ORGANIC DEVELOPEMENT. 99 
in action influencing the amount of vital force produced by the indi- 
vidual and its concentrating energies, which cannot be estimated, 
yet there is reason to conclude, that, for the production of a single 
germ, there is required a determinate amount of force, characteristic 
of each species, which is equivalent to that which the animal can 
bring to bear upon a single germinant cellule. This amount being 
fixed, may be one element at the basis of species, of specific characters 
and specific distinctions. It aids in producing the elaborated cel- 
lule or cellules, which, with the envelopes (constituting thus an ovum 
or ovule), give origin to the young individual. It is possible that 
some mode of designating this force may yet be ascertained. 
97. In view of these considerations, we are led to conclude that the 
law of developement laid down, determines not only the intervals 
between the polyps, branchlets, and branches of zoophytes, or the 
leaves and ramifications of trees, but presides over the whole animal 
and vegetable economy, limiting the number of reproductive centres, 
and the extent of their sphere of influence, equally in the formation 
of ordinary cellules, or the production of germs or individual animals. 
It appears farther that a cellule—the germ of a species—has cer- 
tain powers distinct from, though perhaps connected with, their 
powers of secretion; and these are different for different species. 
They are—l. A specific budding force, which fixes the size and fre- 
quency of buds, each cellule enlarging, till this force has reached its 
maximum, and then budding from the excess afterwards accumu- 
lating. 2. A specific number of budding points, which determines the 
number and relative position of the cellules that may bud from a pre- 
ceding cellule. 3. A specific budding angle, which fixes the angular 
divergence that a budding cellule may make with a preceding. ‘These 
powers are wholly independent of any thing like catalysis, or any 
known chemical forces, and there is no reason to believe that any but 
creative energy can change them. 
98. From the facts brought forward, it is obvious that although 
zoophytes are so much like plants in their forms and flowers that we 
might almost fancy them to have been modelled after the trees and 
shrubbery of the land; although as simple in their system of aeration, 
and similar in the position of their reproductive organs, and in the 
character of the budding process; yet the two classes of objects have 
nothing essential in common, except in those points, which depend 
upon the general principles of organic life, and in which all animals 
are equally allied to plants. The nature of their tissues and their 
