74 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



the varied inorganic compounds are built up which we meet 

 with in nature, and which may be binary, ternary, or rarely 

 quaternary in complexity. These, however, in their com- 

 paratively simple composition, are in striking contrast to the 

 greatly more complex molecules that can be linked together 

 in an aqueous matrix as colloid "organic" molecules; though 

 a transition connection seems to exist in the rather numerous 

 inorganic colloid bodies that are now known to the chemist. 

 The right-hand portion of the diagram, therefore, is that which 

 requires further consideration. 



In view, then, of the greatly more complex molecular com- 

 binations that are typical of nearly all synthetic organic com- 

 pounds; in view also of the highly striking peculiarities that 

 these show, and wliich cause us to speak of them as living 

 bodies, it may well be questioned whether there may not exist 

 one or more forms of energy of advancing condensation, that as 

 perfectly characterize such bodies as are the recognized energies 

 typical of the inorganic kingdom. 



In favor of such inquiry it may be observed: (a) that the 

 capacity for transformation of a given weight of food stuff 

 or fuel into available work is greatly superior in organisms 

 to that of the most perfect machines; (b) that the most elaborate 

 attempts hitherto made to convert even the most complex 

 inorganic body into one of the simpler crystalloid or colloid 

 organic compounds have been limited; (c) in such efforts, the 

 complicated methods employed are in striking contrast to the 

 ease TN-ith which, in a day, the product of one bacterial cell 

 could absorb, metabolize, and build up 100 tons of material 

 (p. 58); (d) even granting in the last case that the food supplied 

 was itself complex or organic, the raising of this to a more 

 complex chemical state renders the process the more note- 

 worthy; (e) if four or more different modifications or conden- 

 sations of energy have all been evolved for advancing elabora- 

 tion of elemental gases into elemental compounds, and of these 

 into ternary or quaternary compounds, it might well be likely 

 that some still more perfect modifications of energy must have 

 originated for elaboration of the very complex ternary, quater- 



