THE PATH OF EVOLUTION 



would, if the plant were dead, be only attended 

 with the development of heat In the living plant 

 it takes another course. As in the example given 

 of the Hydraulic Ram, the vis viva of the moving 

 water falling to a lower level imparts its active 

 energy to raising a smaller part to a higher level, so 

 the energy liberated by the products of oxidation in 

 the living plant or animal raises another, though 

 smaller, portion of the plasmodium or its structural 

 forms to the higher level of more complex organiz- 

 ation forms the new cells and tissues of the growing 

 plant, evolves in the lower forms of plant life such 

 as the agamic alga3 their reproductive spores, and 

 in the higher developed Phanerogama, the intricate 

 and beautiful structures of the sexual modes of 

 reproduction, their flowers, fruit and seeds. 



This oxidizing and constructive process only, is that 

 which constitutes the life of the Fungi and of all 

 those plants that are either parasitic or that live upon 

 dead matter. Being without chlorophyll, they can 

 obtain their sustenance only from food prepared by 

 other lives. They can live, as all animals do, only 

 from already organized matter, and, like animals, 

 their food, when assimilated, builds up new tissue 

 and new organisms by aid of the surplus energy set 

 free in the oxidation and degradation of the molec- 

 ular combinations that are effete and dead. 



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