Chapter III: When Does Human Life Begin? (1)

By the embryologists from the moment the spermatozoön joins the nucleus of the ovum until the end of the second week of gestation the product of conception is called the _Ovum_; from the end of the second week to the end of the fourth week it is the _Embryo_; from the end of the fourth week to birth it is the _Fetus_. At what moment during these three stages does the human soul, the substantial form of a man in the full comprehension of the term, enter the product of conception? When does the thing become a human being?

The question is evidently one of the greatest importance. If the rational soul does not enter until the ovum has developed into an embryo, or only after the embryo has passed on into the fetal condition, the destruction of this ovum, by artificial abortion or otherwise, would be a very different act morally from such destruction after the soul had turned the new growth into a living man. If the product of conception has first only a vegetative vital principle, and this is later replaced by a vital principle that is merely sensitive, and this again is finally superseded by a rational vital principle, the destruction by abortion or otherwise of the vegetative or sensitive life would not be a destruction of a rational life. In this hypothesis the killing of the embryo would be a great crime, because the embryo would be in potency for the reception of human life, but the act would not be murder.

The discussion concerning the moment the human soul enters the body is older than Christianity, and it was taken up by many of the early Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church, and revived again and again down to the present day. Plato thought the soul enters at birth; Asclepias, Heraclites, and the Stoics held it is not infused until the time of puberty; Aristotle[15] said the soul is infused in the male fetus about the fortieth day after conception, and into the female fetus about the eightieth day.

[15] _IX, De Animalibus_.

Tertullian,[16] Apollinaris, and a few others advocated Traducianism,[17] or a transmission of the spiritual soul by the parents. He said souls are carried over by conception and by the parents, so that the soul of the father is the soul of the son, and from one man comes the whole overflow of souls. St. Augustine used the metaphor, one soul lit from another as flame from flame, without decay in either. Augustine was in doubt as to the origin of the soul, and inclined to traducianism, because it seemed to him better to explain the doctrine of the transmission of original sin. "Tell me," he wrote to St. Jerome in 415,[18] "if souls are created singly for each person born to-day, when do infants sin so that they need remission in the sacrament of Christ, sin in Adam from whom the flesh of sin is propagated?... Since we cannot say that God makes of souls sinners, or punishes the innocent, nor may we hold that souls even of infants which without baptism leave the body are saved, I ask you how that opinion can be defended which thinks that all souls are not made from the single soul of the first man, yet as that soul was one to one man, these are particular to particular individuals."

[16] _De Anima_, cap. 27.

[17] From _tradux_, a planted vine-shoot made to take root.

[18] Migne, vol. xxxiii, col. 720.

Again, St. Augustine said:[19] "I do not know how the soul came into my body; he knows who gave it, whether he drew it [_traxerit_] from my father, or created it new as in the first man." In the _Book of Retractions_,[20] speaking of the articles he had written against the Academicians before he was a bishop, he says: "As to the origin of the soul, how it is set in the body--whether it is from that one man who first was created ... or, as in his case, is made particularly for each particular individual, I did not then know, and I do not know now." St. Gregory the Great also said he could not tell whether the human soul descends from Adam or is given particularly to each man.

[19] _De Anima et ejus Origine_, i, xv.

[20] I, cap. i, n. 3.

St. Gregory of Nyssa, however, who died about 385, thirty years before St. Augustine wrote the letter to St. Jerome, held that the soul is infused into the body at the moment of conception, and he argues with absolute precision for his opinion.[21] St. Maximus the Theologian, who was martyred in 662, inveighs[22] against the notion that the soul is vegetative at first, then sensitive, and finally intellectual, and he thinks the assertion of Aristotle that the fetus is not animated before the fortieth day is altogether untrue.

[21] Migne, _Patrologia Graeca_, vols. xliv and xlvi.

[22] Migne, _Ibid._, vol. xci, col. 1335.

St. Anselm, who died in 1109, very dogmatically denied that the fetus is animated at conception,[23] and after his time the doctrine of Aristotle, which is commonly called the Thomistic opinion, became almost general. Vincent of Beauvais, however, a contemporary of St. Thomas, opposed the Thomistic doctrine. Albertus Magnus[24] had the same opinion as St. Thomas, and probably taught it to St. Thomas. In the middle ages all held that each soul is directly created by God, and is infused into the embryo, not at the instant of conception, but when the embryo is sufficiently formed to receive it, which, as Aristotle said, happens at about the fortieth day in males and the eightieth day in females. The Thomists maintained the succession of the three souls; many others opposed this particular opinion.

[23] _De Conceptione Virginis_, cap. xii.

[24] _Summa, De Homine_, q. xvi, art. 3.

Thomas Fienus, a physician and a professor in the University of Louvain, in 1620 published a book[25] in which he held that the soul is infused about the third day after conception, and his argument for the early advent of the soul is very sound. As a result of Fienus's revolutionary argument, Florentinus in 1658 brought out a book at Lyons, called _De Hominibus Dubiis Baptizandis_, in which he held that no matter what the age of the aborted fetus, if it could be differentiated from a mole it should be baptized. This book was brought before the Congregation of the Index. The congregation did not condemn the book, but the author was forbidden to teach that his doctrine holds _sub gravi_. The book went through many editions and was approved by the faculties of the principal universities and the theologians of the leading religious orders.

