With this increasing diversity of form there is a concomitant
segregation of energy. We see as clearly as possible that the tendency
of all inorganic happening is the transformation of potential into
kinetic energy, and the equal distribution of this kinetic energy
throughout all the parts of the system in which the happening
occurred. On the other hand, the tendency of organic happening is the
transformation of kinetic energy into potential energy, (1) in the
stores of chemical compounds which result from the metabolism of the
green plants, and which are capable of yielding energy again; and (2)
in the results of the instinctive or intelligent activities of the
animal’s organism. The first result of organic evolution is clearly
to be traced and needs no further explanation, the second is apparent
on reflection, but is perhaps not clearly apprehended in all its
significance by the student of biology and physics.
Organic evolution is the process which has had, or is having, for its
tendency the development of the putrefactive and fermentation bacteria,
the chlorophyllian organisms, the Arthropods, and man and other
mammals. All that we have said has been futile if this teleological
description of the evolutionary process has not been clearly suggested.
The indefinitely numerous forms of life that have appeared on the
earth in the past, and are now appearing, seem to be experiments most
of which have been unsuccessful. Only in the organisms mentioned,
organisms which are complementary in their metabolic activities,
has life been successful in manifesting itself in activities which
are compensatory to those of inorganic nature. The energy which is
dissipated in the radiation of the cooling sun is again made potential
in the form of the carbohydrates, synthesised from water and carbon
dioxide by the agency of the chlorophyllian organisms, and this energy
accumulates. It is employed by the instinctive and intelligent animal,
in that it is used as food and converted into bodily energy, which can
then be utilised for any purpose that is contemplated. These plant
substances taken in by the animal as sources of energy are broken
down into excretory substances, which are further broken down by the
metabolic activity of the fermentation and putrefaction bacteria, and
become the substances used as foods by the chlorophyllian organisms.
If the activities of man were only those of undirected or misapplied
muscular movements (as indeed most of his activities have so far been),
then cosmic energy would truly be dissipated after it had become the
energy of organisms. But does not all the history of man point to his
ever-increasing activity in the conquest over nature, that is, the
effort to hoard and employ natural sources of energy, and to arrest its
tendency towards dissipation?
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