ORIGIN OF LIFE. | 37 
long ages.* But as a matter of fact (and now we 
turn to the second part of Mr. Spencer’s argument), 
even if we were to grant that the liability of organ- 
isms to increase in complexity of structure, only 
“arises from the actions and reactions between organ- 
isms and their fluctuating environments,” seeing that 
these changes in the environment are, as enumerated 
by Mr. Spencer, due to “astronomic, geologic, 
meteorologic, and organic agencies,” organisms never 
could by any possibility shelter themselves through 
* If an increasing complexity of structure does not gradually ensue, 
,the specimens of living matter in question will, after a time, undergo 
some other molecular rearrangements, resulting in different manifestations 
of Heterogenesis—either of an ascending or of a retrograde nature. 
_ Heterogenetic transformations from vegetal to animal type are very 
| frequent occurrences, whilst heterogenetic degradations (with resolution 
into colonies of lower forms) are still more frequent terminations of the 
lives of lower animal and vegetal organisms. The latter, especially, are 
often mere repetitions of similar, short-lived, and more or less inde- 
pendent, units. And if these original forms constantly reappear, so 
do the same crystalline forms always show themselves when given 
chemical compounds emerge from a state of solution. The different 
varieties of living matter (from the point of view of its molecular composi- 
tion) are probably innumerable, and each minute difference in molecular 
constitution, at whatever period it may have been induced, causes the 
living unit either gradually or suddenly to unfold into a different organic 
form. Similarly recurring external influences acting upon similarly 
constituted units of living matter should constantly engender molecular 
variations resembling those which have previously existed, and these 
when produced must necessarily lead the living unit through evolutional 
changes similar to those which others have undergone. To the ‘‘ wzi- 
Sormity of organic laws acting under uniform conditions” (p. 15) we 
must, therefore, turn for the true explanation of the persistent recurrence 
of myriads of Living as well as of Crystalline Forms. 
