252 Mr. J. J. Woodward on the Modern 
that we have to do with processes for which the inorganic 
world affords no parallel. 
Linneeus, indeed, declared, “ lapides crescunt,” using the 
very same phrase which he applied also to plants and animals*. 
But it is impossible to maintain this assertion without adopt- 
ing the most superficial view of the growth of living beings, 
and defining the process to consist merely in increase of size. 
That this should have appeared reasonable in the time of 
Linneus need excite no surprise ; but it seems strange to find 
so astute a thinker as Mr. Herbert Spencer repeating the old 
fallacy in the first chapter of his ‘ Inductions of Biology,’ and 
declaring, “ Crystals grow, and often far more rapidly than 
living bodies’}. ‘Then, after instancing the formation of 
geological strata by the deposit of detritus from water, as well 
as the formation of crystals in solutions, as examples of growth 
in the inorganic world, he asks: “Is not the growth of an 
organism a substantially similar process ?” and adds, ‘f Around 
a plant there exist certain elements that are like the elements 
which form its substance, and its increase in size is effected 
by continually integrating these surrounding like elements 
with itself; nor does the animal fundamentally differ in this 
respect from the plant or the crystal.” 
Now, as opposed to this, I must express my belief that the 
more we know of the actual details of the process of growth 
in plants and animals the more clearly will it be seen that this 
process does differ so fundamentally from that by which a 
crystal is formed and increases in size, or from any increase 
in size of inorganic bodies, that the same scientific term can- 
not with any propriety be applied to both, however long 
popular usage may have given to both a common name. 
When inorganic bodies increase in size the additional atoms 
are deposited on their external surfaces ; or, if a fluid, after 
penetrating the interstices of some porous body, deposits there 
any material held in solution, the mass, indeed, is increased 
thereby, but not the size. When, however, vegetable proto- 
plasm grows, it does not merely integrate with itself certain 
elements around it like the elements which form its substance ; 
the needed elements exist in compounds quite unlike itself, 
and it combines them together into protoplasm in all parts 
* “ Lapides crescunt, Vegetabilia crescunt et vivunt, Animalia crescunt, 
vivunt et sentiunt.” This phrase occurs in the first edition of the ‘ Sys- 
tema Nature,’ Leyden, 1735. I cite the reprint of Fée, Paris, 1830, 
p. 3, as well as the second Stockholm edition, 1740, p. 76. The expression 
is replaced in the later editions by more guarded language. 
+ Herbert Spencer, ‘The Principles of Biology,’ vol. i. New York, 
1866, p. 107. 
