EXERCISE THE TWENTY-SIXTH.
Of the nature of the egg.
Of the theorems that refer to the egg, some teach us what it is, some show its mode of formation, and others tell of the parts which compose it.
It is certain, in the first place, that one egg produces one chick only. Although the egg be in a certain sense an external uterus, still it most rarely engenders several embryos, but by far the most frequently produces no more than a single pullet. And when an egg produces two chicks, which it does sometimes, still is this egg to be reputed not single but double, and as possessed of the nature and parts of two eggs.
For an egg is to be viewed as a conception proceeding from the male and the female, equally endued with the virtue of either, and constituting an unity from which a single animal is engendered.
Nor is it the beginning only, but the fruit and conclusion likewise. It is the beginning as regards the being to be engendered; the fruit in respect of the two parents: at once the end proposed in their engendering, and the origin of the chick that is to be. “But the seed and the fruit,” according to Aristotle,[198] “differ from one another in the relations of prior and posterior; for the fruit is that which comes of another, the seed is that from which this other comes: were it otherwise, both would be the same.”
The egg also seems to be a certain mean; not merely in so far as it is beginning and end, but as it is the common work of the two sexes and is compounded by both; containing within itself the matter and the plastic power, it has the virtue of both, by which it produces a fœtus that resembles the one as well as the other. It is farther a mean between the animate and the inanimate world; for neither is it wholly endowed with life, nor is it entirely without vitality. It is still farther the mid-passage or transition stage between parents and offspring, between those who are, or were, and those who are about to be; it is the hinge and pivot upon which the whole generation of the bird revolves. The egg is the terminus from which all fowls, male and female, have sprung, and to which all their lives tend,—it is the result which nature has proposed to herself in their being. And thus it comes that individuals in procreating their like for the sake of their species, endure for ever. The egg, I say, is a period or portion of this eternity; for it were hard to say whether an egg exists for the sake of the chick that it engenders, or the pullet exists for the sake of the egg which it is to engender. Which of these was the prior, whether with reference to time or nature,—the egg or the pullet? This question, when we come to speak of the generation of animals in general, we shall discuss at length.
The egg, moreover,—and this is especially to be noted,—corresponds in its proportions with the seeds of plants, and has all the same conditions as these, so that it is to be regarded, not without reason, as the seed or sperma of the common fowl, in the same way as the seeds of plants are justly entitled their eggs, not only as being the matter or that from which, but the efficient or that by which the pullet is engendered. In which finally no part of the future offspring exists de facto, but in which all parts inhere in potentia.
The seed, properly so called, differs however from the geniture, which by Aristotle is defined to be “that which, proceeding from the generator, is the cause, that which first obtains the principle of generation; in those, to wit, whom nature destined to copulate. But the seed is that which proceeds from these two in their connection: and such is the seed of all vegetables, and of some animals, in which the sexes are not distinct; like that which is first produced by male and female commingled, a kind of promiscuous conception, or animal; for this already possesses what is required of both.”
The egg consequently is a natural body endowed with animal virtues, viz. principles of motion and rest, of transmutation and conservation; it is, moreover, a body which, under favorable circumstances, has the capacity to pass into an animal form; heavy bodies indeed do not sink more naturally, nor light ones float, when they are unimpeded, than do seeds and eggs in virtue of their inherent capacity become changed into vegetables and animals. So that the seed and the egg are alike the fruit and final result of the things of which they are the beginning and efficient cause.
For a single pullet there is a single egg; and so Aristotle[199] says: “from one seed one body is engendered; for example, from a single grain of wheat one plant; from a single egg one animal; for a twin-egg is, in fact, two eggs.”
