188 ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE 



chemical structure passes from the atom to 

 the molecule. 



Accompanying these structural changes, 

 the energy types airfd phases inhabiting the 

 unit of structure also vary. The rates of 

 vibration or of phasic activity in the colloidal 

 aggregates become slower than in the simpler 

 molecules of the crystalloids. All that has 

 been described in the previous chapter as 

 characteristic of colloids, viz., slowness of 

 reaction, meta-stable equilibrium, delicacy 

 of union, and increased reactivity of specific 

 type, becomes present in the forms of matter 

 now capable of existing in equilibrium with 

 the environment. As the complexity of 

 structure increases, the nature of the equili- 

 brium in the colloidal aggregates approaches 

 more and more towards that labile, easily 

 destroyed, but also more readily constructive 

 condition which has been described as charac- 

 teristic of life. 



It may then be summed up as a general 

 law universal in its application to all matter, 

 although varying in intensity in different 

 types of matter, and holding throughout all 

 space as generally as the law of gravitation — 

 a law which might be called the Law of Com- 

 plexity — that matter so far as its energy 

 environment will permit tends to assume more 



