264 WHAT IS LIFE 



5. All pertinent facts find their ready interpreta- 

 tion, that is, classification; and with its aid stubborn 

 difficulties are readily solved. 



Thus, for example, the cause of man's long infancy, 

 as compared with the ape's short infancy, finds its 

 easy statement when the problem is viewed in the 

 light of the new theory. {See pp. 185-188.) Anatomi- 

 cally man and the great apes are similar; physiologi- 

 cally and chemically there is an extremely close 

 relationship between them; yet the period of time 

 required to reach physiological maturity, in which 

 the same sets of organs and the same functions are 

 involved, in the case of man is several times that 

 required in the case of the ape. Why.^^ The cause of 

 man's long infancy, it appears, simply cannot find 

 its statement by science on any other theory than 

 this theory of life based on atomic physics. 



Someone said: "He has not adduced proof until 

 he has adduced a fact which is compatible with no 

 other explanation than his own." Such a fact having 

 been adduced, has not proof been adduced? 



If the exigencies of a theory require that to be true 

 a certain given set of phenomena must be found 

 present under certain specific conditions; and if this 

 set of phenomena is found unmistakably to exist 

 under the specified conditions; and if, furthermore, 

 the facts, or phenomena, for which one is searching 



