15: 



THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 



which rises in the stem is a concentrated solution of calcium 

 salt much denser than the mother liquor, and the current of 

 liquid after rising in the stem may be seen to fall back again 

 through the liquid. 



Organization has lone been considered as one of the 

 principal characteristics of life, i.e. the arrangement of matter 

 so as to produce an animated am! evolutionary form accom- 



Fig. 61. — A group of osmotic orms. 



panied by transformation of energy. But osmotic growths are 

 also organizations endowed with the same faculties, and the 

 physical mechanism which is at the basis of their formation 

 is the same as that which determines the organization of living 

 matter. 



The phenomena of osmotic growth show how ordinary 

 mineral matter, carbonates, phosphates, silicate's, nitrates, and 

 chlorides, may imitate the forms of animated nature without 



