Last Words To My Readers

: To Mars Via The Moon

As I have decided to stay here upon Mars, and have just taken leave of

my two dear old friends, I will now address a few last words to those

who may read this record of our trip to Mars, and then seal up the

packet ready for John to take with him.



In the course of my conversations with Merna's tutors, I learnt much

about the past history of the Martian people; and they told me that it

dates back to such a remote antiquity that, as compared with theirs,

ours is only the history of an infancy!



Mars, being a much smaller globe than the earth, cooled down and became

habitable aeons before the earth reached that stage; and at the time when

the earlier inhabitants of our world were living in woods and

caves-slowly and painfully fashioning for themselves weapons and tools

out of chipped flint-stones-there existed upon Mars a people who had

then arrived at a full and vigorous civilisation.



What wonder then that, with all these past ages of development and the

incentive which the present physical condition of the planet supplies

them, the Martians of the present day are in all respects, whether

physically, morally, or intellectually, far in advance of the

inhabitants of our much younger, and therefore less developed, world!



The lessons to be learned from this, and from the physical conditions

now prevailing on the planet, are very similar.



Mars, gradually, but inevitably, becoming a vast desert, and with the

end of all things certain to arrive in a comparatively near future,

pictures to us what must as inevitably be the fate of our own world ages

hence, unless it come to an untimely end by some catastrophe.



As Professor Lowell has pointed out, we know we have an abundant supply

of water at the present time, but we also know that, ages ago, the area

of our world covered with water was immensely greater than it is now.

From the very beginning of our world's existence the process of

diminution of the water area has always gone on, and it will still go

on-slowly, surely, and continually.



As an inevitable result of this decrease of water, and other natural

conditions, vast areas of land on both sides of our tropical zones have

become deserts; and it is a scientific certainty that this process of

desertism will, and must continue, until it covers the whole world.



But, I think, the end will long be delayed, for the loss by desertism

will, as it seems to me, for ages be compensated by the new and

habitable land arising from areas now covered by water. The old sea-beds

upon Mars are now the most fertile areas upon that planet.



As the desertism increases conditions similar to those of Mars will

arise; the earth will become more level, polar glaciation will cease,

the atmosphere become thinner, and water vapour, instead of falling as

rain, will be carried by circulatory currents to the poles, and there be

deposited as snow. What the Martians have accomplished has shown us how

to stave off the water difficulty, and also how a highly civilised and

intelligent people can bravely and calmly face the end which they

clearly foresee!



This is the lesson from the present physical condition of Mars.



On the other hand, the continual progress of civilisation upon Mars, and

the very high development attained there, coupled with what we know of

our own progress during the ages past, give certainty to the hope that

our own civilisation will continue to develop, slowly indeed, but

surely; and also to the belief that, compared to what it will be in the

future, our present stage of civilisation is merely savagery.



Development will lead to progress in everything which tends to increase

the intelligence, wisdom, and happiness of the whole human race.



Our world has seen the rise and fall of many civilisations, but fresh

ones have risen, phoenix-like, from the ashes of those which have

departed and been forgotten. "The individual withers," but "the world is

more and more." As it was in the past, so will it be in the

future-ever-changing, ever-passing, but ever-renewing, until the final

stage is reached.



Since the earliest dawn of our creation the watchword of humanity has

been "Onward!" and it is still "Onward!" but also "Upward!!" The

possibilities of the development of the human race in the ages yet to

come are so vast as to be beyond our conception; for, as Sir Oliver

Lodge has remarked, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it

entered into the mind of man to conceive what the future has in store

for humanity!" Then:



"Forward, forward, let us range,

Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change!"



This, then, is the great lesson which Martian civilisation teaches us.

Surely it affords no reason for the depression and pessimism in which

some upon the earth are so prone to indulge; but rather should it stir

them to a more earnest endeavour, by gradually removing the obstacles

which now bar their progress, to improve the social conditions of the

people; so that they in their turn may improve their intellectual

conditions, and lend their aid to the general advancement of the world

they live in.



Gloom, depression, and pessimism, of which we have had more than enough

of late years, never yet helped any one. They have, however, proved

disastrous to many.



Remember our world is young yet! so set before yourselves the great

ideal of the brotherhood of humanity! Our religion teaches it; strive to

help in attaining it; and in so doing each may, and will, achieve

something to help forward the gradual evolution of a brighter and

happier world for the generations that are to come. In that brighter and

happier world I have faith, for:



"I hold it truth with him who sings,

To one clear harp in divers tones,

That men may rise on stepping-stones

Of their dead selves to higher things."



And:



"I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,

And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns."



[End of the Narrative written by Wilfrid Poynders, Esq.]