Page:Alerielorvoyaget00lach.djvu/202

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180
A Voyage to Other Worlds.

days and weeks and months, by your earth-measurement of time, passed on this weary voyage. Still Saturn seemed little more than a great star in space, with its mighty rings and its eight moons slowly growing more and more distinct. On, still on, we swept, away from the great orb of day, the Sun, which slowly grew less and less glorious. As we travelled onwards, we compared our experiences of the worlds we had seen, and examined the relics of them we had collected. The conclusion we came to was that which I had anticipated: the solar system is one, yet it is unity in diversity. The elements of matter are the same—the metals, the rocks, the main forms are one, as springing from the same great nebula of primæval chaos. But the combinations differ. Even in the Giant World we had left there was nothing really and essentially new to us, except in form and combination. The origin was the same, the main points of being identical, but an infinite variety in combination.

So also with life. We had seen no really new forms of life. Even on your Earth they are to be traced, though often imperfect and low in development. As the worlds were the same, or very nearly the same, in metallic elements, in spherical shape, in motion, in atmospheres, in