Relations and Transformations of Energy 29 



from a few hours to a few days according to the temperature. 

 The granule surrounds itself mth a membrane of ferrocyanide 

 of copper permeable to water and certain ions, but impermeable 

 to the sugar enclosed within it, wliich produces in this artificial 

 seed the strong osmotic pressure which determines its absorption 

 and growth. If the liquid is spread over a glass plate, the 

 growth takes place on the horizontal plane; if the culture is 

 made in a deep basin, it takes place at once horizontally and 

 vertically. One single artificial seed may give 15 to 20 stalks 

 sometimes as high as 25 cm.'* 



At times osmotic absorption through the membrane pro- 

 ceeds to such an extent as compared with tension resistance 

 of the membrane that rupture of the latter occurs. Then new 

 healing membranes are formed, continuous with the old one, 

 or minor buds arise, after the manner of budding yeast. But 

 here we must take exception to Le Bon's commentary on Le- 

 duc's results, when he says: "We may think we have here the 

 image of life; but there is hardly any more connection between 

 these artificial plants and real ones than there is between a 

 living man and his statue. Their production merely shows 

 that osmotic equilibria may condition certain external forms." 

 We would rather suggest, and we hope to show, that these are 

 the necessary stages and phenomena that carry us from inor- 

 ganic colloids with complex molecular composition, and a high 

 degree of intra-molecular energy, to the varied series of organic 

 colloids in which a still higher or biotic energy resides. 



Thus the numerous colloidal osmotic growths that Leduc, 

 following out and extending Traube's studies, has described 

 and figured (23: 123) are, as he truly remarks, structures, 

 each of wliich is "completely analogous to that which we meet 

 within a living organism." Again he says, in summing up their 

 characteristics, that each "osmotic growth has an evolutionary 

 existence; it is nourished by osmosis and intussusception; it 

 exercises a selective choice on the substances offered to it; it 

 changes the chemical constitution of its nutriment before assini- 

 ihiting it. Like a living thing it ejects into its environment 

 the waste products of its function. Moreover, it grows and 



