328 BIOLOGY. 



the terrestrial forms, and would assume the form of the 

 aether, and thus of that which is most discrete, can re- 

 present no other form than that of the point. The whole 

 aether is an infinity of non -coherent atoms. This atomic 

 formation, when metatyped or copied in a terrestrial 

 mass, can be none other than a granular substance. 



1804. The fundamental substance of the animal is 

 point-substance ; but, since the essence of the animal con- 

 sists in its being a sensitive substance, so must it belong 

 to the latter's essence, that it be atomic or punctiform. 

 The point-texture is equivalent to the sensitive mass. 



1805. It might be believed, that as the animal is a 

 floral vesicle, the cystic or cell-form must also lie at its 

 foundation ; only, there is another relation beyond that 

 which occurs in the plant. This animal cyst is an already 

 organized cyst, an organ, no longer a component part of 

 an anatomical system ; this cystic form cannot, therefore, 

 enter into the texture of the animal mass ; yet mean- 

 while, as is natural, the sensitive mass admits of being 

 reduced, but only as organic in a general sense, to the 

 vesicular form. The lowest animals, such as the Infu- 

 soria, Polyps, Medusae, or sea-nettles, in short, all Myxozoa 

 or mucous animals consist of this point-substance, and 

 are wholly sensitive mass. 



Nervous Mass. 



1806. The sensitive mass is called in higher animals, 

 Nervous mass. The nervous texture is a conjoined series 

 of mucus-granules, which have become albuminous in 

 character. The nervous mass is the least organized ; it 

 has selected the primary forms, which have been pre- 

 constructed in aether, or the densely fluid solar matter. 

 The Dominant of the terrestrial organs can have also no 

 other form, than such as agrees with the Dominant or 

 governing primary mass of the planetary system ; or it can 

 have none other, because at the instant when it exists, 

 it is sentient. At the first instant of the origin of or- 

 ganic matter, it can, however, originate only as infinitely 

 numerous points ; at the termination of the plant, this 



