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43. The seats of properties are determined by spiritual rela- 

 tions, for at first the existence of properties is not manifested ; they 

 afterwards assume their identities and seats, giving rise to aggre- 

 gations and arrangement of matter; which change is accomplished 

 by the causes by which the properties producing visible effects 

 are governed. When a modification of the organic spirit has 

 assumed its sphere, it exerts a function ; one of secretion, for ex- 

 ample. Now this function has so many properties as are deter- 

 mined by its relations with those other spiritual properties with 

 which it co-exists. 



44. The precise nature of the function which produces the 

 secretion, is determined by a causation between the parts of the 

 spirit, which we can in no instance understand, because we are in 

 no instance acquainted with the relations it involves. The secre- 

 tion will be according to the function. 



45. Every secretion is endowed with precise properties ; and 

 the same only can be said of any other production, which we may 

 or may not call a secretion. How these properties precisely, and 

 no others, came to be assembled, will be as difficult to pronounce 

 upon in one case as in another, because in all cases there are ante- 

 cedent processes of causation, of which we are totally uninformed ; 

 and it is sufficient for the present thus to shew the correspon- 

 dence of these processes with the general order of causation 

 which they also observe. 



46*. Thus then the product of a function may possess chymi- 

 cal properties, and matter of a common kind, and latent constitu- 

 ents of life which may originate new forms; such a function as 

 this is displayed even by the kidneys, and sometimes by the 

 skin, &c. whose secretions generate animalcules. In each part 

 the function is precise, and not to be explained but by the know- 

 ledge of antecedent processes. 



47. So in the ovarium, the function of this part is to produce 

 Ova. These ova are only a determinate constitution, the effect 

 of a determinate function, governed by processes of causation, 

 obeying spiritual relations, which are antecedent. 



48. These ova, like any other product of a process of causa- 

 tion, have their identities, their causes, their relations, their pro- 

 perties, &c. some of which we shall endeavour to develop. 



49. The only properties of the maternal ovum, before its 

 elimination from the ovarium, which are manifested in effects, are 

 those which produce and maintain a few organic particles. 



50. The latent properties of the ovum, in this condition, are 

 those which correspond with the parts of the organic spirit of the 

 mother; and there is so ready a communication between them, 

 that is, between the properties of the mother and those of the 

 ovum, that we are inclined to suspect, as stated in our first alterna- 

 tive, that the formation of the organic spirit of the ovum is by a 

 derivation from all the parts of the mother, and that the confluence 

 of all the organic properties of the mother to the ovarium is an 

 M 



