INFLUENCES OF SUN RAYS ON PLANTS AND ANIMALS 
By C. G. ABBOT 
[With 5 plates] 
The delight which we take in the lovely shapes, colors, and odors 
of the many species of flowering plants suggests a different emphasis 
on a famous argument. Hardly any work was more celebrated in its 
time than Dean Paley’s “ Natural Theology,” although it is little 
read now. The author conceives one to be wandering upon a 
desolate moor remote from human habitation. He chances to strike 
his foot upon a round object so curious as to arouse his careful 
attention. It is, in short, a watch, provided with the little wheels, 
the springs, the hands, the hour marks, and all the intricate parts 
that we know so well. Although there is no man in sight, nor indeed 
any habitation for many miles, there arises this conclusion: The 
plain evidence of complex contrivance for a sagacious purpose 
demands the previous existence of a highly intelligent contriver. 
The watch could not just have happened to come into being. 
We need not follow the logical unfolding of the theme, in which 
the able Dean argues from the evidences of design in the human 
body to the existence of an intelligent creator. Paley’s argument 
was indeed illustrated mainly from the animal kingdom, but, as we 
shall see, plants exhibit adaptations almost equally curious. 
Our present thought, however, is slightly different. Such con- 
trivances as the human eye and ear, and others which Paley refers 
to, are plainly suitable means to attain certain objects of utility. If 
they be evidences of design, the character of the Designer that seems 
to be suggested is the careful Parent providing necessary things 
for the use of His children. But a rose or a violet seems to turn 
our thought differently. It might well be the expression of a beauty- 
loving, benevolent, pleasure-providing Creator, designing not merely 
necessities, but delicately refined joys and pleasures, for the promo- 
tion of graces of character in His noblest creatures. 
The sun’s place in plant life is more extraordinary by far than 
it is in the animal economy. Growing vegetation is a laboratory 
where sun rays unite carbonic acid gas of the air with watery fluid 
brought up through the roots of the plant, building up from these 
two simple materials some of the most complex substances known 
to organic chemistry. Although consisting mainly of water, traces 
of the other chemical elements are dissolved in the fluid which the 
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