[25] _De Vi Formatrice Foetus Liber._

Zacchias, chief physician to Innocent X., in 1661 published his _Questiones Medico-Legales_, and in this he maintained that "the human fetus has not at any time any kind of soul other than a rational, and this is created by God at the first moment of conception, and is then infused."[26] By 1745 the opinion of Zacchias as to the moment life begins was virtually general among physicians, and has since remained the doctrine of physicists. Modern discoveries by biologists have confirmed the fact that human life exists in the impregnated ovum exactly as it does in all stages of life, and no scientist holds any other opinion. There are, however, a few moralists at the present day who incline to the old Thomistic doctrine or to modifications of it.

[26] Tom. ii, lib. ix, tr. 1.

St. Alphonsus Liguori[27] was a follower of the Thomistic opinion. He affirmed: "They are wrong that say the fetus is animated at the instant of conception, because the fetus certainly is not animated before it is formed, as is proved from Exod. xxi: 22, where in the Septuagint version we find: 'He that strikes a gravid woman and causes abortion, will give life for life if the child was formed; if it was not formed, he will be fined.'" This argument by St. Alphonsus is invalid apart from any facts that may bear upon either the Thomistic or the modern opinion concerning the quickening of the fetus. The text from the Septuagint Exodus is (1) too doubtful in itself to be the basis of any argument; but (2) even if it were authentic just as it stands, the conclusion St. Alphonsus draws from it is not warranted by the premises. The Septuagint text differs from the Vulgate and the Hebrew texts. The Vulgate has it thus: "Si rixati fuerint viri et percusserit quis mulierem praegnantem, et abortum quidem fercerit, sed ipsa vixerit, subjacebit damno quantum maritus mulieris expetierit et arbitri judicaverint; sin autem mors fuerit subsecuta, reddit animam pro anima, oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente, manum pro manu, pedem pro pede, adustionem pro adustione, vulnus pro vulnere, livorem pro livore."[28] This version has nothing whatever to say about the _foetus formatus_ or _non formatus_; it is merely an application of the Semitic Lex Talionis, and the form of the law is clearly corrupt and inaccurate.

[27] _Theologia Moralis_, lib. iv, tr. 4, n. 594.

[28] If men quarrel, and one strike a woman with child, and she
miscarry indeed, but live herself, he shall be answerable for so
much damage as the woman's husband shall require and as arbiters
shall award. But if her death ensue thereupon, he shall render
life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot
for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

The passage quoted by St. Alphonsus as that of the Septuagint is not exact even as the Septuagint has it. The full text is: "If two men fight, and one strike a woman that hath [a child] in the womb, and her babe come forth not yet fully formed,[29] in a fine he shall be mulcted; whatsoever the husband layeth upon him he shall give according to decision [_i.e._, of the judges]. But if it [the babe] be fully formed he will give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

[29] καὶ ἐξέλθη παιδίον αὐτῆσ μὴ ἐξεικονισμένον--not moulded out
into form; ἐξεικονίζειν, to mould out into form: εἰκων, an icon,
image, likeness.

This is (1) evidently nothing but an application of the Lex Talionis, with no thought whatever of the biological animation, as such, of the fetus. It means that if a fully formed fetus be aborted, either no real damage is done, as such a child is viable; or the formed child may be maimed, and then the Lex Talionis is to be applied. If the fetus is not fully formed it is not a fit subject of the Lex Talionis since it cannot lose an eye, a tooth, and so on, because it lacks these organs and therefore the law of retaliation is not to be enforced.

(2) Suppose, however, the writer of the text as the Septuagint has it did think with St. Alphonsus that the formed fetus is animated, and the unformed is not animated, even then the conclusion drawn by St. Alphonsus is not warranted by the text. The laws of Exodus do not teach embryology, physiology, or any other part of physical science; and no authority worth a hearing holds that the Scriptures were intended to be infallible treatises on obstetrics or astronomy. Like the other parts of the Bible, the laws of Exodus presuppose the unscientific biological, astronomical, and other physical notions of the time in which they were written--the moral truth is the matter the Scripture is dealing with; there no inaccuracy is to be found. St. John (1:13) speaks of those who believe in Christ's name, "Qui non _ex sanguinibus_, neque ex voluntate carnis, neque ex voluntate viri, sed ex Deo nati sunt." Here he expresses the contemporary notion, which is also the Thomistic opinion, that men are generated from the specialized blood of their parents. He was interested solely in conveying the truth that those who received Christ were regenerated by him, not through heredity; and he does so, although the biology is inexact. If St. Alphonsus's conclusion is valid as from the text of Exodus, then men are generated _ex sanguinibus_, and so on indefinitely.

The Massoretic text of this passage seems to be the best preserved: "If men fight, and one hurt a woman who is with child, and her child come forth, yet there is no mischief, he [who struck her] shall be mulcted in a fine; whatsoever the husband of the woman layeth upon him he shall pay according to the judges. But if there be mischief, then he shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." Here the Hebrew text follows the Lex Talionis exactly. If, in a brawl, a man's pregnant wife is struck and abortion results, the offender pays the penalty. If the abortion does not kill or maim the child, the culprit is fined by the Sanhedrim; if the child is killed or maimed, then the penalty is according to the Lex Talionis. In the Hebrew text also there is no mention of a distinction between a _foetus formatus_ and _non formatus_.

