192 
68. In the same manner, as it seems to me, spiral and reticu- 
late vessels arise in the lax tissue of vegetable growth and be- 
come the determinative and formative element of new struc- 
ture, as we shall see further on. . 
69. I copy the following admirable description trom Pro- 
fessor Huxley* (not being myself an anatomist) : “ Examine 
the recently-laid egg of some common animal, such as a sala- 
mander or a newt. It is a minute spheroid, m which the best 
microscope will reveal nothing but a structureless sac, enclosing 
a glairy fluid holding granules in suspension. But strange 
possibiiities lie dormant in that semifluid globule. Let a mode- 
rate supply of warmth reach its watery cradle, and the plastic 
matter undergoes changes so rapid and yet so steady and pur- 
poselike in their succession, that one can only compare them 
to those operated by a skilful modeller upon a formless lump ol 
clay. As with an invisible trowel , the mass is divided! and 
subdivided into smaller and smaller portions, until it is reduced 
to an aggregation of granules not too large to build withal the 
finest fabrics of the nascent organism. And, then, it is as ij a 
delicate finger traced out the line to be occupied by the spinal 
column, and moulded the contour of the body ; pinching up the 
head at one end, and the tail at the other, and fashioning flank 
and limb into due salamandrine proportions, m so artistic a 
W au , that after watching the process hour by hour, one is 
almost involuntarily possessed by the notion, that some more 
subtle aid to vision would show the hidden artist, with his plan 
before him, striving with skilful manipulation to complete his 
work ^ 
70. The following sketches, copied from Mind in Nature, f 
will illustrate the gradual accumulation of the albuminous 
particles round what must be an electric pole, whilst at the 
opposite pole the oleaginous matter assumes a peculiar kind 
of refraction. 
alb - 
alb. 
ol. 
ol. 
