Organisms and Their Origin 101 



stance, is a most marvellous contrivance, but, after 

 all, it does not grow from a piece of iron, though 

 there is not much more in it, and it does not give 

 rise to other linotype machines. In many ways, 

 however, the living creature is like a machine, and 

 when we think of the resemblances we should 

 always remember that a machine is hardly a fair 

 sample of the inorganic world, since in addition 

 to the forces of the inorganic world it has inside of 

 it a human thought. It is a materialized human 

 idea, just as a picture is. 



The time may come — who shall say — when we 

 shall see the phenomena of organic life in better 

 line with those of the inanimate world, but at 

 present it is idle to deny that the activities of living 

 creatures are things apart. Certain physical phe- 

 nomena of surface-tension, of diffusion, of elastic- 

 ity, of hydrostatics, of thermodynamics, of elec- 

 tricity, are detected, but not even the simplest vital 

 activity can be completely redescribed in terms of 

 physical formulae. Even the passage of digested 

 food from the alimentary canal to the blood-vessels 

 is more than ordinary physical osmosis; it is modi- 

 fied by the fact that the cells are living. When we 

 add up the components revealed by chemical and 

 physical analysis, they do not amount to the whole 

 resultant. 



From the Biologist's Point of View. — (a) Growth. 

 Leaving the chemical and physical standpoint, we 