Whether the fetus is animated at conception or some time later, there is no foundation whatever for the notion that the female is quickened later than the male. As was said before, Aristotle held that the human male fetus is animated at the fortieth day, the female at the ninetieth day, and the old moralists accepted his statement. At the fortieth day, however, no one can differentiate sex unless the microscope is used, and this particular use of the microscope is altogether modern--the knowledge requisite for such use was not in existence sixty years ago. At the twentieth day, with the microscope and a stained specimen, a biologist can recognize whether the primordial ova are present or absent and thus determine sex. Only at the eighty-fourth day can sex now be differentiated without the aid of the microscope, but then the embryo must be dissected: nothing can be told from its external appearance. Sex can first be distinguished by the external appearance only at about the one hundred and twelfth day, the end of the fourth month of gestation. Therefore when Aristotle said the male fetus is animated at the fortieth day, and the female at the eightieth or ninetieth day, he was romancing.

The question, then, narrows to this: Is any human fetus animated immediately at conception, or from forty to eighty days after conception? The reason given by the followers of Aristotle for deferring animation is that the vital principle requires organs in the receptive material, but the embryo in the early stages, they say, lacks these organs. This notion, however, as to the lack of organs is altogether erroneous, and the rational soul enters the embryo in the oval stage, immediately after the pronuclei unite: there is organization in that stage of human life sufficient to receive the substantial form or soul. We do not know how long after insemination the pronuclei unite, but the proposition here is that as soon as they unite the human soul enters. Fecundation usually occurs after a menstruation, but not necessarily so; the spermatozoön may live in the tube for seventeen days awaiting the ovum.

The human body is made up of billions of microscopic living cells, all of which are derived by fission and differentiation from the two original single germ-cells, the ovum and the spermatozoön. Some nerve-cells have long processes running along the white fibres through the entire length of the body, but they cannot be differentiated except by the microscope. In the body are also various liquids which are not cellular, as water, saliva, tears, urine, blood and lymph plasma, and the gastric, intestinal, and glandular juices, and these are secreted or excreted by the somatic cells. The cells assimilate nutritive material carried to them by the blood, excrete refuse substances, secrete glandular products, and are the media for all human operations below certain acts of the intellect.

A typical animal cell is commonly spherical in shape, but it may take a great variety of forms through compression. It has a cell-body or protoplasm, which is called also cytoplasm, especially when contrasted with the nuclear karyoplasm, and a nucleus. A few cells, like fat-cells and the human ovum, have an external covering membrane, or cell-wall. There is a part called the Centrosome observable in many cells, and this is made up of one or two minute dots surrounded by a radiating aster called the Attraction-Sphere. The centrosome is concerned in the process of cell-division and in the fertilization of the ovum; it is an important organ in the production of cell from cell, though its full nature and function are not yet known. The Plastid, or Protoplast, is another less important part found in certain cells; and in this by enlargement and differentiation are formed starch, pigment, and in some cases chlorophyl. Vacuoles are seen in cells; and there is an opinion that these may be a special kind of plastid: some vacuoles pulsate.

The Nucleus is the most important part of a cell, the centre of its activity. The specific qualities of organism in origin and development are based upon nuclei, so far as the material element of the living cells is concerned. Vital stimuli pass through the nucleus into the surrounding protoplasm, and these stimuli control metabolism. The nutritive cytoplasm assimilates, but the vital principle energizes this assimilation through the nucleus, for a part of a cell deprived of the nucleus may live for a time, but it cannot repair itself. Constructive metabolism ceases when the nucleus is lost. A toxic disease like diphtheria kills by disintegrating cellular nuclei.

In the nucleus are several elements, the chief among which is Chromatin. Chromatin takes various forms, but commonly it is an irregular network. From the chromatin are derived the Chromosomes in the prophases of indirect cell-division which is the process of cell-division in the human body, except in lymph-cells and white blood-corpuscles, which split directly, or by Amitosis. Indirect cell-division is called Mitosis or Karyokinesis. In the male and female chromosomes, according to a common opinion of biologists, all the elements of parental and phyletic physical heredity are transmitted to the embryo.

A CELL.

Throughout the Cytoplasm is a mesh containing numerous minute granules called Microsomes.]

The production of cell from cell is accomplished either by direct splitting of the nucleus and cytoplasm into two new cells, or by indirect division through a series of stages. In a typical direct, or amitotic, division the nucleus is constricted in the middle and divides into two daughter-nuclei. These by amoeboid movements withdraw to the poles of the cell; the cell finally divides between them, and thus two cells are formed. These, again, split into four, the four into eight, and so on. An amoeba by direct division can separate into two distinct new animals in ten minutes.

Heredity here is simple. In unicellular organisms, such as Rhizopoda and Infusoria, each individual grows to a certain stage, and then divides into two parts, which are exactly alike in size and structure, so that it is not possible to decide whether one is older or younger than the other. These organisms reduce the size of their overgrown bodies by division. Each individual of any such unicellular species is a part split off serially from an organism which started into life ages ago. Some of them have come down in uninterrupted life from geological epochs that passed away eons before the first man was created. Many of these unicellular plants and animals have immeasurably the most ancient form of life on earth. Heredity with them depends upon the fact that each offspring is merely half of its parent. In some cases the division has a sexual quality: two cells in _Paramecium_, and, like Infusoria fuse and then divide if they come into contact; they can, however, split without this sexual process.

Multicellular plants and animals do not reproduce by simple division, and the half of the parental body does not pass over into the progeny. Sexual reproduction is the chief means of multiplication in multicellular organisms, and in no case is it completely wanting; in most it is the only method of reproduction. In multicellular animals the power of reproduction is in the germ-cells, which differ from the somatic cells. Germ-cells do not maintain individual life as the body-cells do, but the germ-cells alone preserve the species. From two of these germ-cells under certain conditions is developed a complete bodily organism of the same species as the parents. These two cells are in a sense the undying cells; the somatic cells die.

