THE ILLIMITABLE ETHER. 27 



Within its space are floating the dissipated en- 

 ergies of millions of animal and vegetable or- 

 ganisms. It is the common receptacle into 

 which pass the unintercepted heat and light 

 thrown off, not only from our sun, but from the 

 snns of all other solar systems of the universe. 



Of the vast floods of radiant energy which, 

 for centuries untold, have streamed forth from 

 our sun in the form of light and heat, but an in- 

 significant fraction has been intercepted by its 

 satellite the earth. Of the minute portion 

 thus arrested, perhaps a millionth part has been 

 caught up by its plants and used directly in 

 their growth. Stored in the protoplasm of their 

 cells, it has there done its work in the building 

 up of wood or stem, of grain or fruit. In part 

 transmitted to animal life, it has changed from 

 potential to kinetic, and through brain or mus- 

 cular action has then gone forth as useless heat 

 into that ocean of ether whose dimensions are 

 too great for the human mind to grasp. 



There all energies are equal all are value- 

 less. The power of doing work is forever gone. 

 There the energy which thought and taught, 



