Origin of Sex. 301 



anything of that sort, but that an adequate force of such current elec- 

 tricity as operates to form crystals also operates to build a cell in a 

 suitable solution. All that appears to be necessary to start the con- 

 struction of such a cell is a "germ " to serve as a nucleus, or a place of 

 beginning, and a certain degree of heat. The heat is a mode of energ} T ,, 

 and, when of a certain degree of intensity, under the conditions named, 

 part of it takes the form of current motion. While it remains heat, it 

 is demonstrated to be the vibratory motion of an unseen material sub- 

 stance, to which the name of ether has been given. When it becomes 

 current, it is reasonably certain that this same ether is moving bodily. 

 The currents may be gentle and slow or they may be powerful and 

 rapid. In all the operations of cell building, involving growth and vi- 

 tality, they are gentle and slow. The shape of a germ or nucleus with- 

 out doubt determines the direction which the currents shall take in pass- 

 ing through it, and the position of the poles. And the poles may be 

 denned as the points of intersection of a large number of lines of force. 

 (See chapter 36.) 



The currents of ethereal energy are competent to carry with them cer- 

 tain particles of the plastic matter through which they run, and to dis- 

 turb and rearrange the rest. This rearrangement, by altering the shape 

 of the organized mass, also changes its polar centers, and gives new di- 

 rection to the lines of force, and new places of deposit for such portable 

 particles as may still be subject to their carrying power. In the con- 

 struction of a cell in a plastic mass of appropriate matter, therefore, we 

 find currents carrying materials to the germ, reinforcing and building it 

 up and continuing through it, arranging them in a definite and orderly 

 manner. ( The subsequent split calls to mind the action of the diastase 

 in splitting the sugar into bodies which twist light, one to the right and 

 the other to the left, and which, by repelling each other, show that they 

 are differently affected by magnetic currents. ) These currents do not 

 originate themselves or spring from nothing, but are "generated" by 

 the action of some other mode of energy, as heat, or friction, or chem- 

 ical action, &c. , and are developed in connection with some ponderable 

 body, as, for example, the organic molecules and cells under considera- 

 tion. Electrical or magnetic energy, instead of being current may be 

 restrained in consequence of a lack of a proper conducting medium, and 

 so be in a state of compression, or tension, as it is called. The points 

 at which such tension occurs are called pole,s, one being positive and its 

 opposite negative. Two bodies, in both of which the tension is alike, 

 that is, either both positive or both negative, repel each other ; but if 

 the tension is positive in one and negative in the other, they attract. 

 So, two currents flowing near each other and parallel and in the same 

 direction, attract each other, but if they are moving in contrary direc- 



