OF REPRODUCTION. 99 



withhold all reference to the authorities which prevent us from adopt- 

 ing, excepting in the most circumspect manner, the conclusions that 

 might be drawn from them. In Italy, Spallanzani has maintained 

 that animalcules are completely foreign to the fccundative act; in 

 spite of the assertions of Gleichen, the opinion of Spallanzani pre- 

 vails in Germany; in France, MM. Bory de Saint Vincent and Du- 

 trochet are of nearly the same opinion; M. Virey regards them as 

 containing certain small balloons dist«|ded with a kind of pollen, and 

 which burst when they reach the organs of the other sex; and M. 

 Raspail has very recently come out against the doctrine of animal- 

 cules, which, according to him, are nothing more than certain organic 

 debris, or products of the decomposition of the sperm. 



ii49. What among so many contradictory assertions, are we to be- 

 lieve? what opinion must we adopt? However it may be, we may 

 consider it as demonstrated that the female germ is an ovule, and that 

 that of the male is contained in his spermatic fluid, and that this liquid 

 contains such animalcules as were described by Lewenhoeck; but 

 that, in the present state of science, the relative importance of each. 

 of these principles is unknown. 



SECTION 2. 

 Of Fecundation. 



250. When the germs have acquired their full size, a new pheno- 

 menon, by combining some of their principles, imparts to them mo- 

 tion and life; this phenomenon \?, fecundation, which, as to its inti- 

 mate mechanism, is perhaps always effected in the same manner, but 

 which appears to be effected in different ways in different animated 

 beings. Although the snail has double sex, it cannot fecundate itself; 

 a copulation with another individual similar to itself is necessary, and 

 then each of them fecundates, and is at the same time fecundated. 



251. Just as it happens in the monooscious plants, where, so to 

 speak, the pollen meets, by accident only, the ovary of the female 

 individual; so in many fishes and molusca, chance only seems to lead 

 the male to where the female had deposited her ova, so that he may 

 bedew it with his sperm. 



252. In the batracian animals, such as the frog, although there is 

 no real copulation, copulation is, nevertheless, requisite, and fecunda- 

 tion is effected while the female ova are in the act of escaping from 

 her organs. 



253. Lastly, in the ophidian animals, birds, the mammiferae, and 

 man, it is necessary that the germ of the male should fecundate the 

 other in the interior of the female organs. 



