122 ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE 



be offered which will unite too strongly 

 and lock up its activities. Material must 

 be given to it adapted to its uses, or upon 

 which it can play and produce either its own 

 building materials, or obtain energy for its 

 constant cyclical changes. 



There is, here, a near approach to the 

 life material, and it is to be observed that 

 function and activities alter and new 

 creative phenomena develop with developing 

 structure. 



These living properties depend on labile 

 molecular unions, and are not only found 

 in living structures, they are to be met in 

 inorganic colloids. 



It has been seen above that with the 

 exception of carbon, and in a lesser degree 

 silicon, the other elements do not possess in 

 any marked degree the power of self-union, 

 and so do not form enormous single molecules 

 such as fats, carbohydrates, and proteins, 

 but many of them do possess the power of 

 molecular union to form colloids with as 

 many as sixty molecules united without 

 any atomic unions to form colloids. 



The compounds of carbon possess both these 

 properties for increasing structural complexity 

 viz., large molecules and power of colloidal 

 union, and hence these form the best material 



