EXERCISE THE FIFTY-FOURTH.
Of the order of the parts in Generation from an egg, according to Fabricius.
Having already determined what part is to be esteemed the first, the blood, to wit, with its receptacles, the heart, veins, and arteries, the next thing we have to do is to speak of the rest of the parts of the body and of the order and manner of their generation.
Fabricius, in whose footsteps we have resolved to tread, in speaking of the generation of the chick in ovo, passes in review the actions which take place in the egg, and by the effect of which the parts are produced, discussing them seriatim, as if a clearer view were thence to be obtained of the order or sequence of generation. “There are three primary actions,” he says,[286] “which present themselves in the egg of the bird: 1st, the generation of the embryo; 2d, its growth; 3d, its nourishment. The first, or generation, is the proper action of the egg; the second and third, viz. growth and nutrition, go on for the major part without the egg, though they are begun and also perfectly performed within it. Now these actions, as they flow from three faculties, the generative, the nutritive, and auctive, so do three operations follow them. From generation all the parts of the chick result; from increase and nutrition, the growth and maintenance of its body. From studying the formation of the chick, we perceive that, under the influence of the generative faculty, the parts of the creature which formerly had no existence are produced: the matter of the egg is changed into the organized body of a chicken. But whilst any part or substance undergoes transmutation into another, it must needs be that its proper essence undergoes change, otherwise would it still remain as it was and unaltered; it must at the same time receive figure, position, and dimensions apt and convenient to its new nature; and indeed it is into these two states or circumstances that procreation of matter resolves itself, viz. transformation and conformation. The transformative and the formative faculties would therefore be the cause of these functions; and whilst one of them has produced every individual part of the chick, such as we see it, from the chalaza of the egg, the other has given it figure, articulations, and position, fitting it for its destined uses. The first, the transformative or alterative faculty, is entirely natural, and acts without all consciousness; and taking the hot, the cold, the moist, and the dry, it alters all through the substance of the chalaza, and in altering this substance changes it into the component parts of the chick, that is to say, into flesh, bones, cartilages, ligaments, veins, arteries, nerves, and all the other similar and simple parts of the animal, and these, through the proper and innate heat and spirit of the semen of the cock, out of the substance of the egg, that is to say, its chalaza; by altering and commuting, it engenders, creates, produces the proper substance of the chick, imparting at the same time to every substance its appropriate quality. The other, which is called the formative faculty, and which out of similar forms dissimilar parts,—namely, giving them elegance through figure, due dimensions, proper position, and congruous number—is much more noble than the former, is possessed of consummate sapience, and acts not naturally [or instinctively], but with election, and consciousness, and intelligence. For the formative faculty appears to have exact cognizance and foresight both of the future action and use of every part and organ. So much of the primary action of the egg, which is the generation of the chick, and to accomplish which both the semen of the cock as agent and fecundator, and the chalaza as matter are required. In the second place comes accretion or growth, which is accomplished by nutrition, whose faculties consist in attraction, retention, concoction, expulsion, and, finally, apposition, agglutination, and assimilation of food.”
But for my part I neither regard such a distribution of actions as correct, or useful, or convenient in this place. It is incorrect, because those actions which he would make distinct in kind and in time—for instance, that parts are first produced similar by the alterative or transformative faculty, to be afterwards fashioned and organized by the formative faculty, and finally made to grow by the auctive faculty—are never apparent in the generation of the chick; for the several parts are produced and distinguished and increased simultaneously. For although in the generation of those animals which are formed by metamorphosis, where from matter previously existing, and already adequate in quantity and duly prepared, all the parts are made distinct and conformed by transformation, as when a butterfly is formed from a caterpillar, a silkworm from a grub, still in generation by epigenesis the thing is very different, nor do the same processes go on as in ordinary nutrition, which is effected by the various actions of different parts working together to a common end, the food being here first assumed and retained, then digested, next distributed, and finally agglutinated. Nor is the similar constitution the result of the transformative faculty, void of all foresight, as Fabricius imagined; but the organic comes from the formative faculty which proceeds with both consciousness and foresight. For generation and growth do not proceed without nutrition, nor nutrition or increase without generation; to nourish being in other terms to substitute for a certain quantity of matter lost as much matter of the same quality, flesh or nerve, in lieu of the matter, flesh or nerve, that has become effete. But what is this but to make or engender flesh or nerve? In like manner, growth cannot go on without generation, for all natural bodies are increased by the accession of new particles similar to those of which they formerly consisted, and this, taking place according to all their dimensions, they are distinguished as regards their parts, and are organized at the same time that they grow.
