318 THE CAUSES OF THE XI 
relationship between the organic and the inorganic 
world—the difference between them arising from 
the diverse combination and disposition of identical 
forces, and not from any primary diversity, so far 
as we can see. 
I said just now that the horse eventually died 
and became converted into the same inorganie 
substances from whence all but an inappreciable 
fraction of its substance demonstrably originated, 
so that the actual wanderings of matter are as 
remarkable as the transmigrations of the soul 
fabled by Indian tradition. But before death has 
occurred, in the one sex or the other, and in fact 
in both, certain products or parts of the organism 
have been set free, certain parts of the organisms 
of the two sexes have come into contact with one 
another, and from that conjunction, from that 
union which then takes place, there results the 
formation of a new being. At stated times the 
mare, from a particular part of the interior of her 
body, called the ovary, gets rid of a minute 
particle of matter comparable in all essential 
respects with that which we called a cell a little 
while since, which cell contains a kind of nucleus 
in its centre, surrounded by a clear space and by a 
viscid mass of protein substance (Fig. 2); anc 
though it is different in appearance from the eggs 
which we are mostly acquainted with, it is really: 
an egg. After a time this minute particle o” 
matter, which may only be a small fraction of : 
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