68 



THE BIOCOSMOS PRELIMINARY. 



mediator of life, the solvent of nature, the 

 purveyor of food, of heat and cold, to plant 

 and animal. To be sure all the chemical in- 

 gredients of our organism show a far-off stel- 

 lar ancestry; for instance, the lime in our 

 bones is carried back to the earliest group 

 of stars (Argonian) in proto-calcium. This 

 element (calcium) becomes very prominent in 

 our Sun from which the Earth derived it, 

 but chiefly if not entirely in the form of com- 

 pounds, for the pure metal calcium can only 

 be found in the chemist's laboratory. Its 

 affinity for oxygen (like the typical potas- 

 sium) is so strong that it cannot persist at 

 the Earth's life-temperature. 



Tims we begin to glimpse the outlines of 

 the evolution of the chemical elements, appar- 

 ently from one original element in the far-off 

 hottest suns of the sky. Not only this, but 

 there would seem to be also an evolution of 

 chemical compounds, which a too intense heat 

 (and probably also cold) render impossible. 

 The import of such a fact is very significant 

 for Life, since both plant and animal are 

 chemical compounds. To be sure they are 

 something more. Protoplasm, the so-called 

 physical basis of life, has a number of com- 

 pounds, such as phosphates and other salts, as 

 well as the elements hydrogen, oxygen, car- 

 bon, nitrogen. These, having been evolved 



