314 Researches in the Theory and Calculus of Operations. 



earth feeds 'the root (the cushion or excitor), the stem stands 

 as the conductor, the bark as isolator ; and when the ma- 

 chine is timely charged, in place of sparks, it casts off 

 flowers and seeds. During all this process, fluid substance 

 is constantly arriving at the upper terminus of the plant, 

 a continuous action goes on between it and the exterior 

 medium, resulting in the separation of an element of the 

 vegetable and its combination with an element of the me- 

 dium, and a reactive combination of another element of 

 the medium with one of the plant: oxygen leaves the 

 plant and mingles with the nitrogen of the atmosphere, 

 while the change is returned in carbonic acid exhaled from 

 the ceaseless cpmbustive proces&es of animal life, the fuel 

 of which consists of the fruit and esculent portions of the 

 vegetable crop (Balance of nature, Circle of life). 



The operation of transmission by decomposition fur- 

 nishes a conception tof the mode of transition from the inor- 

 ganic to the organic portion of the tenants of the natural 

 world. In the male germ and female egg of a plant, or of 

 an animal, the energy of combination is high, and about 

 equal, with a slight difference in time (one phase) in favor 

 of the masculine or positive element. The egg or negative 

 element is the pabulum on which the germ feeds during 

 the initial stage of growth. The two component energies 

 combine in chemical fashion into a resultant of increasing 

 strength ; a part of the mass, from which the superfluous 

 energy has been expended in effecting the combination, is de- 

 posited as caput mortuum; the strengthened resultant energy 

 demands and appropriates more food in manner similar to 

 the first step of action ; a gradual increase of mass, or growth, 

 ensues in time, which persists until reaching a maximum, 

 when growth ceases, and the superfluous energy is turned 

 to the planting of new germs, etc. for posterity. As the 

 race of life is nothing else than the prolonged action of a 

 propagated force developing itself in a resist ing medium, 



