32 LIFE AND LIGHT 



accompanied by oxidation. Both yield practically identical 

 products in their own breaking down, at a stage of considerable 

 degradation, after they have parted with their iron or magnesium. 



These two colouring matters, the green of the higher plant and 

 the red of the higher animal, are the two most important in all or- 

 ganic nature, and it is most interesting that they should show these 

 complementary functions and possess these chemical similarities 

 in their derived products. 1 



It will have been gathered, from what has been written, that the 

 higher plant and higher animal are complemental to each other 

 in the natural scheme of the organic world as we see it at present 

 in operation. 



The higher plant takes up the radiant solar energy, and from 

 inorganic materials, the most important and abundant of which 

 are carbon dioxide, water, and nitrates, it builds up organic bodies, 

 containing chemical energy, for its own purposes in growth, repro- 

 duction, and increase. These synthesised products yield directly 

 or indirectly the energy for all the higher animals, in whose bodies, 

 by up and down processes of oxidation and reduction, but on the 

 whole with a downward trend of oxidation, the synthesised products 

 are converted again into simple inorganic bodies, carbon dioxide, 

 water, and very simple nitrogenous compounds. Thus the great 

 cycle of Nature is completed. Those plants which do not contain 

 chlorophyll, and hence cannot synthesise directly from inorganic 

 materials, are compelled like animals to live on plants or decaying 

 vegetable matter, or upon the bodies of living or dead animals. 



It is tempting here to reflect upon the origin of organic life upon 

 the earth, for the scheme of the vegetable and animal worlds which 

 has been outlined above, while it provides for the supply of the 

 organic material forming the food under the influence of sunlight, 

 gives no hint as to how this cosmos came into first existence. The 

 whole of the theories and facts of evolution also fail us when we 

 attempt to form any picture of the first origins of the organic world, 

 for everything in the system begins with the presence of organic 

 matter on which the simplest organic creatures can live, or with the 



1 This statement again represents the orthodox knowledge of the time, 

 but see later (Chapters III., IV., V.), where research has recently shown that 

 chlorophyll, and its allies are probably only colour screens of a protective 

 character, the real transformer lying behind them. Similarly, haemoglobin 

 is an oxygen -carrier and not an oxidising agent. 