Multicellular animals--Man, for example--grow embryologically by Mitosis or Indirect Division. As in Direct Division, typically, the nucleus in mitosis splits first and the cytoplasm secondly; but before the nucleus divides its content undergoes a series of changes. The chromatin loses its reticular arrangement and gives rise to a definite number of separate bodies, usually rod-shaped, known as Chromosomes. In this process the chromatin becomes a convoluted thread, called the Skein or Spireme. The thread thickens and opens out somewhat, and finally breaks transversely to form the chromosomes, which may be rods, straight, curved, ovoid, and sometimes annular. Commonly the nuclear material fades away and leaves the chromosomes in the cell-plasm. (Fig. II, 2 and 3.)

DIAGRAM OF MITOSIS.

1. Cell with resting Nucleus. 2. Prophase: Chromatin in thickened convoluted threads, beginning of Spindle. 3. Prophase: Chromosomes. 4. Prophase: Spindle in long axis of the Nucleus, Chromosomes dividing. 5. Anaphase: Chromosomes moving toward the Centrosomes. 6. Chromosomes at the poles forming the Diaster, beginning splitting of the Cell-body. 7. Telophase, Daughter-Nuclei returning to resting state. 8. Daughter-Nuclei showing Monaster below. 9. The two new Cells.]

It is almost an established fact that each species of animal and plant has a fixed and characteristic number of chromosomes, which regularly recurs in the division of all its cells. In forms arising by sexual production the number is even. The number of chromosomes in the human cell is said to be forty-eight. There are, according to some observers, forty-seven chromosomes in man and forty-eight in woman. There seem to be twice as many chromosomes in white men as in negroes. Wilson gives the number[30] of specific chromosomes for seventy-four animals and plants. Germ-cells as differentiated from the somatic cells have in the perfected cell always half the number of chromosomes found in a somatic cell.

[30] _The Cell in Development and Inheritance_, p. 207.

While these changes are going on in the chromatin the Amphiaster forms. This consists of a fibrous spindle-shaped body, the Spindle, at either pole of which is an Aster made up of rays. In the centre of each aster is a Centrosome, and this may have a Centrosphere about it. As the amphiaster grows the centrosomes are grouped in a plane at the equator of the spindle, forming the Equatorial Plate. (Fig. II, No. 4.) The process so far makes up the Prophases of the Mitosis.

In the Metaphases of the Karyokinesis begins the actual division of the cell. Each chromosome splits lengthwise into exactly similar halves, and these, in the Anaphases of the mitosis, drift out to the opposite poles of the spindle to form the daughter-nuclei of the new cells. The daughter-nuclei receive precisely equivalent portions of chromatin from the mother-nucleus, and this is an important fact in mitosis. As the chromosomes go toward the poles the cell-body begins to constrict at the equator.

In the final phases, the Telophases, the cell divides in a plane passing through the equator of the spindle, and each daughter-cell receives half the chromosomes, half the spindle, and one of the asters with its centrosome. A daughter-nucleus is reconstructed in each cell from the chromosomes. The aster commonly disappears and the centrosome persists, usually outside the new nucleus, but sometimes within it. Every phase of mitosis is subject to variation in different kinds of cells, but the outline of the division given here is the fundamental method.

The germ-cells differ from the body-cells in general by containing half the number of chromosomes characteristic of a given animal or plant. If the body-cell has, say, twenty-four chromosomes, the spermatozoön of the animal or plant from which the cells are taken will have twelve chromosomes and the ovum will have twelve. When the nuclei of these two cells unite in fertilization the resulting primordial cell will have the twenty-four chromosomes restored, the specific number for this plant or animal. In oögenesis and spermatogenesis the phases of "Reduction," wherein the ovum and spermatozoön get rid of half the chromosomes during the stages of maturation of these germ-cells, are somewhat similar for both sexes. The process is very complicated, but it is of importance in the theories of inheritance. All the physical characteristics in a human being that come to him from his parents and remoter ancestors are supposed, by the biologists, to reach him through the chromosomes in the nuclei of the single parental germ-cells. The maternal physical heredity is handed on through the chromosomes in the ovum. The fetus in the womb is a parasite, autocentric, feeding at the start from the deutoplasm, or yolk, in the ovum, and later from the supplies brought to it by the maternal blood. The physical material it gets directly from the mother is very probably all in the chromosomes of the fecundated ovum. Some weeks elapse, and the embryo is quite advanced before it begins to draw food from the mother at all. So far as the father is concerned, there is no doubt whatever that every physical and pathological characteristic that can be handed down--and there are many such qualities--must come through the chromosomes of the paternal spermatozoön. Certain physical characteristics are passed on for centuries in a family--the Norseman's body in northeastern Ireland, the skin-pigment in the American negro, and so on indefinitely--and these qualities cannot come down except through the chromosomes. The germ-plasm has come to us from the first man, and it will be passed on to the last person of the race--we are all literally uterine brothers.

In the reduction of the germ-cells, if the primordial cell that finally produces the ovum has, say, four chromosomes, these four chromosomes first split longitudinally and reduce into two tetrads, or two groups of four chromosomes. Outside the nucleus is a spindle toward which the two tetrads move; they pass out of the nucleus and become the equatorial plane of the spindle; each tetrad divides into dyads (pairs of chromosomes), and one pair of these dyads remains in the ovum, while the other pair leaves the ovum entirely and becomes the nucleus of an abortive cell, called the First Polar Body. Later a second polar body forms and carries another dyad (two chromosomes) out of the ovum, leaving only one dyad, or two chromosomes, in the germ-cells; that is, half the number of chromosomes that were in the primordial cell.

