Terrestrial life

“ What if the atmosphere had really withdrawn to this dark face? And if air, why not water? Would not this be enough to infuse life into the whole continent? Why should not vegetation flourish on its plains, fish in its seas, animals in its forests, and man in every one of its zones that were capable of sustaining life? To these interesting questions, what a satisfaction it would be to be able to answer positively one way or another! For thousands of difficult problems a mere glimpse at this hemisphere would be enough to furnish a satisfactory reply. ”

“ The whole land seemed stirring with perpetual movement, all in one direction;—from the bright hills at its commencement, to the dark mountains at the end. Earth and sky seemed moving, as when an enormous flight of migratory birds is passing by, but earth and sky were really stationary. This movement was one constant tide of human life, ceaselessly streaming across the land. ”

“ Will the sun shine for us in that strange land? is the atmosphere of such nature that it can ever change our hearts, and estrange us from one another or the land of our sires? Is the climate conducive to health and long life? ”

“ What is the odd power that earth holds over men? When one walks through the quietude of country roads, of forest and stream, of field and meadow-land, one is stirred by strange emotions. The trivialities of life seem of slight importance. ”

“ Thus, then, we see that the surface of the globe, the fresh waters, and the salt seas, and, finally, the atmosphere, are inhabited by immense numbers of living beings. Life abounds on the earth, in the waters, and in the air. Our globe is like an immense vase, in which life is accumulated, pressed down, and running over. ”

“ We know that this, our Earth, is a habitable globe, for we ourselves are living upon it. We know what constitutes the physical basis of our life, and under what conditions on this Earth it flourishes, and under what conditions it is destroyed. ”

“ We should never have conceived that even the atmosphere is replenished with invisible animation, that the waters abound with countless myriads of sensitive existence, that the whole earth is full of life, and that there is scarcely a tree, plant, or flower, but affords food and shelter to a species of inhabitants peculiar to itself, which enjoy the pleasures of existence and share in the bounty of the Creator. ”

“ What immense shapes of animal and vegetable life may fill those boundless pastures and plains on which man shall never look! What herds, by thousands and millions, of those mighty creatures whose skeletons we discover, from time to time, in the wreck of the antediluvian globe! What secrets of form and power, of capacity and enjoyment, may exist under the cover of that mighty expanse of waves which fills the bed of the ocean, and spreads round the globe! ”

“ The earth with its oceans and its atmosphere is a storehouse containing many if not most of the essentials for survival, growth and development, for mankind as well as a multitude of other life forms. ”

“ These modest hints are given with the hope that millions of miles of land on Earth now barren and useless, by tapping the generous fountains of water so wisely stored by Providence, may be turned into gardens of beauty, and furnish fruits and sustenance in plenty for coming generations.
While many look upon the Earth as “a vale of tears,” it is the best world we have any reliable knowledge of, and seems well adapted to the wants of animal and vegetable life, if we avail ourselves of the wise and ample provisions Nature has put in our way. ”

“ Before they ever adorned the surface of our fields, or moved in the lowing herd over the meadow, they were held in solution in the sunshine. The food, the fuel, and the animal life of our earth are all traceable to the sun. ”

“ We love the sweet green fields of your planet, its clear water and skies, its generous soil. But you have never permitted Earth to become our home, and so we leave you. We leave you, people of the cruel planet. ”

“ Could we suppose produced on the present globe some general change of conditions in the sea, on the land, and in the atmosphere—either simultaneously, or by communication from a central area of disturbance —the effects upon organic life might be everywhere manifested, though unequally and variously. ”

“ Suppose the globe closely shrouded by an oppressive fog; and then imagine the condition of plants, animals, and man. Yet, did it please our great Creator, it is in his power to call into existence plants and animals fitted for so moist and obscure an atmosphere.
Again, the atmospheric temperature, the varying degrees of heat and cold, according to latitude and to the characters of land—that is, its elevation, its depression, the nature of its surface, and the arrangement of adjacent seas, etc., are in harmony with the development of life, and the due exercise of animal functions. ”

“ We have through the wide extent of space inconceivable myriads of worlds, presenting, no doubt, every variety of size and climate, of atmosphere and soil. It seems quite preposterous to imagine that among all these globes ours alone should be the abode of life. The most reasonable conclusion for us to come to is that these bodies may be endowed with life of types which are just as appropriate to the physical conditions around them as is the life, both animal and vegetable, on this globe to the special circumstances in which it is placed. ”

“ And then a new creation of plants and animals succeeded; still living under the fostering influence of the united pair, Air and Water, which never ceased to brood over the World of Life, their Nurseling; and then, perhaps, a new change of the limits of land and water, and a new creation again: till at last, Man was placed upon the Earth ”

“ Thus simply and with little expense of altitude is the surface of the earth diversified. What would human life be without forests, those natural cities? From the tops of mountains they appear like smooth-shaven lawns ”

“ They called it, naturally enough, The Sun—just as home was Earth, Terra, or simply The World. And naturally enough, being the ascendant animal on Earth, they called themselves human beings. They were looking for extraterrestrial souls to save. ”

“ Remoteness on the earth's surface is usually an indication of diversity in the fauna and flora, while strongly contrasted climates are always accompanied by a considerable contrast in the forms of life. ”

“ To enumerate, in the broadest way, the variety of conditions under which life exists here, one has only to enumerate creatures living in the deepest abysses of the ocean; high up on the slopes of the Himalayas; swarming in arctic seas; withstanding the hot glare of a tropical sun; living deep in the ground; breeding in the darkest caves; flourishing in desert regions; thriving in water below freezing, and again in water nearly at the boiling point. ”

