!66 INFLUENCE OF CONDITIONS. 



gone by organic germs, are due mainly to the permeation of 

 their limiting membranes by the surrounding liquids." Un- 

 fortunately for the hypothesis conspicuous changes of form 

 occur in germs which have no limiting membrane whatever, 

 and in cases where this structure exists no observer in these 

 days would feel inclined to maintain that the conspicuous 

 changes in form were in any instance due to the permeation 

 of the membrane by fluid. The membrane, when it exists, 

 is perfectly passive, and has no more to do with the changes 

 in form than the egg shell has to do with the formation of 

 the chick within. 



It would be very unreasonable to maintain even that the 

 changes in the egg, and the development of the chick, were 

 mainly due(^) to heat, or the formation of a fish, or a frog, to 

 the action of the water in which the ova were placed. By 

 him who accepted such notions, a necesssary external con- 

 dition would be made to stand for an efficient cause of a 

 conspicuous change, which ensues in the form of a living 

 being. This change has not yet been explained by phy- 

 siology or philosophy. To assert that the change in form 

 is due to the circumstances under which it occurs, or to the 

 passive materials which protect the changing matter from 

 external injury, is not only unreasonable, but perverse. 



A little further on Mr. Spencer declares, that the water 

 brings into the substance of the colloid the "materials 

 which work transformations;" that is, he implies it is the 

 food upon which a thing lives, that works in it transforma- 

 tions. The food is the active agent, the organism the thing 

 worked upon! The food is everything, the organism the 

 passive matter upon which the food acts. Any one who 

 attentively studies this part of Herbert Spencer's work will, 



