58 THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF LIFE 



can decompose indefinite quantities of a compound. The 

 activity of enzymes is rather in the nature of the "interaction" 

 of our theory than of direct action and reaction, because the 

 results are produced at a distance and the energy Uberated 

 may be entirely out of proportion to the internal energy of the 

 catalyzer. The enzymes, being themselves complex organic 

 compounds, act specifically because they do not affect alike the 

 different organic compounds which they encounter in the fluid 

 circulation. 



Adaptation in the Colloidal State 



In the lifeless world matter occurred both in the crystal- 

 loidal and colloidal states. It is in the latter state that life 

 originated. It is a state peculiarly favorable to action, reac- 

 tion, and interaction, or the free interchange of physicochemi- 

 cal energies. Each organism is in a sense a container full of 

 a watery solution in which various kinds of colloids are sus- 

 pended.^ Such a suspension involves a play of the energies of 

 the free particles of matter in the most delicate equilibrium, 

 and the suspended particles exhibit the vibrating movement 

 attributed to the impact of the molecules.- These free parti- 

 cles are of greater magnitude than the individual molecules; in 

 fact, they represent molecules and multimolecules, and all the 

 known properties of the compounds known as "colloids" can 

 be traced to feeble molecular affinities between the molecules 

 themselves, causing them to unite and to separate in multi- 

 molecules. Among the existing living colloids are certain car- 

 bohydrates, like starch or glycogen, proteins (compounds of 

 carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen with sulphur or phos- 

 phorus), and the higher fats. The colloids of protoplasm are 

 dependent for their stability on the constancy of acidity and 



^ Bechhold, Heinrich, 191 2. - Smith, Alexander, 1914, p. 305. 



