THE CONSERVATION OF LIFE 249 



about anything else ; the shoemaker makes only foot-wear, the 

 tailor only clothes, and in return their other needs of life are 

 satisfied by the community. But such union and civilization 

 holds many perils. Whilst the individual does splendid work 

 in his own narrow sphere, he becomes far too highly specialized. 

 Left to himself he would be unable to exist ; in a certain sense 

 he ceases, and must cease, to be an individual and becomes a 

 part of the state. 



The development of the higher organisms from the protozoa 

 is an exact parallel to this example. The individual cell, how- 

 ever highly it may be organized, will always remain on a very 

 low stage. Its forces are split in the satisfaction of all the many 

 necessities of life, for it must be intestine, lung, kidney, muscles, 

 and sexual organ, all at the same time, and therefore remain 

 amateurish in all its performances. But by way of compensa- 

 tion it is free, dependent upon no one and, as it were, immortal 

 yet it lives but a life barren of the possibilities of development to 

 which Nature for ever tends. Several cells join together in a 

 higher union for purposes of common labour, without as yet 

 bringing about a real division of labour. As a result all con- 

 serve their original characteristics and faculties, no one-sided 

 differentiation of the individual taking place. Thus we obtain an 

 organism such as the Pandorina. 



The formation of the cell-state makes it possible that not all 

 the members need breathe and eat in order to exist. It is suffi- 

 cient that some of them render this service. Thus in order to 

 carry out these vegetal life-functions better and more intensively 

 the affected cells devote themselves exclusively to this different 

 activity and participate no longer in the preservation of the 

 species. That care is now left exclusively to other citizens which 

 are maintained and nourished by a community. The separation 

 of the vegetal functions from reproduction, the division of the 

 organism into body-cells and germ-cells is the first result of the 

 division of labour. On this stage of development stands the 

 Volvox. 



But Nature knows no standstill. The Volvox stage is over- 

 taken, the division of labour becomes more and more perfect, 

 and the labour of the organism correspondingly increased. In a 

 higher animal, a sponge, worm, insect, or even vertebrate, the 



