98 UNIVERSAL EVOLUTION 



form could not hold them in its grip. Impelled by the 

 radiating energy of the sun, the carbonic acid of the 

 earth was forced to yield its carbon to a new substance 

 which we now call chlorophyl. This also was enabled 

 to fix the nitrogen of the air. But this double function 

 seemed too onerous for the vegetable, thus primitive 

 in its origin. So it seems to have transferred the fix- 

 ation of nitrogen to the organisms called microbes. 

 The microbe converts the ammoniacal compound into 

 nitrous ones, and these again into nitrates. This split- 

 ting up of a tendency, primitively one. rendered the 

 vegetable world the same kind of service that vege- 

 tables have rendered animals. The microbes which put 

 the nitrates to the roots of the vegetables in shape of 

 soil, served the vegetable kingdom, just as the latter 

 did the animal kingdom, by furnishing to the animal 

 kingdom both the carbon and the nitrogen, the two 

 most important elements in the evolution of life. This 

 vegetable life, which preceded animal life, would be 

 impossible without the chlorophyllian function of vege- 

 tation. This power of vegetables, to fix the carbon in 

 the inorganic kingdom, is at the root of organic life, 

 and the necessary forerunner of all life evolution. 



It is said that vegetables and animals represent two 

 great divergent developments of life. They do this 

 only in the sense of having some notable differences of 

 characteristics, in outward form only. Intrinsically, the 

 evolution is one. For, as shown above, there is a 

 mutual dependence on each other, in such way, that the 

 one could not exist without the other. The line, per- 

 haps, cannot be demonstratively drawn, to show that 

 the animal evolved directly from the vegetable, as the 

 evolution of the vegetable cannot be shown directly, 

 from the inorganic ; but, there is such a vital connection 



