HOW LIFE CAME TO EARTH 189 



and more complex forms in labile equilibrium. 

 Atoms, molecules, colloids, and living organ- 

 isms, arise as the result of the operations of this 

 law, and in the higher regions of complexity 

 it induces organic evolution and all the many 

 thousands of living forms. At still higher 

 levels, it forms the basis of social evolution 

 and leads to that intellectual development in 

 individual and community which surmounts 

 the whole and is ever building upwards. 



In this manner we can conceive that the 

 hiatus between non-living and living things 

 can be bridged over, and there awakens in 

 our minds the conception of a kind of spon- 

 taneous generation of a different order from 

 the old. The territory of this spontaneous 

 production of life lies not at the level of 

 bacteria, or animalculae, springing forth into 

 life in dead organic matter, but at a level of 

 life lying deeper than anything the microscope 

 can reveal, and possessing a lower unit than 

 the living cell, as we form our concept of it 

 from the tissues of higher animals and plants. 



In the future, the stage at which colloids 

 begin to be able to deal with external energy 

 forms, such as light, and build up in chemical 

 complexity, will yield a new unit of life 

 opening a vista of possibilities as magnificent 

 as that which the establishment of the cell 



