AND ITS INHABITANTS 101 



crystalloids. The characteristics of colloids, slowness of 

 reaction, metastable equilibrium, delicacy of union, and in- 

 creased reactivity of specific type, become present in the forms 

 of matter now capable of existing in equilibrium with the en- 

 vironment. As the complexity of structure increases, the 

 nature of the equilibrium in the colloidal aggregates ap- 

 proaches more and more towards that labile, easily destroyed, 

 but also more readily constructive condition which is char- 

 acteristic of life. 



Moore then states in a general way as a "law universal in 

 its application to all matter, although varying in intensity in 

 different types of matter, and holding throughout all space as 

 generally as the law of gravitation a law which might be 

 called the Law of Complexity that matter so far as its energy 

 environment will permit tends to assume more and more 

 complex forms in labile equilibrium. Atoms, molecules, col- 

 loids and living organisms arise as a result of the operations 

 of this law, and in the higher regions of complexity it induces 

 organic evolution and all the many thousands of living forms." 

 In this manner he conceives that the hiatus between non-living 

 and living things can be bridged over, and that life arose as 

 an orderly development, which comes to every earth in the 

 universe in the maturity of creation when the conditions arrive 

 within the suitable limits. 17 



Allen's theory. We may now consider certain theories 

 which conform with the primal earth conditions as postulated 

 by the planetesimal theory of its origin. Allen, for example, 

 maintains that it is simplest to believe that the circumstances 

 which support life would also favor its origin and that if life 

 formerly existed actively outside the range of the freezing 

 and boiling points of water, it must have been quite different 

 from that which now exists. Life then arose at the period 

 when the physical conditions of the earth came to be nearly 



17 Moore, B., "The Origin and Nature of Life," 1912. 