And Fabricius[200] with truth observes: “The egg is not only an exposed uterus, and place of generation, but that also on which the whole reproduction of the pullet depends, and which the egg achieves as agent, as matter, as instrument, as seat, and all else, if more there be, that is needful to generation.” He shows it to be an organ because it consists of several parts, and this, from the statement of Galen, who will have the very essence of an organ to be that “it consist of several parts, all of which conspire to one and the same action though diverse in faculty and use; for some are principal instruments in the action; some are indispensable to it,—without them it could not take place; some secure its better performance; and some, in fine, are extant for the safety and preservation of everything else.” He also shows it to be an agent, when from Aristotle and Galen he lays down the two actions of the egg, viz.: “the generation of the chick, and the growth and nutrition of the pullet.” At the conclusion he expresses himself clearly in these words: “In the works of nature we see conjunct and one, the artificer, the instrument, and the matter; the liver, for instance, is both the agent and the instrument for the production of the blood; and so every part of the body; Aristotle,[201] therefore, said well that the moving powers were not easily distinguished from the instruments. In artificial things, indeed, the artificer and the instrument are distinct, as much so as the workman and his hammer, the painter and his pencil. And the reason adduced by Galen[202] is this: that in things made by art the artificer is without the work; in natural things, again, the artificer is within it, conjunct with the instruments, and pervading the whole organization.”
To this I add these perspicuous words of Aristotle.[203] “Of extant things some are consistent with nature, others with other causes. Animals and their parts, and plants, and simple bodies, as earth, fire, air, and water, consist with nature, and are allowed universally to do so; but these bodies differ entirely from those that do not consist with nature. For whatsoever consists with nature is seen to have within itself a principle of motion and of rest, now according to place, now according to increment and decrement, and again according to change. A couch or litter, a garment, and other things of the same description, however designated, inasmuch as they are made by art, have no inherent faculty of change; but inasmuch as they are made of [wood, or] earth, or stone, [or of wool, silk, or linen,] or of mixtures of these, they have such a faculty. As if nature were a certain principle and cause wherefore that should move and be at rest in which she inheres originally, independently, and not by accident. I say, particularly, not by accident, because it might happen that one being a physician should himself be the cause of his own good health; but he is not familiar with medicine in the same respect as he has worked his own cure; it happens simply that the man who here recovers his health is a physician. It therefore occasionally happens, that these two things are distinct and separate. But it is not otherwise with everything besides that is of art: none of these has in itself a principle of performance or action, though some of them have such a principle in other things and beyond themselves, such as a house, and aught else that is made with hands; and some have even such a principle inherent, but not per se and independently: everything, for example, may by accident become a cause to itself. Nature is therefore, as stated [that which has an inherent principle of motion]; and those things have nature within them which possess this principle. Now all such are substances; for nature is always some subject, and inheres in the subject.”
These things I have spoken of at length, and even quoted the words of the writers appealed to, that it might thence appear first, that all I attribute to the egg is actually there, viz.: matter, organ, efficient cause, place, and everything else requisite to the generation of the chick; and next and more especially, that the truth in regard to the following very difficult questions might be made clearly to appear, viz.: Which and what principle is it whence motion and generation proceed? By what virtue does the semen act, according to Aristotle? What is it that renders the semen itself fruitful? (for the philosopher will have it that nature in all natural bodies is the innate principle of motion and of rest, and not any second accident.) Whether is that which in the egg is cause, artificer, and principle of generation and of all the vital and vegetative operations—conservation, nutrition, growth—innate or superadded? and whether does it inhere primarily, of itself, and as a kind of nature, or intervene by accident, as the physician in curing diseases? Whether is that which transforms the egg into a pullet inherent or acquired, or is it already conceived in the ovary, and does it nourish, augment, and perfect the egg there?
What is it besides that preserves the egg sweet after it is laid? What is it that renders an egg fruitful—is it to be called soul, or a portion of the soul, or something belonging to the soul, or something having a soul, or is it intelligence, or, finally, is it Divinity? seeing that it acts to a definite end, and orders all with inimitable providence and art, and yet in an incomprehensible manner, always obtaining what is best both for simple being and for well-being, for protection also and for ornament. And all this not only in the fruitful egg which it fecundates, but in the hypenemic egg which it nourishes, causes to increase, and preserves. Nay, it is not merely the vitellus in the vitellarium or egg-bed, but the smallest speck whence the yelk is produced, of no greater size than a millet or a mustard-seed, that it nourishes and makes to grow, and finally envelopes with albumen, and furnishes with chalazæ, and surrounds with membranes and a shell. For it is probable that even the barren egg, whilst it is included within the fowl and is connected with her, is nourished and preserved by its internal and inherent principle, and made to increase (not otherwise than the eggs of fishes and frogs, exposed externally, increase and are perfected), and to be transformed from a small speck into a yelk, and transferred from the ovary to the uterus (though it have no connexion with the uterus), there to be endued with albumen, and at length to be completed with its chalazæ, membranes, and shell.
