280 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 
the states of motion and heat. Other agents of control are evolved to 
bring about a harmonious balance between the various organs and 
tissues in which energy is released, hastened or accelerated, slowed down 
or retarded, or actually arrested or inhibited. 
In the simplest organisms energy may be captured while the 
organism as a whole is in a state of rest; but at an early stage of life 
special organs of locomotion are evolved by which energy is sought 
out, and organs of prehension by which it may be seized. Along with 
these motor organs are developed organs of offense and defense of 
many kinds, by means of which stored energy is protected from cap- 
ture or invasion by other organisms. Finally, there is the most 
mysterious and comprehensive process of all, by which all these 
manifold modes of energy are reproduced in another organism. 
‘THE FOUR COMPLEXES OF ENERGY 
The theoretic evolution of the four complexes is somewhat as 
follows: 
1. In the order of time the Inorganic Environment comes first; 
energy and matter are first seen in the sun, in the earth, in the air, 
and in the water—each a very wonderful complex of energies in itself. 
They form, nevertheless, an entirely orderly system, held together by 
gravitation, moving under Newton’s laws of motion, subject to the 
more newly discovered laws of thermodynamics. In this complex we 
observe actions and reactions, the sum of the taking in and giving 
out of energy, the conservation of energy. We also observe inter- 
actions wherein the energy released at certain points may be greater 
than the energy received, which is merely a stimulus for the beginning 
of the local energy transformations. This energy is distributed among 
the eighty or more chemical elements of the sun and other stars. 
These elements are combined in plants into complex substances, gener- 
ally with a storage of energy. Such substances are disintegrated into 
simple substances in animals, generally with a release of energy. All 
these processes are termed by us physicochemical. 
2. With life something new appears in the universe, namely, a 
union of the internal and external adjustment of energy which we 
appropriately call an Organism. In the course of the evolution of life 
every law and property in the physicochemical world is turned to 
advantage; every chemical element is assembled in which inorganic 
properties may serve organic functions. There is an immediate or 
gradual separation of the organism into two complexes of energy, 
