262 THE EVOLUTION OF SEX. 



which makes the multicellular organism what it is ; they remain 

 simple primitive cells like the Protozoa, and in a sense they 

 too share the protozoon immortality. The diagram shows how 

 one of these cells, separated from the parent organism (and 

 uniting in most cases with a germ-cell of different origin) 

 becomes the beginning of a new body, and, at the same time, 

 necessarily the origin of a new chain, or rather of a continued 

 chain of fresh reproductive cells. 



" The body or so?na,'" Weismann says, " thus appears to a 

 certain extent as a subsidiary appendage of the true bearers of 

 the life, — the reproductive cells." Ray Lankester has again 

 well expressed this : — -"Among the multicellular animals, certain 

 cells are separated from the rest of the constituent units of the 

 body, as egg-cells and sperm-cells; these conjugate and continue 

 to live, whilst the remaining cells, the mere carriers as it were 

 of the immortal reproductive cells, die and disintegrate. The 

 bodies of the higher animals which die, may from this point of 

 view be regarded as something temporary and non-essential, 

 destined merely to carry for a time, to nurse, and to nourish 

 the more important and deathless fission-products of the 

 unicellular egg." 



In most cases, as Weismann insists, it is more correct to 

 speak of " the continuity of the germinal protoplasm " than of 

 the continuity of the germ-cells ; but, with this proviso, the 

 diagram expresses a fact most important in understanding 

 reproduction and heredity, that the chain of life is in a real 

 sense continuous, and that the " bodies " which die are 

 deciduous growths, which arise round about the real links. 

 The bodies are but the torches which burn out, while the living 

 flame has passed throughout the organic series unextinguished. 

 The bodies are the leaves which fall in dying from the 

 continuously growing branch. Thus although death take 

 inexorable grasp of the individual, the continuance of the life 

 is still in a deep sense unaffected ; the reproductive elements 

 have already claimed their protozoon immortality, are already 

 recreating a new body ; so in the simplest physical, as in the 

 highest psychic life, we may say that love is stronger than 

 death. 



