696 MECHANICAL LAWS OF GROWTH. 



obtained historically are generally termed hereditary. The term is not open to objec- 

 tion unless heredity be considered, as has recently been done by many, as a kind 

 of natural force requiring no further analysis. For in distinguishing hereditary con- 

 ditions of growth — /. ^. those that have been acquired historically — from physical 

 ones, it is not meant that the former do not also owe their existence to physical 

 phenomena, but only that besides the accidental concurrence of physical conditions, 

 it is also necessary to take into account certain characters which the plant has 

 acquired when in the embryonic condition (in the broadest sense of the term) in 

 the form of definite specialities of organisation through the influence of its parents. 



These remarks must suffice here. The extremely difficult question w-hich has 

 been raised may be illustrated by protracted and elaborate explanations, but cannot 

 be satisfactorily answered. 



The external or physical causes of growth are the only ones that can be 

 submitted to direct experimental investigation ; the internal hereditary causes must 

 be considered simply as something that exists and that is in the main unalterable ; 

 for if it were possible to change some of the mechanical and chemical properties 

 of a tissue by means of external influences, this could not affect the true kernel 

 of the hereditary characteristics ; and again conversely changes in these hereditary 

 peculiarities, or variatmis, are never brought about by direct external influences, 

 but only by unknown internal changes. Since therefore the specific peculiarities 

 in the organisation of a plant are something in its nature that is entirely unknown, 

 any investigation of the processes of growth must rest satisfied with showing the 

 mode in w^hich they are always associated with constant internal conditions, and 

 what visible changes are produced in the processes of growth by physical influences. 

 We cannot therefore be astonished if in the action of known external causes — 

 light, gravitation &c. — on plants, effects are produced which appear altogether 

 strange to one accustomed to examine purely physical processes ; but this aston- 

 ishment disappears when it is borne in mind that the specific organisation of a 

 plant itself represents a complexity of causes which we cannot analyse, and there- 

 fore are unable to estimate. It is in the constant recognition of this unknown 

 factor — which causes physiological effects to turn out so entirely different from 

 purely physical ones — that the difference between physiology and physics consists. 

 The most striking mode however in which the aggregate of conditions of growth 

 manifests itself in the inherited organisation, is w'hen the same external causes pro- 

 duce entirely opposite effects on plants belonging to different species and even on 

 different parts of the same plant. 



To understand correctly the phenomena of vegetation, it is also necessary to 

 distinguish between the direct and indirect action of external causes on growth. 

 For since growth is always dependent primarily on the presence of assimilated 

 food-materials, light, temperature, of other external conditions may indirectly in- 

 fluence growth by affecting the formation and transport of the food-materials. 

 But it is also possible and even probable that the mechanical process of intus- 

 susception itself on which growth is directly dependent, may be modified by those 

 and other causes the influence of which on growth is therefore in that case a direct 

 one. The growth of one part may also be indirectly promoted or retarded by the 

 growth or the removal of another part. 



