24 GERMINATION 



It scarcely calls for explanation ; d receives negative 

 charge from the earth and by induction positively elec- 

 trijB.es e, to a potential slightly higher than that of the 

 earth, because d is of rather greater area than e. In this 

 manner the seed-substance is continuously electrified and 

 from the moment d, is capable of transmitting the earth 

 current it can be said to have begun to live an independent 

 life, given the requisite conditions of warmth and moisture. 



In conclusion, we must, I think, agree that a case has 

 been made out which goes to show that some connection 

 exists between electricity and life, and that the popular 

 belief that " electricity is life "is, after all, not very far 

 wrong. 



If, however, doubt continues to exist in the mind of any 

 reader he may further inform himself upon the subject by 

 studying plant life. 



Taking as his authorities Schafer, Hseckel, Strasburger, 

 he will observe that the phenomenon of the segmentation 

 of the ovum is on all fours with that of cell reproduction, 

 that the fertilisation of the ovum of a mammal by sperma- 

 tozoon is almost identical with that of an oosphere by sperma- 

 tozoids and that there is no essential difference between the 

 ovule of a gymnosperm and the pregnant human womb. 

 Proofs can, in fact, be multiplied almost ad infinitum, but 

 perhaps enough has been written to provide food for thought. 



In the final chapter of his Animal Physiology, Dr. Carpenter 

 writes : " We have seen that, however apparently different, 

 the essential character of the reproductive process is the 

 same in the highest animal as in the lowest. It has been 

 shown that the development of the highly organised body 

 of man commences from the same starting point with that 

 of the meanest creature living : for even Man was once 

 but a single cell, undistinguishable, by all human means 

 of observation from that which constitutes the entire fabric 

 of the simplest protozoon." 



He might almost have added the " simplest vegetable 

 organism," for the reproductive process of the cell of the 

 diatom is practically the same as that of man. 



