Animal Causes. 227 



Lankester * and August Weismann,f the protozoon, 

 which increases by fission, practically never dies. In 

 the amoeba, for instance, the one half of it is as much 

 the amoeba's self as the other half; consequently, 

 when the sub - division of amoebae continues in- 

 definitely, the relationship of the millionth amoeba 

 about to segment to the common progenitor of the 

 suicidal million, is virtually the same. An amoeba 

 thus never dies, for even supposing that millions of 

 them are swallowed, digested, assimilated, or de- 

 stroyed, the primordial amoeba still lives — as an 

 infinitesimal fraction of being — in its continuous 

 self-splitting posterity. 



Similarly in the vegetal kingdom, the sole en- 

 deavour of a plant is to live in the best way it can. 

 Reproduction constitutes a part of this endeavour, 

 and consists in a virtual continuance of a vegetal's 

 existence; for the seed of a plant is only a fragment 

 of its living self detached ; hence, when this seed lives, 

 the plant lives. In other words, vegetal reproduction 

 is only a modified function of automatic growth 

 (flowers and fruit being merely modified leaves and 

 cells) ; hence, to a fruitful tree death comes not, it 

 survives in its progeny for ever ; every tree of a forest 

 of the same species being not only brothers but 



* "Article Protozoa," Ency. Brit. 



t Prof. Weismann advocates the immortality of unicellular organ- 

 isms and the reproductive cells of the metazoa. The somatic cells of 

 the metazoa, which undertake the providing of sustenance for the 

 organism, he does not consider immortal. Contemporary Review, 

 October, 1893. 