But to engender the chick is in truth nothing else than to fashion or make its several members and organs, which, although they are produced in a certain order, and some are postgenate to others,—the less important to the more principal organs—still, whilst the organs themselves are all distinguished, they are not engendered in such wise and order that the similar parts are first formed, and the organic parts afterwards compounded from them; or so that certain composing parts existed before other compounded parts which must be fashioned from them. For although the head of the chick and the rest of the body exist in the shape of a mucus or soft jelly, whence each of the parts is afterwards formed in sequence, and all are of similar constitution in the first instance, still are they simultaneously produced and augmented in virtue of the same processes directed by the same agent; and in the same proportion as the matter resembling jelly increases, in like measure are the parts distinguished; for they are engendered, transmuted, and formed simultaneously; similar and dissimilar parts exist together, and from a small similar organ a larger one is produced. The thing, in short, is not otherwise than it is among vegetables, where from the straw proceeds the ear, the awns, and the grain—distinctly, severally, and yet together; or as trees put forth buds, from which are produced leaves, flowers, fruit, and finally seed.
All this we learn from an attentive study of the parts and processes of the incubated egg, inasmuch, as from things done, actions or operations are apprehended; from operations, faculties or forces, and from these we then infer the artificer, generator, or cause. In the generation of the pullet, consequently, the actions or faculties of the engendering cause enumerated by Fabricius, namely, the metamorphic and formative, do not differ in kind, or even in the relation of sequence, as that one is first and the other second, but, as Aristotle is wont to say, are one and the same in reason; not as happens with reference to the actions of the nutritive faculty,—attraction, concoction, distribution and apposition, to wit,—which all come into play in several places at several times. Were this not so, the engendering cause itself would be forced to make use of various instruments in order to accomplish its various operations.
Fabricius, therefore, asserts erroneously that the transmutative force works with the properties of the elements,—hot, cold, moist and dry—as its instruments; whilst the formative faculty acts independently of these and by a more divine power, performing its task with consciousness, as it seems, with foresight and election. But if he had looked more closely at the matter he would have seen that the formative as well as the metamorphic force made use of the hot and the cold, the moist and the dry, as instruments; nor would he have been less struck with indications of the Supreme Artificer’s interference in the processes of nutrition and transformation than in that of formation itself. For nature ordained each and all of these faculties to some definite end, and everywhere labours with forethought and intelligence. Whatever it is in the seeds of plants which renders them fertile and exercises a plastic force in their interior; whatever it is which in the egg performs the duty of a most skilful artificer, producing and fashioning the parts of the pullet, warming, cooling, moistening, drying, concocting, condensing, hardening, softening and liquefying at once, impressing distinctive characters on each of them by means of configuration, situation, constitution, temperament, number and order,—still is this something at work, disposing and ordering all with no less of foresight, intelligence, and choice in the business of transmuting, than in the processes of nutrition, growth, and formation.
The concoctive and metamorphic, the nutritive and augmentive faculties, which Fabricius would have it act through the qualities of hot, cold, moist and dry, without all consciousness, I maintain, on the contrary, work no less to a definite end, and with not less of artifice than the formative faculty, which Fabricius declares has knowledge and foresight of the future action and use of every particular part and organ. In the same way as the arts of the physician, cook and baker, in which heat and cold, moisture and dryness, and similar natural properties are employed, require the use of reason no less than the mechanical arts in which either the hands or various instruments are employed, as in the business of the blacksmith, statuary, potter, &c.; in the same way, as in the greater world, we are told that “All things are full of Jove,”—Jovis omnia plena—so in the slender body of the pullet, and in every one of its actions, does the finger of God or nature no less obviously appear.
Wherefore, if from manifestations it be legitimate to judge of faculties, we might say that the vegetative acts appear rather to be performed with art, election, and foresight, than the acts of the rational soul and mind; and this even in the most perfect man, whose highest excellence in science and art, if we may take the God for our guide, is that he KNOW HIMSELF.
