The Beginning and End of Life 405 



sequent life, as well as every one of the rapidly removed 



and replaced cells of all the glands of the body, and every 



blood corpuscle which shall be found between the first to 



appear and the last reproduced at the end of the longest 



Life, we may well be astonished. But mere complexity of 



lis kind is but an initial difficulty. We must also believe 



lat every modification of structure, every process of healing 



id repair, and the nerve accompaniments of every feeling 



md thought in each one's life-history, must be similarly 



)rovided for in a definite manner at starting. In many 



limals great changes take place during life, the food and 



labits of the earlier stage of existence being widely different 



rom those of the adult. Thus a small beetle, called Sitaris, 



5tead of leaving its egg as a mere grub in the ordinary 



fashion, and subsequently changing into the adult, or imago 



condition, begins and ends its life in full activity, with an 



intermediate stage of torpidity. It is hatched in the nests 



of bees, and is at first active, and furnished with six legs, 



two long antennae, and four eyes. It attaches itself to a 



drone-bee, and when the drones and the queen sally forth, 



passes to the latter. Subsequently, when the queen-bee lays 



her eggs, it springs upon one, and when enclosed with it in 



the wax cell, it first devours that egg, and then, transforming 



itself into a grub, feeds on the honey it finds ready to 



hand. Ultimately it undergoes another transformation, and 



reacquiring its legs, etc., emerges a perfect beetle ! Now, 



according to Dr. Weismann, there must be present in the 



germ an arrangement of molecules such as infallibly to 



bring about all these processes, and provide at starting 



for all the complex changes of arrangement which may 



be necessary to build up reflex mechanisms capable not 



only of compelling complex instinctive actions occurring 



at one time of life, but of so successively changing as to 



be able successively to make necessary the successively 



