270 WE AT IS LIFE 



tory; and only the laboratory can furnish absolutely 

 decisive, unequivocal, and final proof on so revolu- 

 tionary a theory as this one that asserts that life is 

 a quantity. 



What constitutes the general problem that is in- 

 volved in the question of laboratory proof of the 

 theory, is obvious. The theory involves two essential 

 hypotheses for which there is as yet no laboratory 

 evidence: (1) There is a type of combination of 

 positive and negative electrons which is distinct from 

 the types at present recognized by physicists and 

 chemists ; (2) this new entity is an essential constitu- 

 ent of living matter. 



Thus the core of the theory is the general law of the 

 structure of living matter. It is the affirmation that all 

 living matter is dual, atomic-intraatomic, in composi- 

 tion. The stability of the organism that means the 

 living state, is determined by an intraatomic system. 



The intraatomic system — necessarily described as 

 not belonging to the configuration of the atoms within 

 which it is found, but as an immaterial quantity, 

 that is, a quantity the units of which are not grouped 

 after the pattern of the elements, but are organized 

 after a different pattern, with qualities peculiarly 

 its own — was identified as life. 



Together with the general law of the structure of 

 living matter, then, are given the propositions: 