A superior and more divine agent than man, therefore, appears to engender and preserve mankind, a higher power than the male bird to produce a young one from the egg. We acknowledge God, the supreme and omnipotent creator, to be present in the production of all animals, and to point, as it were, with a finger to his existence in his works, the parents being in every case but as instruments in his hands. In the generation of the pullet from the egg all things are indeed contrived and ordered with singular providence, divine wisdom, and most admirable and incomprehensible skill. And to none can these attributes be referred save to the Almighty, first cause of all things, by whatever name this has been designated,—the Divine Mind by Aristotle; the Soul of the Universe by Plato; the Natura Naturans by others; Saturn and Jove by the ancient Greeks and Romans; by ourselves, and as is seeming in these days, the Creator and Father of all that is in heaven and earth, on whom animals depend for their being, and at whose will and pleasure all things are and were engendered.
Moreover, as I have said, I neither hold this arrangement of the faculties of the vital principle, which Fabricius has placed at the head of his account of the organs of generation, as correct in itself, nor as useful or calculated to assist us in the matter we have in hand. For we do not attain to a knowledge of effects from a discussion of actions or faculties; the contrary is rather the case: from actions we ascend to a knowledge of faculties, inasmuch as manifestations are more cognizable to us than the powers whence they proceed, and the parts which we investigate already formed are more readily appreciated than the actions whence they proceed.
Neither is it well from the generation of a single chick from an egg, to venture upon general conclusions, which can in fact only be correctly arrived at after extensive observations on the mode of generation among animals at large. But of this matter I shall have more to say immediately.
Meantime, however, that we may come to the parts subservient to generation, as Fabricius says,[287] “let us consider and perpend in what order the organs subserving generation are produced—which are formed first, which last. In this investigation two bases are to be laid, one having reference to the corporeal, the other to the incorporeal; that is to say, to nature and the vital principle. The corporeal base,” he continues, “I call that which depends on and proceeds from the nature of the body, and of which illustrations are readily supplied from things made by art; as for example, that every building requires a foundation upon which it may be established and reared; from whence walls are raised, by which both floors and ceilings are supported; then are all the supplementary parts added and ornaments appended:—and so, in fact, does nature strive in the construction of the animal body; for first she forms the bones as a foundation, in order that all the parts of the body may grow upon and be appended to and established around them. These are the parts, in other words, that are first formed and solidified; for as the bones derive their origin from a very soft and membranous substance, and by and by become extremely hard, much time is required to complete the formation of a bone, and it is therefore that they are first produced. Hence Galen did not compare the formation of the animal body to every kind of artificial structure, but particularly to a ship; for he says, as the commencement and foundation of a ship is the keel, from which the ribs, circularly curved, proceed on either side at moderate distances from each other, like the sticks of a hurdle, in order that the whole fabric of the vessel may afterwards be reared upon the keel as a suitable basis; so in the formation of the animal body does nature, by means of the outstretched spine and the ribs drawn around it, secure a keel and suitable foundation for the entire superstructure, which she then raises and perfects.”
But experience teaches us that all this is very different in fact, and that the bones are rather among the last parts to be formed. The bones of the extremities and skull, and the teeth, do not arise any sooner than the brain, the muscles, and the other fleshy parts: in new-born fœtuses, perfect in other respects, the place of the bones is supplied by mere membranes or cartilages, which are only subsequently and in the lapse of time converted into bones; a circumstance which sufficiently appears in the crania of new-born infants, and in the state of their ribs and articulations.
And although it be true that the first rudiments of the body are seen in the guise of a recurved keel, still this is a soft mucous and jelly-like substance, which has no affinity in nature, structure, or office to bone; and although certain globules depend from thence, the destined rudiments of the head, still these contain no solid matter, but are mere vesicles full of limpid water, which are afterwards formed into the brain, cerebellum, and eyes, which are all subsequently surrounded by the skull, at a period, however, when the beak and nails have already acquired consistency and hardness.
This view of Fabricius is therefore both imperfect and incorrect; inasmuch as he does not think of what nature performs in fact in the work of generation, so much as of what in his opinion she ought to do, betrayed into this by his comparison with the edifice reared by art. As if nature had imitated art, and not rather art nature!—mindful of which he himself says afterwards:[288] “It were better to say that art learned of nature, and was an imitator of her doings; for, as Galen everywhere reminds us, nature is both older and displays greater wisdom in her works than art.”
