II

'One's imagination wants to play with it. It's as attractive as a hare's foot to a kitten. Suppose, Keppel, suppose—for the sake of a talk—there are Martians.'

'Let's suppose it. I'm more than willing.'

'What sort of minds would they have and what would they think of our minds and what might they not try to make of them?'

'Regarded as an exercise in speculative general psychology? That's attractive.'

'As a speculative exercise then.'

'Exactly. You know that man Olaf Stapledon has already tried something of the sort in a book called Last and First Men. Some day we shall certainly have to come to a general psychology independent of the human type, just as now these young men in the Society of Experimental Biology are getting away from the highly specialized peculiarities of human physiology towards a general physiological science. Now away there in Mars, as any astronomer will tell you, there are all the conditions necessary for a sort of life similar, if not identically similar, to life upon earth, the same elements—air, water, a temperature range not widely different. The probabilities are in favour of there having been a parallel—a roughly parallel evolution. Parallel but in some ways different. The gravitational energy, atmospheric pressure, and suchlike things are different and that would mean differences in lightness, vigour, and size. Martian plants and animals would probably run much bigger. Much bigger.'

'I forget the relative masses of the two planets,' said the doctor.

'I forget too. Roughly it's something like eight to one—perhaps a bit more. So the Martian, if he had a human form, would be twice as tall and eight times our weight. A bigger, longer–lived creature. Assuming—

'No. It's not wild assumption. The odds are in favour that there are or have been growths, detachments, moving feeling things, in existence on that planet. This is bold speculation, Holdman Stedding, I admit, but it isn't extravaganza.'

'Go on. But you wouldn't dare to talk to your students like this.'

'Possibly not. How far would the evolution of life, if it had an independent start elsewhere under slightly but not essentially different conditions, run parallel to the evolution of life on earth?'

'The same tune, I suppose, with variations.'.

'It is difficult to imagine anything else. There would be plants—I think green plants—and animals. The animals would run about as individuals and have senses, something like ours—perhaps very like ours. They might see more colours than we do, for example, have a longer or shorter range of sound, subtler feelers in the place of our hands. Probably Nature has tried out all the possible senses on earth here. But not all the possible shapes and patterns. Anyhow these Martians would respond to stimuli; they would have reflexes; they would condition their reflexes. I believe if we could call up the spirit of dear old Pavlov, we should find him agreeing with us, that the chances are heavily in favour of any possible minds there being minds fundamentally like ours.'

'But with a longer past.'

'Yes, Mars was cool long before earth was. A longer past, a hotter summer and a harder winter—the year of Mars is twice the length of ours—a larger body and a larger brain. With more room for memories—more and better memories—and more space for ideas, more and better ideas. And so the problem comes down to this. What sort of mind would a man have if he had a longer ancestry, an ampler memory, a less hurried Life?'

'I accept all that as just possible,' said the doctor.

'It is certainly where the weight of probability lies. Now all these pseudo–scientific story–writers who write about Mars make their Martians monsters and horrors, inhuman in the bad sense, cruel. Why should they be anything of the sort? Why,' repeated Professor Keppel, taking coffee, 'why should they be anything of the sort?'

'Quite nice monsters?'

'Why not?'

'Well, the German professor evolved his idea of a camel from his inner consciousness; why shouldn't we do the same with our Martians?'

'Having regard to the facts. Why not?'

Dr. Holdman Stedding looked at his watch.

'Not till you've smoked one of those pennant–shaped Coronas you like,' said Keppel, 'and just a whiff of brandy. Because, confound it! you started this talk, you've interested me, and you've got to hear it out. If there is such a thing as a Martian, rest assured, Holdman Stedding, he's humanity's big brother.'

'Big in every way you think. A super–super man.'

'Good anyhow.'

'Beyond good and evil.'

'Everything alive must have its good and evil. Beyond our good and evil anyhow. None the worse for that perhaps. No; if you talk of your lunatic again, you can at least dispel any fear he has of his Martians. The odds are they are not so much invading us as acting as a sort of inter–planetary tutor. Bless my heart! At the mere thought I feel a sort of benevolent influence.'

'No,' said Dr. Holdman Stedding, emitting a smoke jet with the appreciative expression of a cigar advertisement in Punch and weighing the possibilities of the case with luxurious deliberation. 'It's your cook.'