My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

—FRIENDS AND OCCUPATIONS 311for this new work, as it really was, and it was notpublished till the autumn of the latter year.But while I was writing three new chapters on thewonderful astronomical progress of the latter half ofthe century, the startling fact was impressed upon methat we were situated very nearly at the centre of theentire stellar universe. This fact, though it had beennoted by many of the greatest astronomical writers,together with many others that led to the conclusionthat our universe was finite, and that we could almost,if not quite, see to its very limits, were seldom commentedon as more than isolated phenomenacuriosities, as it were, of star distribution—but of nospecial significance. To me, however, it seemed thatthey probably had a meaning ; and when I furthercame to examine the numerous facts which led to theconclusion that no other planet in the solar systemthan our earth was habitable, there flashed upon methe idea that it was only near the centre of this vastmaterial universe that conditions prevailed renderingthe development of life, culminating in man, possible.I did not, however, dwell upon this idea, but merelysuggested it in a single paragraph on pp. 329-330 ofmy work, and I might probably never have pursuedthe subject further but for another circumstance whichkept my attention fixed upon it.While I was still hard at work upon this book, theLondon agent of the New York Independent wrote toask me to write them an article on any scientificsubject I chose. I at first declined, having no subjectwhich I thought suitable, and not wishing to interruptmy work.But when he urged me again, and told meto name my own fee, the idea struck me that theseastronomical facts, with the conclusion to which theyseemed to me to point, might form a very interesting.