Life is an ensemble of functions and of energy-transformations, an ensemble which is conditioned by the form, the structure, and the composition of the living being. Life, therefore, may be said to be conditioned by form, i.e. the external, internal, and molecular forms of the living being.
All living things consist of closed cavities, which are limited by osmotic membranes, and filled with solutions of crystalloids and colloids. The study of synthetic biology is therefore the study of the physical forces and conditions which can produce cavities surrounded by osmotic membranes, which can associate and group such cavities, and differentiate and specialize their functions. Such forces are precisely those which produce osmotic growths, having the forms and exhibiting many of the functions of living beings. Of all the theories as to the origin of life, that which attributes it to osmosis and looks on the earliest living beings as products of osmotic growths is the most probable and the most satisfying to the reason.
We have already seen that the seas of the primary and
secondary ages presented in a high degree the particular conditions favourable for the production of osmotic growths. During these long ages an exuberant growth of osmotic vegetation must have been produced in these primeval seas. All the substances which were capable of producing osmotic membranes by mutual contact sprang into growth,—the soluble salts of calcium, carbonates, phosphates, silicates, albuminoid matter, became organized as osmotic productions,—were born, developed, evolved, dissociated, and died. Millions of ephemeral forms must have succeeded one another in the natural evolution of that age, when the living world was represented by matter thus organized by osmosis.
The experimental study of osmotic morphogeny adds its weight of evidence in the same direction. When we see under our own eyes the cells of calcium become organized, develop and grow in close imitation of the forms of life, we cannot doubt that such a transformation has often occurred in the past history of our planet, and the conviction becomes irresistible
that osmosis has played a predominant rôle in the history of our earth and its inhabitants. It is a matter of astonishment that the scientist has taken no notice of the active part which osmosis has played in the evolution of our earth. On the effects of this most important physical phenomenon science has hitherto remained entirely mute.
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