And then when we admit that the bones are the foundation of the whole body, without which it could neither support itself nor perform any movement, it is still sufficient if they arise simultaneously with the parts that are attached to them. And indeed the things that are to be supported not yet existing, the supports would be established in vain. Nature, however, does nothing in vain; nor does she form parts before there is a use for them. But animals receive their organs as soon as the offices of these are required. The first basis of Fabricius, therefore, is distinctly overthrown by his own observations on the egg, and the comparison drawn by Galen.
He appears to have come nearer the truth where he says:[289] “The other basis of the parts to be formed first or last is obtained from nature, that is, from the vital principle by which the animal body is ruled and directed. If there be two grades of this principle, the vegetative and animal, the vegetative must be held prior in point of nature and time, inasmuch as it is common to plants and animals; and assuredly the organs officiating in the vegetative office will be engendered and formed before those that belong to the sensitive and motive principle, especially to the chief organs which are in immediate relationship with the governing principle. Now these organs are two in especial—the liver and the heart: the liver as seat of concupiscence, of the vegetative or nutritive faculty; the heart, as the organ whose heat maintains and perfects the vegetative and every other faculty, and in this way has most intimate connexions and relations with the vegetative force. Whence, if after the third day you see the heart palpitating in the point where the chick is engendered, as Aristotle bears witness to the fact that you can, you will not be surprised but rather be disposed to admit that the heart belongs to the vegetative degree and exists for its sake. It is also consonant with reason that the liver should be engendered simultaneously with the heart, but should lie perdue or hidden, as it does not pulsate. And Aristotle himself admits that the heart and liver exist in the animal body for similar reasons; so that where there is a heart there also is a liver discovered. If the heart and liver be the parts first produced, then, it is also fair to suppose that the other organs subserving these two should be engendered in the same manner,—the lungs which exist for the sake of the heart; and, for the sake of the liver, almost all the viscera which present themselves in the abdomen.”
Still is all this very different from the sequence we witness in the egg. Nor is it true that the liver is engendered simultaneously with the heart; nor does the salve avail with which he would cover that infirmity where he says that the liver is concealed because it does not palpitate; for the eyes and vena cava and carina are all conspicuous enough from the commencement, although none of them palpitate. How come the liver and lungs, if they be then extant, to be visible without any palpitation? And then Fabricius himself has indicated a minute point situated in the centre of his figure of the chick of the fourth day, without stating, however, that it had any pulsation; and this he did not perceive to be the heart, but rather believed it to be the rudiment of the body. It is certain, therefore, that Fabricius spoke only from conjecture and preconceived opinion of the origin of the liver; even in the same way as others have done, Aldrovandus and Parisanus among the number, who, lighting upon two points, and perceiving that they did not pulsate simultaneously, straightway held that one was the heart, the other the liver. As if the liver ever pulsated, and these two points were aught but the two pulsating vesicles replying to each other by alternate contractions, in the way and manner we have indicated in our history!
Fabricius, therefore, is either deceived or deceives, when he says, “In the first stage of the production of the chick, the liver, heart, veins, arteries, lungs, and all the organs contained in the cavity of the abdomen, are engendered together; and in like manner are the carina, in other words, the head with the eyes and entire vertebral column and thorax engendered.” For the heart, veins, and arteries are perfectly distinguished some time before the carina; the carina, again, is seen before the eyes; the eyes, beak, and sides before the organs contained in the cavity of the abdomen; the stomach and intestines before the liver or lungs; and there are still other particulars connected with the order of production of the parts in generation, of which we shall speak by and by.
He is also mistaken when he would have the vegetative portion of the vital principle prior in nature and time to the sensitive and motive element. For that which is prior in nature is mostly posterior in the order of generation. In point of time, indeed, the vegetative principle is prior; because without it the sensitive principle cannot exist: an act—if the act of an organic body—cannot take place without organs; and the sensitive and motive organs are the work of the vegetative principle; the sensitive soul before the existence of action, is like a triangle within a quadrangle. But nature intended that that which was primary and most noble should also be primary; wherefore the vegetative force is by nature posterior in point of order, as subordinate and ministrative to the sensitive and motive faculties.