146 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



the building up being the result of some catalytic 

 action of a semi-chemical nature ; and the breaking 

 down the consequence of the unstable nature of the 

 molecular aggregates formed : the luminosity being 

 the immediate consequence of the radiation which is 

 given out by the breaking down of these unstable 

 groups. 



It is in this way that substances which compose 

 the nuclei that exist within nuclei should ultim- 

 ately be found to behave ; the ultimate nucleus, 

 however, being the fountain, so to speak, of the 

 vital energy, that sets and maintains the whole mass 

 going — something similar to the radio-active atom, 

 which, for a long range of time, is apparently the 

 source of inexhaustible energy ; something which 

 would behave like the molecule of cyanogen, a 

 comparatively stable, and yet really an unstable 

 group, which in losing its stability, like the atom 

 of radium, gives out at the same time the vast store 

 of energy that results from the mutual attraction 

 of its parts. 



This substance need not be, and most probably is 

 not, cyanogen nor radium, but some other which 

 possesses this quality in a marked degree. The 

 nucleus would not consist of a single such molecule, 

 but of a vast number of them like a gas, or the 

 emanation from radium, and the multiplication of 

 the primitive or ultimate nucleus would be very 

 much the same. 



The process of karyokinesis in the visible nucleus 

 and nucleolus would be the result of strains set up 



