THE LIVING SUBSTANCE. j^g 



may be sacrificed not only the general mother substance but 

 the father organism also ; more than this, many potential 

 fathers may perish in warfare merely that one such area shall 

 have the best of the material it needs. There are even cases 

 in which the entire father organism is but a servant area for 

 the fosterling substance, having existence, and possessing 

 no other parts and powers, than are necessary for this end 

 only. It is but the sham of an individual, neither eating nor 

 seeking food for itself. It acts only to secure for the perpetu- 

 ation substance it carries in the form of sperm, certain specific 

 environment this needs. It is a messenger foster area of the 

 mother organism. All its structures are adapted to this ser- 

 vice and it is an emphasized expression of the true meaning of 

 perpetuation machinery and areas. Such are male rotifers, — 

 they pass through an ^g^ phase but remain free swimming 

 foster areas of the mother organism. They never advance 

 beyond a true parasitic state, — they live and move wholly by 

 the specific environment the mother machine stored up within 

 them, and they perish shortly after accomplishing their mission, 

 that is when the sperm has been deposited within the body 

 cavity of the mother through a hole the tale spike of the male 

 pierces through the body wall usually about the shoulder region. 

 They possess no means of receiving or assimilating food, are 

 chiefly if not wholly ectosarcal, and are largely motile, tactile, 

 and perceptive areas. They have, let me repeat, no true self 

 expression as individuals, not even the semblance of it common 

 to organisms ; they function wholly as separate areas of the 

 mother rotifer — and for the race. They seem to me from a 

 hundred facets to illuminate the place of the individual in the 

 history of the substance. They form also a fine illustration of 

 the extent to which what one might term vorsichtigkeit of the 

 substance extends. A whole generation, speaking from the 

 usual standpoint, is interjected by way of providing that next 

 the mother generation with all its material, for the sperm go to 

 perfect a generation which will be truly collateral with that 

 formed by the males themselves. This would greatly disturb a 

 genealogical record, for the child of one parent seems to be the 

 grandchild of the other. In such a case the male is doubly 