The reduction-division in spermatozoa is similar, but the end process leaves four active spermatozoa, whereas in the ovum the final result is one ovum and three practically inert and cast-off polar bodies. The reduction-division in both ovum and spermatozoön is in reality far more complicated than the broad summary given here. In parthenogenetic insects and animals a polar body takes the place of the spermatozoön, and fuses with the egg-nucleus to start mitosis.

In general, the new nuclei in the cells formed by division are not made _de novo_, but arise from the splitting of the nucleus in the mother-cell. The new nucleus assimilates material, grows to maturity, and divides again into two daughter-nuclei. Whatever be the number of chromosomes that enter a new nucleus as it forms, the same number issues from it in mitosis. Boveri said,[31] "We may identify every chromatic element arising from a resting nucleus with a definite element that enters into the formation of that nucleus, from which the remarkable conclusion follows that in all cells derived in the regular course of division from the fertilized egg, one half of the chromosomes are of strictly paternal origin, the other half of maternal." It is not strictly true to say that the germ-nuclei fuse: they send in two sets of chromosomes that lie side by side, as has been frequently demonstrated since 1892[32] in many of the lower forms of life, and this law almost certainly extends also to man.

[31] _Jenaische Zeitschrift_, 1891, p. 410.

[32] See Wilson, _op. cit._, p. 299.

The primordial germ-cells appear in the human fetus about the twentieth day and finally mature at puberty. Then an ovum at menstruation breaks out through the surface of the ovary, and is taken by the fimbriae of the Fallopian tube into the lumen of this tube. Fecundation happens near the outer or ovarian end of the Fallopian tube, and the fecundated ovum finally is passed on to fasten on the wall of the uterus. The spermatozoön is a ciliated cell with the power of locomotion, through the movement of the tail of the cell. It can move 0.05 to 0.06 mm., or its own length, in a second. It thus passes up through the uterus and out through the Fallopian tube, against the cilary motion of the tubal cells, until it meets the ovum.

A human ovum is a typical cell, but it has a covering membrane, and a minute quantity of deutoplasm or yolk, which is not alive, and is food for the growing embryo before the embryo begins to draw sustenance through the placenta. The eggs of birds have a large quantity of food stored in the yolk, since their embryos live in the ovum and draw food therefrom during the entire period which corresponds to the time of gestation in mammals. The "white" and the calcareous shell of a hen's egg are adventitious parts, added in the oviduct after the egg leaves the ovary.

The spermatozoön is a complicated organism. The head is partly covered with a thin protoplasmic cap, and it contains the nucleus with the chromatin. In the neck are two centrosomes. The tail is in three parts with an axial filament throughout, which is a bundle of extremely minute fibrils. In the middle part the axial filament is surrounded by an inner sheath; outside this sheath is a spiral filament lying in a clear substance; and outside the spiral filament is a finely granular layer of protoplasm, called the Mitochondria. This organism is a living animal cell, and it can live in an incubator, or in the Fallopian tube for two or three weeks, altogether removed from the living male body that produced it. Sir John Lubbock[33] says he kept a queen ant alive for thirteen years. This ant, which died in 1888, had been fertilized in 1874, and never afterward. She laid fertile eggs for thirteen years; that is, the spermatozoa in her oviduct retained their vitality for thirteen years.

[33] _Journal of the Linnean Society_, vol. xx, p. 133.

The human spermatozoön is a living cell: it has (1) the requisite structure; (2) the chemical composition of an organic being; (3) a figure in keeping with its species; (4) an origin from a living progenitor; (5) the _explicatio naturae_; (6) the power of assimilation; (7) the _duratio viventium_; (8) the power of reproduction; (9) motion and locomotion. As soon as the ovum breaks through the surface of the ovary it has all the qualities of the spermatozoön except locomotion. These two cells are animal cells, not vegetable; just as single-celled protozoa, like Actinophrys, Actinosphaerium, Closterium, Stentor, and the Amoebas are animals, not plants. It is not possible in our present knowledge sharply to differentiate ultimate forms of plants from animals. To say that animals have the qualities of plants plus a sentient vital principle is not enough. It is very doubtful that even the so-called sensitive plants feel, and it is practically certain that many low forms of animal life do not feel--they have no sentient mechanism. Plants have the qualities enumerated above plus the power of drawing nutriment directly from inorganic material, while animals can draw nutriment directly only from organic material; yet some fungi, bacteria for example, will grow and thrive only on organic material, and animals will take up mineral drugs. It is questionable, however, that minerals which thus find a way into animal cells are really assimilated. They excite or irritate these cells into intenser action, and thus cause growth, rather than affect development by direction. The so-called mineral tonics used in medicine act by irritation.

This irritation or stimulation by drugs can in certain very low forms of animal life start mitosis in the unfertilized ovum, and thus build up part, at the least, of a specific embryo parthenogenetically: here probably a polar body takes the place of the spermatozoön. Loeb, by treating the unfertilized egg of Arbacia (a sea-urchin) with magnesium chloride, started mitosis that resulted, it is said, in a perfect Pluteus larva.[34]

[34] _American Journal of Physiology_, 1899, iii, 3.

