THOUGHTS ON SPECIES. 157 



it cannot pass ; but, after a variable period, its organic part 

 is broken up and resolved again into the simple or primary 

 elements of matter. The species or the thought, however, 

 does not cease to exist during the process of organic dis- 

 integration of the individual, and previously to its disap- 

 pearance or death it represents its special organism, or rather 

 its species, by means of an ovum, in which the organic 

 actions, destroyed in the previous representative, are recom- 

 menced and again carried through a series of changes or 

 states to the point of its previous organic perfection ; com- 

 mencing in the simplest organic state, and continually re- 

 turning to it to renew a series of predetermined special 

 developments. We have in species a cycle of persistent, 

 ceaseless actions, revolving in their narrow humble orbit 

 with all the indications of design, and with comparatively 

 as much invariability, as the great planets observe in their 

 appointed paths. It is a conception, inasmuch, as from 

 a structureless body or material, is evolved, in a constant pre- 

 ordained manner, one having a highly complicated arrange- 

 ment of organs, whose actions and functions result in the pro- 

 duction of phenomena known as those of life. The ovum, 

 in which the organic cycle may be said to have its inception, 

 is endowed with no fortuitous or independent impulse of 

 evolution. Up to the period of its maturity it has formed 

 an integral and necessary part of some pre-existing natural 

 body ; it is indeed a component of the organism quite as 

 much as any other aggregation of specialized cells, and par- 

 takes of all its characteristics of growth. To endow it with 

 this impulse, not even the procreative act between the male 

 and female organism is absolutely imperative, and its specific 

 evolution may be recommenced independently of this extra- 

 neous aid, at the inceptive point of the organism with which 



