EARTH-LIFE. 87 



It includes not only plant and animal, the 

 microscopic and the macroscopic organisms, 

 but also what may be called the extra-sensible 

 life-world, from which the seen life-world 

 emerges and into which it returns. The tran- 

 sition, already mentioned, from the Inorganic 

 to the Organic, and back again, must lie in 

 the realm of Earth-life, and cannot be left out 

 of a complete view of Biology, to which it has 

 become as necessary as Ether is to Physics, 

 though both be speculative. The rise, bloom 

 and evanisliment of all individual life take 

 place in and through the Earth-life, and con- 

 stitutes its process, or at least a part of the 

 same. Vegetal and animal forms have their 

 vital round, appearing and disappearing ; but 

 this vital round is but a stage of a far larger 

 vital round, that of Earth-life. 



In this connection we impinge upon the 

 question: Is there a given amount of vital 

 stuff in the universe a fixed quantity, so 

 much and no more ? This corresponds to the 

 well-known law of the conservation of energy, 

 of which one form maybe deemed vital energy. 

 The Earth-life can be regarded as the store- 

 house of all individual life, both arising and 

 departing passing from the Inorganic to the 

 Organic, and from the Organic to the Inor- 

 ganic, in a ceaseless cycle. In general one 

 can see the means which the Earth-life takes 



