280 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



the states of motion and heat. Other agents of control are evolved to 

 bring about a harmonious balance between the various organs and 

 tissues in which energy is released, hastened or accelerated, slowed down 

 or retarded, or actually arrested or inhibited. 



In the simplest organisms energy may be captured while the 

 organism as a whole is in a state of rest; but at an early stage of life 

 special organs of locomotion are evolved by which energy is sought 

 out, and organs of prehension by which it may be seized. Along with 

 these motor organs are developed organs of offense and defense of 

 many kinds, by means of which stored energy is protected from cap- 

 ture or invasion by other organisms. Finally, there is the most 

 mysterious and comprehensive process of all, by which all these 

 manifold modes of energy are reproduced in another organism. 



THE FOUR COMPLEXES OF ENERGY 



The theoretic evolution of the four complexes is somewhat as 

 follows: 



1. In the order of time the Inorganic Environment comes first; 

 energy and matter are first seen in the sun, in the earth, in the air, 

 and in the water each a very wonderful complex of energies in itself. 

 They form, nevertheless, an entirely orderly system, held together by 

 gravitation, moving under Newton's laws of motion, subject to the 

 more newly discovered laws of thermodynamics. In this complex we 

 observe actions and reactions, the sum of the taking in and giving 

 out of energy, the conservation of energy. We also observe inter- 

 actions wherein the energy released at certain points may be greater 

 than the energy received, which is merely a stimulus for the beginning 

 of the local energy transformations. This energy is distributed among 

 the eighty or more chemical elements of the sun and other stars. 

 These elements are combined in plants into complex substances, gener- 

 ally with a storage of energy. Such substances are disintegrated into 

 simple substances in animals, generally with a release of energy. All 

 these processes are termed by us physicochemical. 



2. With life something new appears in the universe, namely, a 

 union of the internal and external adjustment of energy which we 

 appropriately call an Organism. In the course of the evolution of life 

 every law and property in the physicochemical world is turned to 

 advantage; every chemical element is assembled in which inorganic 

 properties may serve organic functions. There is an immediate or 

 gradual separation of the organism into two complexes of energy, 



