After man there would be the mighty beetle civilisation, the bodies of whose members the cream of the Great Race would seize when the monstrous doom overtook the elder world. Later, as the earth's span closed, the transferred minds would again migrate through time and space -- to another stopping place in the bodies of the bulbous vegetable entities of Mercury. But there would be races after them, clinging pathetically to the cold planet and burrowing to its horror-filled core, before the utter end.

Summary

This quote suggests that after humans, a dominant civilization of beetles would rise and occupy the bodies of the last surviving humans as their new hosts. As the earth faces its demise, these transferred minds would migrate to Mercury, inhabiting the bulbous vegetable entities there. However, even on Mercury, there would be subsequent races struggling to survive before the ultimate destruction of the planet. Overall, the quote portrays a bleak picture of the cyclical nature of civilizations and the inevitable doom that awaits them all.

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