Spirazines 37 



In the accompanying diagrams it has been pos- 

 sible to represent the molecular structure of liv- 

 ing matter only in its statical aspect, but it should 

 be constantly borne in mind that the various 

 units of living matter are not rigid crystalline 

 structures but are plastic molecular fabrics which 

 are almost continually in a state of metamorpho- 

 sis and that it is the specific behavior of living 

 matter and not its exact form or appearance 

 which is carried on through successive genera- 

 tions. It is impossible to represent adequately on 

 paper the various deformations of which the 

 spirazine structure is capable, but it should be 

 noted that besides mere flattening of the polygo- 

 nal compartments in one direction or another as 

 represented in Figs. 4 and 5, there is also the pos- 

 sibility of longitudinal straightening out of the 

 spirals themselves, which can take place without 

 the disruption of either the peptide linkings or 

 the connecting complexes at the triple junctions, 

 so that almost every conceivable change of shape 

 is possible with these molecular structures with- 

 out any mutilation of the pattern which is charac- 

 teristic of the species. 



