75 



texture ; that when the parent dies the decomposition which fol- 

 lows is universal, and the ovum shews no more the possession of 

 an independent principle than a portion of muscle or skin. As, 

 however, from the death of other parts, the circulation ceases, this 

 remark is less conclusive than it might have been if deduced from 

 experiments in which this objection would be fairly obviated. 

 From however a just estimate of this class of facts, we are war- 

 ranted in presuming that 



53. A communication subsists between the properties of the 

 organic spirit of the ovum and the diffused one, occupying the 

 several seats belonging to the mother, and that by this intercourse 

 the former is liable to be modified. We appear warranted in pre- 

 suming thus much, although it should be refused to admit the regular 

 confluences of all parts of the maternal spirit to theovum, in the same 

 manner as properties of a defined number and nature are assembled 

 in the other parts by laws equally mysterious; as, for example, the 

 properties which constitute a sense. This latter opinion, although 

 I say it is not proved, I consider as probable,* and shall therefore 

 bestow a few paragraphs in its further illustration. 



54. To suppose a centre which is related with all parts of the 

 hody, has in it nothing monstrous, nor, as above hinted, does it 

 want the support of analogy. The faculty of speech and the 

 agents of articulation are related with all the passions, with all the 

 operations of the understanding; they are even more extensively 

 related, and the influences they obtain are derived from one entire 

 system, of the properties of which no part of the material fabric is 

 wholly destitute. Thus, the eye may witness a shipwrick (or any 

 other catastrophe); hope, anxiety, fear, horror, &c. may be succes- 

 sively occasioned by this instance of vision : and as the feelings are 

 modified, so also may be the voice and speech ; one while an ex- 

 clamation of terror, then a recital of the chances or possibilities 

 of escape, then an exclamation of horror at the conclusion of the 

 tragedy, with an ensuing train of feelings, all of which might be 

 expressed by the voice. The catastrophe, or spectacle, being 

 finished, the mind might fall into a series of reflections perhaps 

 upon the precarious existence of man; and the train of actions in 

 which the organs of speech have been thus engaged, may termi- 

 nate in a disquisition upon moral conduct, and the reasonableness 

 of our expectations of a future state. The same thing in effect 

 may happen, though the operations should have been commenced 

 by the excitement of any other sense. Thus the organs of the 

 voice form a centre at which the variations of an extensive system 

 may meet, and by which the minutest of these variations, however 

 remote its origin, may be expressed. The same thing happens 

 with regard to the brain : and every organ i$ a centre, whose 



* The additional alternative, expressed in the note at page 72, is to be 

 taken into the account, aud regarded as making only a modification of this 

 inference. 