The human ovum is about half the size of a period in the type of this page, and two hundred and fifty spermatozoa will fit side by side along the horizontal diameter of the lowercase letter _o_ here. The nuclei of these cells are extremely minute: they must be stained and be observed with a high-power objective on the microscope before they become visible. This small nucleus of the spermatozoön penetrates the covering membrane of the ovum, enlarges, and becomes the male pronucleus. The pronucleus unites permanently with the pronucleus of the ovum, and together they form the Cleavage or Segmentation Nucleus of the fertilized ovum. This new nucleus gives rise by division to the innumerable myriads of nuclei in the growing body. Hence every nucleus of the child apparently contains nuclear material derived from both parents, as has been said.

The two perfected germ-cells before fecundation are in a state of nuclear rest after the numerous mitotic changes that have taken place in the maturation of these cells. When these nuclei unite in the ovum an intense activity at once is set up. Biologists offer very many theories to explain this awakening force. Herbert Spencer, Herting, and others held that protoplasm when perfected tends to pass into a state of stable equilibrium and consequent lessened activity, but fertilization restores it to a labile state. This and similar theories are verbose amplifications of the obvious fact that the cells start to divide and the biologists do not know the cause. The soul, of course, cannot have anything to do with the matter, because you cannot smell a soul. "Senescence and rejuvenescence" is another sonorous explanation that does not explain, used by Minot, Engelmann, and Hansen. Weismann rejects these theories for his own "Fertilization as a Source of Variation." Anyhow, the fertilized cell starts to divide regardless of the biologists. Adult cells may be stimulated to divide by chemical irritation, by mechanical pressure as in the formation of calluses, traumatism, by any agency that brings about an abnormal condition of the body, but this fact does not explain the normal fission of the fecundated ovum.

In about fifteen days from the date of fertilization the ovum passes through the following stages:

1. The ovum, with a full series of mitotic changes of the ordinary somatic type described above, divides, subdivides, and grows within the cell-wall until a rounded mass of cells is formed, which is called the Morula or Blastula--the original cell-wall, of course, stretches to hold these new cells. They are of unequal size, and they divide at unequal rates.

2. An albuminous fluid collects within the morula, and thus the Vesicle or Blastocyst is formed. The blastocyst is called more commonly the Cleavage Cavity or the Segmentation Cavity. As this cavity widens the cells are seen to be arranged in two groups--(_a_) an enveloping layer, the epiblast, from the outermost plate of which develops later the Trophoblast, or the nourishing and protecting covering of the embryo; (_b_) an Inner Cell Mass, made up of granular cells, attached to the epiblastic layer at the Embryonic Pole of the Vesicle. These two stages probably take place in the Fallopian tube, and thereafter the embryo is in the cavity of the uterus.

3. In the third stage the Inner Cell-Mass separates into two layers derived from the inner cell-plate of the blastula. The mass flattens and spreads peripherally, until finally it is divided into two layers. The outer is the Ectoderm and the inner is the Endoderm or Hypoblast. The three steps just described have not yet been seen in the human species by any one, but they are inferred very confidently from what is well known of the development in mammals most closely resembling man in physical formation.

4. By the conversion of the one-layered blastula into two layers of cells, the Gastrula stage of the embryo is attained. The Gastrula consists of two layers of cells surrounding a central cavity, which is the Archenteron, or the body-cavity that will hold the intestines. During the past twelve years many specimens of human gastrulas have been observed. The earliest form was that seen in 1908 by Teacher and Boyce.[35] This embryo was 1.95 mm. in length by 0.95 mm. in width, about twice the size of a pin-head. It showed on section the endoderm, the ectoderm, and the beginning mesoderm, enclosed in a spherical mass of trophoblastic cells. The mesoderm is a plate of cells lying between the endodermic and ectodermic plates. When the mesoderm develops into two plates, a cavity, called the Primitive Coelom, appears between the plates. The Coelom becomes the space between the viscera and the body-walls in later development.

[35] _Contributions to the Study of the Early Development and
Embedding of the Human Embryo._ Glasgow, 1911.

From the primary embryonic layers of cells, the ectoderm, the endoderm, and mesoderm, all the parts of the body are built up. From the ectoderm are produced the skin, nails, hair, the epithelium of the sebaceous, sweat, and mammary glands, the epithelium of the mouth and salivary glands, the teeth-enamel, the epithelium of the nasal tract, of the ear, of the front of the eye, and the whole spinal cord and the brain, with their outgrowths.

From the endoderm come the epithelium of the respiratory tract, of most of the digestive tract with the liver and pancreas, the epithelium of the thyroid body, the bladder, and other minor parts.

From the mesoderm are developed bone, dentine, cartilage, lymph, blood, fibrous and alveolar tissues, muscles, all endothelial cells, as of joint-cavities, blood-vessels, the pleura and peritoneum, the spleen, kidneys and ureters, and the reproductive bodies.

The epiblast now with its mesoblastic lining begins to form the Chorion, an embryonic intrauterine appendage; and the endoderm encloses the Archenteron or primitive gut. Before the end of the second week of gestation the heart is indicated as two tubes in the mesoderm, and the blood-vessels begin to be produced in the yolk-sac. About the twelfth day the mouth-pit shows, and the gut-tract is partly separated from the yolk-sac. The medullary plate of the nervous system is laid down about the fourteenth day, and the nasal area is observable. The maternal blood escapes into spaces about the embryo enclosed by masses of embryonic cells, which have not separated from one another, but which are known collectively as Syncytium.

