1863 METAPHYSICAL SPECULATION 349 



First touching the action of the spermatozoon. The 

 best information you can find on the subject is, I think, 

 in Newport's papers in the Philosophical Transactions for 

 1851, 1853, and 1854, especially the 1853 paper. New- 

 port treats only of the Frog, but the information he gives 

 is very full and definite. Allen Thomson's very accurate 

 and learned article "Ovum" in Todd's Cyclopcedia is also 

 well worth looking through, though unfortunately it is 

 least full just where you want most information. In 

 French there is Coste's Developpement des Corps organises 

 and the volume on "Development" by Bischoff in the 

 French translation of the last edition of Soemmering's 

 Anatomy. 



So much for your inquiries as to the matters of fact. 

 Next, as to questions of speculation. If any expression of 

 ignorance on my part will bring us nearer we are likely 

 to come into absolute contact, for the possibilities of 

 "may be" are, to me, infinite. 



I know nothing of Necessity, abominate the word 

 Law (except as meaning that we know nothing to the 

 contrary), and am quite ready to admit that there may 

 be some place, "other side of nowhere," par exemple, 

 where 2 + 2 = 5, and all bodies naturally repel one 

 another instead of gravitating together. 



I don't know whether Matter is anything distinct from 

 Force. I don't know that atoms are anything but pure 

 myths. Cogito, ergo sum is to my mind a ridiculous piece 

 of bad logic, all I can say at any time being " Cogito." 

 The Latin form I hold to be preferable to the English 

 " I think," because the latter asserts the existence of an 

 Ego about which the bundle of phenomena at present 

 addressing you knows nothing. In fact, if I am pushed, 

 metaphysical speculation lauds me exactly where your 

 friend Raphael was when his bitch pupped. In other 

 words, I believe in Hamilton, Mansell, and Herbert 

 Spencer so long as they are destructive, and I laugh at 

 their beards as soon as they try to spin their own cobwebs. 



