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206 question of their existence. The arguments for their presence are quite apart from any consideration of avoirdupois. No Herculean labors need to be accounted for; and, if they did, brain is far more potent to the task than brawn.

Something more we may deduce about the characteristics of possible Martians, dependent upon Mars itself, a result of the age of the world they would live in.

A planet may in a very real sense be said to have life of its own, of which what we call life may or may not be a subsequent detail. It is born, has its fiery youth, sobers into middle age, and just before this happens brings forth, if it be going to do so at all, the creatures on its surface which are, in a sense, its offspring. The speed with which it runs through its gamut of change prior to production depends upon its size; for the smaller the body the quicker it cools, and with it loss of heat means beginning of life for its offspring. It cools quicker because, as we saw in a previous chapter, it has relatively less inside for its outside, and it is through its outside that its inside cools. After it has thus become capable of bearing life, the Sun quickens that life and supports it for we know not how long. But its duration is measured at the most by the Sun's life. Now, inasmuch as time and space are not, as some philosophers have from their too mundane