Dana on the relations of Death to Life in Nature. 317 



later disappearing from the field of progress, and then from the 

 sphere of existence. Death is implied in the very inception of 

 the scheme. 



2. Death is also in every step of the process of life. For the 

 living being is throwing off effete matter during all its growth ; 

 the change is constant, so that with each year a large part of the 

 material in our bodies has passed away and been replaced by 

 new. Moreover, the force which had been expended in making 

 a cell, or particle of tissue, goes to form a new cell or particle 

 when the former dies, and was needed for the new formation 

 going on. Force is not lost or wasted, but used again. There 

 is unceasing flow, and in this flow is life ; its cessation is death. 



3. The kingdom of plants was instituted to turn mineral mat- 

 ter into organic, that the higher kingdom of animals might there- 

 by have the means of sustenance ; for no animal can live on 

 mineral matter. Now this living of animals on plants implies 

 the death of plants. . . 



Again, the rocks of the globe are, to a great extent, made of 

 the remains of dead animals. . 



4. The chemistry of life, also, required death. -Life in the 

 plant or animal if sustained by means of nutriment and contin- 

 ued consuming, with no compensating system, would evidently 

 end in an exhaustion of any finite supply. A perfect adjust- 

 ment was therefore necessary, by which nutriment should sus- 

 tain life, and life contribute to nutriment. Now the plant takes 

 up carbonic acid from the atmosphere, appropriates the carbon, 

 and gives back the oxygen. Yet there is no tendency to an 

 exhaustion of the atmospheric carbonic acid, or an over-supply 

 of the oxygen; for death strikes an exact balance _ 



The death of the plant ends in a change of all its carbon into 

 carbonic acid again. Thus the plant, as it grows, decomposes 

 carbonic acid t? get carbon, and then ends in making, by its de- 

 Dic acid,' and restoring it to the atmosph'^-'^ 



Thus, through death the compensation is pertect. ine atmos- 

 PHere loses only what it receives. Again as just now observed 

 tbe plant, in growing, gives oxygen to the atmosphere; but m 

 the Seca^ of fhe^ant,^the carbolic acid formed is n;ade by tak- 

 ^S up the same amount of oxygen. The same carbon that lost 

 oxygen when becoming a partof the plant t^^es it again at the 



*ue sytem, and it would not work.* 



* In early geological hLstory, as is generally ^^'f^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

 »n excess of carbonic acid in the atmosphere; and ^l^^^^^t^ Ye^'etable material 



