THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LIFE OF OTHERS. 27 



moral, and social, and other-regarding has come along 

 the line of this function. Sacrifice, moreover, as these 

 physiological facts disclose, is not an accident, nor 

 an accompaniment of Reproduction, but an inevitable 

 part of it. It is the universal law and the universal 

 condition of life. The act of fertilization is the 

 anabolic restoration, renewal, and rejuvenescence of 

 a katabolic cell : it is a resurrection of the dead 

 brought about by a sacrifice of the living, a dying of 

 part of life in order to further life. 



Pass from the unicellular plant to one of the higher 

 phanerogams, and the self-sacrificing function is seen 

 at work with still greater definiteness, for there we 

 have a clearer contrast with the other function. To 

 the physiologist a tree is not simply a tree, but a com 

 plicated piece of apparatus for discharging, in the first 

 place, the function of Nutrition. Root, trunk, branch, 

 twig, leaf, are so many organs mouths, lungs, cir 

 culatory-system, alimentary canal for carrying on to 

 the utmost perfection the Struggle for Life. But this 

 is not all. There is another piece of apparatus within 

 this apparatus of a wholly different order. It has 

 nothing to do with Nutrition. It has nothing to do 

 with the Struggle for Life. It is the flower. The 

 more its parts are studied, in spite of all homol- 

 ogies, it becomes more clear that this is a construc 

 tion of a unique and wonderful character. So im 

 portant has this extra apparatus seemed to science, 

 that it has named the great division of the vegetable 

 kingdom to which this and all higher plants belong, 

 the Phanerogams the flowering plants ; and it 

 recognizes the complexity and physiological value of 

 this reproductive specialty by giving them the place 



