PROCEED IISTGS OF THE 



" The plant apparently seizes the combined carbon and oxygen, 

 tears them asunder, storing up the carbon, and letting the oxygen 

 free." True ; but it does much more. Every living being, ani- 

 mal or vegetable, absorbs compound substances, decomposes them, 

 liberates at once a portion (chiefly oxygen in the case of most 

 plants), and stores up a portion. Of this portion some may be 

 deposited unchanged ia visible particles in various parts of the ani- 

 mal or plant, but some also undergoes a further decomposition and 

 dilution into a state hitherto concealed from our observation, from 

 which it emerges recombined, having already received a peculiar 

 impress, definitely differing in every species, or even in every in- 

 dividual — differences then inappreciable, it is true, to our senses, 

 but evidenced by the forms the animal or plant is compelled to 

 assume as it grows. And the process is substantially the same in 

 animals and plants ; both absorb, decompose, select, reject, and 

 recombine. An animal may select what a tree rejects ; but so also 

 may one plant select what another rejects. None feed upon carbon 

 or oxygen alone. Some are not satisfied without drawing their 

 nutriment direct from the living plant or animal ; many feed upon 

 organic substances, in which the decomposition after death has 

 scarcely commenced ; and most, if not all, appear to require for their 

 support some small portion, at least, of matter in which life is or has 

 been. In both animals and vegetables the clock is wound up, and 

 it runs down ; in both, the atoms are separated and recombined, 

 and in both, these operations take place in a totally diflferent way 

 from what they do in the same bodies under the same influences, 

 the moment life is extinct, the moment the vital power ceases to 

 act. It is this vital power, its continuity and infinite divisibility, 

 its unity and infinite diversity, the concordances, discrepancies, 

 and reciprocal action and influences of the infinity of forms it 

 produces, that our Society is specially called upon to investigate. 

 As systematists, we have so to discriminate, describe, and class 

 these forms as to enable us readily to identify them, both indivi- 

 dually and collectively, to comprehend one and another and our- 

 selves in treating of them, and to retain and store in our minds 

 and books what is known of their resemblances, difi"erences, 

 and peculiarities, of their influences and relations to each 

 other and to the lifeless world, as a starting-point for future ob- 

 servation. As biologists, we have to study life itself in all its 

 phases, and the multifarious influences by which it is continued, 

 preserved, multiplied, checked, injured, destroyed, or extinguished. 

 But, in addition, we must not neglect to learn from natural phi- 

 losophers what are those general forces which act on organic as 



