THOUGHTS ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 69 



quently electric ; and it is doubtless also true of the 

 corpuscular and atomic stages. Portions of matter 

 meet, clash, and thereby set up a revolution of the 

 portions, and cause electrical and magnetic effects ; 

 and some of these in that condition of motion, as a 

 result of their movements, form around themselves 

 an envelope or skin, or skins, which may be of air, or 

 other matter, within which the electrical and magnetic 

 stresses and effects are produced. Much depends on 

 the quality and strength of the skin, what I term 

 "power of skin." In many cases of inanimate 

 phenomena, and in primitive forms of living matter, 

 when the internal stress becomes too great for the 

 power of the envelope or skin, it stretches ; and at its 

 weakest point a rupture takes place, a daughter cell 

 is formed by breaking away from the parent mass ; 

 and the mother cell as a cell perhaps perishes, or, as 

 in some cases, two cells are formed. There are many 

 forms of division of cells, with various results. In 

 the case of some others the power of the skin is 

 sufficient to resist dissolution (although cells may be 

 multiplied by division within) but not to resist the 

 distortion of its shape, and consequently, depending 

 on the pressures within and without, and the power 

 of the *skin, we get an immense variety of form and 

 size of both non-living and of living matter. It is 

 the power of the skin, combined with the pressures 

 within and without, etc., that gives us great trees 

 and large animals, and such an immense variety of 

 trees and animals. The power of the skin, and the 

 capacity to form it, is also one of the great secrets of 



* Take the word skin as meaning envelope. 



