402 PLANT PHYSIOLOGY 



the black locust (Robinia), the Scotch pine (P. sylvestris), the 

 common privet (Ligustrum vulgare), and other plants, ascends to 

 a maximum while the plant attains its full development, after 

 which it decreases as old age sets in. Redfield believes that this 

 improvement of the protoplasm in man with a maximum value 

 between the ages of thirty and fifty explains the fact that men of 

 genius are born when their parents are more than thirty-three 

 years old. Although the opponents of this doctrine hold that 

 the connection between genius and the age of the parents is one 

 of environment rather than heredity, it is nevertheless a remark- 

 able fact that a man has a much better chance of getting his 

 name in Who's Who and of being what is called a " successful 

 man" if his parents were over thirty years of age when he was 

 born. Clute (1919) finds in the peony, daisy, and other plants 

 that the doubling of flowers increases with age, which he inter- 

 prets as an indication of better protoplasm. Although more 

 doubling does occur with age and even though more geniuses 

 are born of old parents than of young, it may be that the dou- 

 bling of flowers and the flowering of genius are both signs of 

 senescence rather than vigor as far as the racial protoplasm is 

 concerned. 



4. Natural death occurs normally and necessarily only in or- 

 ganisms composed of many cells. Woodruff has worked with the 

 one-celled animal, Paramecium, which multiplies by simple fis- 

 sion, each animal at the time of reproduction simply splitting 

 into two. There is no division into soma and germ cells here, 

 but the entire body of the parent is divided between the two 

 daughter cells, which grow and divide as before. Woodruff grew 

 this form for about 12,000 generations, which in man would be 

 nearly a half million years! In these 12,000 generations there 

 was no sexual reproduction or rejuvenation by any sexual process. 

 If Paramecium can live for 12,000 generations without the death 

 of the material, it may be concluded that it is potentially im- 

 mortal. As Pearl says: 



Now it is apparent that there is no place for death in a scheme of re- 

 production by simple fission such as this. Nothing is left at any stage to 

 fulfill the proverbial scheme of "dust to dust and ashes to ashes." When 

 an individual is through its single individual existence, it simply becomes 

 two individuals who go merrily on playing the fascinating game of living 

 here and now. There is, in short, no hope that messages will be received 



