This is prepared in the bodies of living plants,
particularly in their leaves exposed to the sun and light. This
inflammable matter, on the contrary, is consumed in animal bodies, where
it produces heat or light, or both. Therefore, however animal matter, or
the pabulum of life, may circulate through a series of digesting powers,
it is constantly impaired or diminishing in the course of this economy,
and, without the productive power of plants, it would finally be
extinguished.[17]
[Note 17: See Dissertations on different subjects of Natural Philosophy,
part II.]
The animals of the former world must have been sustained during
indefinite successions of ages. The mean quantity of animal matter,
therefore, must have been preserved by vegetable production, and the
natural waste of inflammable substance repaired with continual addition;
that is to say, the quantity of inflammable matter necessary to the
animal consumption, must have been provided by means of vegetation.
Hence we must conclude, that there had been a world of plants, as well
as an ocean replenished with living animals.
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