Lect. IX.] SOUL AXD BODY. 205 



write indeed they did — the world groans under the 

 books they have written. I should be sorry, indeed, 

 to be obliged to read " such skimble-scamble stuff, as 

 puts me from my foith." 



We are still as much in the dark as ever as to the 

 nature of the soul, though we do knoAV more about the 

 body than those same "schoolmen" did. They knew as 

 much as we, and we as much as they, about the size, 

 form, loeight, and colour of the soul; but we alone can 

 trace the body through its mysterious development to 

 its final decay. 



Not only could any number of " souls " Ije blown 

 through the eye of a needle, — but the germinant tene- 

 ment of the soul, in its first inception, in other words the 

 tiny germ, that is the Man in j^otentia, is smaller than 

 anything we can imagine as a visible object. But the 

 growth and expansion of this mysterious life-point has, 

 however, been traced by trained eyes, assisted by all the 

 means and appliances of modern embryological science. 



I must ask your attention whilst I mention some of 

 the stages of this personal or individual evolution. 

 I must indeed repeat several things in this that 

 have been asserted in other Lectures delivered here 

 — in this, and in former years. Still, since my learned 

 hearers humble themselves, and sit as though they 

 were pupils, they must expect to have " line upon line, 

 precept upon 2:)recept ; here a little, and there a littk^ 

 time after time." 



