Because the close-range effects of molecules decline with a high power of the distance, there is only a small range of molecular effects, that is, a small extent of the molecular sphere of influence.
The very small action range of the known inter-molecular forces has again and again stimulated the search for powerful real [long-]distance-forces. Most promising are certain, accessible to a marked resonance, dipole forces. According to Dessauer (1949) the possibility exists that between colloidal floating particles, made up of repeating groups, stimulatory exchange at a distance takes place (for instance at ten times the diameter of the particles), equi-significant with energy exchange and mass exchange [here, Müller places a question mark]. Functional significance is difficult to be found in this especially conditioned model, and it seems to offer the two usual alternatives : (1) loose statistical coupling -- within which may appear specific values for specificly figured particles -- or (2) strong coupling with quasi-crystalline vectorial effects.
If one doesn't take into account the important fact that all molecular and inter-molecular forces reduce to something wholly uniform, and that all these forces represent one and the same thing, distinguishable only as to the different faces with which they present themselves to us, then one would say that with those forces as are observed in epitaxy [see below] one can do little when considering Life, namely when considering the protoplasmatic matrix, while one may be able to compare with it already quite well the nucleotidic primary aggregation of the "buildingblock" amino acids [The polypeptide chain being synthesized onto the RNA molecule is a kind of epitaxy.]. In epitaxy it is about oriented accrescence [apposition] of alien substances onto a crystalline surface (host crystal). They are conditioned by the (already!) strictly aligned periodic electric field of force of the surface atoms of the host crystal. The molecular forces between the surface of the host crystal and the guest molecule are, as to their nature and magnitude, dependent on the chemical nature of the partners, but may often be reduced to electrostatic effects.