CHAPTER VII. 



GENESIS. 



75. HAVING, in the last chapter but one, concluded what 

 constitutes an individual, and having, in the last chapter, 

 contemplated the histological process which initiates a new 

 individual, we are in a position to deal with the multiplica- 

 tion of individuals. For this, the title Genesis is here chosen 

 as being the most comprehensive title the least specialized 

 in its meaning. By some biologists Generation has been used 

 to signify one method of multiplication, and Reproduction 

 to signify another method; and each of these words has been 

 thus rendered in some degree unfit to signify multiplication 

 in general. 



Here the reader is indirectly introduced to the fact that 

 the production of new organisms is carried on in fundament- 

 ally unlike ways. Up to quite recent times it was believed, 

 even by naturalists, that all the various processes of multi- 

 plication observable in different kinds of organisms, have one 

 essential character in common : it was supposed that in every 

 species the successive generations are alike. It has now 

 been proved, however, that in many plants and in numerous 

 animals, the successive generations are not alike; that from 

 one generation there proceeds another whose members differ 

 more or less in structure from their parents; that these 

 produce others like themselves, or like their parents, or like 

 neither; but that eventually, the original form re-appears. 