But what that may be in the hypenemic egg as well as in the fruitful one, which in a similar manner and from the same causes or principles produces the same effects; whether it be the same soul, or the same part of the soul, or something else inherent in both, must be worthy of inquiry: it seems probable, however, that the same things should proceed from similar causes.
Although the egg whilst it is being produced is contained within the fowl, and is connected with the ovary of the mother by a pedicle, and is nourished by blood-vessels, it is not therefore to be spoken of as a part of the mother; nor is it to be held as living and vegetating through her vital principle, but by a virtue peculiar to itself and an internal principle; just as fungi, and mosses, and the misletoe, which although they adhere to vegetables and are nourished by the same sap as their leaves and germs, still form no part of these vegetables, nor are they ever so esteemed. Aristotle, with a view to meeting these difficulties, concedes a vegetative soul to the egg, even to the hypenemic one. He says:[204] “Females, too, and all things that live are endowed with the vegetative virtue of the soul, as has been often said; and therefore this [hypenemic] egg is perfect as the conception of a plant, but imperfect as that of an animal.” And he inculcates the same doctrine elsewhere,[205] when he asks: “In what manner or sense are hypenemic eggs said to live? For they cannot do so in the same sense as fruitful eggs, otherwise a living thing might be engendered by their agency. Nor do they comport themselves like wood or stone; because these perish by a kind of corruption, as having formerly had life in a certain manner. It is positive, therefore, that hypenemic eggs have a certain kind of soul potentially; but what? of necessity that ultimate soul, which is the appanage of vegetables; for this equally inheres in all things, in animals as well as vegetables.”
But it is not the same soul that is found in hypenemic as in fruitful eggs; otherwise would a pullet be indifferently produced from both; but how and in what respects the soul attached to each is different from the other, Aristotle does not sufficiently explain, when he inquires:[206] “Wherefore are all the parts of an egg present in the hypenemic egg, and it still incapable of producing a chick? because,” he replies, “it is requisite that it have a sensitive soul.” As if in fruitful eggs, besides the vegetative soul, there were a sensitive soul present. Unless you understand the vegetative soul as inhering actually in the fruitful egg, which contains the sensitive soul within it potentially; whence the animal, and the sensible parts of the animal are subsequently produced. But neither do writers satisfactorily untie this knot, nor set the mind of the inquirer free from the difficulties that entangle him. For he sees that the egg is a true animal seed, according to this sentence of the Stagyrite:[207] “In those things endowed with life, in which the male and female sexes are not distinct, the seed is already present as a conception. I entitle conception the first mixture from the male and female (the analogue of the vegetable seed therefore). Wherefore from one seed there is engendered one body, as from one egg one animal.”
It appears, consequently, that for one egg there is one soul or vital principle.[208] But whether is this that of the mother, or that of the father, or a mixture of the two? And here the greatest difficulties are occasioned by those eggs that are produced by the concurrence of animals of different species, as, for example, of the common fowl and pheasant. In such an egg, I ask, is it the vital principle of the father or that of the mother, which inheres? or is it a mixture of the two? But how can vital principles be mingled, if the vital principle (as form) be act and substance, which it is, according to Aristotle? For no one will deny, whatever it be ultimately which in the fruitful egg is the beginning and cause of the effects we witness, that it is a substance susceptible of divers powers, forces, or faculties, and even conditions,—virtues, vices, health and sickness. For some eggs are esteemed to be longer, others shorter lived; some engender chickens endowed with the qualities and health of body that distinguished their parents, others produce young that are predisposed to disease. Nor is it to be said that this is from any fault of the mother, seeing that the diseases of the father or male parent are transferred to the progeny, although he contributes nothing to the matter of the egg; the procreative or plastic force which renders the egg fruitful alone proceeding from the male; none of its parts being contributed by him. For the semen which is emitted by the male during intercourse does by no means enter the uterus of the female, in which the egg is perfected; nor can it, indeed, (as I first announced, and Fabricius agrees with me,) by any manner or way get into the inner recesses of that organ, much less ascend as high as the ovary, near the waist or middle of the body, so that besides its peculiar virtue it might impart a portion of matter to the numerous ova whose rudiments are there contained. For we know, and are assured by unquestionable experience, that several ova are fecundated by one and the same connexion,—not those only that are met with in the uterus and ovary, but those likewise that are in some sort not yet begun, as we shall state by and by, and indeed, as we have already had occasion to assert in our history.
