64 WONDERS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 



CHAPTER III. 



ORGANIC AND INORGANIC MATTER COMPARED. 



We shall now proceed to consider organic 

 bodies, as contradistinguished from inorganic 

 bodies. 



Ever}' animal and every vegetable, we may 

 remark in the outset, has its restricted form. 

 This, it is true, can also be said of crystals, 

 and the beautiful crystallization of moisture on 

 the panes of glass in our window during a sharp 

 frost, may be cited as a familiar instance in 

 point. But crystals have not their forms ac- 

 cording to the laws of vitality. A rich arbo- 

 rescence may be mimicked by them on the 

 frosted window-pane, but the illusion vanishes 

 with a slight increase of atmospheric tempera- 

 ture. The atoms were not bound into one 

 living thing by a vital principle. The fixed 

 rigidity of crystallization is never, we may re- 

 mark, seen in organic bodies, even when these 

 bodies are most rigid in their lines and contour. 

 Crystals, too, have a homogeneous composition. 

 Organic beings, on the other hand, are composed 

 of heterogeneous substances and parts, of solids 

 and fluids, between which changes are per- 



