56 ANDREW JACKSON HOWE. 



it into a passive or potential form in vapor, and cold 

 condensed the globules of moisture into rain into 

 water the precipitation displaying kinetic energy. 

 The heat of the sun, then, is the great source of 

 kinetic or active energy in the solar world, and is ex- 

 ternall}^ opposed to gravitation, though an interchange 

 of energies is repeatedly displayed, as in the vaporiz- 

 ing of water at the ocean's level, and its return again 

 to rain rills at the mountain tops. 



In a not uninteresting way the kinetic energies 

 of the sun's rays may be traced through soils to plant 

 growth to the ripening of grain, or the storing of 

 potential energy in kernels of wheat in starch and 

 albumen. The bread we eat embodies the energy, 

 while digestion and assimilation impart a still higher 

 order of potential energy, to be unloosed and spent 

 kinetically in a wrestling match. It might be still 

 more interesting to trace the energizing influence to 

 the brain, and there by the unfolding of mental force 

 a form of energy fmd expression in u thoughts that 

 burn and words that move." 



Foods rich in starch and albumen were not plen- 

 tiful in earlier geological histories. Little heads and 

 great bodies were first evolved. The ichthyosaurus is 

 representative of the idea, as the ostrich is at present. 

 But after phosphorus became plentiful and cereals 

 were endowed with potential energies, brains became 

 conspicuous; man, with a voluminous brain, entered 

 upon the scene where conditions were favorable to 

 his continuance. Higher forms succeeded the lower, 

 though not in any very definite order, modifying qual- 

 ities ever appearing in the order of evolution. In the 

 peopling process there was not always a "survival of 

 the fittest," but a continuance of the more fortunate. 



