leap , he would abstract twice his utmost earthly burden with case . But if a Martian come to the earth his weight would carry him down like a header of lead . He would count two and two - thirds time his Martian weight , and he would likely find existence unacceptable . His limb would not support him . Perhaps he would die , ego - crushed , at once . When I wrote The War of the Worlds , in which the Martians invade the earth , I had to tackle this difficulty . It puzzled me for a time , and then I used that thought of mechanical attention , and made my Martians mere bodiless brains with tentacle , subsist by sucking without any digestive process and carry their weight about , not on living bodies but on wonderfully devised machines . But for all that , as a reader here and there may recall , terrestrial conditions were in the end too much for them .
Wells concede that his theory were , ultimately , imaginative leap of conjecture . ( “ How idle and excessive all this reads ! ” ) Still , creationists at the time took result with his essay . One such writer , William Halls , observe :
H. G. Wells , writes … from the standpoint of the evolutionist … Speaking of the Martians , Mr. Wells says , “ Clearly these govern beings will have been evolve out of some coinage or other of those mammal - similar creature , just as man has been germinate from among the land animals of this world . ” If this theory were genuine that man , on this globe , and intelligent beings on other globes , also , were evolved from a lower order of animals , by chance , without an intelligent design , then it might be sensible to guess that they would be subject to the modifying consideration of surroundings , and that the denizen of one world would dissent from those of another , in proportionality to the remainder of their surround .
But this theory is adverse to providential revelation , and also analogical rationality … The inhabitants of all the humanity , include Mars , being the sons and daughter of God , to suppose that they are dissimilar in form in one world to those on another , is unreasonable ; though there may be individual curio , no two being just alike ; yet in their general compliance , they must agree . There is one sovereign power order all thing in heaven and on earth … In the legitimate utilization of this world power there is harmony , guild , and uniformity , the same on earth as in the heavens .
To my knowledge , Wells never engaged in a public debate on this subject . Though I ca n’t help but wonder what a Scopes Martian Trial would have been like .
EvolutionHistoryMarsSpace
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