36 LIFE AND LIGHT 



up to the bacteria and the protozoa. The brink of life lies not at the 

 production of protozoa and bacteria, which are highly developed 

 inhabitants of our world, but away down amongst the colloids, 

 and the beginning of lif e was not a fortuitous event occurring millions 

 of years ago and never again repeated, but one which in its pri- 

 mordial stages keeps on repeating itself all the time now in our 

 generation; so that if all intelligent creatures were by some 

 holocaust destroyed, up out of the depths in process of millions 

 of years intelligent beings would once more emerge. 



In this process of chemical evolution up to the stage which we 

 at the present day regard as living, it is to be observed that as the 

 non-living colloid becomes more and more complex, and accordingly 

 more and more labile, it at the same time must become more and 

 more susceptible to the influence of external stimulation by different 

 forms of energy. This means that it must, under such conditions 

 that it can remain in equilibrium without decomposition, become 

 more and more a machine for uptake and utilisation of energy. 

 The fact that the present basis of the system of living creatures in 

 the world is light energy leads to the view that at a certain stage in 

 the development of colloids, probably long before the appearance 

 of chlorophyll, the colloids began to be affected by the light, and 

 acquired the property of retaining and utilising light energy for 

 further development of structure, or, in other words, synthesis of 

 more complex colloids. 



A second point of importance is the gradual increase in time 

 periods arising as development progressed. The simpler a chemical 

 reaction is, as a general rule, the more instantaneous it is ; with 

 increasing complexity the time phases grow longer. This, as stated 

 previously, Graham observed in regard to colloids, which are 

 infinitely slower in their reactions than crystalloids. 



The early stages in development up towards life would hence be 

 rushed through rapidly, and be easily and constantly reproducible. 

 As complexity increased so would the time grow longer for any 

 chemical evolution. A vastly increased time interval would 

 be necessary for the evolution of a course of events from the 

 commencing simpler organic conditions upwards in increasing 

 complexity, and more especially the time necessary to reach any 

 higher stage of organisation de novo would be immensely increased 

 on account of instability and tendency to break down again as 

 different and more delicately balanced stages were passed. There 



