80 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



to the electricity which it generates. That is, it seems ahke to 

 alter the vibratory character and the power value of the ab- 

 sorbed rays, so that a higher and greatly more perfect energy 

 results. It is now fairly well agreed that the iron or in some 

 cases manganese of chlorophyll acts as a metallic conductor of 

 energy, but, instead of actually entering into the molecular 

 constitution of the chlorophyll, it seems rather to aid the latter 

 in giving a labile and conducting character to the molecules 

 of it. Various observers have shown that along with the chlor- 

 ophyll there is a dense oily substance to which several names 

 have been given, and as to whose functions various opinions 

 have been expressed. It does not seem inappropriate to sug- 

 gest that the oil constituent of chlorophyll may have been 

 evolved as an insulation substance. The green pigment, 

 therefore, and the associated protoplasm of a chloroplast, may 

 play the part equally of an absorber of lumic energy, a trans- 

 former of it, and an accumulator specially of carbohydrate 

 suppHes. 



But, as in the most perfect electric transformers, so it has 

 been found by Duclaux for chlorophyll (^6: 70) that the total 

 lumic energy which falls on the surface of green plants is greatly 

 in excess of the amount of elaborating work done by the plant. 



With such results in view, and seeing as above noted that 

 diverse organisms belonging to the Acaryota, and exhibiting 

 a plastic capacity for surviving under wide ranges of tempera- 

 ture, in diverse liquid chemical surroundings, under different 

 light relations, and forming their most complex food constitu- 

 ents from simple but diverse food beginnings, yet show funda- 

 mentally similar life conditions, in that they build up extremely 

 complex and largely colloid carbohydrates, amides, proteids, 

 and protoplasmic substances, it follows that all of this action 

 and reaction necessitates expenditure of some perfect quality 

 of energy. The actions and reactions also are performed in 

 presence of the — in itself inert and yet most complex — con- 

 stituent protoplasm, that shows throughout the whole range 

 of the organic world fundamentally similar aspect, structure, 

 staining reaction, and energized activity. To perform the 



