NEW ORGANIC COMPOUNDS 6q 



colloidal could develop such changeable and plastic forms, and 

 yet be able, if necessary, to preserve these forms unaltered?" 



Fourth: As a fourth hypothesis relating to the origin of 

 organisms, we may advocate the idea that the evolution and 

 specialization of various " chemical messengers " known as 

 catalyzers (including enzymes or "unformed ferments") has 

 proceeded step by step with the evolution of plant and animal 

 functions. In the evolution from the single-celled to the many- 

 celled forms of life and the multiplication of these cells into 

 hundreds of millions, into billions, and into trillions, as in the 

 larger plants and animals, biochemical coordination and cor- 

 relation became increasingly essential. This cooperation was 

 also an application of energy new to the cosmos. 



Fifth: With this assemblage, mutual attraction, colloidal 

 condition, and chemical coordination, a fifth hypothesis is 

 that there arose the rudiments of competition and Natural 

 Selection which tested all the actions, reactions, and inter- 

 actions of two competing individuals. Was there any stage in 

 this grouping, assemblage, and organization of life forms, how- 

 ever remote or rudimentary, when the law of natural selection 

 did not operate between different unit aggregations of matter? 

 Probably not, because each of the chemical life elements possesses 

 its peculiar properties which in living compounds best serve cer- 

 tain functions. 



Evolution of New Organic Compounds 



Special actions and reactions appear to be characteristic of 

 each of the life elements, issuing in new compounds. 



The central idea in our five hypotheses (see p. 67) of suc- 

 cessive physicochemical stages is that in the origin and early 

 evolution of the life organism there was a gradual attraction 

 and grouping of the ten chief life elements, followed by the 



