10 The First Lines of Morphology 
a minimum, the disk will have a larger periphery, and will 
expose a larger number of parts or particles to the ambient 
medium, when from circular it becomes elliptical, oblong, 
lanceolate, and ultimately linear. Nor does the transforma- 
tion stop here. If the medium be wholly favourable to the 
full deployment of life, then, in order that the given quantity 
of matter may come in contact and bask to the utmost in that 
medium, the linear form must become jointed, and break up 
into separate elements, each free in the-medium, and all so 
small, that each is all surface and no interior, that is, all of 
them mere physical points and centres of force. Let, then, 
divisible matter be created or given, and let space in any 
region be, by an adequate power, willed or made to be whoily 
favourable to the deployment of life in that region, Intelli- 
gence meanwhile presiding, and proceeding on the principles 
of geometry, and that divisible matter, in obedience to that 
Will and that Intelligence, must be divided more and more, 
and ultimately resolved into such a medium as the ether is 
commonly believed to be. In that case, Fiat Lua is the first 
word of a purely scientific genesis. 
And thus we are able to understand how the forms of the 
stars, whose containing cell is heaven itself, no less than the 
forms of granules of starch or oil in the microscopic cell of 
living tissue, fall under the theory which is advanced in this 
paper. The forms of the heavenly bodies are generally held 
to be sufficiently accounted for when they are shown to be the 
inevitable product of gravitation. Now, that they are, there 
can be no doubt. But gravitation, in determining them into 
spherical forms, is merely the finger of Intelligence imparting 
to them that form which is most suitable to the conditions of 
their existence, that form which possesses this, among other 
valuable properties, that bodies under it present a minimum of 
superficies to the ambient medium. 
But to proceed. Let there be an orgasm located in a medium 
which is at first unfavourable to the deployment of life, but 
afterwards becomes favourable, either by a change in the 
orgasm or in the medium, we obtain from reason both an 
initial form for that orgasm, and a course of development. 
The initial form has for its type, as has been shown, the solid 
