218 THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION 



Professor Plate alluded to a particularly interest 

 ing subject, viz. the alleged transitions from inor 

 ganic to organic matter in the case of liquid crystals. 

 I too have read the works mentioned, especially 

 the most important ones by Professor Lehmann, 

 and, in reading them, it struck me at once that, in 

 considering the points of comparison between 

 liquid crystals and living organisms, the chief dif 

 ference had been altogether overlooked. Liquid 

 crystals grow and reproduce themselves only by 

 taking up similar molecules from outside, whereas 

 even the smallest and simplest of living organisms 

 grows inwardly, and increases in size outwardly, by 

 way of assimilation. Thus we have here the old 

 account of life, that it tends to a purposive action 

 from the interior towards the exterior, whereas in the 

 case of liquid crystals there is only an addition 

 of molecules or groups of molecules from outside. 

 There is an appearance of living growth, confluence 

 and division, but these depend upon a mere aggre 

 gation of general superficial action and of specific 

 attraction. They are essentially merely phenomena 

 of disintegration. In liquid crystals there is no 

 assimilation of the substances taken up, so as to 

 provide for the various needs and purposes of life 

 such as the lowest organisms exhibit, and conse 

 quently there is no life. 1 



1 Further information regarding the analogies existing between liquid 

 crystals and living creatures may be found in Driesch, Bemerkungen 

 zu Przibrams Kristallanalogien, Archiv fur JSntwicMungsmechamk, xxiii., 

 1907, Part n. p. 174 ; also in K. Brauns Report on Lehmann s works on 



