200 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



Mr. J. J. Murphy, after noticing 37 the power which crys- 

 tals have to repair injuries inflicted on them and the modifi- 

 cations they undergo through the influence of the medium 

 in which they may be formed, goes on to say : 88 " It needs no 

 proof that in the case of spheres and crystals the forms and 

 the structures are the effect, and not the cause, of the form- 

 ative principles. Attraction, whether gravitative or cap- 

 illary, produces the spherical form ; the spherical form does 

 not produce attraction. And crystalline polarities produce 

 crystalline structure and form; crystalline structure and 

 form do not produce crystalline polarities. The same is not 

 quite so evident of organic forms, but it is equally true of 

 them also." .... " It is not conceivable that the micro- 

 scope should reveal peculiarities of structure corresponding 

 to peculiarities of habitual tendency in the embryo, which at 

 its first formation has no structure whatever ;" 89 and he adds 

 that " there is something quite inscrutable and mysterious " 

 in the formation of a new individual from the germinal mat- 

 ter of the embryo. In another place 40 he says : " We know 

 that in crystals, notwithstanding the variability of form 

 within the limits of the same species, there are definite and 

 very peculiar formative laws, which cannot possibly depend 

 on any thing like organic functions, because crystals have 

 no such functions ; and it ought not to surprise us if there 

 are similar formative or morphological laws among organ- 

 isms which, like the formative laws of crystallization, can- 

 not be referred to any relation of form or structure to func- 

 tion. Especially, I think is this true of the lowest organ- 

 isms, many of which show great beauty of form, of a kind that 

 appears to be altogether due to symmetry of growth ; as 

 the beautiful star-like rayed forms of the acanthometrce, 

 which are low animal organisms not very different from the 

 Foraminifera." Their " definiteness of form does not appear 



37 " Habit and Intelligence," vol. i., p. 75. 88 Ibid., p. 112. 



39 Ibid., p. 170. 4 Ibid., vol. i., p. 229. 



