ORGANIZATION. 19 



sense, that is, of conspicuous parts, or members. It is now applied 

 as well to the intimate structure of these parts, themselves made up 

 of smaller organs through Avhich the vital forces directly act. 



12. Distinctions between Minerals and Organized Beings. Li no 



sense can mineral bodies be said to have organs, or parts subor- 

 dinate to a whole, and together making up an individual, or an 

 organized structure in any respect like that which has just been 

 spoken of, and is soon (as regards plants) to be particularly de- 

 scribed. Without attempting to contrast mineral or unorganized 

 wdth organized bodies in all respects, we may briefly state that the 

 latter are distinguished from the former, — 1. ^j parentage : plants 

 and animals are always produced under the influence of a hving 

 body similar to themselves, or to what they will become, in whose 

 life the offspring for a time participates ; while in minerals there is 

 no relation like that of parent and offspring, but they are formed 

 directly, either by the aggregation of similar particles, or by the 

 union of unlike elements combined by chemical affinity, independent 

 of the influence, and utterly irrespective of the previous existence, 

 of a similar thing. 2. By their development: plants and animals 

 develop from a germ or rudiment, and run through a course of 

 changes to a state of maturity ; the mineral exhibits no phases in 

 its existence answering to the states of germ, adolescence, and 

 maturity, — has no course to run. 3. By their mode of groicth: 

 the former increasing by processes through Avliich foreign materials 

 are taken in, made to permeate their interior, and deposited inter- 

 stitially among the particles of the previously existing substance ; 

 that is, they are nourished by food ; — while the latter are not 

 nourished, nor can they properly be said to grow at all; if they 

 'increase in any way, it is merely hj juxtaposition, and because 

 fresh matter happens to be deposited on their external surface. 

 4. By the power of assimilation, or the faculty that plants and 

 animals alone possess of converting the proper foreign materials 

 they receive into their own pecuhar substance. 5. Connected 

 with assimilation, as a part of the function of nutrition, wliich can 

 in no sense be predicated of minerals, is the state of internal ac- 

 tivity and unceasing change in living bodies ; these constantly under- 

 going decomposition and recomposition, particles which have served 

 their turn being continually thrown out of the system as new ones 

 are brought in. This is true both of plants and animals, but more 

 fully of the latter. The mineral, on the contraiy, is in a state of 



