42 BIOLOGY OF DEATH 



In the B diagram, where we have bi-parental reproduc- 

 tion by the union of germ cells, as in man, the solid black 

 triangles represent the bodies, or somata, and the lines 

 the germ cells. A line of ancestry traced back from any 

 individual towards the right end of the diagram forks 

 at each generation, and in comparatively few generations 

 one has a multitude of ancestors. The bodies of one 

 generation have no continuity with the bodies of the pre- 

 vious or the following generation. In each generation the 

 soma dies, while new somata are reproduced by the union 

 of germ cells from diverse lines. 



E. Life itself is a continuum. A break or discontin- 

 uity in its progression has never occurred since its first 

 appearance. Discontinuity of existence appertains not 

 to life, but only to one part of the makeup of a portion 

 of one large class of living things. This is certain, from 

 the facts already presented. Natural death is a new thing 

 which has appeared in the course of evolution, and its 

 appearance is concomitant with, and evidently in a broad 

 sense, caused by that relatively early evolutionary spe- 

 cialization which set apart and differentiated certain 

 cells of the organism for the exclusive business of car- 

 rying on all functions of the body other than reproduc- 

 tion. We are able to free ourselves, once and for all, of 

 the notion that death is a necessary attribute or inevitable 

 consequence of life. It is nothing of the sort. Life can 

 and does all the time go on without death. The somatic 

 death of higher multicellular organisms is simply the 

 price they pay for the privilege of enjoying those higher 

 specializations of structure and function which have been 

 added on as a side line to the main business of living 

 things, which is to pass on in unbroken continuity the 

 never-dimmed fire of life itself. 



