436 METAPHYSICAL EVOLUTION. 



otherwise impracticable, thus resembling the energy of the pro- 

 toplasm of plants, whose energy in actively resisting the disinte- 

 grating inorganic forces of nature is so well known. Perhaps this 

 type of force is an early-born of the primitive energy, one which 

 has not descended so far in the scale as the chemism which holds 

 so large a part of nature in the embrace of death. 



Vibration is inseparable from our ideas of motion or energy, 

 not excluding conscious energy. There are reasons for supposing 

 that in the latter type of activity the vibrations are the most rapid 

 of all those characteristic of the forces. A center of such vibra- 

 tions in generalized matter would radiate them in all directions. 

 With radiant divergence the wave lengths would become longer, 

 and their rate of movement slower. In the differing rates of vibra- 

 tions we may trace not only the different forms of energy, but 

 diverse results in material aggregations. Such may have been 

 the origin of the specialization of energy and of matter v/hich 

 we behold in nature. 



Such thoughts arise unbidden as a remote but still a legitimate 

 induction from a study of the wonderful phenomenon of animal 

 motion ; a phenomenon everywhere present, yet one which re- 

 treats, as we pursue it, into the dimness of the origin of things. 

 And when we follow it to its fountain head, we seem to have 

 reached the origin of all energy, and it turns upon us, the king 

 and master of the worlds. 



