20 LIFE: ITS NATUEE, OEIGIN AND MAINTENANCE 



Assuming the evolution of living matter to have occurred whether 



once only or more frequently matters not for the moment and in the 



form suggested, viz., as a mass of colloidal slime 



Further course of possessing the property of assimilation and therefore 

 evolution of life. , . 



of growth, reproduction would follow as a matter of 



course. For all material of this physical nature fluid or semi-fluid in 

 character has a tendency to undergo subdivision when its bulk exceeds a 

 certain size. The subdivision may be into equal or nearly equal parts, or 

 it may take the form of buds. In either case every separated part would 

 resemble the parent in chemical and physical properties, and would 

 equally possess the property of taking in and assimilating suitable 

 material from its liquid environment, growing in bulk and reproducing 

 its like by subdivision. Omne vivum e vivo. In this way from any 

 beginning of living material a primitive form of life would spread, and 

 would gradually people the globe. The establishment of life being once 

 effected, all forms of organisation follow under the inevitable laws of 

 evolution. Ce nest que le premier pas qui cottte ! 



We can trace in imagination the segregation of a more highly 

 phosphorised portion of the primitive living matter, which we may now 

 consider to have become more akin to the protoplasm of organisms 

 with which we are familiar. This more phosphorised portion might 

 not for myriads of generations take the form of a definite nucleus, but 

 it would be composed of material having a composition and qualities 

 similar to those of the nucleus of a cell. Prominent among these 

 qualities is that of catalysis the function of effecting profound 

 chemical changes in other material in contact with it without itself 

 undergoing permanent change. This catalytic function may have been 

 exercised directly by the living substance or may have been carried 

 on through the agency of the enzymes already mentioned, which are also 

 of a colloid nature but of simpler constitution than itself, and which 

 differ from the catalytic agents employed by the chemist in the fact that 

 they produce their effects at a relatively low temperature. In the course 

 of evolution special enzymes would become developed for adaptation to 

 special conditions of life, and with the appearance of these and other 

 modifications, a process of differentiation of primitive living matter into 

 individuals with definite specific characters gradually became established. 

 We can conceive of the production in this way from originally undifferen- 

 tiated living substance of simple differentiated organisms comparable to 

 the lowest forms of Protista. But how long it may have taken to arrive 

 at this stage we have no means of ascertaining. To judge from the evi- 

 dence afforded by the evolution of higher organisms it would seem that a 

 vast period of time would be necessary for even this amount of organisation 

 to establish itself. 



The next important phase in the process of evolution would be the 

 segregation and moulding of the diffused or irregularly aggregated nuclear 



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