CRYSTALLIZATION AND GROWTH 231 



is it not, to say the least, suggestive, that a fluid men- 

 struum is essential for vital processes ? Such fluid menstruum, 

 we now know, is essential for the breaking up of salts into 

 their constituent ions, so as to bring about the formation of 

 new combinations, and that in the absence of great heat. Is it 

 not suggestive that we, for example, are over 70 per cent 

 water ; that the actively functioning, as apart from the inert 

 tissues, contain still greater proportions — and the same is true 

 throughout living nature ; that we have in the living cell just 

 those conditions favouring alternate ionization and crystallization 

 of the contained molecules, and that the dominant and char- 

 acteristic element present in the living matter is one which we 

 find relatively wanting in this earth of ours, save in connexion 

 with living matter, or matter like coal, which has been alive ; 

 and that element, carbon, is, unlike the majority, tetravalent, 

 and therefore so peculiarly liable to form extensive and com- 

 plicated attachments ? It would almost seem as though all the 

 carbon present on the surface of the earth inevitably becomes 

 utilized to form and to give rise to living matter. The same is 

 largely true, too, as regards the nitrogen. 



In short, were I a Frenchman, I would say : La vie c'est 

 la crystallisation. Life is the by-play of carbon-nitrogen com- 

 pounds now breaking up and liberating energy, now attaching 

 to themselves other ions, and so storing up energy, deduplicating 

 themselves, and undergoing growth, or, as I have expressed it 

 elsewhere, life is to be regarded as a state of persistent and 

 incomplete recurrent satisfaction and dissatisfaction of certain 

 proteidogenous molecules. 



If we accept this view, and the more I ponder over it the more 

 convinced am I that it is along the right lines, where is the wide 

 difference I quoted to you as being observed between animate 

 and inanimate nature ? Where is that violent, not to say 

 indecent, assault upon the otherwise universal and ever to be 

 respected principle of the conservation of energy ? Life and 

 growth come under the category of chemical processes such as 

 we are familiar with. All that we have to recognize as separating 

 what we term animate from what we term inanimate nature is 

 that, from the intimate constitution of carbon, it is able to form 

 combinations of a marvellous complexity — unsatisfied compounds 

 which, therefore, are in a state of unstable equilibrium, which 