“ The rôle of these wonderful actions which we are about to trace includes almost everything which goes on upon the surface of the planet—that which relates to the development of animal and vegetable life, as well as to the vast geological changes which the earth is undergoing. ”

“ Whether explicitly stated or not, nature was seen as earthbound, the source of our existence, the provider. Cosmos, beyond our reach, should not be interfered with. The experience of extraterrestrial research expanded the notion of nature. In today's integrated world, resources and environmental concerns also contribute to the expanded notion of nature pertinent to our activity and life. Our worries about pollution of earth, oceans, and skies are not religious in nature. ”

“ We’d like to see what the cities and forests are like; we’d like to see some other creatures beside fishes and people swimming in us. We’re tired of an ocean life.
“We want to live on the land. We want to do great things—what do we do here that ever amounts to anything?” ”

“ Conceive some observer endowed with human scientific faculties contemplating this earth of ours in the pre-human period. He sees the continents covered with forests, beasts of all kinds disporting themselves in the same, a great vigor of vegetable and animal life both in the sea and on the dry land. ”

“ These suggestions, while fanciful, awaken our interest and excite our curiosity. Can any one predict the excitement that would prevail in our world if a human creature from some other planet were suddenly to set foot upon our soil? ”

“ But also the relation of man to external nature as the occupant of specific geographical areas, and subject to certain influences of climate, food, material appliances and conditions of life, involves conclusions of growing importance, in view of many novel questions to which the enlarged inquiry as to his true place in nature has given rise. ”

“ Of these habitable Worlds, such as the Earth, all which we may suppose to be also of a terrestrial or terraqueous Nature, and filled with Beings of the human Species, subject to Mortality, it may not be amiss in this Place to compute how many may be conceived within our finite View every clear Star-light Night. ”

“ And this requires that a large number of favourable circumstances, such as a moderate temperature, a suitable atmosphere, sufficient water, etc., should all be found on some other planet, not only now, but during the long ages which (judging by this earth) appear necessary for the development of the higher forms of life ”

“ It is a singular and interesting thing to stand, as I do now, upon the confines of the earth, as it were, ‘at the green earth’s end,’ and gaze back through the vista of time, over Europe, and Africa, and Asia, upon the nations that have risen and flourished, and become extinct, each in its turn, like those animal races, whose story is sculptured, geologists tell us, upon the ribs and arches of the earth beneath us. ”

“ Fossil remains show that regions far north, now covered with perpetual ice, once supported a luxuriant flora and fauna, and many regions in the temperate and equatorial zones that are now deserts were once overgrown with forests and teeming with animal life. The fundamental thing of the cosmos is change—birth, growth, maturity ”

“ Another world besides the one we now inhabit, has had its existence, inhabited, as ours is, by animals terrestrial and marine. A time was when all that is now land was covered by the ocean, as the secondary mountains, with their beds of petrified marine productions, abundantly prove. ”

“ And yet there is no better evidence for the contemporaneity assumed by all who adopt the hypothesis of universal faunae and florae, of a universally uniform climate, and of a sensible cooling of the globe during geological time. ”

“ Environmental influences appear in the territorial limits of certain tribes or peoples, as well as in the distribution and density of population. Even in the more complex forms of the mental life, the influence of environment may be found; as in nature myths explaining the activity of volcanoes or the presence of curious 161land forms, or in beliefs and customs relating to the local characterization of the seasons. ”

“ Earth was a scathed planet, a roofless, shelterless home; a wild where the human soul wandered a little interval, tortured by sharp, cruel storms; lost in thorny, entangled brakes; weary repining, till the hour came when it could soar to its native birthplace, and find refuge from its ills in promised Paradise. ”

“ And there can be little doubt that, conducted by such experienced naturalists, these expeditions will result in correcting and enlarging our present knowledge regarding the distribution of life on the globe. ”

“ And all this, too, ere a reasoning, intelligent being had been numbered among terrestrial creatures, and when, perhaps, each successive creation was witnessed by none save those "morning stars who sang together, and those sons of God who shouted for joy." The delight and comfort of the human race formed, doubtless, one of the many reasons why this globe was so bountifully garnished. ”

“ Who now can fancy a limit to the social movement with which that vast hemisphere is heaving all over—the advancing tide of its population spreading in every region—the forests cleared and covered with a net-work of railways, the rivers bridged from end to end with a navy of steamships—and all vivified and in motion through the agency of this long undiscovered product of the earth? Geological time rolled on, and the surface of our planet was replenished with the hidden treasure, and the man of science has no numbers to reckon the years that are past. ”

“ Fortunately, in savage life still extant on the habitable globe we have the survival of many, if not of all, the earliest types of locomotion. Man in his natural condition has to follow nature, and by following to subdue her in his struggle for existence. Climate and race differentiate his action in this respect, and results, under parallel circumstances, similar, though different in detail, attend his efforts in different parts of the world. ”

“ If suns, planets, and satellites, with all their possibilities of life, changes of flora and fauna, could be all provided for, as some scientists tell us, in the fiery star-dust of a cloud, why may not the same Author provide a perpetually widening river of life in his Word? ”

“ It is met with under the burning heat of the tropics and in the everlasting frost at the poles. We find life in caves where not a ray of light ever penetrates. Nor is it wanting in the depths of the ocean, at the pressure of tons on the square inch. Whatever may be the external circumstances, Nature generally provides some form of life to which those circumstances are congenial. ”

“ This condition of things would indicate the possibility at least that life upon the earth had in the main commenced in some favored area, and traveled thence far and wide over the surface of the globe, driven out by changes of environment, lessening in effect the favorable conditions of its development in the place of its beginning, and ever beckoned on by more favorable conditions in adjacent districts. ”