If, therefore, an egg be rendered fruitful by its proper vital principle, or be endowed with its own inherent fecundating force, whence or whereby either a common fowl, or a hybrid betwixt the fowl and the pheasant is produced, and that either male or female, like the father or the mother, healthy or diseased; we must infallibly conclude that the egg, even when contained in the ovary, does not live by the vital principle of the mother, but is, like the youth who comes of age, made independent even from its first appearance; as the acorn taken from the oak, and the seeds of plants in general, are no longer to be considered parts of the tree or herb that has supported them, but things made in their own right, and which already enjoy life in virtue of a proper and inherent vegetative power.
But if we now admit that there is a living principle in a fertile egg, it may become matter of discussion whether it is the same living principle which already inheres in the egg that will inhere in the future chick, or whether it is a different one that actuates each? For it is matter of necessity that we admit the inherence of a certain principle which constitutes and causes the egg to grow, and which farther engenders and makes the chick to increase. We have to inquire, therefore, whether the animating principle of the egg and of the chick be one and the same, or several and different? And then, were several vital principles recognized, some appertaining to the egg, others to the chick, we should next have to inquire: whence and at what epoch the animating principle of the chick entered it? and what is it in the egg which causes the cicatricula to dilate before the advent of the living principle; which draws the eye of the vitellus upwards, as stated, and produces the colliquament, changes the constitution of the fluids of the egg, and preordains everything for the construction of the future chick before there is even a vestige of it to be seen? Or whence shall we say the aliment fit for the embryo is derived, and by which it is nourished and made to grow, before it is yet in being? For these acts are seen to be the work of the vegetative soul of the embryo, and have reference to the coming pullet, ensuring its nutrition and growth. And again, when the embryo is begun, or the chick is half formed, what is it which constitutes that embryo or that chick one and continuous and connex with the liquids of the egg? What nourishes and makes the chick to grow, and preserves the fluids that are fit for its nutrition from putrefaction, and prepares, and liquefies, and concocts them?
If the vital principle be the act of the organic body possessing life in potentia, it seems incredible that this principle can inhere in the chick before something in the shape of an organized body is extant. Nor is it more credible that the vital principle of the egg and chick can be identical, if the vital principle be conservative of that only to which it belongs; but the egg and the chick are different things, and manifest dissimilar and even opposite vital acts, in so much so that one appears to be produced by the destruction of the other. Or should we perchance maintain that the same principle and cause of life inheres in both, in the pullet half fashioned, to wit, and the egg half consumed, as if it were one and a simple act of the same body; or as if from parts producing one natural body, one soul or vital principle also arose, which was all in all, as is commonly said, and all in each particular part? Just as with leaves and fruit conspicuous on the stem of a tree, wherever a division is made we still say that the principle or first cause of the slip and of the whole tree is the same; the leaves and the fruit are, as it were, the form and end, the trunk of the tree the beginning. So too in a line, wherever a division is made, this will become the end or boundary of the part behind it, the commencement of the part before it. And the same thing is seen to obtain in respect of quality and motion, that is to say, in every kind of transmutation and generation.
So much at this time upon these topics, which will by and by engage us at greater length, when we come to speak of the nature of the living principle of the embryos of animals in general; of its being; of its accession in respect of the how and the when; and how it is all in all, and all in each particular part, the same and yet different. Points which we shall determine from numerous observations.