236 



THE E VOL UTiON OF SEX. 



Organisms, one hears, have to die ; they must therefore reproduce, 

 t lse the species would come to an end. But such emphasis on 

 posterior utilities is almost always only an afterthought of our inven- 

 tion. The true statement, as far as history furnishes an answer, is not 

 that animals reproduce because they have to die, but that they die 

 because they have to reproduce. As Goette says, "it is not death 

 that makes reproduction necessary, but reproduction has death as its 

 inevitable consequence." This, of course, refers primarily to the 

 incipient forms of both these katabolic processes. 



. •..>*• .>;?...:-;---:'j(n : .\..«',:',* '.' . 





-ft 



-a. 



Fig. 93. — A figure of cell-division suggesting the internal disruptions and rearrange- 

 ments of the nucleus (<■;) and protoplasm. — From Rauber. 



It is necessary to give a few illustrations. Goette refers to 

 Haeckel's Magosph&ra, a protozoon which just as it had formed for 

 itself a multicellular body broke up into the component units. These 

 lived on, and there was no corpse, but at the same time the 

 multicellular colony was no more. Again he takes the case of the 

 lowly and somewhat enigmatical orthonectids, which Van Beneden has 

 classed as Mesozoa, between the single-celled and the stable many- 

 celled animals. Here the mature female forms numerous germ-cells, 

 and terminates her individual life by bursting. The germs are 



