The broadening of men's views that has resulted can scarcely be
exaggerated.  Before the cylinder fell there was a general persuasion
that through all the deep of space no life existed beyond the petty
surface of our minute sphere.  Now we see further.  If the Martians
can reach Venus, there is no reason to suppose that the thing is
impossible for men, and when the slow cooling of the sun makes this
earth uninhabitable, as at last it must do, it may be that the thread
of life that has begun here will have streamed out and caught our
sister planet within its toils.