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FUNCTION OF GENERATION. 135
goes on, month after month, in the female, and contin
ually in the male. Every month an egg is thrown off
from the ovary, passes down the fallopian tube, lodges
in the uterus, and if not fecundated, perishes, and is
expelled as an abortion. At the same time nature is
forming, in the testicles of the male, millions of sperm
atic animalcules, any one of which would probably be
sufficient to effect the fecundation of the extruded ovum.
Before wo mourn over this sad seeming waste of the
elements of life, let us send through nature a glance of
inquiry. How large a proportion of the early blossoms
on our fruit-trees never ripen into fruit ! How many
millions of the seeds of plants become the food of ani
mals, and never carry out their design of reproduction !
Of the millions of eggs which come from a single fish,
how few ever produce young, and if nature were stingy
in her productions, why should there be millions of
spermatozoa in a single discharge of the spermatic fluid,
when it is probable that only one can ever act upon the
same ovum ?
Nature is bountiful. Nature is prolific. Especially
in relation to this function, nature has everywhere dealt
with a liberal hand. Puberty in woman at begins fif
teen, and the monthly evolution of ovae continues till
fifty, when the function ceases. If she has but a single
egg each month, she produces four hundred and twenty.
But many women throw off two, and even three, four,
or five at a monthly period. Twins are often fecun
dated. Thus, a woman who should pass through this
period without fecundation, would produce and waste
five hundred germs of human beings.
It is my opinion that the early effects of the activity