66o What is an Organism ? [November, 
Taken by itself, however, it must be pronounced insuffi- 
cient. If we imagine other well-known properties absent 
no one would pronounce any substance as organic merely 
from its being endowed with this attribute. Sensibility 
must therefore be regarded as a peculiar and very important 
subsidiary property. 
Dr. Roux lays great weight on the relations of the organic 
processes to space and time. Under the former head is con- 
sidered the spacial extension of organisms, — in other words, 
the kindred phenomena of growth and of reproduction. 
Growth, however, is no independent property, but indicates 
merely the quantitative relation of another faculty — assimi- 
lation — upon which it must be regarded as dependent. 
Growth, in the sense of mere enlargement, occurs also in 
the inorganic world. Thus, crystals may grow, and pro- 
cesses at first limited within a small territory may spread 
over larger region, as we witness in the formation of mists 
and clouds. The same may be said of propagation, which 
is merely growth beyond the limits of the individual, and is 
also dependent upon the faculty of assimilation. 
More light is, in Dr. Roux’s judgment, thrown upon the 
question by a consideration of the time relations of organic 
processes. These have, as far as we can decide, proceeded 
without interruption since their first origin. True, we find 
also inorganic processes which since their beginning have been 
likewise continuous, differing merely in extent and intensity. 
The rocks never cease from weathering, whilst the denuda- 
tion of the land and the evaporation of the sea are unending. 
There is, however, an important distinction : the inorganic 
processes involving the transformation of matter continue so 
long as their outward conditions exist. Thus the weathering 
of a rock will continue for ever, as long as air, carbonic acid, 
and moisture are supplied. If it is removed from these in- 
fluences the process of weathering to the best of our know- 
ledge is arrested for ever, but on re-exposure, weathering is 
again and at once resumed. This is an important distinc- 
tion between the organic processes and the various opera- 
tions we see in play in the inorganic world. In the latter, 
the outward conditions are, as we thus see, all in all, whilst 
a vital process has in itself an internal cause of permanence 
to which the outward conditions are merely subsidiary. 
A main attribute of every living being is the power of 
assimilation. The organic process can convert foreign 
matter into something homogeneous to itself, re-arrange 
the molecules of the bodies which it incorporates, and 
c eate its own requisites from what may be called raw 
