GROWTH AND SEXUAL GENESIS. 439 



prodigiously- fertile E-otifer, to the Elephant, which approaches 

 thirty years before it bears a solitary young one, we find the 

 connexions between small size and great fertility and between 

 great size and small fertility, too intensely marked to be 

 much disguised by the perturbing relations that have been 

 indicated. Finally, as this induction, reached by a survey of 

 organisms in general, is verified by observations on the rela- 

 tion between decreasing growth and commencing reproduc- 

 tion in individual organisms, we may, I think, consider the 

 alleged antagonism as proved.* 



* When, after having held for some years the general doctrine elaborated in 

 these chapters, I agreed, early in 1852, to prepare an outline of it for the West- 

 minster Review, 1 consulted, among other works, the just-issued third edition 

 of Dr. CnYpenter a Principles of Physiology, General and Comparative — seeking 

 in it for facts illustrating the different degrees of fertility of different organisms. 

 I met with a passage, quoted above in § 339, which seemed tacitly to assert 

 that individual aggrandizement is at variance with the propagation of the race ; 

 but nowhere found a distinct enunciation of this truth. I did not then read 

 the Chapter entitled "General View of the Functions," which held out 

 no promise of such evidence as I was looking for. But on since referring to 

 this chapter, I discovered in it the definite statement that — "there is a certain 

 degree of antagonism between the Nutritive and Reproductive functions, the 

 one being executed at the expense of the other. The reproductive apparatus 

 derives the materials of its operations through the nutritive system, and 

 is entirely dependent upon it for the continuance of its function If, there- 

 fore, it be in a state of excessive activity, it will necessarily draw off from the 

 individual fabric some portion of the aliment destined for its maintenance. 

 It may be universally observed that, when the nutritive functions are 

 particularly active in supporting the individual, the reproductive system is in 

 a corresponding degree undeveloped, — and vice versd.^^ —Principles of Phij' 

 biology, Gem.ral and Compar.ztive, Third Editior, 1851, p. 592, 



