58 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



once arisen, they should be more or less in a stable 

 state ; that as they part with their energy they 

 ultimately reach a condition when they become 

 highly unstable and finally break up ; that this 

 process may take place extremely slowly, as in the 

 case of radio-active atoms ; but how, in what manner 

 do they actually come about, is what is not quite so 

 easily explained. In the case of atoms it is by 

 no means clear, nor is there the slightest clue as to 

 how they have been formed, unless they have been 

 the result of mutual attraction in the first instance, 

 as solar systems have been formed ; the more stable 

 systems or configurations of atoms being the ones 

 which have had the chance of persisting. 



In the case of larger molecules the groupings may 

 be brought about, since they are far more unstable, by 

 the action of light or some ordinary electromagnetic 

 disturbance, such as that due to the swift passage of 

 a cathode ray or its impact upon bodies, or by its 

 disruption from, or collision with, molecules and 

 atoms. 



The view which we have put forward that phos- 

 phorescence and fluorescence are but the visible 

 manifestations of building up and breaking down of 

 unstable molecular groups, is in accordance with the 

 theory that such aggregations are formed by electro- 

 magnetic disturbances, which shatter, as it were, the 

 individual particles, whether atoms or molecules, and 

 enable them to get the opportunity of assuming 

 the configurations which are most stable. In the 

 course of time, that time may be hundreds or 



