94 LIFE: ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN 



tutions of solids and liquids. It is to colloidal chemistry that we 

 must look for answers to the large majority of the fundamental 

 problems of vital activity. These answers will be slow in appear- 

 ing, however, if we refuse to look. 



"In fairness, it must of course be admitted that may biologists 

 are keenly alive to the importance of the theory of matter, and 

 especially of the theory of colloids, for the advancement of their 

 science. However, because the majority of these men are special- 

 ists in biochemistry, there seems to be a lack of coherent applica- 

 tions of modern physico-chemical ideas to the problems of evolu- 

 tion and heredity, which make up the heart of the biological 

 mystery. 



"It has for some years been my conviction that the conception 

 of enzyme action, or specific catalysis, provides a definite, general 

 solution for all of the fundamental biological enigmas: the mys- 

 teries of the origin of living matter, of the source of variations, 

 of the mechanism of heredity and ontogeny, and of general organic 

 regulation. In this conception I believe we can find a single, 

 synthetic answer to many, if not all, of the broad outstanding 

 problems of theoretical biology ... It is an answer, moreover, 

 which links these great biological phenomena directly with molec- 

 ular physics, and perfects the unity not alone of biology, but of the 

 whole system of physical science, by suggesting that what we call 

 life is fundamentally a product of catalytic laws acting in colloidal 

 systems of matter throughout long periods of geologic time. This 

 view implies no absurd attempt to reduce every element of vital 

 activity to enzyme action, but it does involve a reference of all 

 such activity to some enzyme action, however distantly removed 

 from present activity in time, or space, as a necessary first cause. 

 Catalysis is essentially a determinative relationship, and the 

 enzyme theory of life, as a general biological hypothesis, would 

 claim that all intra-vital or 'hereditary' determination is, in last 

 analysis, catalytic." 6 



In a paper by J. Alexander and C. B. Bridges 7 the following was 

 stated: "Before considering the modern view of catalysis, let us first 

 review some consequences of the structure of matter which make 

 catalysis possible and specific. When electrons and protons combine 

 to form atoms, when atoms combine to form molecules and when 

 molecules combine to form larger groups, there are always left over 

 some outwardly directed, unsatisfied fields of force. The residual 



