OF ORGANIC NATURE. 



15 



mere carbonate and phosphate of liine; the matter of 

 its flesh, and of its other parts, becomes, in the long run, 

 converted into carbonic acid, into water, and into am- 

 monia. You will now, perhaps, understand the curious 

 relation of the animal with the plant, of the organic 

 with the inorganic world, which is shown in this 



diagram. 



INORGANIC WOKLD. 

 Carbonic Acid. Water. Ammonia. 



Salines. 



VEGETABLE WORLD. 



(Fig. 3.) 



ANIMAL WORLD. 



The plant gathers these inorganic materials together 

 and makes them up into its own substance. The 

 animal eats the plant and appropriates the nutritious 

 portions to its own sustenance, rejects and gets rid 

 of the useless matters ; and, finally, the animal itself 

 dies, and its whole body is decomposed and returned 

 into the inorganic world. There is thus a constant 

 circulation from one to the other, a continual formation 

 of organic life from inorganic matters, and as constant 

 a return of the matter of living bodies to the inorganic 

 world ; so that the materials of which our bodies are 

 composed are largely, in all probability, the substances 

 which constituted the matter of long extinct creations, 

 but which have in the interval constituted a part of the 

 inorganic world. 



