UNDER THE IMAPLES 



top of every tree and a thousand invisible rills 

 enter it through its myriad hairlike rootlets. The 

 trees are thus conduits in the circuit of the waters 

 from the earth to the clouds. Our own bodies and 

 the bodies of all living things perform a similar 

 function. Life cannot go on without water, but 

 water is not a food; it makes the processes of 

 metabolism possible; assimilation and elimination 

 go on through its agency. Water and air are the 

 two ties between the organic and the inorganic. 

 The function of the one is mainly mechanical, 

 that of the other is mainly chemical. 



As the water is drawn in at the roots, it flows 

 out at the top, to which point it rises by capillary 

 attraction and a process called osmosis. Neither 

 of them is a strictly vital process, since both are 

 found in the inorganic world; but they are in the 

 service of what we call a vital principle. Some 

 physicists and biochemists laugh at the idea of a 

 vital principle. Huxley thought we might as well 

 talk about the principle of aqueosity in water. 

 We are the victims of words. The sun does not 

 shoot out beams or rays, though the eye reports 

 such; but it certainly sends forth energy; and it 

 is as certain that there is a new activity in matter 

 — some matter — that we call vital. 



Matter behaves in a new manner; builds up 

 new compounds and begets myriads of new forms 

 not found in the inorganic world, till it finally 



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