5. With the third week the stage of the embryo, technically so called, begins. During this week the body of the embryo is indicated. There are three layers of cells, already mentioned, the ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm, and these lie on the floor of the enveloping Amnion. The amnion is a loose fluid-filled sac (the caul) enveloping the fetus to protect it from jarring. The fluid in it is the "waters" that escape in parturition when the infant breaks through the caul. The archenteron in the third week shows the beginning of a division into two parts: the part that will go to the body proper of the embryo, and the part outside the body of the embryo which will form the yolk-sac, or umbilical vesicle, from which the embryo will draw sustenance until the placental vessels have been formed. The part of the archenteron that remains within the embryo proper begins in this third week to be moulded into the head-cavity. The forepart of the archenteron will later make the alimentary tract from the mouth to the middle of the duodenum, or small intestine beyond the stomach. The other part of the archenteron wall make the Allantois, the hind gut and the bladder. The allantois becomes a part of the fetal umbilical cord after the formation of the placenta.

During this third week the dorsal outline of the embryo is concave; the heart has a single cavity, which will begin to divide during the fourth week; the vitelline blood circulation begins, and the blood-vessels of the visceral arch are laid down. The digestive system is advanced to a gut-tract, which is a straight tube connected with the yolk-sac. The liver evagination is present and the oral pit is a five-sided fossa. The respiratory system is represented by the _anlage_ of the lungs, a longitudinal protrusion of the ventral wall of the esophagus. The genito-urinary system begins as the Wolffian bodies. The mesoderm starts to segment to form the skin, and the neural canal (from which develop the spinal cord and brain) for the nervous system forms. The fourth ventricle of the brain is indicated, and the vesicles of the fore brain, mid brain, and hind brain are recognizable. The ears, nose, and eyes, muscular system, skeleton, and limbs are also beginning to be recognizable. At about the sixteenth or eighteenth day of gestation the various parts of the embryo rapidly differentiate.

In the fourth week all these parts advance. The atrium cavity of the heart begins to divide; the alimentary tract shows the pharynx and esophagus, stomach, and gut; the pancreas starts, the liver diverticulum divides, and the bile-ducts appear. The lung _anlage_ bifurcates and the primitive trachea is seen. The ventral roots of the spinal nerves appear, the interior ear is indicated, and the eye is deeper. The buds of the legs and arms appear about the twenty-first day--by the thirty-second day even the fingers are present. The four heart-cavities are formed, the intestinal canal is nearly closed, the first indications of the liver and kidneys appear. The child now has reached the fetal stage, and its living body is made up of myriads of cells all derived from the original fertilized ovum. The fetus is then one centimetre, or two-fifths of an inch, in length--about the length of the word "fetus" here.

At the end of the second month the fetus is two and a half centimetres long. The ears appear, and the tail-like process at the lower end of the spine disappears. The arms show the three parts, arm, forearm, and hand; and a little later the thigh, leg, and foot are differentiated. The navel begins to close, the liver develops, the abdomen is yet partly open.

At the end of the third lunar month the fetus is seven to nine centimetres long. The intestinal canal is formed and contains bile. The body resembles that of a human being, but the head is proportionately very large. Bony tissue begins to appear.

The Development of the Fetus.]

At the end of the fourth lunar month the fetus is ten to seventeen centimetres long. Some muscles are movable. The heart-beat is strong. Sex is distinguishable externally. The skin is bright red, and so transparent that the blood-vessels are visible through it.

Toward the close of the fifth lunar month the head is about the size of a hen's egg. The skin is somewhat less transparent. There are indications of hair and nails. The eyelids are closed. Parts of the brain and spinal cord are formed. Such a fetus may live for five or ten minutes if removed from the womb, and it may make attempts at respiration.

At the end of the sixth lunar month the fetus, if born, may live for several hours under favorable circumstances. Its respiratory, digestive, and related organs are not developed, and no artificial feeding will keep such a child alive. The brain cortex, the organ of consciousness, begins to laminate into three strata of nerve-cells at the beginning of the sixth month.

Here the time of fetal viability outside the womb may be considered. Langstein, of the Augusta Victoria Hospital in Berlin, reported[36] a study of the growth and nutrition of 250 prematurely born infants, and he found that a weight of 1000 grammes (2-1/5 pounds) and a full body length of 34 centimetres (13-3/5 inches) are the lowest limits for viability under proper circumstances. A fetus 1000 grammes in weight and 34 centimetres in length has completed the sixth solar month, or the sixth and a half lunar month; that is, it is viable at the _beginning_ of its seventh month, _servatis servandis_.

[36] _Berliner klinische Wochenschrift_, June 14, 1915.

The child at term, as a rough average, is from 48 to 52 centimetres (19 to 20-1/2 inches) in length, and it weighs from about 6-3/5 to 7-1/2 pounds. It is impossible, however, to obtain the sizes and weights of infants _in utero_ with scientific accuracy, because the date of conception cannot be determined with absolute certainty, and individual fetuses vary as do infants after birth. A full-term infant sometimes may weigh only 3-1/2 pounds when the mother is diseased, and again an eight-month fetus will weigh as much as 8 pounds. Large muscular and fat women have large babies; women of the well-to-do classes have larger babies than do the poor; women who work during gestation bear smaller babies than do those women that rest. Mothers who work in tobacco, lead, or phosphorus have puny babies; white children are larger at birth than negro children; boys at term are 3 to 5 ounces heavier than girls.

