DEFINITION. 



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cellular organ. The common point in all these processes is that they depend at 

 last on the intercalation of new molecules between those already in existence, in 

 other words on intussusception, as has already been explained in the first section 

 of Book III. But even in structures so simple as grains of starch or parts of 

 cell-walls, we are met with insurmountable difficulties when we attempt to explain 

 the mechanical process of growth in all its details ; and the present state of our 

 knowledge by no means enables us to propound a connected theory of the 

 growth of the entire cell or of a multicellular organ. We are in fact at present 

 able only to follow empirically the processes of growth in detail, their causes and 

 results. After this we may attempt to form definite ideas of the separate pro- 

 cesses, taking for granted at the outset the purely formal phenomena of mor- 

 phology, and regarding as the ultimate object of the enquiry the obtaining an 

 insight into the mechanism of growth. If the solution of this difficult problem 

 must be deferred to a distant future, it at any rate lies within the scope of this 

 work to collect together the ascertained phenomena. But even here we meet 

 with the difficulty that no one has as yet undertaken to limit the term Growth to 

 a definitely circumscribed idea. The term is however always employed in the case 

 of plants and animals to designate changes in form or volume or both brought 

 about by internal causes, themselves the result of organisation, and in their turn 

 excited and maintained by definite external causes, as heat, light, gravitation, the 

 supply of food-materials, water, &c. Changes in the form or volume of parts 

 of plants that remain quite passive to external forces, and in which changes no 

 organic process cooperates, ought not to be included in the term Growth. Thus, 

 for example, there is no growth when the form or length of an internode or root 

 is altered by simple stretching, pressure, twisting, or bending (it may be by the 

 hands). It is quite possible however that under certain circumstances internal 

 changes might be brought about by external influences to which the part of the 

 plant is at first altogether passive, but which, combined with organic processes, 

 cause true growth or changes of growth. By organic processes I understand those 

 internal changes which fulfil the two following conditions : — firstly, they are caused 

 by the specific organisation of the part of the plant, which is of such a nature that 

 any external influence can only effect changes in accordance with it ; secondly, 

 they result in a permanent change of the organised part which is not at once re- 

 versed by opposite external influences. If, for example, the elevation of the temper- 

 ature above the inferior limit (see Sect. 7, p. 651) has caused an increase in volume 

 of the embryonic structures already saturated with water, the parts will not contract 

 to their previous volume when the temperature again falls below this point, but will 

 retain the increase acquired during the higher temperature; in other words the 

 process is not reversed, it only ceases. Microscopic as well as other kinds of ex- 

 amination also show that the internal organisation has undergone permanent change 

 varying with the specific properties of the plant. If on the contrary a stem is 

 allowed to wither from want of water, it becomes shorter and ceases to grow ; when 

 it again absorbs water it becomes longer and thicker and begins to grow. The 

 contraction on withering and the lengthening on the absorption of water are mere 

 physical phenomena ; but the lengthening and thickening of a part resulting from 

 continuad turgescence mav actually depend upon growth, the organisation of the 



