Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/636

 6l6 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

this law of limitation extends to the organic, psychic, and social world. In the first place, chemistry shows us especially that, in proportion as the combinations becoms more complex, they become more and more susceptible to modification by physical influences and by the actions and reactions of the atoms and molecules among themselves. Every new combination formed by the intrusion of atoms or of molecules into the environment of an existing aggregate must necessarily modify the equilibra- tion of the aggregate, in its structure and in its movements, and give rise to a different equilibration. In general, the simple bodies are the most stable ; for the most part, they resist all reagents. Carbon (diamond) is extremely stable; the com- pounds are less stable ; the implex compounds are still less so. Experience demonstrates the increasing instability of compound bodies. This characteristic is manifested with a maximum of intensity in those organized bodies whose states of equilibrium are so varied and so variable that chemistry has not yet succeeded in determining the nature of many of the products of the higher combinations out of which life arises.

SECTION V. BIOLOGICAL LIMITS.

Organic matter is limited.

Its fundamental property, its characteristic force, is a con- stant tendency to a more and more complete adaptation to all the forces of the environment. In the lower stages, this natural tendency is favored by the division of the matter into portions with very small surfaces. Such division, augmenting the wJwle boundary surface, extends the field of activity of the matter, inasmuch as the vital energy is first exercised in a quasi-general manner on the external surface. Consequently life that is to say, the sum of all these activities augments when the organic matter is subdivided into very small particles. However, these considerations do not appear applicable to the higher forms of matter.

From the morphological point of view, the sphere has the inclosing surface which limits the maximum volume. This principle may be placed in relationship with two other theorems. According to the first, as stated in the capillary theory of