102 The Bible of Nature 



note from the biologist's point of view that the liv- 

 ing organism grows after a fashion all its own, not 

 as a rolling snowball grows by mere accretion, but 

 by a unifying incorporation; not even as a crystal 

 grows, at the expense of dissolved material chem- 

 ically the same as itself, but at the expense of ma- 

 terial quite different from itself. The grass grows 

 at the expense of air, water, and salts, which, with 

 the sun's aid, it lifts into the circle of life; and at the 

 expense of the grass — after a period of maternal 

 gastric education — the foal grows into a horse. It 

 should be remembered, however, that the growth 

 of crystals and the growth of certain minerals is no 

 mere increase in bulk, but is, like organic growth, 

 an integration, and results in forms of often star- 

 tling beauty. 



(6) Cyclical Development. Another familiar 

 characteristic of living things is their cyclical de- 

 velopment. From a microscopic egg-cell a seed 

 develops, from the seed a seedling, from the seed- 

 ling a beanstalk. "By insensible steps, the plant 

 builds itself up into a large and various fabric of 

 root, stem, leaves, flowers, and fruit, every one 

 moulded within and without in accordance with 

 an extremely complex, but, at the same time, 

 minutely defined pattern. In each of these com- 

 plicated structures, as in their smallest constitu- 

 ents, there is an immanent energy, which, in 

 harmony with that resident in all the others, in- 



