194 C. M. CHILD 
Only when we take into consideration the motive power and 
the method of its action under the given conditions, can we hope 
really to advance in our knowledge of how things come to be as 
they are in the organism, or to determine and predict what they 
shall be. Man has attained his present position by acquiring 
knowledge and control of energy in nature. Can he hope to ad- 
vance in his insight into the problems and his control of the proc- 
esses of life in any other way? 
According to this point of view, life, like every other continu- 
ous energetic process, is essentially a series of equilibrations, of 
regulations. When regulation shall cease, evolution and li‘e will 
also cease. The power of regulation in organisms is nothing uni- 
que, but is something which they possess in common with all 
energetic processes in nature,which continue for any appreciable 
time. In fact, strictly speaking, all energetic processes in nature 
are equilibrations. 
As was suggested above, the range of regulatory capacity in 
organisms is undoubtedly due in large measure to the fact that 
the process of metabolism produces certain colloid substances, 
among which the proteids and lipoids are the most characteristic. 
With the first proteid synthesis under certain conditions in nature 
the processes of regulation of the type which we find in organisms 
began. Perhaps we may say that life began here also. The reaction 
which was concerned in the first synthesis must of course have 
preceded the completed synthesis, but as water apart from the 
channel which it forms for itself in its environment is not a river, so 
a given chemical reaction, or a series of reactions, apart from the 
conditions which it produces where it takes place, is not life. We 
may say if we please that life began as a chemical reaction, but we 
must recognize the fact that the occurrence of that reaction pro- 
duced certain characteristic conditions, which played a part in 
determining the course and character of further reactions: in short, 
the reaction determined the existence of structure and the mu- 
tual interrelations between structure and function: and finally, 
with the existence of structure of colloid nature, the possibility 
of regulation of the organic type also appeared, and regulation 
began. 
