OF ORGANIC NATURE. 19 



muscles or conveying an impression to the brain, there 

 is a disturbance of the electrical condition of that nerve 

 which does not exist at other times ; and there are a 

 number of other facts and phenomena of that sort ; so 

 that we come to the broad conclusion that not only as 

 to living matter itself, but as to the forces that matter 

 exerts, there is a close 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 diver- 

 sity, 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 trans- 

 migrations 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 organ- 

 ism 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 particu- 

 lar 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 vis- 

 cid 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 



