now PLANTS BEGAN TO BE. 21 



All the animal can do is to take the living 

 material the plant has made for him, and to 

 consume it slowly in his own hody. He 

 destroys it (as living matter) just as truly as a 

 fire does, and turns it loose on the air again in 

 the dead and inert forms of water and carbonic 

 acid. 



It is clear, then, that plants must have come 

 first, and animals afterward. The earliest living 

 beings must needs have been plants — very 

 simple plants ; yet essentially plants in this — 

 that they were green, and that they separated 

 carbon and hydrogen from oxygen under the 

 influence of sunlight. It is that above every- 

 thing that makes true plants; though some 

 degenerate plants have now given up their 

 ancestral habit, and behave in this respect much 

 like animals. 



How did the first plant of all come into 

 being ? 



About that, at present, we know very little. 

 We can only guess that, in the early ages of 

 the world, when matter was fresher and more 

 plastic than now, certain combinations were set 

 up between atoms under the influence of sun- 

 light, which formed the earliest living body. 

 This would be what is called '* spontaneous 

 generation." Whether such spontaneous genera- 

 tion ever took place is much disputed ; though 

 some people competent to form an opinion 

 inchne to believe that it probably did take place 

 in remote times and under special conditions. 

 But it is certain, or almost certain, that in our 



