THE NATURE OF GEOWTH 81 



a certain point each ion of chlorine unites with a corresponding 

 ion of sodium, and aided by a sharp point or inequality of the 

 surface of the containing vessel, the process of crystallization 

 begins. The very existence of one crystal is seen to cause other 

 junctions to occur in its immediate neighbourhood, and, indeed 

 just that one series of junctions necessary to form sodium chloride. 

 Despite the presence of other salts in solution we gain pure or 

 almost pure crystals of the one substance. We have in this 

 way growth of solid sodium chloride. 



Growth of living matter, if more complicated, because the 

 structure of the biophores is more complicated, must neverthe- 

 less be of the same order. Its nature is best suggested by the 

 following diagram. 



Fig. 5. — Diagram of growth of biophoric molecules. 



Namely, granted that the already existing biophore finds itself 

 in a medium — the nuclear cell sap — containing the necessary 

 radicles, should that by one of its attachments attract to itself 

 one of its component radicles, there is then started a process by 

 which in orderly sequence the other radicles become attached, 

 until there is built up a compound molecule, identical with the 

 pre-existing molecule, in association with which it has become 

 developed. 



This conception — namely, that the growth of the biophores, 

 or otherwise of the molecules of living matter, is essentially of 

 the same nature as is that of crystals — is materially aided by the 

 recognition that crystallization does not of, necessity demand 

 the production of rigid rectilinear figures, that, as Lehmann l 

 was the first to point out in 1904, there are in nature abundant 

 examples of fluid, non-rigid, crystalline forms, and, as AschofE 



1 0. Lehmann, Fl&ssige Crystatte, Leipzig, 1904. 



