Of this you may be sure: Sooner or later we shall communicate
with all the planets, and perhaps through the giant sun receive
news of outside solar systems.
We have lived comparatively but a few hours on this earth. The
civilization on Mars is millions of years older than our own.
Although we are still primitive savages, we have done wonders
already.
We can talk instantaneously with a Chinese sitting cross-legged
on the under (or upper) side of our earth. We can send a message
around the earth in a few seconds.
Of course we shall talk to Mars as soon as we get out of our
cradle down here.
Look into an ordinary cradle where a week-old baby lies nursing
his wrath or trying to talk to his toe. There are around him
eighty millions of other human beings--fourteen hundred
millions if you count all on earth--and he, the baby, cannot say
one word to any of them. He does not even know his own mother.
Like humanity on this earth, he is busy growing up. He has not
had time to spread out and get an interest in his surroundings.
His liver must get small--at the end of his milk diet. His legs
must get straight and strong. He must learn to creep and walk.
After a period as extensive in his life as a thousand centuries
in the life of the race, he begins to talk to those about him.
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