What does it mean these phrase? minds that are to our minds as ours
I am reading the book "The war of the worlds" and I found out that phrase but I cant understand it, the complete phrase is:

"Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us."

I hope someone can help me
Thx!

Question

What does it mean these phrase? minds that are to our minds as ours
I am reading the book "The war of the worlds" and I found out that phrase but I cant understand it, the complete phrase is:

"Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us."

I hope someone can help me
Thx!

Answer

What a nice complicated sentence you found! All right, the author is comparing alien minds to human mind and showing how much more advance the aliens are. He's saying that the difference human minds have with animal minds (beasts) is the same difference as between these particular aliens and humans.Just as humans would be smarter than animals and maybe not very sympathetic to them (we don't cry over every dead raccoon), so would aliens be smarter than and even less sympathetic to humans.

I hope that helps!

Answers · 2

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