germ-form

Updated: June 5, 2025

Once admit that certain beings have the power of discerning the future in its germ-form of the Cause, as the great inventor sees a glimpse of the industry latent in his invention, or a science in something that happens every day unnoticed by ordinary eyes once allow this, and there is nothing to cause an outcry in such phenomena, no violent exception to nature's laws, but the operation of a recognized faculty; possibly a kind of mental somnambulism, as it were.

Honoré de Balzac - Poor Relations

Once admit that certain beings have the power of discerning the future in its germ-form of the Cause, as the great inventor sees a glimpse of the industry latent in his invention, or a science in something that happens every day unnoticed by ordinary eyes once allow this, and there is nothing to cause an outcry in such phenomena, no violent exception to nature's laws, but the operation of a recognized faculty; possibly a kind of mental somnambulism, as it were.

Honoré de Balzac - Cousin Pons