Relation of Plants to Animals. 139 



whose ways arc perfect, whose wisdom and skill are 

 infinite. 



.vcen the animal and plant there is a still 

 more striking series of adaptations than between 

 either of them and the inorganic world. They 

 develop in opposite directions ; so that the more pcr- 



; the plant and the more perfect the animal, the 

 further removed they arc from each other in their 

 structure and nature. The likeness of one to the 

 other is only one of remote analogy. And yet in 

 their most perfect state, when by theii nature they 



most widely separated in their organic structure 

 and in their conditions of life, it is often apparent 

 that they were constructed with dhv e to 



ii other. The first relationship which we no:' 

 is the perfect balance which has In- 'blishcd 



between them in their effect upon the air by their 

 chemical action. K very thing thrown off from an 

 animal ; 1 is not simply waste to him, 



but is either a poison to the air, or capable of soon 

 becoming so. The carbonic acid from the lungs, 

 and all the excretions formed by the waste of tis- 

 sues, fill the air with poisons. 



But upon all the waste materials rejected by the 

 animal system, the plants live. They sweep the 

 carbonic acid from the air by their multitude of 

 leaves, draw it from the soil by a thousand rootlets, 

 and gather up the various organic compounds as 

 they are ready to change to poison, and in the won- 

 derful laboratory of their leafy tissue, they unlock 

 and recombine the elements, giving back to us in 



