130 WHAT IS LIFE ? 



Very likely the former of the two views is correct, 1 

 because in some animals the division of the yelk takes 

 place to a certain extent without fertilization ; more- 

 over, under certain conditions, in the lower organisms, 

 development takes place without the fertilization by 

 the male cell. 2 



Both the male cells and the female cells or eggs, 

 arise from a mass of molecules attracted together 

 similarly as the molecules of quicksilver are attracted 

 together, as a small drop or a bead of mercury is seen. 

 The following is the essential nature of their develop- 

 ment among animals generally : in the case of the 

 female cell, the molecules roll themselves into a minute 

 ball, and cover that ball with an envelope or shell. 

 This is the first indication of the female cell the egg. 

 This egg, while its molecules are active, as a mass it is 

 passive, that is to say, as a whole it is moved only by 

 external forces. And so does the male cell commence 

 in like manner, as a mass of free molecules, technically 

 called protoplasm. Presently these molecules group 

 themselves into an organized living creature, having 

 a long tail, and it is by means of this tail, as it were, 

 screwing itself through the fluid and thereby moving 

 the organism (just the same mechanical principle 



1 Messrs. Geddes and Thomson tend to the opposite view. Op. cit. 

 p. 157. 



2 " An unimpregnated ovum, may advance some little distance on 

 the road to development, and thus lends support to the theory of 

 parthenogenesis i.e. the formation and development of ova in a 

 female, without the intervention of a male parent." (" Carpenter's 

 Principles of Human Physiology," 9th edition, 1881, p. 914. See 

 also " Quain's Elements of Anatomy," vol. i. part 1, Embryology, 

 1892, p. 14.) 



