Left to itself, under the influence of chance, matter tends to group itself into as large molecules as possible. And, experientially, life stands as the natural and normal continuation of this ‘moleculization’ process.
Life continues naturally, and in a combined twofold movement, to become both complexified externally and more conscious internally; and this extends up to the psychological emergence of reflection. In other words, the now well-established fact of the appearance of man on earth in the Pliocene is simply the normal and local manifestation (in specially favourable conditions) of a property common to all ‘terminally evolved’ matter.
Were we, by chance, to possess plates that were sensitive to the specific radiation of the ‘noospheres’ scattered throughout space, it would be practically certain that what we saw registered on them would be a cloud of thinking stars.
Considering what we now know about the number of ‘worlds’ and their internal evolution, the idea of a single hominized planet in the universe has already become in fact (without our generally realizing it) almost as inconceivable as that of a man who appeared with no genetic relationship to the rest of the earth’s animal population.
At an average of (at least) one human race per galaxy, that makes a total of millions of human races dotted all over the heavens.
If, on the one hand, all reflected substance produced in the course of time by the universe does truly tend, in the eyes of the scientist, to concentrate upon itself; and if, on the other hand, in the eyes of the believer, Christ, also by nature, is he who centres, and in whom is centred, the entire universe—then we can indeed be easy in our minds.