LIFE AND LIGHT 35 



been described in the previous chapter from Graham's writings 

 and elsewhere as characteristic of colloids viz., slowness of reaction, 

 meta- stable equilibrium, hysteresis, etc., would be present in the 

 higher molecules now capable of existing in equilibrium with their 

 environment. 



As the complexity of structure increased, the nature of the 

 equilibrium in the colloidal aggregates would approximate more and 

 more to that labile, easily destroyed, but also readily constructive 

 condition which has been described in the preceding chapter as 

 characteristic of all living things. In this manner we can conceive 

 that the gulf between non-living and living things can be bridged 

 over, and there awakens in our minds the novel conception of a 

 kind of spontaneous generation of a different order from the old. 

 The territory of this spontaneous production of life lies not at the 

 level of bacteria or animalculse 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 discovery of the fact that inorganic colloids 

 are capable of absorbing external energy forms, such as light, and 

 so building up in complexity will yield a new outlook upon life, 

 opening a vista of possibilities as magnificent as that which the 

 establishment of the cell as a unit gave when there came the 

 development of the microscope less than a century ago. 



It was no fortuitous combination of chances and no cosmic 

 dust which brought life to the bosom of our ancient mother earth 

 in the far distant pre- Cambrian ages, but a well-regulated order of 

 development, which comes to every mother earth in the universe 

 in the maturity of its creation, when the conditions arrive within 

 the suitable limits. 



Given the presence of matter and energy forms under the proper 

 conditions, life must come inevitably, just as, given the proper con- 

 ditions of energy and completion of matter in the fertilised ovum, 

 one change after another must introduce itself and give place to 

 another, and spin along in infinite variation till the mature 

 embryo appears, and this in turn must pass through the phases of 

 growth, maturity, reproduction, decay, and death. 



If this view be the true one, there must exist a whole world of 

 living creatures which the microscope has never shown us, leading 



