On Parthenogenesis; Or, the Successive Production of Procreating Individuals from a Single Ovum. a Discourse Introductory to the Hunterian Lectures on Generation and Development, for the Year 1849, Delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1849 Excerpt: ... ON PARTHENOGENESIS. There is a natural and irrepressible tendency in the human mind to penetrate the mystery of the beginning of things, and above all that of the origin of living things, involving our own origin. But it is plainly denied to finite understandings to ascend to the very beginning, and to comprehend the nature of the operation of the First Cause of anything. And perhaps the best argument from reason for a future state and the continued existence of our thinking part, is afforded by the fact of our being able to conceive the possibility of the enjoyment of such knowledge, and the consequent yearning to possess it, --that fiavrevxa ri of Plato, or parturient vaticination of some higher knowledge which cannot be fulfilled in the present state of our existence. The ablest endeavours here to penetrate to the beginning of things do but carry us, when most successful, a few steps nearer that beginning, and then leave us on the verge of a boundless ocean of the unknown truth, dividing the secondary or subordinate phaenomena in the chain of causation from the great First Cause. The brief record of creation in the Sacred volume leaves us to infer that certain plastic and spermatic qualities of 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 kind, 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 sa...