Ill REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 57 



of material structures and elemental types may have gone 

 on during the practically infinite period of past time. And 

 it may even be that, although new elements will no more be 

 evolved, derived structures are still being created under 

 suitable conditions. It is interesting to note, for instance, 

 that under novel laboratory conditions, new substances are 

 continually being synthetically produced. The whole 

 romance of the Aniline dyes is a tribute to the still active 

 " creativeness " of matter under the proper external con- 

 ditions. 



These considerations, in so far as they have any force, 

 must influence our concept of matter and tend towards reduc- 

 ing the utter heterogeneity which marks our traditional con- 

 cepts of matter and life. Of course a great difference 

 remains between these two concepts, between the chemical 

 compound on the one side and the organic cell on the other. 

 It would be futile to attempt to argue away this difference. 

 It is and remains great, but its character has been funda- 

 mentally transformed. We may put the conclusion of our 

 discussion in this way. In organic Evolution we come across 

 mutations — not absolute breaks with the past, but sudden 

 long steps of advance on the past, where one species or 

 variety leaps forward from and in advance of another. In 

 the advance from matter to life there is a leap forward, not 

 as between species, but as between kingdoms. And we may 

 conclude by saying that, instead of the old impassable gulf 

 between matter and life, between the chemical compound and 

 the cell, we have found on closer scrutiny only a mutation — 

 the greatest mutation of all undoubtedly in the whole range 

 of science, but essentially nothing more than a mutation. 

 They present the faint lineaments of a family resemblance, 

 and as science advances and our philosophy looks more 

 deeply, the resemblance will become clearer and more un- 

 mistakable. 



Lastly, we have seen that matter in its colloidal state dis- 

 closes properties and shows a behaviour which seem in some 

 way to anticipate the processes and activities of life in its 

 most primitive forms. In any case it begins to lay the basis 



