482 THE WONDER OF LIFE 



fill structures may arise in relatively simple media. Thus if 

 fragments of calcium chloride be dropped into a litre of dis- 

 tilled water containing sixty grains of silicate of potassiiom, 

 sixty grains of saturated solution of carbonate of soda, 

 and thirty grains of saturated dibasic phosphate of soda, 

 then beautiful phantasms arise — ' osmotic growths ' — ^like 

 mushrooms and moulds and corals and shells. They 

 show us the possibihties of inorganic growth, and perhaps 

 they may be of service in bringing into stronger rehef what 

 is distinctive in organic growth. They may be of use 

 for comparison with osmotic phenomena in organisms, 

 but we are unable to see that they throw much hght on the 

 essential nature of growth in organisms. It appears to us 

 to be giving an entirely false simpUcity to the facts to 

 suggest that Biology is a subdivision of the physico- 

 chemistry of fluids. This is a survival of the uncritical 

 materiahstic superstition, and to credit the artificial 

 osmotic growths with nutrition, assimilation, irritabiUty, 

 and a power of development is a bad instance of an asser- 

 tion that outstrips its evidence. 



Difficult Phenomena. — However much more it may 

 be, hving certainly is the correlation of a series of physical 

 and chemical processes that go on within the organism. But 

 it is impossible to ignore a thicket of difficulties. Even after 

 the organization has been fatally shattered, parts of the body 

 may continue active. A wasp, indeed, may continue sucking 

 syrup though some tough friend of the pubhc comfort has 

 cut right through its waist. On the other hand, it is not 

 easy to find evidence of activity in the hibernating snail, 

 or in the resting pupae of some insects, and yet life has not 

 sped. There is nothing in either case by which we could 

 very readily prove to the sceptical that death had not 



