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 which meanwhile was coming into 

 existence upon the planet's surface. For, as the temperature of the 

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



The first animals on the planet were also lowly aquatic form.s^ 

 scarcely differing from the first plants, but possessing a freedom of mo- 

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

 Then, evolving into higher and more varied forms as they became adapted 

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

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

 peopled, too, by them. But, ever and always, from the time the first ani- 

 mal came to be upon that iilant-t. until The last one finally disappears 

 into the darkness of everlasting night, the (jroicth of animal life will de- 

 pend upon living food prepared by the plant — the motion of animal life 

 upon enerrj!/ 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. Both 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 form of heat and light, an insignificant fraction 

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

 planet thus an-ests, an equally insignificant part is caught up by its plants 

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

 living portion of that planet tm-ns on this insignificant fraction of an 

 insignificant fraction. 



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 been stored in the plant 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 accomplishment of these 



