GOD IN NATURE 183 



done is that of the solar heat and light, both admitted 

 freely into the interior of the leaf through the trans 

 parent epidermis, and therein imprisoned, so as to 

 constitute a powerful storehouse of evaporative and 

 chemical energy. In this way all the materials avail 

 able for the maintenance of life, whether vegetable or 

 animal, are produced, and no other structure than the 

 living vegetable cell, as it exists in the leaf, has the 

 power to effect these miracles of transmutation. 



Here, let it be observed, we have the vegetable 

 cell placed in relation with the system of the plant, 

 with the soil, with the atmosphere and its waters, with 

 the distant sun itself, and the properties of its emitted 

 energies. Let it further be observed that, on the one 

 hand, the chemistry involved in this is of a character 

 altogether different from that which applies to inor 

 ganic matter, and, on the other, the products derived 

 from a very few elements embrace all that vast variety 

 of compounds which we observe in plants and animals, 

 and which constitute the material of one of the most 

 complex of sciences, that of organic chemistry. 

 Finally, these complicated structures were produced, 

 and all their relations set up at a very early geological 

 period. In so far as we can judge from their remains 

 and the results effected, the leaves of the Paleozoic 

 period were functionally as perfect as their modern 



successors. 



Of course, the agnostic evolutionist may, if he 

 pleases, attribute all this to fortuitous interactions of 



