1884.] On Catagenesis. 981 
in organic forms, as cellulose; others are crystals imprisoned in 
its cells; while others are amorphous, as waxes, resins and oils. 
But consciousness apparently early abandoned the vegetable line. 
Doubtless all the energies of vegetable protoplasm soon became 
automatic. The plants in general, in the persons of their protist 
ancestors, soon left a free-swimming life and became sessile. 
Their lives thus became parasitic, more automatic, and in one 
sense degenerate. 
The animal line may have originated in this wise. Some indi- 
vidual protists, perhaps accidentally, devoured some of their fel- 
lows. The easy nutrition which ensued was probably pleasura- 
ble, and once enjoyed was repeated, and soon became a habit. 
The excess of energy thus saved from the laborious process of 
making protoplasm was available as the vehicle of an extended 
consciousness. From that day to this, consciousness has aban- 
doned few if any members of the animal kingdom. In many of 
them it has specialized into more or less mind. Organization to 
subserve its needs has achieved a multifarious development. 
There is abundant evidence to show that the permanent and the 
successful forms have ever been those in which motion and sensi- 
bility have been preserved, and most highly developed. 
This review of the history of living organisms has been epito- 
mized in the following language ;! “Evolution of living types 
is then a succession of elevation of platforms, on which succeed- 
"E ones have built. The history of one horizon of life is that 
Ns own completion but prepares the way for a higher one, furnish- 
ing the latter with conditions of a still further development. 
Thus the vegetabte kingdom died, so to speak, that the animal 
kingdom might live, having descended from an animal stage to 
Subserve the function of food for animals. The successive types 
of animals first stimulated the development of the most suscepti- 
ble to the conflict, in the struggle for existence, and afterwards 
furnished them with food.” 
V. CATAGENESIS OF INORGANIC ENERGY. 
Tf the pr inciples adopted in the preceding pages be true, it is 
highly Probable that a// forms of energy have originated in the 
Process of running down or specialization from the primitive 
gy. 
! AMERICAN NATURALIST, 1880, p. 266. 
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