THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 6 1 



directive power resident in each particle of a living 

 being be other than a transformed physical force, it 

 must be one which in spite of the well-known formula 

 'ex nihilo m hit fit' is capable of indefinite self-multi- 

 plication. Either such force must be continually spring- 

 ing into being without a cause originating itself, or 

 growing out of nothing which is an absurdity ; or else 

 within the human ovum, or within that of any other 

 animal, there must be locked up^ in this one tiny microscopic 

 cell, the whole of the peculiar 'vital po-uoer which is after- 

 wards to diffuse itself throughout the body, and which, 

 later still, is to serve as the guiding principle of the 

 whole man. How could the tiny cell retain all this 

 priceless energy ? What hydraulic press would be ade- 

 quate to bring about such concentration, even were 

 it destined to be locked up within walls of adamant, 

 rather than of tender protoplasm ? Then, too, we come 

 back to the further difficulty, as to how this original 

 ovum acquired its marvellously concentrated quotum of 

 vital force. The ovum is but a differentiated product, 

 an individual cell, arising from the almost infinite sub- 

 division and growth of a pre-existing ovum, and, there- 

 fore, it can only have received an infinitesimal share of 

 the original vital force with which its parent germ was 

 endowed. This parent germ was similarly related to 

 its progenitor, and so we might run back through the 

 races and through the ages, did not the very idea carry 

 absurdity in its face. A force independent of the 

 correlated series of physical forces, and yet capable 



