Man's Place in Nature, and Other EssaysHuxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Man's Place in Nature, and Other Essays
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Apes; Ethnology; Human beings -- Origin; Indo-Europeans
another shows that the nervous forces are correlated to electricity; for
the experiments of M. Dubois Reymond and others have shown that whenever
a nerve is in a state of excitement, sending a message to the muscles or
conveying an impression to the brain, there is a disturbance of the
electrical condition of that nerve which does not exist at other times;
and there are a number of other facts and phenomena of that sort; so
that we come to the broad conclusion that not only as to living matter
itself, but as to the forces that matter exerts, there is a close
relationship between the organic and the inorganic world--the difference
between them arising from the diverse combination and disposition of
identical forces, and not from any primary diversity, so far as we can
see.
I said just now that the Horse eventually died and became converted into
the same inorganic substances from whence all but an inappreciable
fraction of its substance demonstrably originated, so that the actual
wanderings of matter are as remarkable as the transmigrations of the
soul fabled by Indian tradition. But before death has occurred, in the
one sex or the other, and in fact in both, certain products or parts of
the organism have been set free, certain parts of the organisms of the
two sexes have come into contact with one another, and from that
conjunction, from that union which then takes place, there results the
formation of a new being. At stated times the mare, from a particular
part of the interior of her body, called the ovary, gets rid of a minute
particle of matter comparable in all essential respects with that which
we called a cell a little while since, which cell contains a kind of
nucleus in its centre, surrounded by a clear space and by a viscid mass
of protein substance (Fig. 33); and though it is different in appearance
from the eggs which we are mostly acquainted with, it is really an egg.
After a time this minute particle of matter, which may only be a small
fraction of a grain in weight, undergoes a series of changes,--wonderful,
complex changes. Finally, upon its surface there is fashioned a little
elevation, which afterwards becomes divided and marked by a groove. The
lateral boundaries of the groove extend upwards and downwards, and at
length give rise to a double tube. In the upper and smaller tube the
spinal marrow and brain are fashioned; in the lower, the alimentary
canal and heart; and at length two pairs of buds shoot out at the sides
of the body, and they are the rudiments of the limbs. In fact a true
drawing of a section of the embryo in this state would in all essential
respects resemble that diagram of a horse reduced to its simplest
expression, which I first placed before you (Fig. 32).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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