JoLY — The Abundance of Life. 67 



It is worth, perhaps, passing observation that from the nutritive 

 dependence of the animal upon the vegetable, and the fact that a 

 conversion of the energy of the one to the purposes of the other 

 cannot occur without loss, the mean energy used daily by the 

 vegetable for the purpose of growth, must greatly exceed that 

 used in animal growth ; so that the chemical potential energy of 

 vegetation upon the earth is much greater than the energy of all 

 kinds represented in the animal configurations.^ It appears, too, 

 that in the power possessed by the vegetable of remaining compa- 

 ratively inactive, of surviving hard times by the expenditure and 

 absorption of but little, the vegetable constitutes a veritable reser- 

 voir for the uniform supply of the more unstable and active 

 animal. 



Finally, on the question of the manner of origin of organic 

 systems (into which question, however, it is not my intention to 

 enter), it is to be observed that, while the things of the present are 

 very surely the survival of the fittest of the tendencies and chances 

 of the past, non-material, as well as material forms of energy, 

 animate as well as inanimate configurations, yet, in the initiation 

 of the organised world, a single chance may have decided a whole 

 course of events : for, once originated, its own law secures its 

 increase, although within the new order of actions, the law of the 

 fittest must reassert itself. That such a progressive material 

 system as an organism was possible, and at some remote period 

 was initiated, may be called matter of knowledge ; whether or not 

 the initiatory living configuration was uniquely fortuitous, or 

 the result of the general action of the law of the fittest select- 

 ing among innumerable chances and tendencies, must remain 

 matter of speculation. In the event of the former being the 

 truth, it is evidently possible, in spite of a large finite number of 

 worlds, that life is non-existent elsewhere. If the latter is the 

 truth, it is almost certain that there is life in all, or many of those 

 worlds. 



We now endeavour to trace the progressive activity of the 

 organism in the phenomenon of sex, and as underlying the 

 generalisations of evolution. After which, we have to notice the 

 phenomena of old age and death. 



1 I find a similar conclusion arrived at in Semper's " Animal Life," p. 52. 



F 2 



