NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. 131 



it acts as effectually in his laboratory as in the vegetable 

 oi'ganisation. He can also imitate its effects by other 

 chemical agents." * The writer quoted below adds, " No 

 reasonable ground has yet been adduced for supposing 

 that, if we had the power of bringing together the 

 elements of an}^ organic compound, in their requisite 

 states and proportions, the result would Ido any other 

 than that wliich is found in the living body." 



It is much to know the elements out of which organic 

 bodies are composed. It is something more to know 

 their first combinations, and that these are simply 

 chemical. How these combinations are associated in 

 the structure of living bodies is the next inquiry, but 

 it is one to which as yet no satisfactory answer can be 

 given. The investigation of the minutiae of organic 

 structure by the microscope is of such recent origin, that 

 its results cannot be expected to be very clear. Some 

 facts, however, are worthy of attention with regard to 

 the present inquiry. It is ascertained that the basis of 

 all vegetable and animal substances consists of nucleated 

 cells; that is, cells having granule.s within them. Nutri- 

 ment is converted into these before being assimilated by 

 the system. The tissues are formed from them. The 

 ovum destined to become a new creature, is origin; illy 

 only a cell with a contained granule. We see it acting 

 this reproductive part in the simplest manner in the 

 cryptogamic plants. "The parent cell, arrived at ma- 

 turity by the exercise of its orgiuiic functions, bursts, 

 and liljerates its contained granules. These, at once 

 thrown upon their own resources, and entirely depen- 

 dent for their nutrition on the surrounding elements, 

 develop themselves into new cells, which repeat the life 

 of their original. Amongst the higher tribes of the 



- Carpenter on Lite : Todd's " Cjcloprediu of Physiology." 



E 2 



