150 THE DESTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF 
be much improved upon at the present day, it will 
be as well to call the reader’s attention to them and 
briefly point out their nature. 
At the first glance, the Abbé says, the superior 
power of resisting heat displayed by eggs and seeds 
as compared with animals and plants might be sup- 
posed to be due to the developed organisms feeling 
the effects of heat more rapidly, owing to their being 
free from those envelopes which enclose the egg or 
the seed. But the weight of this supposed reason soon 
disappears—in the case of eggs, at all events. Look- 
ing to the thinness of their investing membrane this 
supposition, as Spallanzani says, “ paroit tout-a-fait 
peu vraisemblable, quand on pense 4 la facilité et a 
la rapidité du feu pour pénétrer une portion de 
matiére si mince.” He quickly dismisses—as being 
even more improbable—the notion that the smallness 
of the germ or egg can act as its safeguard, by 
rendering it less amenable to the influence of heat, 
Having thus cleared the ground, Spallanzani states 
what seems to him to be the principal reason of the 
difference observed. We ought to reflect, he says, 
upon the difference between the life of an animal in 
its egg stage, and its subsequent life as a developed 
organism. For however deficient our knowledge may 
be upon this subject, we may feel assured that life 
shows less of the characters of life in the egg than in 
