THE FOUR COMPLEXES OF ENERGY 23 



the four sets of internal and external energies which play upon 

 and within every individual and every race. In respect to 

 form it is a tctraplastic^ theory in the sense that every living 

 plant and animal form is plastically moulded by four sets of 

 energies. The derivation of this conception of life and of the 

 possible causes of evolution from the laws which have been 

 developed out of the Newtonian system, and from those of the 

 other great Cambridge philosopher, Charles Darwin, are clearly 

 shown in the above diagram. 



In these lectures we shall consider in order, first, the evo- 

 lution of the inorganic environment necessary to life; second, 

 theories of the origin of life in regard to the time when it oc- 

 curred and the accumulation of various kinds of energy through 

 which it probably originated; and, third, the orderly develop- 

 ment of the differentiation and adaptation of the most primi- 

 tive forms. Throughout we shall point out some of the more 

 notable examples of the apparent operation of our fundamental 

 biologic principle of the action, reaction, and interaction be- 

 tween the inorganic environment, the organism, the germ, and 

 the life environment. 



The apparently insuperable difficulties of the problem of 

 the causes of evolution in the germ or heredity-chromatin — 

 causes which are at present almost entirely beyond the realm 

 of observation and experiment — will be made more evident 

 through the development of the second part of our subject, 

 namely, the evolution of the higher living forms of energy 

 upon the earth so far as they have been followed from the 

 stage of monads or bacteria up to that of the higher mammals. 



^ Osborn, H. F., 1912.2. 



