To sum up. Vegetables obtain their nourishment from mineral substances, which they reduce, de-oxydize, and charge with solar energy. Animal organisms on the contrary oxydize, and micro-organisms complete the oxydation of these substances, returning them to the mineral world as water, carbonates, nitrates, and sulphates.
Thus matter circulates eternally from the mineral to the vegetable, from the vegetable to the animal world, and back again. The matter which forms our structure, which is to-day part and parcel of ourselves, has formed the structure of an infinite number of living beings, and will continue to pursue its endless reincarnation after our decease.
This endless cycle of life is also an endless cycle of energy. The combination of carbon with water carried out by the agency of chlorophyll can only take place with absorption of energy. This energy comes directly from the sun, the red and orange light radiations being absorbed by the chlorophyll.
The arrest of vegetation during the winter months is due not so much to the lowering of temperature as to the diminution of the radiant energy received from the sun. In the same way shade is harmful to vegetation, since the radiant energy required for growth is prevented from reaching the plant.
The energy radiated by the sun is accumulated and stored in the plant tissues. Later on, animals feed on the plants and utilize this energy, excreting the products of decomposition, i.e. the constituents of their food minus the energy contained in it. Thus the whole of the energy which animates living beings, the whole of the energy which constitutes life, comes from the sun. To the sun also we owe all artificial heat, the energy stored up in wood and coal. We are all of us children of the sun.
The radiant energy of the sun is transformed by plants into chemical energy. It is this chemical energy which feeds the vital activity of animals, who return it to the external world under the form of heat, mechanical work, and muscular contraction, light in the glow-worm, electricity in the electric eel.
There is a marked difference between the forms affected by organic and inorganic substances. The forms of the mineral world are those of crystals—geometrical forms, bounded by straight lines, planes, and regular angles. Living organisms, on the contrary, affect forms which are less regular—curved surfaces and rounded angles. The physical reason for this difference in form lies in a difference of consistency, crystals being solid, whereas living organisms are liquids or semi-liquids. The liquids of nature, streams and clouds and dewdrops, affect the same rounded forms as those of living organisms.
Living beings for the most part present a remarkable degree of symmetry. Some, like radiolarians and star-fish, have a stellate form. In plants the various organs often radiate from an axis, in such a manner that on turning the plant about this axis the various forms are superposed thrice, four, or more often five times in one complete revolution. It is remarkable how often this number five recurs in the
divisions and parts of a living organism. In other cases the similar parts are disposed symmetrically on either side of a median line or plane, giving a series of homologous parts which are not superposable.
The most important characteristic of a living being is its form. This is implicitly admitted by naturalists, who classify animals and plants in genera and species according to the differences and analogies of their form.