DH. viii.] THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 433 



still more heterogeneous and unstable organic acids and 

 ethers. And all this chemical evolution must have taken 

 place before the first appearance of living protoplasm. Upon 

 these statements we may rest with confidence, since they are 

 immediate corollaries from known properties of matter. 



When it is asked, then, in what way were brought about 

 the various chemical combinations from which have resulted 

 the innumerable mineral forms which make up the crust of 

 the globe, the reply is that they were primarily due to the 

 unhindered working of the chemical affinities of their con- 

 stituent molecules as soon as the requisite coolness was 

 obtained. As soon as it became cool enough for oxygen and 

 hydrogen to unite into a stable compound, they did unit^ to 

 form vapour of water. As soon as it became cool enough for 

 double salts to exist, then the mutual affinities of simple 

 binary compounds and single salts, variously brought into 

 juxtaposition, sufficed to produce double salts. And so on, 

 throughout the inorganic world. 



Here we obtain a hint as to the origin of organic life upon 

 the earth's surface. In accordance with the modern dynamic 

 theory of life, we are bound to admit that the higher and less 

 stable aggregations of molecules which constitute protoplasm 

 were built up in just the same way in which the lower and 

 mor3 stable aggregations of molecules which constitute a 

 single or a double salt were built up. Dynamically, the only 

 dilference between carbonate of ammonia and protoplasm, 

 which can be called fundamental, is the greater molecular 

 complexity and consequent instability of the latter. We are 

 bound to admit, then, that as carbonic acid and ammonia, 

 when brought into juxtaposition, united by virtue of their 

 inherent properties as soon as the diminishing temperature 

 would let them ; so also carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and 

 oxygen, when brought into juxtaposition, united by virtue of 

 their inherent properties into higher and higher multiples as - 

 fast as the diminishing temperature would let them, until at 



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