II CONJUGATION 25 



to be regarded physiologically as buds from it. The sexual 

 union and reproduction which follow exhibit the whole pro- 

 cess of so-called sexual reproduction in this light as a sort of 

 alternation of generations. The sperm-cell as a micro-organisin 

 conjugates with the egg-cell as a micro-organism. And indeed 

 the processes which take place in this conjugation are essen- 

 tially quite similar to those which are known in the conjuga- 

 tion, for example, of Infusoria. Here also the male element 

 (nucleolus = male nucleus, sperm nucleus) unites with the 

 female element (nucleus = female nucleus, egg nucleus) to 

 form a new nucleus, a part of the female nucleus being 

 extruded. This renovation of the Infusorian nucleus, like 

 that of the egg nucleus in sexually reproducing animals and 

 plants, leads to reproduction. For it is now known that 

 fertilisation universally depends upon the renovation of the 

 ^gg nucleus by its union with the sperm nucleus, accompanied 

 as in Infusoria by the extrusion of a part of the former. 



The essential character of ^.gg and sperm is that each 

 contains in homoeopathic dilution the sum of the properties of 

 the body of the female or male respectively which produces 

 it, or, as it might be expressed, contains an extract of that 

 body — just as two cells which in simple asexual division 

 arise from a single one contain the material of the latter 

 divided between them, or as the bud which separates from a 

 Hydra, or the bud which separates from a plant for the 

 propagation of its species, is of exactly the same material 

 composition as the organism that produces it. 



Individual Development as Organic Growth 



Individual development, or ontogeny, is also an abbreviated 

 phylogenetic growth, taking place under special conditions. 

 At the present time the highest living beings still develop 

 from simple cells, grow out of them, repeat in their develop- 



