482 BIOLOGY. 



sequently inactive, just as digestion is before taste. As 

 digestion first commences after taste has given up the 

 food and excited the stomach to activity, so also the sexual 

 function first commences in female animals, after the act 

 of tasting is past. 



2959. Through copulation what is female becomes 

 masculine. It now secretes for the first time self- 

 substantial semen. Through impregnation the female 

 ovaria are first excited to secrete the saliva, which the 

 whole animal contains in a state of solution. 



2960. As the chyle becomes what it is, or is derived 

 from the saliva and food ; so from the semen and vitellus 

 proceeds the foetus, but in such a manner that the female 

 substance gives it the mass, while upon this the male 

 only bestows the polarity. 



2961. Thus, were the male semen to actually solidify 

 into the foetus; it is still not its mass which comes 

 into consideration in the latter, but only its polarizing 

 strength. It supplies the place of the nervous system. 

 This power appears to reside principally in the (seminal) 

 Infusoria or animalcules, just as that of the blood does in 

 the blood- globules. Meanwhile both are only signs of 

 the maturity of their respective juices, as the Infusoria in 

 sea-water are a proof also that the sea can produce other 

 animals from its mucus or slime. The Infusoria are the 

 primary mass of the Organic. Its life is only a manifesta- 

 tion of the seminal polarity. The Infusoria are semen 

 which has been poured out over the earth. Propagation is 

 only possible through reduction taking place to the infu- 

 sorial primary mass. 



2962. The semen and the ovum first meet or come 

 together in the uterus. 



2963. The ovum is the mean between vegetable and 

 animal semen. As the former is distinctly formed and 

 at once represents, upon a small scale within itself, the 

 principal parts of the future plant, so does the ovum ; but 

 only in parts, from which the animal organs first of all 

 grow forth, upon which having commenced, the former or 

 vegetal parts are cast aside. 



