88 



appear, admits of being influenced through the medium of the 

 material alliances. It is difficult to say when the properties of the 

 spirit are changed by this latter mode ; but we may infer that the 

 conjoined result, the identity mentioned in the last paragraph, al- 

 ways suffers from the agency of a cause whose direct relation is 

 with either. This matter will in another place be more fully 

 Stated. 



49. What the precise order of the formation of the parts of the 

 ovum is, cannot be asserted ; but of this we may be assured, that 

 there is always a perfect agreement in the acting properties : for 

 example, a large blood-vessel would not be suddenly formed, filled 

 with blood, set in brisk motion by a vis a tergo, before such a con- 

 tinuity of tube was established, as to provide against its extravasation. 

 50. The gradual formation of the textures corresponds with 

 the gradual development of the acting properties: the organization 

 already constructed concurs with the properties of life, but is not 

 itself productive of an increase of organization. It has been at- 

 tempted by some to explain the organization of a foetus, by sup- 

 posing originally some such simple matter as a tube containing a 

 fluid and situated in a bed of some sort of jelly, or any thing else, 

 without the inheritance of any of those peculiar properties which 

 constitute life. 



51. We will allow the existence of such a tube, we will even 

 suppose it to be organized, no matter how; we will even grant that it 

 contains blood, no matter from whence deriyed ; we will even allow that 

 it has a faculty of pulsation, without being scrupulous about how it 

 came by this faculty of pulsation; we will grant an apparatus of this 

 sort, and then I would ask what is it capable of doing? Why simply 

 this : if the tube is open at both ends, it would, by its faculty of contrao 

 tion, very readily and at once expel the blood it contains, and as no 

 source is imagined by which more blood is poured into it, there is 

 an end of the business; or, if more blood is poured into it, why its 

 faculty of contraction will expel it, and the ends of its operations are to 

 receive, and to expel. But supposing that the tube is closed at one 

 end ? If the faculty of contraction were not strong enough to rupture 

 the tube (by which it would be in the condition just described), why 

 then the resistance would overcome the faculty of contraction, and 

 the advantage of this postulatum would be entirely lost, which 

 would be a great pity, inasmuch as the future feet us would remain 

 a mere tube with some coagulated blood in it ; and, as all such 

 things independent of a vital principle have a great tendency to 

 decomposition, our pulsating tube, blood and all, would stand a 

 very good chance of returning to its elementary dusl, before it 

 would have made any progress in the work of foatalization. And as 

 the argument would not be improved by supposing five hundred 

 such tubes, instead of one, which would be supposing as much as 

 we reasonably can suppose, I say, as the multiplication of tubes 

 does not improve the force of the argument, we ought to trouble 

 ourselves no further about it. 



