282 METAMOEPHOSES OF MAN 



very long to enunciate them. Is not the first forma- 

 tion of the bud essentially a process of epigenesis, its 

 growth one of simple evolution, and are not its modi- 

 fications so many phenomena of complex evolution ? 

 Is not the imperfect condition of the organs of repro- 

 duction of thelieuter Aphis, the result of an actual arrest 

 of development ? Do not the histories of the Medusae, 

 Distoma3, and Taenia supply us with a thousand 

 examples of the production, destruction, and appro- 

 priation of organs ? Can we in this more than in any 

 other instance understand these results, without 

 admitting the existence of the vital vortex ? Certainly 

 not. The latter reappears with the character of the 

 general process pointed out in the earlier pages of 

 this volume. 



We have then, as it were, returned to our starting- 

 point. Let us for a moment dwell upon this fact, and 

 deduce certain conclusions from it. 



We saw that the vital vortex presided over trans- 

 formation. It alone enabled us to comprehend meta- 

 morphosis; it alone explained the far more complex 

 phenomena of geneagenesis. It is impossible to avoid 

 seeing a fundamental law, and in some measure also 

 an immediate cause of the development and completion 

 of living beings, in the exercise of this twofold 

 movement of arrival and departure. Notwithstanding 

 the assertions of some naturalists, who desire to arrest 

 their inquiries at this stage, it is necessary to refer 

 this fact to some higher cause ; for matter, which 

 is of itself inert, can only be set in operation by the 

 impulse of some force or agent. Every material 

 operation is at first an effect before, in its turn, it 

 becomes a cause. What, then, is the agent which is 



