CHAPTER X

EXOTHERMIC AND ENDOTHERMIC SUBSTANCES



To come back to the question that we began to consider,

and which we left off in the middle namely that of the sort of

chemical substances that would be built up under the two

tendencies. We will have to distinguish between the case

where we are dealing with a positive section of the universe

and that where we are dealing with a negative section of the

universe. To take the former case first, let us suppose that

the positive is the prevailing tendency. This tendency would

tend to build up exothermic substances, which the

comparatively few cases of the negative tendency would form

those same substances into endothermic substances for their

own constituency. Some of these endothermic substances, it

is true, will be rejected as positive or inanimate matter, but,

on the whole, there will be a tendency for the more endothermic

substances to go into the negative tendency, or into life, and for

the more exothermic substances to be found in the lifeless

matter.

Since each process must chemically build up substances

from their elements, which existed as free elements when the

world was at a high heat, it might be expected that there might

be a tendency towards complex compounds, so that

substances tend, to a great extent, to combine with the

tetravalent elements, which form the most complex

compounds. The two most common tetravalent elements are

carbon and silicon, the complex compounds of silicon being

extremely exothermic, while the complex compounds of

carbons are extremely endothermic. It might therefore be

expected that inanimate matter would tend to build itself to a

great extent into complex silicon compounds (silicates, such

as earth, clay, many rocks, etc.), while, on the contrary, living

matter might be expected to form as much as possible into

complex carbon compounds, as endothermic as possible.

Such is known to be the case; in fact, such carbon compounds

are generally known as "organic compounds."

Furthermore, one substance that forms compounds of

high chemical energy, though itself having very low chemical

energy, is nitrogen. This element forms extremely endothermic

compounds, which are in many cases explosive. At every

ordinary chemical transformation involving nitrogen, some free

nitrogen goes off into the air; but the reverse process, the

fixation of pounds from nitrogen itself together with other

necessary substances, is a process requiring an immense

amount of energy (by one process, a temperature of about

3000 degrees, by another process, a pressure of about 200

atmospheres). Since nitrogen forms such extremely

endothermic compounds, we might expect that, where the

general tendency is positive, life will tend to include not only as

much carbon as possible, but also as much nitrogen as

possible. It would therefore, in a section of the universe where

the positive tendency prevails, seem to follow that life would

tend, as far as possible, to be found in complex carbon-

nitrogen compounds. The simplest of these compounds of

carbon and nitroget, inself an endothermic compounds, is

cyanogen, (CN)2, and we might expect that the CN radical

would the foundation of life.

On the contrary, where a living body reacts with an

inanimate body in any way, it is also likely to build up such

complex carbon-nitrogen compounds not only as the living

product, but also as the lifeless product which we have seen

must be formed. Hence these products must be formed to

some extent not merely in living matter, but also in inanimate

matter. For instance, this very process of the fixation of

nitrogen, that we have already referred to, we might expect to

be found accomplished by living bodies which can absorb

nitrogen and react to it, leaving nitrogen compounds as

rejected matter, besides forming themselves into nitrogen

compounds. We do, in fact, find such a process operating

among what are called the nitrogen-fixing, or nitrifying,

bacteria, which absorb nitrogen and reject non-living nitrogen

compounds in a manner that could hardly be explained as

anything but reversing the second law of thermodynamics.

Thus is the result where the prevailing tendency is

positive, and where the negative tendency is the exception.

To trace this result further, we much remember that life, the

negative tendency, grows by accretion on a living center which

is necessary. Living bodies absorb inanimate matter,

extending life more and more, absorbing to some extent

exothermic substances, rejecting to some extent endothermic

substances, until this living activity begins to take in the

majority of the section of the universe. Meanwhile the living,

the negative, activities will have absorbed most, if not all,

of the exothermic substances, while the positive tendency will

be kept up by the constant rejection of mostly endothermic

substances as lifeless matter. Thus will the extremely

complicated carbon-nitrogen compounds tend, in a section of

the universe where the prevailing tendency is negative, to be

found more and more as positive, as lifeless bodies.

Furthermore, since such a section of the universe is the exact

reverse of a positive section of the universe, such positive

bodies will tend to be formed as exactly such complex

organisms as are, in our section of the universe, found in living

bodies. We will have a complex, life-like organism, but with

none of the life activities (with some exceptions, as we shall

see). We may call such organisms pseudo-living organisms.

In our "reverse universe" these pseudo living organisms will

take the exact shapes of the living organisms in our real

universe.

Such extremely endothermic compounds are unstable

under the positive tendency, but require the negative tendency

to stabilize them. Under the positive tendency, these

compounds will tend to decompose into exothermic

tendencies very quickly. But the tendency of negative activities

to extend from a negative center will be very active when most

of the universe is negative, and hence such exothermic

substances will be likely to be quickly absorbed by the

prevailing negative tendency; while, on the contrary, the

prevailing negative tendency will tend quickly to build up as

rejected positive matter these same endothermic compounds

into the positive, pseudo-living organisms. Thus these pseudo-

living organisms differ from corpses in that there is a constant

cycle of chemical reaction with the surrounding world, a

constant building up and decomposition of substance. Since

these organisms are the exact reverse of living organisms as

we know them, it follows that, in a section of the universe

where the prevailing tendency is positive, any living bodies

much exist in the form of chemical machines that constantly

absorb inanimate matter, build up into living matter, and as

constantly make partial decompositions of their own substance

into more exothermic substances which are rejected as

inanimate matter. That is, both living substances in our

section of the universe and the pseudo-living organisms in the

negative sections of the universe have in common the property

of metabolism. All these conclusions hold except at a heat so

great that the formation of compounds is impossible (e.g., on

the sun). Metabolism is thus not a property of life, but of the

minority tendency. The same is true of the chemical

composition of organisms. In a positive section of the universe

the organisms are living; in a negative section of the universe

they are essentially lifeless.

Where the heat is too great to permit of the formation of

chemical compounds, such chemical machines cannot exist;

but the minority tendency, whether positive or negative, would

probably exist, the chances of its non-existence being

extremely small. Under any conditions the chances are

overwhelmingly in favor of there being a mixture of the two

tendencies. Yet, though both tendencies are present, there will

be a majority and a majority tendency. But what such minority

tendency may be like, it is difficult to imagine. For instance, it

would be difficult to imagine what sort of phenomenon life

would be on the sun. It would certainly have to be different from

any life that we know of, though with the common properties of

irritability, apparent teleology, and reserve energy.