26 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



other of the colloids referred to on p. 16. But our knowledge 

 of them, and of their molecular composition, is still compara- 

 tively limited. It is through these, however, we believe, that 

 a continuous and direct passage can be had from the so-called 

 "inorganic" to the "organic" compounds. 



In contrasting inorganic crystalloid and colloid bodies it 

 can be said that, while the former are abundant, the latter 

 are comparatively rare; the former are usually binary or ter- 

 nary, rarely quaternary, compounds, the latter even at ordinary 

 temperature range from elemental to binary, ternary, or quater- 

 nary compounds; the former have a relatively simple molecular 

 structure, the latter a greatly more complex one; the former 

 can hold little intermolecular water or other liquids, the latter 

 show exceptional capacity in this respect. But, as we advance 

 from the more complex binary and ternary inorganic colloids, 

 in search of others with an increasingly complex structure, we 

 invariably reach so-called "organic" compounds. 



Now, had we lived in the early part of the archsean epoch, 

 and, w4th the knowledge we now possess, had we surveyed 

 the procession of inorganic advance from the thermic- and 

 the lumic-charged gaseous state, through the thermo-lumic 

 and chemically charged liquid or viscous state, to the chemico- 

 electric and electrically charged solid state of the earth's crust, 

 the question might naturally have occurred: Can there, or 

 does there, exist a more condensed, perfect, and powerful type 

 of the all-pervading energy than even electric, and if so can it 

 exhibit its potentiality by building up greatly more complex 

 ternary and quaternary colloid molecules than any now exist- 

 ing? Can it even further elaborate quinary, hexary, or heptary 

 bodies, that shall exhibit a greatly more complex composition 

 and interrelation than do the varied and mixed constituents 

 of granite or related rocks of the crystalloid.^ Such to the mind 

 of the archsean surveyor might have seemed difficult, even 

 impossible, of realization or projection. But he, in his bodily 

 upbuild, would have been an impersonation of the fulfilled 

 hope, at least so far as the molecular complexity is concerned. 

 As regards the energizing factor that accomplished such striking 



