Hoyle was an early supporter of the modern view that extrasolar planets and life are ubiquitous. In his standard text Frontiers of Astronomy¹ (1955) he writes:

[W]e may expect planetary systems to have developed around the majority of stars.... Living creatures must it seems be rather common.

This is a pity, because the supporters of various ideologies after attempting to impress the superior merits of their views on each other (through the aid of fusion bombardment and other massive activities), could proceed to impress themselves on the rest of the Milky Way. Not only this, but the opportunity for tax-collectors would be enormous. With taxes levied on say 250,000,000,000,000,000,000 individuals ... it would be possible to whack up the defence programme for the Milky Way to something like reasonable proportions.

The physical and chemical requirements must ... have been far more favorable for the building of complex molecules before the Earth was aggregated... The Earth intercepts only a tiny fraction of the ultra-violet light emitted by the Sun ... The energy source was therefore much greater before the planets were aggregated ... Another point in favour of a pre-planetary origin of life appears when we consider in a little more detail how the complex molecules were built up. This requires the addition together of many smaller molecules... If the molecules were dissolved in the sea, for instance, the chance of enough of the right kinds of molecules coming together would be negligible... Bernal has called attention to the necessity for solving this problem of association, and has suggested that favourable conditions would probably occur if the molecules were coated as a film on the surface of a solid particle. Such a condition would undoubtedly best be satisfied ... while the planetary material was still distributed as a swarm of small bodies... There is no suggestion that animals and plants as we know them originated in interplanetary space. But the vital steps on which life is based may have occurred there.