318 THE CAUSES OF THE xi 



relationship between the organic and the inorganic 

 world the difference between them arising from 

 the diverse combination and disposition of identical 

 forces, and not from any primary diversity, so far 

 as we can see. 



I said just now that the horse eventually died 

 and became converted into the same inorganic 

 substances from whence all but an inappreciable 

 fraction of its substance demonstrably originated, 

 so that the actual wanderings of matter are as 

 remarkable as the transmigrations of the soul 

 fabled by Indian tradition. But before death has 

 occurred, in the one sex or the other, and in fact 

 in both, certain products or parts of the organism 

 have been set free, certain parts of the organisms 

 of the two sexes have come into contact with one 

 another, and from that conjunction, from that 

 union which then takes place, there results the 

 formation of a new being. At stated times the 

 mare, from a particular part of the interior of her 

 body, called the ovary, gets rid of a minute 

 particle of matter comparable in all essential 

 respects with that which we called a cell a little 

 while since, which cell contains a kind of nucleus 

 in its centre, surrounded by a clear space and by a 

 viscid mass of protein substance (Fig. 2) ; and 

 though it is different in appearance from the eggs 

 which we are mostly acquainted with, it is really 

 an egg. After a time this minute particle of 

 matter, which may only be a small fraction of a 



