eo x1 PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 3931 
We found that our analysis of the organic 
_ world, whether animals or plants, showed, in the 
long run, that they might both be reduced into, 
and were, in fact, composed of, the same con- 
stituents. And we saw that the plant obtained 
the materials constituting its substance by a 
_ peculiar combination of matters belonging entirely 
to the inorganic world; that, then, the animal was 
constantly appropriating the nitrogenous matters 
_ of the plant to its own nourishment, and returning 
them back to the inorganic world, in what we 
spoke of as its waste; and that finally, when the 
animal ceased to exist, the constituents of its body 
were dissolved and transmitted to that imorganic 
world whence they had been at first abstracted. 
Na ce 
Thus we saw in both the blade of grass and the 
horse but the same elements differently combined 
and arranged. We discovered a continual circula- 
_ tion going on,—the plant drawing in the elements 
of inorganic nature and combining them into food 
for the animal creation; the animal. borrowing 
~ from the plant the matter for its own support, 
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giving off during its life products which returned 
immediately to “the inorganic world; and that, 
eventually, the constituent materials of the whole 
_ structure of both animals and plants were thus 
‘returned to their original source: there was a 
_ constant passage from one state of existence to 
another, and a returning back again. 
Lastly, when we endeavoured to form some 
