WCP3246

[1]¹

Timaru, Canterbury

New Zealand.

Aug 31. 1906.

My dear Sir.

Will you permit me, though a stranger to you personally, but not to your books, to thank you for the great pleasure I have found in the perusal of your book "Man's Place in the Universe".²

I have for many years past, been a stargazer., with a good 4 1/2 inch equatorial refractor, and some slight practical experience of spectroscopic work: without being a mathematician. This deficit, together with my natural bent of mind, and my special vocation, has inclined me more [2] in the direction of the problem of final causes of Creation, than of pure scientific study of fact, and from the data of Dr. Whewell's³ book, to that Sir D Brewster⁴ and later still of Proctor's⁵ "Other worlds than ours",⁶ I have always had a keen interest in the question; but without arriving at any satisfactory [illeg.] of it. There seemed to be no good evidence of the [illeg.] of the planets of our system being inhabited. But in regard to the probable existence of other planetary systems, with their own Suns in the vast spaces of the universe, I have never come across any satisfactory [3] argument until I read your book. If I say it that it carries conviction to my mind, I do so as a mere layman in [illeg.] a matter of science. I can only follow and accept what seems to me a most lucid and convincing summary of the results of modern astronomical research, and of the probable conclusions to which they lead. But in doing so it is no small satisfaction to find that one is following the guidance of facts and laws of nature, in trying to come at the answer to the question asked in those fine lines of F. T. Palgrave,⁷ which you quote. [4] sometimes sitting at my telescope with a low power, on a fine night and looking right into depth upon depth of starry worlds, as we see them in their Southern Skies, I have been impressed with the utter insignificance of our little Earth, and ourselves, and then the true sense of that wonderful Psalm VIII has come across me — "I will consider thy Heavens" — — thou madest him a little lower — to crown him - The thinking, spiritual, Man is the crown of nature in the universe. Spirit — Mind – Matter – there is no common ground of comparison between the latter and former – [5] Even the vastness of the aggregate of matter in the whole cosmos does not make the comparison possible. Nor, I think, does Infinity itself seem to demand from the omnipotent Creator, other human beings have our souls. It is impossible, to my mind, to limit our thought to our own universe, even though it would seem that no human power either of observational or scientific investigation can ever will its way further than the limits of our Cosmos, It is only a reasonable Faith which can be to us the evidence of the unseen, and I take it that such Faith is indigenous in Man, whatever development it may arrive at: Man is somehow [6] tuned to the infinite. But as far as I can tell, the thought of Infinity implies a different state that of our created cosmos — it implies Life and Human life — but human life, if I may so say, spiritualism, the "spiritual body" of which S. Paul speaks — in which the Laws of our present physical state do not exist. The individual personality, the "I am" even here exists, as it were believed and independent of the physical body. It doesn't demand for its future existence the conditions of this existence — rather, it demands other conditions of which we can know nothing at present. Scientific [illeg.] [7] as well as Faith, seem to me, in no way to expect that the Creator must have created the world or the universe for other human beings than ourselves.

Reading your book has reminded me of what I believe to be the true purpose of the narrative of Creation in Genesis I. This is in that no attempt at scientific explanation of the genesis of things in the Heavens and the Earth, but only such information as serves to indicate why creation took place — viz — for the sake of man, accordingly accordingly in the [illeg.] of the purpose of the "Heavens", the first Creative mandate is, "Let there be light" light [8] the first, so to speak, radiation of the divine spirit — the fundamental condition of all organic Life in the universe, that is warmth and Light, all life whether of plant or animal might be possible on earth.

Then the coming into existence of concentrated bodies of Light — Light -bearers, Lamps, great and small, for signs, seasons, day and night: great and small, Sun, Moon, and Stars: sun and moon not being great [illeg.] in comparison with stars but in contrast to stars, great in their influence on the Earth — all being in their way connected to the conditions of Life in our world —[9] all this seems to imply that our Heavens were created for our Earth and for its inhabitants.

This idea has been sometimes quoted as an argument against the assumption that the first chapter of Genesis reveals the purpose of Creation – It is interesting to find that, as it seems now, the last word of science is to confirm the simple old narrative: — "in the beginning" without form — void — gradual evolution into shape & form. Light – Matter – Heavens, Earth — — all this Cosmos, for its ultimate and supreme purpose of Man and his destiny.

Interesting too to man the old Ptolemaic conception of the Heavens: [10] the Earth central, then the 7 concentric Heavens of the Moon, and six planets. There the Heaven of the Firmament, the Crystalline Heavens and beyond that the Primum Mobile.

With all allowance for these clumsy systems of planetary motion, it would seem that they were not far wrong in their estimate of the importance of the Earth and of its inhabitants, or even of the relative position of the Earth to the universe.

I feel sure that you will pardon my troubling you [11] with this letter, and I remain

yours faithfully – |Henry W. Harper⁸ [signature]

(Merton Coll Oxford)

Archdeacon of Timaru & Westland

New Zealand

Alfred. R. Wallace Esq, LLD.