THE METHOD OF CREATION OF ORGANIC FORMS. 191 



is shown to be carbonic acid gas and water, derived from the slow 

 combustion of the starch, which in thus running down from the 

 complex organic state to the more simple inorganic comjiounds, 

 evolves an amount of force precisely equal in amount to the chemi- 

 cal force (or chemism) requisite to bind together the elements in 

 the more complex substance.* 



Carpenter also states that in his opinion the growth of the Fungi 

 is produced by a force liberated by the retrograde metamorphosis 

 of their food, which is of an organic character (i, e., humus). 

 This metamorphosis consists, as in the tuber, in the production of 

 carbonic acid gas and water, and a force equivalent to the chemism 

 which had bound them in the former complex union, f But in 

 higher forms of vegetable life, and in growth that follows germina- 

 tion, the plant must appropriate carbon from the carbonic acid of 

 the atmosphere. The decomposition of the binary compound 

 (which sets free its oxygen) liberates the chemical force which had 

 previously maintained the compound (or an equivalent force), which 

 Henry regards as furnishing the growth-force, which produces the 

 plant. Carpenter derives but a portion of the force in this way, 

 obtaining the greater part from the heat of the sun. To this source 

 also he looks for the heat necessary to the construction of cold- 

 blooded animals ; while in warm-blooded animals, the retrograde 

 metamorphosis or running down of the material (protoplasm) of 

 the food furnishes a requisite amount of heat. 



Growth-force we may then regard as potential in organized tis- 

 sue, and as energetic during growth. J Our j^resent knowledge 



* "Agricultural Report of the Patent Office," 1857. 



\ " Correlation of Physical and Vital Forces," 1864 (" Quarterly Jour, of Science "). 



\ Bathiuism or growth-force must be static or potential in each unit or plastic! 

 (cell) of a living organism, the type differing with each organic species. When it is 

 in excess in a given locality it becomes energetic, and builds tissue in various forms. 

 A portion of this energy is, in this process, developed as molar motion of nutritive 

 material, and is accompanied in the completed structure by the ordinary cohesive 

 energy, by which the newly-built material maintains its attachment as a whole and 

 in its parts. If living tissue be constructed, a portion of the excess remains as the 

 static energy of the plastids or cells of the new part, as it did of the old. The 

 spermatozoid is highly endowed with static bathmism, and communicates it to the 

 female ovum. The mingling of the two elements in the presence of nutritious ma- 

 terial presents an excess, and form-building results. Its activity will regulate sub- 

 sequent new growth, by giving the motion of nutritive material its proper direc- 

 tion. When the tissue dies, this energy must leave behind a dynamic equivalent, 

 but what this may be is as yet a mystery. (Ed. 1886.) 



