THE ORIGIN OF BACTERIA AND OTHER MICRO-ORGANISMS 33 



1. It is a true colloid phase in which water is the dispersing medium, 

 and in which the dispersoids are complex protein molecules in aggregates 

 so small as to be wholly invisible by any of the optical aids to vision. 



2. It is very slightly permeable to water and is even less permeable 

 to the solutes which may be in the water. 



3. It is labilely stabile within certain conditions, as water supply, 

 temperature, and food supply. If the conditions become excessive the 

 precipitation and coagulation changes are such as to destroy the disperse 

 phase peculiar to a living substance. 



4. In brief, the plasmic stroma manifests properties of a colloidal 

 filter, in which the pores are so small as to permit entrance and passage 

 to the very smallest colloidal particles only. 



It may be assumed that life came into existence upon the earth at the 

 precise moment when the. particular proteid molecules appeared in water, 

 which in the presence of certain other colloidal suspensions, formed perhaps 

 eons earlier, together with a certain temperature and other environmental 

 conditions, gave rise to the coagulation change in the disperse phase to 

 which we have come to ascribe a living state. The much discussed 

 "spark of life" is thus nothing more nor Jess than the coming into being 

 of the particular colloid substance (protein) which was essential to bring 

 about the particular physical changes to which we ascribe life. Life 

 is thus not a chemical change although the changes in matter which are 

 essential to give rise to those substances which may be used as food by the 

 living substance, or rather which are essential for the purpose of main- 

 taining those constantly varying physical (colloidal) conditions which we 

 designate as manifestations of life, are chemical. Enzymes in particular, 

 play a very important part in those chemical and physical changes so 

 essential to higher life. 



The artificial production of life in the laboratory is not so much a 

 matter of providing a suitable environment to which organic matter must 

 be exposed, as it is a matter of finding a suitable colloidal filter. Should 

 we prepare a colloidal filter having the filtering qualities of the plasmic 

 stroma, we might then be prepared to begin upon a series of laboratory 

 experiments with a view to producing a living colloid substance. Other 

 factors altogether too numerous to mention come into play also. The 

 above is a mere outline of the present concept of the colloidal nature and 

 origin of living substances. 



Many other theories have been presented but none of them have any- 

 thing new or essentially different from the ideas above outlined. Among 

 the investigators who have given the subject considerable thought may be 

 mentioned Osborne who dwells at considerable length on the probable con- 

 ditions on the earth's surface during the geologic ages. He is of the 



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