344 PART V.-WORKING STAGE. 



The passage from ether to electron, from electron to the proto- 

 elements, from the latter to the inert gases, from these to ordi- 

 nary elements and simple compounds, and from the last to 

 colloids and protoplasm; 1 from gases to solids; from freez- 

 ing point to boiling point; from the electric spark of a 

 toy battery to the flash of lightning; from the readily ob- 

 tained amount of energy required for effecting the combination 

 of phosphorus with warm air to the at present unobtainable 

 amount necessary for disintegrating a chemical element; from 

 opacity to transparency; from imperviousness to perviousness ; 

 from rarity to density ; from the feeble draught making its way 

 up a kitchen chimney in sultry weather to a tempest in mid- 

 ocean; from rill to river; from the centre of the earth to its 

 surface and from its surface to the periphery of the atmo- 

 sphere; from the tremours of a stretched wire to earthquake 

 shocks ; from the climate or the stratification of one geological 

 epoch to that of another; from antarctic to arctic zone; from 

 the temperature of trees to that of birds; from the degree of 

 plant metabolism in mid-spring to that of mid- winter ; from the 

 bright scarlet colour of arterial blood to the dark purple of 

 venous blood; from complete sterility to remarkable fertility 

 of hybrid and other offspring; from alert wakefulness to pro- 

 found sleep; from rasping noise to mellifluous harmony; from 

 imperturbable calm to neurotic excitement ; from high efficiency 

 to total inefficiency; from verbal exposition to concrete study; 

 from ultra-anarchist to ultra-conservative in politics and other 

 spheres; from Napoleonic artillery effective only at less than 

 a mile range to modern long-distance guns deadly at more 

 than sixty miles range; and from private altercations to world 

 wars; the discovery of the spheroidal nature of the globe, of 

 the planetary perturbations, the variations of the earth's magne- 

 tism, and of the presence of carbonic acid in the air in a small 



"The degree of chemical complexity capable of existing in the materials 

 found on the earth is definitely and sharply fixed by temperature. At a 

 white heat, such as exists in the sun's atmosphere, we have seen that 

 only elements can exist, and many of these are decomposed into proto- 

 elements. At a somewhat lower temperature binary compounds, such as the 

 oxides, can remain in equilibrium, in incomplete combination, becoming 

 more and more complete as the temperature falls, and, as soon as their 

 existence becomes possible, these oxides do exist. Lower still in the scale 

 of temperature, saline compounds, such as chlorides of the alkalies, and 

 mutually neutralised acidic and basic oxides combined together, can stand 

 the heat. Such bodies as the carbonates of calcium and magnesium can 

 now be present in an incomplete state of combination, partially as oxide 

 and partially as carbonate, in labile balance as the temperature fluctuates 

 up or down, and the pressure of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere changes. 

 Whenever the environmental conditions make their presence possible, these 

 more complex forms must promptly make their appearance by chemical law. 

 But it is only at a very much lower temperature that compounds at all 

 complicated in chemical structure can exist in equilibrium, and for those 

 compounds of many hundreds of atoms which are a characteristic of life, 

 the range is narrowly limited." (Benjamin Moore, op. cit., pp. 184-186.) 



