supposing it at all possible, it is sure to occur after a
sufficient number of trials--and over and over again if the trials
are repeated often enough. For example, if a million grains of
corn, of which a single one was red, were all placed in a pile,
and a blindfolded person were required to grope in the pile,
select a grain, and then put it back again, the chances would be a
million to one against his drawing out the red grain. If drawing
it meant he should die, a sensible person would give himself no
concern at having to draw the grain. The probability of his death
would not be so great as the actual probability that he will
really die within the next twenty-four hours. And yet if the whole
human race were required to run this chance, it is certain that
about fifteen hundred, or one out of a million, of the whole human
family would draw the red grain and meet his death.

Now apply this principle to the universe. Let us suppose, to fix
the ideas, that there are a hundred million worlds, but that the
chances are one thousand to one against any one of these taken at
random being fitted for the highest development of life or for the
evolution of reason. The chances would still be that one hundred
thousand of them would be inhabited by rational beings whom we
call human. But where are we to look for these worlds? This no man
can tell. We only infer from the statistics of the stars--and this
inference is fairly well grounded--that the number of worlds
which, so far as we know, may be inhabited, are to be counted by
thousands, and perhaps by millions.

In a number of bodies so vast we should expect every variety of
conditions as regards temperature and surroundings. If we suppose
that the special conditions which prevail on our planet are