THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



Some might ask at this point whether the most 

 1 primitive and simple forms of life may not have 

 (immigrated and settled on the cooled globe. We 

 know that small and large parts of matter are 

 continually falling out of space upon the earth, 

 the so-called meteorites. Might not the germs of 

 life fall likewise upon our planet in the same 

 way ? The simplest spores of bacilli, such as are 

 perpetually whirling through the air, would have 

 been sufficient to carry the germs of life for all 

 stages of evolution up to man on the surface of 

 the globe. The spores *of such bacilli endure a 

 . cold temperature of more than 200 degrees C. 

 The temperature of space will certainly not be 

 much lower than that, and the bacilli of this kind 

 also can get along for a long time without any 

 air, so that the space without any air between 

 the different planets and suns would not be an ob- 

 stacle to the transmission of living spores of 

 bacilli. It is not at all necessary to fall back on 

 the assumption that a meteorite, which by the 

 way is generally ignited by the friction of the 

 earth's atmosphere, must have carried the germs 

 of life. The earth's atmosphere may have been 

 "infected" directly by floating germs. Such a 

 conception leads finally to the idea of "eternity" 

 of the lowest forms of life. It would be very easy 



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