THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



of them still persist and are regarded as sound, 

 and we have to-day only a very small number of 

 genuine experts in geology who do not accept the 

 theory of a sunlike stage of the earth. 



This conception changes our picture of life 

 processes. Life may be extended many millions 

 of years beyond the time of the most primitive 

 fossils. But finally there comes a time where the 

 earth is a glowing ball of the temperaure of the 

 sun, which transforms all metals into a hot gas 

 and in which no amoeba can live or has ever 

 lived. There are plants which live in hot springs 

 and can stand a temperature of 100 degrees C., 

 and dry spores or bacilli can endure a still higher 

 temperature without perishing. But it is an ab- 

 solutely impossible idea that an amoeba could still 

 live in a world where even water cannot exist 

 and where the heat keeps all elements perma- 

 nently in a gaseous state, even iron. It is not 

 until the globe has cooled sufficiently in ice-cold 

 space to acquire a solid crust that the first pre- 

 cipitations of water with living beings of the 

 simplest form are visible upon it. But even this 

 state of affairs does not in any way justify the 

 assumption of a miracle. There are two other 

 possibilities which may be explained out of na- 

 tural and logical conditions of existence on that 

 globe. 



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