The evolution of life / by H. Charlton Bastian.

  • Henry Charlton Bastian
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The evolution of life / by H. Charlton Bastian. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    Astronomy in the University of Oxford, lecturing at the Royal Institution last December, is reported to have said, All the stars that we saw [that is, all visible stars], with a few insignificant exceptions, had a temperature somewhat like that of the sun, and therefore they too must be destitute of life. But there might be comparatively cool bodies circling round the stars in the same way as the planets round the sun, and to these the objection of high tempera- ture might not apply. To the question are the planets inhabited, his answer would be that, in the absence of evidence he did not know, but that he felt pretty sure they were, because they were so like the earth in many particulars, that they might be supposed to be like it in this one.