TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE vii AUTHOR'S PREFACE ix INTRODUCTION xiii I. LIFE AND LIVING BEINGS 1 II. SOLUTIONS 14 III. ELECTROLYTIC SOLUTIONS 24 IV. COLLOIDS 36 V. DIFFUSION AND OSMOSIS 43 VI. PERIODICITY 67 VII. COHESION AND CRYSTALLIZATION 78 VIII. KARYOKINESIS 89 IX. ENERGETICS 97 X. SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY 113 XI. OSMOTIC GROWTH: A STUDY IN MORPHOGENESIS 123 XII. THE PHENOMENA OF LIFE AND OSMOTIC PRODUCTIONS: A STUDY IN PHYSIOGENESIS 147 XIII. EVOLUTION AND SPONTANEOUS GENERATION 160 * * * * * {xiii} INTRODUCTION Life was formerly regarded as a phenomenon entirely separated from the other phenomena of Nature, and even up to the present time Science has proved wholly unable to give a definition of Life; evolution, nutrition, sensibility, growth, organization, none of these, not even the faculty of reproduction, is the exclusive appanage of life. Living things are made of the same chemical elements as minerals; a living being is the arena of the same physical forces as those which affect the inorganic world. Life is difficult to define because it differs from one living being to another; the life of a man is not that of a polyp or of a plant, and if we find it impossible to discover the line which separates life from the other phenomena of Nature, it is in fact because no such line of demarcation exists--the passage from animate to inanimate is gradual and insensible. The step between a stalagmite and a polyp is less than that between a polyp and a man, and even the trained biologist is often at a loss to determine whether a given borderland form is the result of life, or of the inanimate forces of the mineral world. A living being is a transformer of matter and energy--both matter and energy being uncreateable and indestructible, i.e. invariable in quantity. A living being is only a current of matter and of energy, both of which change from moment to moment while passing through the organism. That which constitutes a living being is its form; for a living thing is born, develops, and dies with the form and structure of its organism. This ephemeral nature of the living being, which perishes with the destruction of its form, is in {xiv} marked contrast to the perennial character of the matter and the energy which circulate within it.