58o THE WONDER OF LIFE 



ment. In the same manner, the oceans which were formed 

 automatically in the course of the cosmic process have in 

 certain respects a maximal fitness in relation to Ufe. Even 

 our own blood, which is such an effective internal medium, 

 seems to owe some of its virtue to Father Neptune. 



' The fitness of the environment results from character- 

 istics which constitute a series of maxima — unique, or 

 nearly unique properties of water, carbonic acid, the 

 compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen and the 

 ocean — so numerous, so varied, so nearly complete among 

 all things which are concerned in the problem, that together 

 they form certainly the greatest possible fitness. No 

 other environment consisting of primary constituents 

 made up of other known elements or lacking water and 

 carbonic acid, could possess a like number of fit char- 

 acteristics or such highly fit characteristics, or in any 

 manner such great fitness to promote complexity, durability 

 and active metabolism in the organic mechanism which 

 we call fife '....' In fundamental characteristics the 

 actual environment is the fittest possible abode of fife '. 



It seems to come to this that ours is the best of worlds. 

 It is certain that the earth could not have become the home 

 of the living creatures that we know unless it had gone 

 through stages of chemical and physical preparation. 

 It is certain that the physical basis of Ufe as we know it 

 could not have been formed unless there had been in 

 matter a tendency to complexify — ^to form atoms, molecules, 

 enormous molecules, and those unstable aggregates of 

 molecules which we know in colloids. It is also certain 

 that the compounds of carbon, with their large molecules, 

 and power of colloidal union, are such as to favour the 

 increase of structural complexity, e.g., as we see it in the 



