104 ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE 



and balanced, that the atom possesses the 

 power of balancing in stable equilibrium with 

 four monad atoms or their equivalent, is that 

 form alone which can build up huge mono- 

 molecules. 



This is what is found actually to occur in 

 nature. Carbon, which is the most typical 

 tetrad, shows the property in highest degree, 

 the only other element approaching near to it 

 being silicon, which is also a tetrad. 



CHAPTER V 



BUILDING MATERIALS FOR LIVING MATTER 



As a result of this wonderful property of 

 self-equilibration of dynamic properties in the 

 carbon atom single molecules are capable of 

 forming, which contain some hundreds of 

 carbon atoms, and often in the life processes 

 such molecules are built up with molecular 

 weights running into several thousands, while 

 inorganic mono-molecules only run into a 

 few hundreds in their molecular weight, and 

 usually average less than that level. 



If the carbon atoms are represented in the 

 usual statical way by formulae so as to get 



