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method of combination, leave open 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, or 2 affinities. The complexity and variety of organic compounds are due to the original characteristics of the elements that take part in them.

These organic compounds are termed higher than the simplest inorganic ones into which they are constantly passing by decomposition. The language is figurative, finding its significance in the fact, that force is expended in dissolving the simple compounds and constructing the more complex ones. This force remains as available force or energy in the organic substance, and reappears in its reactions. As these molecules consume force in their construction, and yield it in their reactions, they are said to be higher than the stable inorganic compounds into which they are constantly lapsing. It is a lift in nature to form them, demanding energy; it is a fall in nature to decompose them, yielding energy.

The forces drawn upon in this construction are those contained in the sun's rays, and the surfaces at which these forces become efficient for their work are those of the green tissue of plants, more particularly of leaves. "It is a very wonderful thing that those so-called chemical radiations from the sun which are most effective in producing the decomposition of carbonic acid by the leaves of the plant are the very rays which are most absorbed by the green tissue."*

The force expended in the leaf in the decomposition of carbonic acid gas and water, and the conversion of the material so provided into starch, may be better appreciated if we remember, "that the

* Recent Advances in Physical Science, p. 149.