This is a very brief outline of the processes, by which the food, one eats is converted into blood and passes into the arteries and veins.
The embryo at first, has no heart, arteries, nor veins. After its body has developed and grown to a certain extent, the mother’s heart and arteries carry arterial blood to it through the “umbilical vein.” This blood finally reaches the heart of the embryo, and is carried by its heart and arteries to every part of its body, then returned through “two umbilical arteries” and the placenta to the veins of the mother. In this way, the embryo has a sort of circulation of its own. But it appears to have no independent circulation during the first three or four months of its life; and the blood which circulates through it must be aerated or oxygenated in the mother’s lungs.
We may say, in general terms, that the mother’s heart and arteries exert all the force and produce all the motion which build up the embryo. It is true that the work of her heart and arteries is supplemented, after a time, by that of the heart and arteries of the embryo but the latter work is a small part of the whole.
The water in a stream runs from its head to its mouth because the latter is nearer to the center of the earth than the former. In other words, the water in every stream is carried forward by the force of gravitation. The water in a stream carries silt (mud, fine earth, etc.) which is deposited along its course and at its mouth. As already stated, the mother’s blood is carried to the embryo body by the force of her heart and arteries. Her blood conveys to the embryo, the materials of which it is built up, as the water in a stream carries silt to its mouth. Her blood has no more intellect, memory nor will-power than the water in a stream.
If a portion of the silt at the mouth of the Mississippi should be deposited at its mouth in the form of a colossal man, showing his head, neck, body, arms, legs, hands, feet, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, etc., it would be considered a great miracle. But the formation of the embryo body in the womb of its mother, with all its organs and parts is far more miraculous than the formation of the silt man of the Mississippi would be.
The reader may reply that the atoms of which the embryo is built up are not merely deposited but they are absorbed by the fertilized ovum and its daughter-cells, and converted into new cells; that these cells are chemically combined and differentiated and mechanically arranged in such a manner as to form the embryo body, etc. True; but force and motion are necessary to produce new cells, to make the necessary chemical combinations and mechanical arrangements; and these forces and motions must be generated, guided and controlled by a Being possessed of a conscious intellect, memory, will-power and creative force.
Sec. 12. Intellect, Memory and Will-power are Necessary, When
Conscious intellect, memory and will-power are necessary to generate, guide and control the force and motion employed in the construction of a compound physical structure, whatever its form or size may be.