Energies of the Organic World 77 



A product of the thymus gland known as nucleinate of histone 

 is built up as follows: 



Finally haemoglobin of the blood is represented by: 



^758^1203^ igsOeisi* ^^3 



To the writer it has seemed that, in passing from the inor- 

 ganic crystalloids and colloids to those composing organic 

 bodies, the fundamental need of the case was the evolution 

 and increasing activity of an energy that would as far excel 

 electricity in its perfect quality as does the latter excel chemical 

 affinity, and it again heat. Many evidences can be adduced 

 to favor such a requirement, apart from those above suggested. 



In this connection we saw in the last chapter that amongst 

 the simplest forms of which we now have living representatives 

 — the Schizophycese — a pigment was evidently gradually 

 evolved through etiolin, purpurin, carotin, and chlorophyllin 

 stages, each still represented in definite species of the group, 

 that became the special center for formation of carbohydrates. 

 Such carbohydrates, in the algae proper and in higher plants, 

 may appear even as the complex polymerized substance starch. 

 But starch, it is now agreed, is a greatly more complex body 

 than sugar that is first formed, and which the chemist by great 

 effort has synthesized. Now it is proved that definite rays 

 of sunlight, absorbed by the chlorophyll, supply much if not 

 all of the energy needed for such union. But no one probably 

 will assert that the light as such, or the heat as such, of the 

 absorbed rays, is directly utilized, for this, as Pringsheim and 

 others well recognized, would cause immediate dessication of 

 the tissues. Partly on this account originated Pringsheim's 

 view, that the chlorophyll acted rather as a protective screen. 



But if we view the chlorophyll as an energy absorber and 

 transformer, that converts certain light rays into a much higher 

 and more condensed phase of energy, nearly every difficulty 

 disappears. Naturally the possible existence of one or more 

 types of organic energy does not preclude, but rather presup- 

 poses, the frequent presence alongside it of electric (Dioncca), 

 lumic (as in fungi, etc.), or thermic energy (spadix of aroids), 



