JoLY — The Abundance of Life. 85 



waves of energy also meet a response in the organism. These tides 

 and waves of activity would appear as larger and smaller ripples 

 on the life-curve of the organism. But in some, in which life, 

 love, and death are encompassed in a day, this would not be so; and 

 for the annual among plants, the seed rest divides the waves with 

 lines of no activity (fig. 6.). 



Thus, finally, we regard the organism as a dynamic phenomenon 

 passing through periodic variations of intensity. The material 

 systems concerned in the transfer of the energy rise, flourish/_and 

 fall in endless succession, like cities of ancient dynasties. At 



points of similar phase upon the waves the rate of consumption 

 of energy is approximately the same ; the functions, too, which 

 demand and expend the energy are of similar nature. 



That the rhythm of these events is ultimately based on harmony 

 in the configuration and motion of the molecules within the germ 

 seems an unavoidable conclusion. In the life of the individual 

 rhythmic dynamic phenomena reappear which in some cases have 

 no longer a parallel in the external world, or under conditions when 

 the individual is no longer influenced by these external conditions.^ 



1 See " The Descent of Man." 



