CHAPTER II 



LIFE AND LIGHT 



FEW people have probably considered or realised how entirely 

 and absolutely dependent we are upon energy accumulated by 

 living processes in all our human undertakings. With the excep- 

 tion of the energy of falling water and the work of the winds, all 

 the energy utilised by man for all the acts of his existence, and to 

 drive forward his manifold schemes of activity, is derived from the 

 operations of living matter. All the electricity, all the steam power, 

 all the power of prime movers of any type, come from living struc- 

 tures or from materials which have been at some period living. 

 Without the energy of living things in actual being once upon the 

 earth all the great industrial processes of the world would come to 

 a standstill. Not only does the energy of living men direct these 

 processes and give the intelligence for them, but the energy 

 produced by living creatures, plant and animal, actually drives 

 them onward to a successful issue. 



Not only does the life of past ages supply the energy to keep 

 us warm in winter : it supplies the clothes we wear, which in their 

 entire material and substance are of biotic origin, and in their 

 fabrication by weaving or other textile process were fashioned by 

 biotic energy. The furniture of our rooms, whether of wood, metal, 

 or textile fabric, is due entirely to biotic energy, for even in the case 

 of metals biotic energy was essential to provide the fuel to smelt 

 and purify the ore and fabricate the metal into the finished article. 

 The dinner we eat was produced by the operations of living 

 creatures ; so were the table and the cloth upon it, the plate we eat 

 from, and the knife and fork we use in eating. The pen this is 

 written with, the paper written upon, and the ink upon the paper 

 are all biotic in their origin or fabrication; the book has been 

 printed, bound, sold, and delivered by means of biotic energy, and 

 the reader is utilising biotic energy to read it. 



Truly we are dependent upon other living creatures, either con- 

 temporary with us or our predecessors in natural history, for every 



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