THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 223 



chemist would scarcely regard it as such, whilst 

 its manifold potentiality and possibilities lead us 

 to regard it as something more than a radical and 

 therefore as an aggregation, ill-defined though it 

 should be, of electrons constituting not so much 

 a little solar system as the stable elements may 

 be said to do, but a miniature sun, so to speak, 

 wherein a vast complexity of motion is taking 

 place : that vital substance or biogen we regard 

 as neither molecular nor atomic, strictly speaking, 

 but the substance from which molecules and atoms 

 by condensation are evolved. In a word, we regard 

 the biogens as a sort of nebula of electrons in 

 the process of formation into atoms or elements, 

 and we have therefore called them bio-elements ; 

 systems, however, which have already reached a 

 state of motion which may be regarded as giving 

 them a character of their own as their life period 

 is very great. If the analogy between the forma- 

 tion of solar systems and that of atoms holds, 

 there is obviously room for such a state of things, 

 and as the elements would correspond to the 

 stable solar systems, so, too, the bio-elements would 

 correspond to the more or less unstable states of 

 aggregation — such as molecular. Like a great 

 nebula, the bio-element from which the human race 

 has sprung presents a similar complexity in its 

 structure as well as in its form of motion. 



By regarding, therefore, the biogen, not as a 

 compound radical essentially, but rather as such a 

 complex system of electrons, we surmount the 



