THE PATH OF EVOLUTION' 



young algae cells and of their reproductive spores. 

 It must be looked upon as a manifestation of that 

 energy which, conveyed by or through the Ether, 

 finds expression in other instances in animals through 

 an intricate plexus of nerves and blood vessels, but 

 which can also be manifested, when needed in a 

 simpler form, by less complicated mechanism. Since 

 the power or energy that acts is not inherent in the 

 plant, but in the Ether, air and ligU that surrounds 

 it, this power can find in the simple, shapeless, naked 

 amoeba, that looks like a drop of liquid gelatine, the 

 capacities adequate for the conservation of life, the 

 power of motion, sensation, volition, and ultimately 

 evolution into a higher form of life, perhaps even 

 into the very highest ! An organism which has 

 sprung from the very dust of the earth is animated 

 by the same power that moves the life blood of men, 

 and that may have in part come hither not only 

 from the Sun, but also from other far off and 

 unknown stars and worlds ! 



The distinctive line of demarcation separating 

 plant from animal life, as already stated, is not the 

 power of motion possessed by the latter, but the fact 

 that all animal life depends alone upon the absorption 

 of Oxygen in respiration and the consequent oxida- 

 tion or combustion of the body and its tissues, thus 

 liberating in various forms, the energy that had been 



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