Encumbrance

“ The most different and discordant fluids, separated only by the finest film or membrane, are, as we have already observed, kept perfectly distinct, while life remains; but no sooner does the vital principle depart, than secretion, as well as the due preservation of what has been secreted, are both at an end, and the principle of dissolution reigns absolute. ”

“ In the first place with the perfect separation of the tissues or, properly speaking, with the ex-organization of each of them unto an independent Whole, the limit of the vegetation is attained and the growth completed. This was the course of the whole of nature; in every system she has proceeded to individual consummation of the factors, to their liberation from chaos ”

“ Purely as a consequence of the chemico-physical nature of the germ, of the properties of the substances included in it on the one hand, and of the implicit structure and configuration of its parts, down to the intrinsic specific undulatory rhythm of its molecules, it must follow that its mass grows exactly as it does, and not otherwise, that it behaves as it does and not otherwise, duplicating itself by division after division, and by intricate changes arranging and rearranging the results of division until the embryo or larva, and finally the complete organism, is formed. ”

“ Nor do I imagine that the skips from the one to another will be found very great, if beginning from fluidity, or body without any form, we descend gradually, till we arrive at the highest form of a bruite Animal’s Soul, making the steps or foundations of our Enquiry, Fluidity, Orbiculation, Fixation, Angulization, or Crystallization Germination or Ebullition, Vegetation, Plantanimation, Animation, Sensation, Imagination. ”

“ As the waves grow when the winds strive with the other forces which govern the movements of the surface of the sea, as the heap grows when we pour corn out of a sack, as the crystal grows when from the surrounding solution the proper molecules fall into their appropriate places: so in all these cases, very much as in the organism itself, is growth accompanied by change of form, and by a development of definite shapes and contours. ”

“ Because in many ways the many germs Common to many things are mixed in things, No wonder 'tis that therefore divers things By divers things are nourished. And, again, Often it matters vastly with what others, In what positions the primordial germs Are bound together, and what motions, too, They give and get among themselves; for these Same germs do put together sky, sea, lands, Rivers, and sun, grains, trees, and breathing things, But yet commixed they are in divers modes With divers things, forever as they move. ”

“ As the head peers out from the membrane, contracted about the body and investing it as in a bag, and the strange creature chews a piece of apple presented by its keeper, the least curious observer must be struck with the peculiarity of the position, and cannot fail to admire the velvety softness and great elasticity of the membrane which forms its wings. ”

“ So also, where a special function is required for particular circumstances, nature has provided for it, not by a new organ, but by a modification of a common one, which she has effected in development. Thus, for instance, some plants destined to live in arid situations, require to have a store of water which they may slowly absorb. The need is arranged for by a cup-like expansion round the stalk, in which water remains after a shower. ”

“ As a rule, however, the process of budding is very simple: a mass of unspecialized cells at some definite point upon the body of the parent, animal or plant, becoming converted into a new individual, instead of contributing to the further growth of the old. ”

“ From a vesicle floating invisible to the unaided human sense in its womb of fluid, is produced a plant possessing strange powers, or an animal gifted with volition. The idea, that two kinds of polarity—light on one side, and gravitation on the other—produce the two peculiar developments of roots and branches, can only be regarded as one of those fanciful analogies which prove more imagination than philosophy. ”

“ The organic substance of the moner, plus the separating molecule, is the expanded material. The organic substance of the moner, minus the separating molecule, is the contracted material. The activities of expansion and contraction are merely the physical expression of the gradual process of composition or decomposition occurring within the living substance; they are marks of the shifting of the special relation existing between the protoplasm and its medium during the transitional stages from one state of equilibrium to another. ”

“ Aggregation is excited by the most diversified causes,— by the glands being several times touched,—by the pressure of particles of any kind, and as these are supported by the dense secretion, they can hardly press on the glands with the weight of a millionth of a grain, [8] —by the tentacles being cut off close beneath the glands,―by the glands absorbing various fluids or matter dissolved out of certain bodies,―by exosmose,―and by a certain degree of heat. ”

“ For I am convinced that we are witnessing the sudden intrusion and the swift spread of an absolutely harmless organism—one that has been, perhaps, dormant for centuries in the soil, or has evolved to its present form in the deep waters of the Elan watershed by a process whose nature we can only dimly guess at. ”

“ Leaving, for the present, succeeding changes of the compound embryo, the significance of which we shall have to consider by-and-by, let us pass now to the adult forms of visible plants and animals. In them we find cardinal traits which, after what we have seen above, will further impress us with the importance of the effects wrought on the organism by its medium. ”

“ Through the process of decomposition, which it evokes in its neighbourhood, it kills its nutriment, takes possession of it, and thus originates completely, as does every first organism, out of putrefaction, out of infusoria. To the essence of the root belong therefore not merely food, but the favouring relations of decomposition, as earth and water, whereby the access of the air, as necessary to every galvanism, has not been suppressed. ”

“ Employing the term, then, in its usual sense, as applicable only to organisms, Life may be defined as—the co-ordination of actions. The growth of a crystal, which is the highest inorganic process we are acquainted with, involves but one action—that of accretion. The growth of a cell, which is the lowest organic process, involves two actions—accretion and disintegration—repair and waste—assimilation and oxidation. ”

“ What are our bodies but condensations of certain molecules? Mind controls matter. If disembodied intelligences so will it, what is to prevent the hasty condensation of the molecules and the formation of a temporary body in any shape they desire to assume? ”

