EVIDENCE PROVING THE STATEMENT OF THE CASE 91 



In the seed, the fundamental initial property or 

 force is in the seed, the secondary fundamental factor 

 is the soil. If the soil be rich, and gives the seed the re- 

 quired molecular constituents, the seed thrives ; if it be 

 poor, the life of the seed wanes and dies. So with the 

 fertilized egg. Its soil is the womb, and if the nourish- 

 ment from the womb is rich and healthy, and no shock 

 be given to its ordinary development, the egg develops, 

 that is, cells are added to cells the egg grows. And in 



Fig. 11. The growing Human Egg, eight weeks old, slightly magnified. 

 (From Carpenter's "Principles of Unman Physiology." 9th edition, 

 1881, p. 889.) 



order to obtain nourishment, the egg puts forth roots l 

 (fig. 11) just as a seed does, which roots enter the 



1 "The surface of the ovum . . . during the first three or four 

 weeks lying loose in the foetal chamber, is rendered shaggy by the 

 growth of villous tufts from the surface of its investing Chorion, . . . 

 by which it begins to be attached to the walls that surround it." . . . 

 " At the free extremity of each villus is a bulbous expansion," . . . 

 "and it is at this point that the most active processes of growth take 

 place," . . . '-and (like the spongiole of the plant) drawing in nutri- 

 ment from the soil in which it is imbedded." (Carpenter's " Princi- 

 ples of Human Physiology," 9th edition, 1881, p. 888.) 



