330 THE HUMAN FORM. 



as objects which have ever been seen by microscope or anatomy ; 

 for the more we attribute to their life and integrity, the less are 

 their dead bodies themselves. The effect of this upon the eyes with 

 which the body and its prospects are seen, is hope and expansion. 

 Blood, nerve and bone are the walls of the present sciences, and 



and ruins of his works. The pieces of humanity are men, women, and children, 

 and by the deepest analysis there are no lesser pieces than these. It is the syn- 

 thesis of these, and not of cells, that constitutes fresh men and women. Every 

 particle of the body involves the whole, or it is dead, and not within our subject : 

 thus as a living thing it is the entire human form. 



While upon this subject, we will say a few words on the vexata qucestio of 

 cell-germs, the first of which is supposed to contain the whole forces of the or- 

 ganism in potency. For the primordial cell appears as the beginning of the body. 

 But it is thought absurd that within this delicate vesicle forces should reside 

 that build the frame, and continue it while life endures. In order to see how 

 the case is, let us apply the human lens to it, and look at it from man, who is the 

 atom or cell of the fabric of Society. Under this glass we see that the cell is a 

 man big with a new idea. Let us call that primal cell by the name of Mahomet. 

 This man is the cell-germ of a new religion and polity in the world. What is 

 the case with him ? He receives his mission complete as a germ in his own 

 person ; whatever Mahometanism in its purity will be, is involved in the idea 

 of that molecular- person — Mahomet. He does not know it, for who knows 

 the contents and consequences of himself? But there it is — a logic of great 

 events folded into that deceptively minute form. By degrees he infects new 

 matter, that is to say, disciples, with his idea, whose life they receive, and to 

 which they add their own life ; expanding the original idea, as it was capable of 

 being expanded from the beginning. And one such idea might range upon it 

 the populations of all continents, and be less exhausted than when its assimila- 

 tions began ; for in conquering ideas, it is not extension, but want and failure of 

 extension, that is exhaustive. It is therefore clear, that as a spiritual architec- 

 tonic thing, all Mahometanism lay in the cell-germ — Mahomet ; but as a phy- 

 sical force each new molecule or disciple contributed to it his body and powers. 

 And had he not, from the beginning, been such a cell as Mahomet, only wanting 

 conception or the active idea, no force could have made him an efficient part in 

 the body of Mahometanism. 



Just so, there is a spiritual architectonic force lying in the cell-germs of or- 

 ganization, and a material, obeisant, correspondential, bricklaying force in the 

 materials which lie ready to be infected by the cell-germs. 



A word also with regard to the doctrine of controvertibility of forces, now 

 popular among the learned, and according to which heat has only to pass 

 through a cell-germ to be converted into vitality. This doctrine ends in fire- 

 worshiping, for it makes the light and heat of the material sun to be the fountains 

 of the force of organization : and deems that these pass through vegetables, and 

 become vegetable life; through animals, and become animal life ; through brains, 

 and become mind, and so forth. Therefore a fine day, poured into its vessel, man, 



