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German philosopher and historian who has been called
the father of German science fiction for his 1897 novel Auf zwei Planeten
(On Two Planets), describing an encounter between humankind and an
older, more advanced race of Martians. Lasswitz, like his English contemporary
H. G. Wells, who
published The
War of the Worlds in the same year, adopts a Kantian
evolutionary view of the solar system in which Mars is a more ancient world than
the Earth and its inhabitants technologically superior. But whereas Wells
portrays his Martians as anatomically alien and morally degenerate, Lasswitz
presents a much less threatening picture of humanoid creatures who have
progressed as far in their societal and ethical development as they have in
their science and engineering. There is no blitzkrieg here by stalking tripods
and deadly heat rays, no suggestion that biological evolution must inevitably
create intellects that are as cold as they are huge. Yet when Lasswitz's
Martians place the Earth under a benign protectorate, humanity rebels and the
extraterrestrials withdraw. Thereafter, communication is restricted to
interplanetary signals until the two civilizations achieve equality and the
prospect of a Utopian future order. In an article on extraterrestrial life
written years later, Lasswitz wrote of his view that not only was it
inconceivable that there were no other intelligence-bearing worlds in the
Universe but that "there should necessarily even be infinite gradations of
intelligent beings inhabiting such worlds." Moreover, he was optimistic that
evolution of intelligence and of society went hand in hand and that we would
have much to gain from contact with a superior race: "We do dream of a higher
civilization, but we would also like to come to know it as something more than
the hope for a distant future."
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