200 THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LIFE 



does not step in. Now, the egg is generally very small and 

 of a structure lelatively simple in appearance (which only 

 means that with our optical processes we can see nothing 

 in it). The fact that so small an egg reproduces an animal 

 endowed with so wonderful a constitution has always been 

 considered one of the most marvellous phenomena of nature. 



The Structure of the Egg's Heredity 

 The synthetic language which we have been using dis- 

 penses us from a knowledge of the structure of the egg's 

 heredity or, at least, consoles us for not knowing it in the 

 present state of science. The series of our symbolic formulae : 



A! + (A t X BO^Aa 



A 2 + (A 2 xB 2 )r=A 3 



A, . i + (A H . t x B. . = A n 



decomposes the entire individual evolution of an individual 

 into a series of successive functional assimilations, each of 

 which separately is relatively simple. With the very wide 

 definition already given of functioning, it is not difficult to 

 use this language of functional assimilation as well for the 

 chicken still imprisoned within the egg, as for the chicken 

 that walks and eats. The functions are different, but they 

 are always defined by the synthetic formula (A x B) 

 where B represents all the external conditions of any import- 

 ance in the determining of individual functioning. Accord- 

 ingly, if we wish to explain how the chicken came from the 

 egg, we have to go back from the chicken to the egg by decom- 

 posing its whole existence into the series of its successive 

 functionings. Each period of the evolution will be explained 

 by the period immediately preceding and the functioning 

 that separates these two periods. This intermediate 

 functioning depends on the factor B, which is not comprised 



