COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



molar motion exhibited in the transfer of vast 

 masses of sea-water along definite lines, as in 

 the Gulf Stream and other marine currents, we 

 may safely answer — whatever view we adopt 

 as to the details of these movements — that it 

 was originally due to the heat which so rarefied 

 this water as to make it yield to the pressure of 

 adjacent colder and denser water. And this heat 

 came to the earth in the solar rays. Thus all 

 movements of gaseous, liquid, and solid matter 

 upon the earth's surface, except volcanic and 

 tidal movements, are simply transformations of 

 the heat which is generated by the progressive 

 integration of the sun's mass. 



But this is not the end of the matter. Our 

 last sentence implicitly included the phenomena 

 of life among those due to solar radiance, since 

 the phenomena of life, whatever else they may 

 be, are certainly included among the complex 

 movements of gaseous, liquid, and solid mat- 

 ters, which occur upon the earth's surface. Let 

 us note some of the various ways in which mo- 

 lecular motion, sent from the sun, is metamor- 

 phosed into vital energy. 



The seed of a plant, buried in the damp earth, 

 grows by the integration of adjacent nutritive 

 materials, but the energy which effects this union 

 consists in the solar undulations by which the 

 soil is warmed. Diminish, to a certain extent, 

 the daily supply of radiance, as in the long arctic 

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