"The mechanical power exerted by animals is due to the passage of organized matter in the stomach, from an unstable to a stable equilibrium; or, as it were, from the combustion of the food. It therefore follows that animal power is referable to the same source as that from the combustion of fuel--namely, developed power of the sun's beams. But, according to this view, what is vitality? It is that mysterious principle--not mechanical power--which determines the form and arranges the atoms of organized matter, employing for this purpose the power which is derived from the food....
"Suppose a vegetable organism impregnated with a germ (a potato, for instance) is planted below the surface of the ground, in damp soil, under a temperature sufficient for vegetation. If we examine it from time to time, we find it sending down rootlets into the earth, and stems and leaves upward into the air. After the leaves have been fully expanded we shall find the tuber entirely exhausted, nothing but a skin remaining. The same effect will take place if the potato be placed in a warm cellar; it will continue to grow until all the starch and gluten are exhausted, when it will cease to increase. If, however, we now place it in the light, it will commence to grow again, and increase in size and weight. If we weigh the potato previous to the experiment, and the plant after it has ceased to grow in the dark, we shall find that the weight of the latter is a little more than half of the original tuber. The question then is, what has become of the material which filled the sac of the potato? The answer is, one part has run down into carbonic acid and water, and in this running down has evolved the power to build up the other part into the new plant. After the leaves have been formed and the plant exposed to the light of the sun, the developed power of its rays decomposes the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, and thus furnishes the pabulum and the power necessary to the further development of the organization.
"The same is the case with wheat, and all other grains that are germinated in the earth. Besides the germ of the future plant, there is stored away, around the germ, the starch and gluten to furnish the power necessary to its development, and also the food to build it up, until it reaches the surface of the earth and can draw the sources of its future growth from the power of the sunbeam. In the case of fungi and other plants that grow in the dark, they derive the power and the pabulum from surrounding vegetable matter in process of decay, or in that of evolving power."...