24 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



the liquid state was assumed, not only binary but ternary 

 combinations would become abundant, through the combined 

 action of thermic and of the higher chemic energy. The com- 

 plexity of the action would be still further advanced, and the 

 variety of compounds increased, when electricity combined 

 with heat to produce thermo-electric effects, such as our pres- 

 ent-day thermo-electric furnaces illustrate, but only feebly 

 imitate in power. 



One result of this was the production of the progressively 

 more and more complex igneous rock masses, the great majority 

 of which are of highly complex composition, but are all crystal- 

 loid in structure. Such masses, like the granite already re- 

 ferred to (p. 8), may be said truly to represent the culmination 

 of crystalloid energy-condensation activity. 



A noteworthy feature of such solid bodies — that has only 

 begun to be fully recognized since Le Bon (2: 85) drew atten- 

 tion to the subject of intra-atomic stored energy, and since 

 radio-active bodies have been the subject of continued investi- 

 gation — is that they all possess enormous stability of molecular 

 or structural relation, in virtue of the enormous amount of 

 potential energy stored up. So, though the pathway of free 

 motion between the atoms or molecules may be extremely 

 circumscribed, the relatively enormous amount of stored energy 

 in them causes them to occupy a very constant and stable 

 relation to each other. Therefore, as a physicist has well 

 remarked, the visible relation of the particles in many solids 

 may remain unaltered for millions of years, and so give to 

 such solids a definite character and morphology by which they 

 are constantly recognized. 



But that the energy may gradually be again given up or 

 dissipated — in part as electric, in part as chemic, in part as 

 lumic, and in part as thermic energy — is now recognized to 

 be true in the history of such elemental metals as uranium, 

 ionium, radium, and helium, that represent stages in the devo- 

 lution of bodies which have existed for millions of years as 

 definite crystalloid compounds, but are now undergoing gradual 

 transformation by degradation and in the process are giving rise 

 to simpler bodies. 



