Page:Life and death (1911).djvu/267

 humus have been found in several meteorites. To the objection that these aerolites are heated while passing through our atmosphere, Helmholtz replies that this elevation of temperature may be quite superficial and may allow micro-organisms to subsist in their interior. But other objections retain their force:—First, that of M. Verworn, who considers the hypothesis of cosmic germs as inconsistent with the laws of evolution; and that of L. Errera, who denies that the conditions necessary for life exist in interplanetary bodies.

Hypothesis of Cosmic Panspermia.—Du Bois-Reymond has given the name of cosmic panspermia to a theory very similar to the preceding, formulated by F. Cohn in 1872. The first living germs arrived on our globe mingled with the cosmic dust that floats in space and falls slowly to the surface of the earth. L. Errera observes that if they escape by this gentle fall the dangerous heating of meteorites, they still remain exposed to the action of the photic rays, which is generally destructive to germs.

Hypothesis of Pyrozoa.—W. Preyer declined to accept this cosmic transmigration of the simplest living beings, nor would he allow the intervention of other worlds into the history of our own. Life, according to him, must have existed from all time, even when the globe was an incandescent mass. But it was not the same life as at present. Vitality must have undergone many profound changes in the course of ages. The pyrozoa, the first living beings, vulcanians, were very different from the beings of the present day that are destroyed by a slight elevation of temperature. No doubt this theory of pyrozoa, proposed by W. Preyer in 1872, seems