SECT, i] EMBRYOLOGY IN ANTIQUITY 49 



bears considerable resemblance to the one hundred and fourth 

 psalm, runs as follows (in Breasted's translation) : 



{the sun- god is addressed) 



Creator of the germ in woman, 



Maker of seed in man, 



Giving life to the son in the body of his mother, 



Soothing him that he may not weep, 



Nurse (even) in the womb. 



Giver of breath to animate every one that he maketh 



When he cometh forth from the womb on the day of his birth. 



Thou openest his mouth in speech. 

 Thou suppliest his necessity. 



When the fledgling in the egg chirps in the shell 

 Thou givest him breath therein to preserve him alive. 

 When thou hast brought him together 

 To the point of bursting out of the egg, 

 He cometh forth from the egg 

 To chirp with all his might. 



He goeth about upon his two feet 

 When he hath come forth therefrom. 



The important point here is that life = soul. At this early period 

 there is no trace of the notions which appear later, such as the idea 

 that embryos are not aUve until the time of birth or hatching, or 

 the idea that the soul is breathed into the embryo at some particular 

 point in development. But in later times these considerations carried 

 great weight, and with the rise of theology a definite stand had to 

 be taken about them, for otherwise no ethical status could be assigned 

 to abortion. Speculation on these matters has continued without 

 cessation since the time of Akhnaton, reaching a climax perhaps in 

 Christian times with Cangiamilla's Embryologia Sacra, and living on 

 embedded in Roman Catholic theology up to our own era. In the 

 last century the subject seems to have had a special fascination for 

 Ernst Haeckel, who frequently mentioned it. But the future holds no 

 place for the discussion of such themes, and what has been called 

 "theological embryology" is already dead, though we may perhaps 

 descry its successor, psychological embryology, in such researches as 

 those of Teuscher, Cesana, y Gonzalez, Swenson and Coghill. 



