COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



it is none the less true that the substance of 

 our tissues can only be repaired by means of 

 the complex albuminous molecules which solar 

 energy originally built up into the tissues of 

 vegetables. Herbivorous animals in each of 

 the great classes feed directly upon vegetable, 

 fibre, and so rearrange its molecules that the re- 

 sultant tissues are more highly nitrogenous than 

 those from which they were formed. More 

 active carnivorous animals derive from the 

 enormous chemism latent in these nitrogenous 

 fabrics the vital energy displayed in their rapid 

 bounds and in their formidable grip. But the 

 energies which imprisoned this tremendous 

 chemical force in the complex molecules which 

 the animal assimilates were at first supplied by 

 sunbeams. Metamorphosed originally into the 

 static energy of vegetable tissue, this sun-derived 

 power is again metamorphosed into the dyna- 

 mic energy which maintains the growth of the 

 animal organism. And from the same prime- 

 val source comes the surplus energy which, 

 after the demands of growth or repair have been 

 satisfied, is expended in running, jumping, fly- 

 ing, swimming, or climbing, as well as in fight- 

 ing with enemies and in seizing and devouring 

 prey. 



Besides these indirect and doubly indirect 

 methods in which animals differentiate solar 

 energy, there are ways in which the metamor- 

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