LIFE ON THE EARTH 261 



has seemed to prohibit the importation of life germs from abroad. This 

 placed a limit to both the origin and the duration of life on the planet. 

 Recenttythe announcement has been made that the extremely low tem- 

 perature of liquid hydrogen is not fatal to life germs. This being true, 

 it is not inconceivable that germs might endure the cold of celestial 

 spaces and might reach the earth by way of meteorites, or even that 

 they might have existed on the planetesimals of the earth-moon zone or 

 ring. 



A much less speculative thought is this — that under the planetesimal 

 hypothesis the ordinary conditions of temperature and moisture requi- 

 site for life as we know it were probably fulfilled long before the planet 

 attained full size. The duration of life on the earth may thus be thrown 

 far back in time, and the slow processes of biologic evolution are given 

 far greater duration for their outworking. The limits of geologic time 

 fixed by the physicists on the premise of a cooling globe have no appli- 

 cation whatever under the new hypothesis, and the biologists and geol- 

 ogists are released from any time restrictions hitherto imposed. 



Conclusion 



The mathematical and physical speculations based on the conception 

 of a cooling globe are unreliable and misleading. The recognition of 

 this truth will release geology from its undue deference to authority. 

 Geologists have not had sufficient confidence in the inductions of their 

 own science, but have deferred too much to the philosophic deductions 

 and speculations of the physicists and mathematicians. Scientific men 

 in general seem to have an almost superstitious regard for mathematical 

 results. The geologists have not properly realized that all such con- 

 clusions relating to geophysical problems, if based on assumed data and 

 unknown conditions, are not entitled to any respect when they contra- 

 dict observable phenomena or even sound geologic theory. For illus- 

 tration : In the face of the abundant geologic evidence or argument for 

 extreme age of the earth, geologists pare down their estimates because 

 mathematical authorities figure out from hypothetical conditions and 

 assumed data, based on the nebular hypothesis, that only a certain 

 number of years can be allowed for the geologic history of the earth. 

 Another example: Geologists neglect the formulation of a sound theory 

 of the hydrocarbons because the prevailing ideas of earth origin require 

 that they should be meteoric and organic. Geologists have been too 

 generous in allowing other people to make their philosophy for them. 



One of the characteristics of the new geology will be the greater and 

 proper confidence with which its devotees will stand on the basis of their 



