A DYNAMICAL HYPOTHESIS OF INHERITANCE. 31 



mechanism of the utmost complexity and requisite potentiality 

 as a transformer of energy through the mere transposition and 

 rearrangement of such parts. We find indeed that living matter 

 is chemically the most complex and unstable substance known. 

 It is composed largely of carbon, a quadrivalent element that 

 stands alone in its power to combine with itself and at the 

 same time hold in chemical bondage groups of atoms repre- 

 senting other chemical bodies. Such groups are probably held 

 together in great numbers metamerically by the reciprocal or 

 otherwise unsatisfied affinities of the large number of carbon 

 atoms entering into the composition of the proteid molecule. 

 In this way the massive and structurally complex molecule of 

 protoplasm may be supposed to have arisen. We may thus 

 trace the genesis of the peculiarities of living matter to this 

 singular property of the carbon atom. On such a basis we 

 may suppose that the ultimate molecular units are identical 

 with the physiological units, so that their structures may not 

 only determine the nature of the metabolism they can un- 

 dergo but also be the ultimate units of form or morphological 

 character. 



What especially gives color to these suspicions is the extraor- 

 dinary variety of changes, alteration of properties or powers, 

 and the vast variety of living matter, as represented by the 

 million or more of known distinct living species of organisms. 

 It is as if the permutations, transformations, and the dynamical 

 readjustment of the metameres of the molecules of living matter 

 were the source of its varying potentialities as manifested in its 

 protean changes of specific form and function. That some 

 mechanical, and consequently dynamical interpretation of these 

 transformations may yet be forthcoming is, I take it, distinctly 

 foreshadowed by the advances in the newer theories of stereo- 

 chemistry developed by LeBel and Van't Hoff. If this is the 

 case we may yet hope for a mechanical and dynamical explana- 

 tion of the phenomena of life and inheritance. Especially is 

 this true if we further suppose that the large molecules of 

 living plasma are rather feebly held together by a force almost 

 of the nature of cohesion. We may be permitted thus to find 

 an explanation of that phenomenon which is always so char- 



