Reviews and Records in Anatomy and Physiology. 399 
By referring to the resultant phenomena of this fecundating pro- 
cess, we may perhaps gain some insight into the conditional if not 
the real nature of itsagency. We have already said that the sper- 
matic particle is the potential representative of the male; what sig- 
nification is to be attached to its mere physical form, that is, whether 
it is conical, globular, &c., we know not; and this seems the more 
idden from our perceptions, from the fact that exactly similar 
forms and sizes,—in fact, physical relations apparently identical— 
belong to spermatic particles of animals as widely dissimilar as 
could be. This fact alone, of the correctness of which we are well 
assured from our own observations, should be sufficient to con- 
vince us that we have here to deal with no very simple relations 
or properties. But let us pursue the subject a little further. I 
lous conditions belong to the catalytic action ; or with Newport 
that they may be the exemplifications of a force, peculiar and sué 
generis. For there is something above and beyond the wakening 
of latent forces, of one particle that is positive with another that 
is negative. The grand fact is, that the act of fecundation in- 
cludes—whatever may be said of its also vitalizing the ovum—the 
communication or the transmission of the individuality of the 
pertaining to inorganic matter. T'o us the relations and conditions 
of cells, which are the primordial forms of organization, demand 
the teleological view of organic life.* Individuality is the distin- 
guishing feature of organization, and we recognize in it some- 
thing more than a mere collocation of physical conditions; we 
* See The Relations of Cells to the Physical and Teleological views of Organiza- 
tion, in this Journal, xv, 87, Jan. 1853. 