Langstein says that prematurely born infants weighing from 900 grammes (31-1/2 ounces) to 1500 grammes (3-1/2 pounds)--that is, all born before the seventh solar month--must be kept in hot-water incubators in a room with ordinary ventilation. Babies weighing 2000 grammes (4-1/2 pounds) or more get along in an ordinary crib if they are kept surrounded with hot-water bags. Such children are to be fed with human milk through a catheter passed into the mouth or they die of inanition. Only a few of them are strong enough to suck from a bottle, and these give up the effort after a few days and die. They cannot utilize fat, even from milk; and all artificial food is dangerous.

Most of the prematurely born become rachitic, and even human milk is not preventive of this condition. Rachitis is a constitutional disease, characterized by impaired nutrition of the bones and changes in their shape. In the third or fourth month craniotabes is frequent--that is, an atrophy of the skull bones with the formation of small conical pits. These infants show also a morbid tendency to convulsions--spasmophilia. Such diseases are caused by a lack of mineral salts, which normally are carried to the fetus by the placental blood during the last two months of gestation. Because of this lack premature infants require the administration of lime salts in their food; they also need iron because they are anemic.

A fetus, then, of six calendar, or solar, months (not lunar) is viable if treated in a hospital by competent physicians. Otherwise it is not viable, except in a strictly technical sense; it will not live more than a few days or weeks. Reports of infants younger than six months as having been successfully reared are not credible--it is easy to make an error in the reckoning.

A full seven-months infant may be reared with proper feeding and skilled care; a six-months infant may be reared (with difficulty) in a hospital with skilled care. If it is certain that the removal of a six-months fetus will here and now save the life of a mother (a very difficult matter to judge by the best diagnosticians), this removal may be done, provided the infant is delivered in circumstances where skilled care, incubator, and proper food are obtainable; otherwise the removal is not justifiable. That the ordinary physician says it is necessary to empty the uterus is not a sufficient reason, as he is likely to act from ill-digested information set forth by professorial pagans, who place no value whatever on human life in an infant.

A most important and essential circumstance in the matter of inducing abortion at the end of the sixth month of gestation to save a mother's life is that in practically every case requiring such interference the diseased condition of the mother has checked the growth of the fetus, and the fetus therefore is really not a six-months child in development. Such an undeveloped fetus is not viable. Eclamptic women, and those who have nephritis, are most likely to have undeveloped fetuses. In cases of this kind the seventh month should be completed before interference.

How is this human body in all its complexity developed from the microscopic germ-cells? There has been a vast deal of ink spilled in striving to solve this mystery, but we come out empty by the same door wherein we went. The early Preformationists guessed that the ovum contains an embryo fully formed in miniature, and development is a mere unfolding of what had already existed. The biologists of to-day mention the Preformationists with superior scorn, and then present Preformationism under other names. Weismann's theory is the most fashionable at present.

In a paper read at the Darwinian Memorial Congress in 1909, Weismann said: "With others I regard the minimal amount of substance which is contained within the nucleus of the germ-cells in the form of rods, bands, or granules, as the _germ-substance_, or _germ-plasm_, and I call the individual granules[37] _ids_. There is always a multiplicity of such _ids_ present in the nucleus, either occurring individually or united in the forms of rods and bands (chromosomes). Each _id_ contains the primary constituents of the _whole_ individual, so that several _ids_ are concerned in the development of a new individual." Actually there are such things as chromosomes, and when these are stained and are under the highest power of the microscope they appear to be granular. These granules Weismann calls _ids_. Beyond the fact that there are such granules, all else is sheer guessing.

[37] _Id_ is a word derived from Nägeli's term idioplasm, which
means the chromosome granule.

He says further: "In every complex structure thousands of primary constituents must go to make up a single _id_; these I call _determinants_, and I mean by this name very small individual particles, far beyond the limit of microscopic visibility, vital units, which feed, grow, and multiply by division. These determinants control the parts of the developing embryo,--in what manner need not here concern us."

There is some truth here. The _id_ is made up of molecules and atoms, ions and electrons, and in some manner, of course, these have to do with the development of the embryo; but as to the manner we have not the slightest knowledge, and just this knowledge is what we need to make the theory anything more dignified than a child's game at guessing. There is a structural differentiation in the unsegmented ovum, with all the embryonal axes foreshadowed in it, but this tells us nothing more than that the egg contains the man in germ.

He goes on: "The determinants differ among themselves; those of a muscle are differently constituted from those of a nerve-cell or a glandular cell, etc., and each determinant is in its turn made up of minute vital units, which I call _biophors_, or the bearers of life."

That these so-called determinants differ among themselves may be true, if they exist at all, which is just the point to be proved. Giving Greek names to inventions does not turn invention into fact. These supposed determinants, he says, "may vary quantitatively if the elements of which they are composed vary; they ... and their variations may give rise to _corresponding_ variations of the organ, cell, or cell-group which they determine." Professor Dwight said:[38] "This is what is palmed off on us for science!" Weismann assures us we _must_ admit this farrago of clumsy fiction, otherwise we should be forced "to assume the help of a principle of design."[39] In the name of common sense, then, admit a principle of design, and be done with it!

[38] _Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist_, p. 48.

[39] _Contemporary Review_, September, 1893.

Darwin's Gemmule Theory is the same guessing; and Weismann rejects it because he did not think of it first. As a theory the gemmule plot is just as good and just as bad scientifically as Weismann's. The chief objection to such imagining is that after its authors have put it into print a few times they lose all sense of humor, and mistake phantasms for facts.