136 ON THE CORPUS LUTEUM. 



All the existing genera are the same to-day as at the commencement of the present 

 cosmic career, and are destined to be so until the next great cataclysm of the globe. 

 M. Flourens, in his work on generation, makes use of the mot, the saying, nn etrc collectif, 

 a collective being — in speaking of the immutable permanence of a genus. This fine 

 saying leads the mind at once to a view of the importance of the law of genesis by winch 

 so great an end is attained. 



It would, perhaps, be superfluous to say that, but for the exercise of this force, all 

 morals would be nullified, and blotted out of the great scheme of Providence; for, should 

 the genera fail or die out, the earth would become a desert; no flowers to bloom, no corn, 

 nor wine, nor oil — no insect, to sport in the sun-beam — no song of birds — no lowing of 

 cattle — no voice of man to acknowledge, and praise, and give thanks to the Giver of 

 every good and perfect gift. Thus the whole scheme of morals would cease and be 

 terminated, leaving no witness here to the power of God, beyond the senseless play of 

 the elective and gravitating attractions. 



Is it not clear, then, that the laws of this great conservative force must be most 

 important laws? Can such great forces have little or no concern with the regulation and 

 co-ordination of the other life forces ? I repeat, that for life they have the same impor- 

 tance as appertains to the laws of attraction for the physical bodies of the globe. 



This force is the true development force, not only for the germ, but for the embryo, the 

 foetus, the child, the youth, and the man. He who shall know it truly, shall know the 

 laws of life. 



It is not only a generative, but a generic force. It determines the genera in an endless 

 succession of ages. No horrid passion, no wild lust, no insane desire can contravene 

 the irreversible law of the distinction of the species and genera — " each after its own 

 kind," — which, but for its provisions, would rush into chaotic confusion and mixture 

 — whereas they are, in truth, trenchantly divided, and set apart, and maintained for ever, 

 pure and unmixed. 



This force — this amazing force, is concentrated and summed up in a special animal or 

 vegetable tissue. Nothing in animals, save a vitelliferous tissue can yield or give out 

 this force. It is the endowment of an ovarian stroma, as it is called, by Von Baer. It 

 is the peculiar life-property of that concrete, and of nothing else. 



The stroma (Lager,) of ovaries, is a tissue developed and sustained by the combined 

 agency of a spermatic or ovarian artery, and a spermatic nerve. 



The spermatic nerve possesses an intimate plexus and ganglionic relation to the spinal, 

 the sympathetic, and the splanchnic systems of innervation — so that it is related, in fact, 

 to all the organisms. 



Under the dominant indicative influence of the spermatic nerve, the ovaric artery, by 

 its branches and termini, deposites the materials of the concrete of the stroma, with all 

 its parts ami mechanism. 



The general relations of the ovary with the whole of the innervations, while it enables 

 it largely to influence them all, renders it liable to disturbance by their derangements. 

 Its great influence is exhibited in pronouncing the single word sex, for the ovary is the 



