71 



with their similitudes, each should aggregate and repeat its own 

 nature, themselves being thus developed, and by force of relations 

 developing a sensible bulk, in correspondence with their own in- 

 crease. Why this is a parallel to all that we are supposing of the 

 properties possessed by the ovum. We object to its minuteness for 

 the possession of so many properties, and yet it is clear that more 

 properties than we can enumerate in the ovum may exist upon the 

 minutest point of matter; and the reason why in the latter case they 

 are not conspicuous, is precisely the one which explains their con- 

 cealment in the former, or in the instance of the maternal ovum, 

 viz. that the properties want the processes of growth in order to 

 become conspicuous. This matter is too obvious to require another 

 word in explanation: it may, however, be added, that as much as 

 has been here remarked is agreeable with the whole of our expe- 

 rience of the nature and laws of properties. 



37. As the spirit of the maternal ovum, for succeeding genera- 

 tions, has been said not to have been contained in rirst parents, but 

 to be formed in each de novo, the question next to be considered is 

 in what manner it is formed ? And now we must recur to a ques- 

 tion which has been anticipated. To define it in regard to its 

 present application, we will ask, Is the organic spirit of the ovum 

 constituted for the purposes of perpetuation, in the same way in 

 some respects as it was in the first of the species] or is it formed 

 in the way of derivation? 



38. To suppose the constitution of the human organic spirit 

 in the primitive way, would most probably involve a long history of 

 changes and accessions, on which, as we understand not spiritual 

 relations, we have no grounds for conjecture. Further, in such an 

 original constitution we cannot but suppose the occurrence of many 

 accidents which would render its identity irregular, much more so 

 than we find it. Upon the whole, it does not appear necessary to pre- 

 serve a distinct discussion of these questions. 



3D. The maternal ovum was no more formed in the ovum from 

 which the mother herself was produced, than the bones: it was then 

 produced subsequent even to foetal life, which furnishes no ova. 

 The maternal ovum is found to have properties correspondent 

 with the properties which belong to all the parts of the mother; 

 the manner in which it is produced in the mother, is the subject of 

 our immediate consideration. 



40. The alternatives of the manner in which the spirit is pro- 

 duced which forms the maternal ovum, are the two following: 1st, 

 whether the seat of the formation of the ovum is a point to which 

 every order of structure, or every part in the mother, sends identi- 

 cal properties, which thus reside in the ovum, requiring only the 

 development which they obtain by the processes of nutrition and 

 growth in order to form a new being, which resembles the one from 

 which it was derived, and which is constituted by the possession of 

 the identical properties of the parent? or, 2nd, whether, without 

 any contribution of identical properties from remote structures, the 



