REACTION OF CELLS 



75 



The explanation of this peculiarity is the same 

 as that which I have given for the rapid change of 

 velocity of reaction with increase of temperature, in 

 which case I specially considered the inversion of 

 cane-sugar. Only a very small number of the cane- 



Time in minutes — *- 

 Fig. 2i. 



sugar molecules are at a given time in such a modi- 

 fied state that they are liable to be decomposed, and 

 every molecule of sugar enters at some time into 

 this state, so that at constant temperature molecules 

 of the said " active ' kind are always present in the 

 same fraction of the total number. Therefore the 

 number of molecules decomposed per second is pro- 

 portional to the total number of sugar-molecules 

 present. 



