BIONOMICS 189 



gained through the misfortune of the other is only 

 superficial." 



To return to Spencer. He states, as quoted above, that 

 the degree of molecular mobility of each substance more or 

 less sensibly affects the molecular mobilities of the various 

 compounds into which it enters. This is to say, in other 

 words, that substances from a dynamical point of view 

 affect a compound according to their character. In a 

 similar way in Biology, every substance and every character 

 affect the compound into which they enter according 

 to their bio-dynamic value, i.e., to the "work" to 

 which they have become habituated. Evidence thereof will 

 again be provided on subsequent pages. We use the term 

 character because of its convenience. It tacitly implies 

 (as soon as we come to think of it) mutual adaptation for work 

 as has been pointed out. In the inorganic world already we meet 

 with the curious fact of " isomerization " difference of func- 

 tion, of habit, or of character, as we might say, in sub- 

 stances seemingly of one and the same material composition. 

 There are, for instance, the so-called allotropic modifications 

 of certain elements which show how the character of even so 

 relatively fixed an entity as a chemical element may vary. 



There is further to be considered here, as of the utmost 

 importance in the evolution of life, a gradation of changes of 

 a somewhat similar nature in the state of matter, the original 

 study of which we owe to Thomas Graham, the founder of 

 Collochemistry, viz., from crystallinity to colloidity, and vice 

 versa. 



These changes, as we now know, are connected with 

 changes of surface-tension : the same force which shapes the 

 raindrop, in the opinion of Prof. A. B. Macallum and other 

 Collochemists, being an all-important factor in the causation 

 of vital phenomena. 



Collochemists tell us that it is the colloidal substances, or 

 rather, that remarkable phase of matter termed colloidity, 

 which have been specialised as "privileged" carriers of 



