EARTH-LIFE ASSIMILATION. 



the diacosmieal energies heat, light, elec- 

 tricity have to be furnished to it unceas- 

 ingly, though it has stores of its own. Thus 

 Earth-life assimilates external elements to 

 its own Organism. 



II. THE ASSIMILATIVE PROCESS OF EARTH- 

 LIFE. So we may call the present stage of 

 Earth-life, keeping the nomenclature in cor- 

 respondence with Plant-life and Animal-life 

 as already set forth. To be sure the Assim- 

 ilation is now different; we grasp the total 

 organic world as assimilating the inorganic; 

 in fact this is just what the Plant does, and 

 also the Animal in part. Still this inorganic 

 element we here conceive to be an integral 

 part of the Earth-organism as a whole, while 

 the Plant-organism is distinct from its inor- 

 ganic food, and assimilates the same from the 

 outside. So to the Earth-body belongs a non- 

 vital as well as a vital portion the former 

 being far the larger and between these two 

 portions its assimilative Process takes place. 

 In this way Earth-life may be looked at as a 

 return upon Plant-life, making itself a kind 

 of universal vegetable, as far as this is pos- 

 sible under the conditions, for after all is 

 said the Earth too is a limited individual as 

 well as the Plant. 



Earth-life employs Assimilation in its most 

 immediate stage, even before the Plant is 