“ The fluid, which is propagated hence through one class of nerves, returns in an altered state through another, and the nature of that fluid is spiritual, though not immaterial, any more than, as I before remarked, light or electricity are so. ”

“ When coagulation has taken place, then an earthy humour is excreted and is drawn around, and the earthy portion drying up, the membranes are produced both as matter of necessity, and also for a certain purpose. ”

“ The living cell feeds itself and grows; multiplies itself; dies and decays; turns to other forms, liquid and gas—and is not lost, but reconverted. The rocks were gas, then liquid, then solid. The wind and water erodes them—they break, they powder, they blow away, or wash away as dust, and come again in other forms of other things. ”

“ Its formation everywhere implies the exercise of human volition, and never takes place without it. A vegetable germ unfolds into a plant or tree according to an implanted instinct or law of its nature, and without volition. ”

“ I have particularized even more than I intended, Rob. Let me say now, only that the pellets in this little vial contain a chemical which acts upon the human organism in the way I have pictured. It alters the fundamental vibration upon which this substance—these bones, this flesh we call a body—this substance of my being, is built. ”

“ Again, to the allegation that the vital activity of every germ whence an organism arises, is obviously antecedent to the development of its structures, there is the answer that such germ is not absolutely structureless. ”

“ The first visible sign of the organic structure of the human form is discovered as it takes shape upon the exterior wall of the blastodermic membrane, known as the embryonic spot, and known also as the primitive trace or furrow. ”

“ There are four distinct plans of structure in the animal kingdom, and at least three, perhaps more, in the vegetable kingdom; and every germ, from the first instant when its evolution can be seen at all, is seen to develop only according to its own proper method. There is no more confusion of germs, or embryos, than of plants or animals. ”

“ However, to perform this attraction and repulsion, one condition is requisite which is equally necessary in the life of plants, and that is the circulation of the fluids. This circulation we have seen performed in the plant through the polarity between the root and the flower, and therefore in a linear direction from one end to the other. ”

“ The force that produces the plant, and according to which the plant grows and dies, is its idea. The real and absolute germ is not the individual and external germ we touch and see, but the idea by which the external germ is created and endowed with the necessary force for its growth and preservation. ”

“ The nature of the forces is revealed in ever higher expression, and at the same time in ever more closely connected series of stages. Even between the inorganic and the organic there is an intermediate stage—crystal formation—which is no longer entirely of the one, yet not of the other. ”

“ You must know, Madam, that some people are born with a membrane over the face, which is termed a caul, and there has been a vulgar error that such people can never be drowned, especially if they wear this caul about their person in after-life. ”

“ Thus generations are generations of processes. The processes are assimilation, construction and destruction, growth of form and structure, vitality exhibited in endosmosis and exosmosis, and finally processes are repeated by heredity represented by parents and children. ”

“ That the state of organization in each organism has been gradually acquired by the progress of the influences of the movement of fluids, and by those changes that these fluids have there continually undergone in their nature and their condition through the habitual succession of their losses and of their renewals ”

“ It is demonstrable, that a fluid eminently fit for the development [Pg 231] of the lowest forms of life, but which contains neither germs, nor any protein compound, gives rise to living things in great abundance, if it is exposed to ordinary air; while no such development takes place, if the air with which it is in contact is mechanically freed from the solid particles, which ordinarily float in it and which maybe made visible by appropriate means. ”

“ If we will be consistent, we are driven to the conclusion that the apparent simplicity of the germ is real, that the germ contains no gemmules, or determinants or other representative particles; that development is truly epigenetic, a natural series of events that succeed one another according to physicochemical and physiological laws ”

“ So far then, as growth goes on, unaffected by pressure or other external force, the fluidity of protoplasm, its mobility internal and external, and the manner in which particles move with comparative freedom from place to place within, all manifestly tend to the production of swelling, rounded surfaces, and to their great predominance over plane surfaces in the contour of the organism. ”

“ For the same reason that there must be an invisible substance that permeates the germ cell and controls its particles and adjusts them, there must be a substance that permeates the aggregate of cells or the whole body, and regulates it. ”

“ Further, in the mould that quickly covers stale food, and the infusoria that soon swarm in water exposed to air and light, he sees a mode of generation which, seeming inexplicable, he is apt to consider "spontaneous." ”

“ I want to connect the actual manufacture of the things a chicken makes inside an egg with the desire and memory of the chickens, so as to show that one and the same set of vibrations at once change the universal substratum into the particular phase of it required and awaken a consciousness of, and a memory of and a desire towards, this particular phase on the part of the molecules which are being vibrated into it. ”

“ These changes of functions or of habits have also been plainly enough the exciting cause of the divergency in structure of what fundamentally is one and the same organ, the change having been brought about by adaptation of the same organs to quite different uses. ”

“ Reclining with great ease of attitude upon an uncushioned settee, the Ritualistic organist is aroused from dreamy slumber by the turning-over of the pipe in his mouth, and majestically motions for the venerable woman of the house to come and brush the ashes from his clothes. ”

“ Whether those which have been termed Imponderable Fluids,—the supposed fluids which produce the phenomena of Light, Heat, Electricity, Galvanism, Magnetism,—really exist or no, is a question, not merely of the Laws, but of the Causes of Phenomena. ”

“ If any noxious qualities exist in the atmosphere of structures, to which the external air has not free ingress, they must result from some neglect or ignorance on our part, in suffering extraneous and unwholesome matters to accumulate in such situations, and there to decompose, and enter into combination with those gaseous bodies, which form the volume of the internal atmosphere of our plant structures. ”