organism (organizm)

[= F. organ is me = Sp. Pg. It. organismo = G. organism us, Suffrage and proper organism combined are sufficient to counteract the tendency of government to oppre ion and abuse of power. Calhoun , Works, I. 26. 2. A body exhibiting organization and organic life; a member of the animal or vegetable kingdom; an individual composed of a number of e ential and mutually dependent parts, all of which partake of a common life. Every organism has not only an inherited and gradually modified structure which is one of the determinants of its history, it has also a history of incident, that is on transient conditions, which may lead two similar organ is ins along divergent paths, and determine them to different manifestations. G. H. Lewes, Probs. of Life and Mind, I. ii. § 56. Germs of microscopic organisms exist abundantly on the surface of all fruits. Pasteur , On Fermentation (trans.), p. 99. 3. Anything that is organized or organic. The social organism is not a mere physiological organ ism. Maudsley, Body and Will, p. 190. In 1852 Naudin argued for the formation of new species in nature in a similar way to that of varieties under cultivation, further attaching great importance to an a umed "principle of finality," apparently a kind of organismal fate. Encyc . Brit ., XXIV. 77.