Nantes, 1911.
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] |
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.