Let us imagine that Edison or some other scientific man should build a tank large enough to hold a brick house with six rooms; that he put into the tank a “magic brick,” composed of silica, aluminum, iron, lime, magnesia, manganese, soda and potash combined in the proper proportions, (Encyc. Brit. 4, p. 280); that he turned a stream of water, charged with these elements, upon the brick; that it absorbed these substances from the water and assimilated them into its own body; that it afterward split into two “daughter-bricks,” these two into four, these into eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one hundred and twenty-eight, and so on to infinity; that these bricks, automatically, assumed such positions on top of each other as to build up the four walls of the house, without the aid of man or any other psychic force; that the bricks left spaces for doors, windows, etc.; that they also built up the chimneys, fire places, etc.; that some of the bricks, spontaneously, metamorphosed themselves into marble slabs for window-sills, door-sills, hearth-stones, etc.; that other bricks were converted into oaken mantels, with mirrors, etc.; that others were converted into slabs of slate and assumed the proper form, size and positions to form a slate roof! If any such thing should ever happen it would be justly considered a great miracle. But the development and growth of the embryo are far more mysterious and wonderful than the building of a house in this manner would be; for the embryo is a live miniature model of a man or woman--the work of a supernatural creative force--Almighty God. Huxley says, in substance, that the germ-cell has “within itself the tendency to assume a definite living form.” He also says “that the great characteristic of the germ is, not so much what is, but what it may, under suitable conditions, become.”--(Encyc. Brit. (9 ed.) 8, p. 746.) The common belief of mankind, in general, is that the germ-cell, spontaneously and automatically, develops and grows to be a man or woman, without the aid of any extraneous psychic or creative force. But it is clear that the germ-cell divides into two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two and sixty-four daughter-cells; and so on to infinity. It follows that the germ-cell is annihilated within a few hours after it is formed; and that its identity, as the germ-cell is wholly lost in the myriads of daughter-cells which arise from it, and go to build up the embryo body; each daughter-cell containing, theoretically, a portion of the germ-cell. It follows that the germ-cell has no tendency “within itself to assume a definite living form;” nor has it any power to become a living form, nor anything else. Obviously, the microscopic germ-cell, when whole, would be powerless to develop and grow to be a man or woman; and for a much stronger reason the infinitesimal fragments of it would be powerless to do these things.