14 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 
to the English-speaking world by the last-men¬ 
tioned scientist, and the idea commonly credited 
to him, thougn this is a mistake) that life never 
had any “beginning” on our planet. 
“It was transported to the earth from another 
world, or from the cosmic environment, under the 
form of cosmic germs, or cosmozoans, more or less 
comparable to the living cells with which we are 
acquainted. They have made the journey either 
included in meteorites or floating in space in the 
form of cosmic dust.” 
But M. Verworn considers the hypothesis of 
cosmic germs as inconsistent with the laws of 
evolution, and L. Errera pointed out that the 
necessary conditions for life were lacking in 
interplanetary bodies. 
Dubois-Reymond’s theory of cosmic pansper¬ 
mia is one very similar to the above, and needs 
no separate statement of its position. The same 
objection applies to both, viz., that it is really 
no “explanation” at all, since it merely pushes 
back our inquiry one step, and, if we were to 
ask: “What was the origin of the life on the 
planet or in the space from which such germs 
came, supposedly, we should obviously be in as 
great a quandary as ever. So superficial a 
hypothesis is not only not explanatory, but 
absurd. Realizing such objection, W. Preyer was 
forced to admit that “Life . . . must have 
subsisted from all time, even when the globe 
was an incandescent mass.” This position— 
apart from its inherent absurdity—practically 
admits that life was and is as eternal and per¬ 
sistent as matter and energy; and this is the 
position which scientists will, I think, some 
day be forced to admit. 
