On Parthenogenesis Author:Richard Owen Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: common matter were operative in the production of the first organized Beings of this planet. " The earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kin... more »d, and the tree yielding fruit whose seed is in itself." " The waters brought forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life;" and " the earth brought forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth." But of our own species it is written, " God created man after his own image, in the image of God created he him ; male and female created he them." And " God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth." (Gen. i. 27 and 28.) Since that first fiat went forth, the propagation of the species of plants, animals and mankind has been left to the operation of certain natural secondary causes, which we sum up as the ' act of generation.' Botanists and physiologists have observed and progressively analysed the phaenomena until they have reduced them to a great degree of simplicity, the essential conditions being the same, or closely similar, in both realms of organic nature. With regard to the animal kingdom, the generation of which here concerns us, the essential conditions of the act appear to be a nucleated cell, and the product of a nucleated cell, with the combination of the two: the nucleated cell is the ' germinal vesicle,' and is the essential part of the ovum; the other nucleated cell is the ' sperm-cell,' and its product is the spermatozoon. It is essential to the development of the germ that the ovum receive the matter of the spermatozoon: it is then said to be impregnated. The phenomena that thence ensue are essentially the same up to a certain point in all animals, and consist in the formation of a germ-cell (PI. I. fig. 4, c), and its ...« less