228 From Matter to Man. 



actually members of the same individual. It matters 

 not, therefore, whether one of these related trees or a 

 thousand of them be uprooted, the parent tree's im- 

 mortality is ensured by its living representatives. 



But if this be the kinship in plants and low 

 animal organisms, it does not crucially differ in 

 the higher animals; for growth and reproduction 

 by cell-formation and cell-aggregation are alike in 

 all organisms. Hence (adopting the theory of the 

 spontaneous evolution of primordial cells) the an- 

 cestral germ of a man or any other animal, even 

 though evolved millions of years ago, still lives ; for 

 it grew and increased similarly to an amceba, by 

 halving and interminably halving itself. Whether, 

 therefore, these halves aggregated into special forms 

 or became detached and then aggregated into other 

 forms, involves no essential difference to the immortal 

 cell ; for the relationship of every halved cell, and 

 consequently the relationship of every aggregate of 

 those halved cells is alike, so far at least as its life 

 is concerned. Finally, whether millions of men have 

 dissipated into dust or not is immaterial as regards 

 the life of the original human cell, for the remaining 

 men and their aggregated 'cells still constitute the 

 primordial human cell in perpetual suicide. 



Death, therefore, in a sense, no more assails animals 

 and plants than crystals. Individually, the child 

 through its cellular aggregation is as much a growth 

 of the parent as the parent's own fingers or toes; 

 hence, a man, in his children, may be enjoying a 



