34 



surface. Onto the tops of the loftiest mountains, into the abysses of the 

 deepest oceans, they made their way; their province being the conversion 

 of inorganic matter— earth, air. water— into a form of food suitable to the 

 needs of a higher type of parasite Avhich meanwhile was coming into 

 existence upon the planefs surface. For, as the temperature of the 

 ocean gradually decreased, the Era of Animal Life was ushered in. 



The tirst animals on the planet were also lowly a(iuatic forms— 

 scarcely differing from tlie tirst plants, but possessing a freedom of mo- 

 tion which enabled them to procure a better supply of air and water. 

 Then, evolving into higher and more varied forms as they l)ecame adapted 

 to new environments, they spread far and wide through ocean's depths 

 and over plain .and mountain, until the whole surface of the planet was 

 peopled, too. by them. Hut, evci' :uul always, from the time the tirst ani- 

 mal came to be upon that planet, until the last one tinally disappears 

 into the dnrluiess of everlasting night, the (iroirth of animal life will de- 

 pend upon liriinj food pr(>pared by the plant— the iiiolimi of animal life 

 upon energu stored within the cells of the plant. 



That sun, which In the beginning first cast off the matter of which 

 the planet is formed, still controls it— still rules over it and its destinies 

 with an iron will. I'.otli plant and animal parasite must forever bow 

 before its power. Of the vast floods of energy which stream forth from 

 that sun's disk, in the f(irm of heat and light, an insigniticant fi'actiou 

 falls upon the surface of its satellite. Of the minute portion that the 

 planet thus arrests, an equally insignificant part is caught up l)y its plants 

 and used directly in their growth. Yet the entire productive force of the 

 living portion of that ])lanet turns on this insigniticant fraction of an 

 insignificant fracticni. 



The vegetable cell is thus a storer of power— a reservoir of force. It 

 mediates between the sun— the sole fountain of energy— and the animal 

 life on the planet. The animal can not use an iota of power that some 

 time, either directly or indirectly, has not Iteen stored in the i)lant cell. 

 Thus, of the two great groups of parasites upon the surface of the planet, 

 the plant must, perforce, have preceded the animal. 



For thousands of centuries each type of animal and plant parasite 

 upon that planet was content if it could secure food enough to reach ma- 

 turity and then a mate to reproduce its kind. All the energies put forth 

 —all the variations in organ and form— all the adaptations to modified 

 environment— were but means toward the better accomplisliment of these 



