returns to the physical world. This return takes place (with certain exceptions which will be presently indicated) under the ultimate form of thermal energy. This we are taught by experiment. The phenomena of functional activity are exothermal.
Real vital phenomena thus lie between the chemical energy which gives rise to them, and the thermal phenomena to which they in their turn give rise. The place of the vital fact in the cycle of universal energy is therefore completely determined. This conclusion is of the utmost importance to biology. It may be expressed in a concise formula which sums up in a few words all that natural philosophy can teach as to energetics applied to living beings. "Vital energy is a transformation of chemical energy into thermal energy."
Exceptions.—There are some exceptions to the rigour of this statement, but they are not many in number. We must first of all remark that it applies to animal life alone.
In the case of vegetables, looked at as a whole, the law must be modified. Their vital energy has another origin, and another final form. Instead of being the destroyers of chemical potential energy, they are its creators. They build up by means of the inert and simple materials afforded them by the atmosphere and the soil, the immediate principles by which their cells are filled. Their vital functional activity forms by synthesis of the reserves, carbo-hydrates (sugars and starches), fats, albuminoid nitrogenous materials—that is to say, the same three principal categories of foods as those used by animals.
And to return to the latter, it should be observed that thermal energy is not the only final form of vital
