THE PATH OF EVOLUTION 



instance, the force of falling water is due to the 

 evaporation by solar heat of water from the ocean 

 and its precipitation again as rain upon elevated 

 ground, whence it flows or falls to a lower level ; the 

 action of the wind is caused by the ascension of heated 

 air ; the power of steam is obtained by the combus- 

 tion of coal or wood, the carbon of which in early or 

 in later times was stored up by the living leaves of 

 trees, that solely, under the influence of the sunlight, 

 absorbed and decomposed the Carbon Dioxide of the 

 atmosphere ; the muscular force of animal strength, 

 that obtained its energy likewise through the vegeta- 

 tive growth, under the sun's light, that gave the 

 animal its food. Chemical action itself is dependent 

 upon a certain degree of warmth, below which all 

 change of affinity ceases. Even life in all its forms 

 is only possible when the light of day and the heat 

 thereof provides those conditions that are essential to 

 the organic growth. 



All the phenomena that nature presents are thus 

 the manifestations of one power ', brought to the earth 

 by the Ether ; it is uncreatable by man and by him 

 indestructible. Protean in its form, in its essence it 

 is inscrutable and unknown. Including within itself, 

 as it must do, the mysterious energy of Gravitation, 

 of which we know the laws of its action, but not yet 

 surely its cause, it binds the inorganic Universe into 



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