194 THE HISTORY OF CliEATIOK 



forms a transition to sexual reproduction, namely, the 

 formation of germ- cells (Monosporogonia), which is often 

 briefly called formation of spores (sporogonia). In this case 

 it is no longer a group of cells, but a single cell, which 

 separates itself from the surrounding cells in the interior of 

 the producing organism, and which only becomes further 

 developed after it has come out of its parent. After this 

 germ-cell, or monospore (or, briefly, spore), has left the 

 parental individual, it multiplies by division, and thus 

 forms a many-celled organism, which by growth and 

 gradual development attains the hereditary qualities of the 

 parental organism. This occurs very generally among lower 

 plants (Cryptogama). 



Although the formation of germ-cells very much resembles 

 the formation of germ buds, it evidently and very essentially 

 differs from the latter, and also from the other forms of non- 

 sexual propagation which have previously been mentioned, 

 by the fact that only a very small portion of the producing 

 organism takes part in the propagation and, accordingly, in 

 the transmission by inheritance. In the case of self-division, 

 where the whole organism falls into two halves, in the 

 formation of buds, where a considerable portion of the whole 

 body, already more or less developed, separates from the 

 producing individual, we easily understand that the forms 

 and vital phenomena should be the same in the producing 

 and produced organism. It is much more difficult to under- 

 stand in the formation of germ-buds, and more difficult still 

 in the formation of germ-cells, how this very small, quite 

 undeveloped portion of the body, this group of cells, or this 

 single cell, not only directly takes with it certain parental 

 qualities into its independent existence, but also after its 



