Organization has long been considered as one of the principal characteristics of life, _i.e._ the arrangement of matter so as to produce an animated and evolutionary form accompanied by transformation of energy. But osmotic growths are also organizations endowed with the same faculties, and the physical mechanism which is at the basis of their formation is the same as that which determines the organization of living matter. The phenomena of osmotic growth show how ordinary mineral matter, carbonates, phosphates, silicates, nitrates, and chlorides, may imitate the forms of animated nature without {153} the intervention of any living organism. Ordinary physical forces are quite sufficient to produce forms like those of living beings, closed cavities containing liquids separated by osmotic membranes, with tissues similar to those of the vital organs in form, colour, evolution, and function. It is only necessary to glance at the photographs of these osmotic growths to appreciate the wonderful variety of form. The variety of function is not less evident, and in many instances, especially with manganese salts, the difference of function of various regions is marked by differences of colour. When a large osmotic cell projects beyond the mother liquor and grows up into the air, it is evident that the function of liquid absorption must be localized in the submerged part. In other cases we have a local evolution of gas, which may be demonstrated by growing a fragment of calcium chloride in a mother liquor composed of the following saturated solutions:-- Potassium carbonate 76 parts. Potassium sulphate 16 " Tribasic potassium phosphate 46 " During the whole period of growth there is an abundant liberation of bubbles of gas, which is accurately limited to a belt around the base of the growth, and sometimes also to a cap at the summit. Since morphological differentiations of different parts is but the result of differences of evolution, _i.e._ of functional differences of the various parts, we may consider that osmotic growths possess the faculty of organization like living beings. An osmotic growth may be wounded, and a wound delays its growth and development like a disease or an accident in a living being. A wound in an osmotic production may also become cicatrized and covered with a membrane, when the growth will recommence exactly as in a living being. An osmotic growth is a transformer of energy. It increases in bulk, pushing aside the mother liquor, and thus doing external work. An osmotic growth has a temperature above its medium, since the chemical reaction of which it is the seat is accompanied by the production of heat. We know {154} but little of the transformation of energy which takes place in an osmotic production, but we may say with certainty that it is capable of transforming both chemical energy and osmotic energy into heat and mechanical motion.