GROWTH, METAMORPHOSIS AND DEVELOPMENT 257 



It is a detriment to the scientific treatment of the entire question 

 that the outward resemblance (form and color) is so strikingly like 

 the natural structures. Involuntarily, we are reminded of wax 

 figures which move their arms and legs. Though the internal struc- 

 ture has some slight resemblance to some natural organisms, the 

 analogy completely fails if \ve consider such de- 

 tails as cell division and cell multiplication. The 

 figures of ST. LEDUC absorb no nourishment, 

 other than water; their increased weight, as far 

 as solid substances go, consists only in pellicle 

 formation, and in spite of a shape suggestive of 

 higher organisms, they have no differentiated 

 internal structure, and the cell division has not 

 the remotest resemblance to natural cell division, 

 but occurs intermittently by bursting, etc. We 

 might, if it did not seem fruitless, multiply the FlG 437 = Vesicles of 

 dissimilarities indefinitely and we might show Bacterium mani- 

 that metabolism and the development of germ topoem from a 

 cells is out of the question in such formations. pure cu l ture in 



We must not overlook, in the presence of all ; rile ? ear J 6 - 



. 1 he vesicle has de- 



these dissimilarities, that the physical forces ve loped a long 



which produce these inorganic formations are transparent tube, 

 the same as those which produce the growth and Magnification 

 configuration of organized material: membranes, 200:1. (After H. 

 osmotic pressure, diffusion. 



In one point, at least, LEDUC'S analogies fail completely: except- 

 ing the membranes, they are devoid of colloid material. We have 

 already seen that swelling frequently replaces osmotic pressure. 

 If we could imagine the crystalloid material of ST. LEDUC 

 replaced by colloids capable of swelling, we would have the essen- 

 tial physical and chemical conditions for growth and structure of 

 organisms. 



A serious study of these problems, one which extends beyond ex- 

 ternal resemblances, is still in its earliest beginnings; see R. E. LIESE- 

 GANG, Nachahmung von Lebensvorgdngen. Formations resembling 

 the creations of ST. LEDUC have been independently noticed by 

 others. B. D. UHLENHUTH* produced beautiful growths by putting 

 iron objects into antiformin. Antiformin is a mixture of sodium 

 hypochlorite with sodium hydrate. The formations consist of 

 iron oxid, and their development is easily understood from the ex- 

 planations that have been already given. Since a small amount of a 

 water-soluble iron salt must be formed first by the action of the 

 hypochlorite of soda on the iron, the growth is slower, the figures 



