100 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



as our present knowledge leads us, the kind of energy needed 

 for elaborating protein compounds and even simpler colloid 

 bodies such as cellulose and starch can only reside in, and is 

 conducted by, protoplasm. 



Against such a view is the important fact that all colloid 

 bodies, up to the most complex albumins, seem to be constantly 

 associated ^ath electric synthesis and analysis or are iso-electric; 

 and further that Mann even regards them (57; 264) as electro- 

 lytes in action. But this in no sense militates against the 

 continuous existence of a greatly higher and more condensed 

 energy, into which electric energy is steadily being converted. 

 For similarly light is constantly being changed into higher 

 energy in green plant cells, and conversely electricity is often — 

 perhaps constantly — being changed into heat. So the high 

 degree of electric energy indicated by active ionization changes 

 may merely be an index to greatly higher energy storage or 

 energy expenditures on the part of colloid organic molecules. 



If we return to another phase of the situation that has already 

 been referred to, it can be said that many of the simpler Schi- 

 zophycese, as well as the simpler Schizomycetes, can be dried 

 and dessicated for months, but we still have to deal with so 

 much living organic matter in a highly complex though dormant 

 molecular state. In other words, we have stores of some energy 

 possessing orbital or oscillation movements round ether par- 

 ticles, that retain their potential energy and to a slight degree 

 their kinetic energy in so continuous a state that even after 

 long dessication when moistened in presence of oxygen of the 

 air, at a suitable temperature, rapid outflows of electric, chemic, 

 and thermic energy are established, and pronounced vegetative 

 changes ensue. But none of the inorganic energies seems ca- 

 pable of continuing and accentuating such changes. 



In the above connection, however, statements by the dis- 

 tinguished animal physiologist A. Waller seem to the writer 

 mistaken from all experimental results. We refer to the classi- 

 fication of organic matter into living and non-living, and the 

 further placing of dormant seeds under the latter category as 

 ^'formerly living." He speaks as follows (^5; 5): **Dry seeds 



