THOUGHTS ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 71 



cells. If the male reproductive cell is the more virile 

 it will be the dominant factor and vice versa. When 

 families are mixed in sex it results from the swing of 

 the pendulum of virility between the reproductive 

 cells.. Physiologists know how many things go to 

 produce virility, constitution, food, air, etc. 



A living cell is an *electro-magnetic, and an 

 electro-chemical machine, within an envelope, and 

 living organisms of a higher type are electro-magnetic 

 and electro-chemical machines containing within an 

 envelope many such small machines, the combined 

 effects of which give the necessary electro-magnetic 

 and electro-chemical forces to produce motion, and 

 the other phenomena characteristic of living things, 

 aided by various stimuli, such as heat, etc. The 

 whole being material motion ; but motion at various 

 speeds and in many ways. 



The electrician forms a battery by putting a plate 

 of copper and a plate of zinc into a suitable fluid, 

 and electro-chemical results follow When he with- 

 draws the fluid from the cell the results apparently 

 cease. It is the speed of movement, and arrange- 

 ment, of the portions of matter in the copper, zinc, 

 and the fluid that produces the electro-chemical 

 effect. Nature, like the electrician, puts her positive 

 and negative materials within her living cells, that 

 she has formed by enveloping the materials in some 

 species of envelope, and adding a suitable fluid, 

 electro-chemical results follow. W 7 hen by the opera- 

 tions of nature the fluid is withdrawn, the results 



* See Professor Felix Le Dantec's The Nature and Origin of Life, a 

 book remarkable for its French clearness of thought and style. 



