HORSEBACK RIDING. II 



mother, who carries him in her womb. Thus life, 

 through woman, goes back to the Creator, and all 

 the generations of men are joined in the unity of a 

 same origin, and of a single and identical species. 

 The child is born, but its life is still latent. An at- 

 mospheric pressure necessitates the action of the 

 respiratory nerves ; the child breathes, and the whole 

 living mechanism moves, is warmed up. The child 

 having once breathed, it lives of its own life and 

 grows incessantly in divers and varied ways ; for the 

 living mechanism finds itself incessantly in relation 

 with the elements of the exterior world, gravity, 

 light, heat, electricity ; with the geographical and 

 geological influences ; with all things of which the 

 reciprocal influences are increasing, and against which 

 he reacts without cessation. 



Thus man continues on his own account the life 

 which he has begun through his mother ; he lives 

 now his own individual life. From the air he draws 

 incessantly the gas which purifies his blood. It is 

 first in the blood elaborated by his mother, and after- 

 wards in that which he himself elaborates with the 

 material of alimentation that he draws the elements 

 of the nutrition of the nervous, the muscular, and of 

 the vascular system — of the whole entire mechanism ; 

 and that, by divers and varied non-interrupted series 

 of actions and reactions, co-operates in the unity of 

 his being. And we may well say with Daly, the in- 

 dividual life upon earth will end as it has begun. It 



