ORGANIZATION. 19 



the minute structure, or tissues, themselves, as revealed by the 

 microscope, and of the larger organs which the tissues form in all 

 plants and animals of the higher grades, such as a leaf, a petal, or 

 a tendril, a hand, an eye, or a muscle. The term organization 

 formerly referred to the possession of organs in this larger sense. 

 It is now recognized to apply quite as well to the intimate struc- 

 ture of these larger parts, themselves made up of smaller organs 

 through which the vital forces directly act. 



12. Distinctions between Minerals and Organized Beings, In 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 (in respect to plants) to be particularly de- 

 scribed. Without attempting to contrast mineral or unorganized 

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

 latter are distinguished from the former, 1. By parentage : 

 plants and animals are always produced under the influence of a 

 living 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, in- 

 dependent of the influence, and utterly irrespective of the previous 

 existence, of a similar thing. 2. By their development : plants 

 and animals develope 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, adoles- 

 cence, and maturity, has no course to run. 3. By their mode 

 of growth : the former increasing by processes through which for- 

 eign materials are taken in, made to permeate their interior, and 

 are 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 in 

 any way ; if they increase at all, it is merely by 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 peculiar substance. 5. Con- 

 nected with assimilation, as a part of the function of nutrition, 

 which can in no sense be predicated of minerals, is the state of 



