WITH THE DOMAIN OF THE INORGANIC 73 



and purposiveness. It is a domain of mechanically neces- 

 sitated sequences without alternatives and of uniformities 

 without exceptions. In all probability this quality of uni- 

 formity has been a quite indispensable basis for the super- 

 structure of life, affording stability for the experiments and 

 endeavours that have doubtless been characteristic of organ- 

 isms from the first. 



§ 12. The Suitability of the Inorganic to he the Basis and 



Environment of the Organic, 



We wish in conclusion to allude to the very interesting 

 fact — which will demand further attention later on — that 

 the not-living earth exhibits many remarkable fitnesses to 

 be the home of life. Living means trafficking with the en- 

 vironment ; to do this effectively organisms must be complex 

 and yet coherent, plastic and yet durable, and they were 

 able to gain these qualities because of the fundamental prop- 

 erties of the primary constituents of the inanimate environ- 

 ment. The properties of Water and Carbon dioxide, the 

 tendency some forms of matter have to complexify, the prop- 

 erties of the colloid state, the character of the sea as a 

 medium, these and other inorganic data are, as Prof. L. J. 

 Henderson (1913, 1917) has shown in detail, extraordina- 

 rily well suited to be pre-conditions of organisms. We must, 

 of course, avoid arguing in a circle, for that the earth should 

 be ' friendly ' to living creatures is not surprising, since 

 in their physical nature they are bone of her bone and flesh 

 of her flesh — her very children. Yet when we give full 

 consideration to the fact that living creatures as material 

 systems are in no wise foreign to the earth, but are in drop 

 and subtle ways congruent and solidary with it, perhaps we 

 shall not be inclined to brush aside hurriedly the suggestion 



