ANIMAL LIFE GENERATION. 



327 



must pass to making itself like to this object, 

 or generating another like to itself. The thing 

 assimilated is transmuted into the thing as- 

 similating. 



Thus we may again see that reproduction is 

 of two kinds : assimilative and generative, and 

 can be regarded as forming a bridge of tran- 

 sition from one to the other. In the first case 

 it overmakes the world into itself, in the sec- 

 ond it overmakes itself into the world. Thus 

 in the last instance the Organism gets to be 

 a kind of world-maker within its sphere; it 

 recreates itself creating, and so manifests 

 what is now known in biology as genetic con- 

 tinuity. This fact in its organic manifesta- 

 tion is what must be next set forth. 



III. THE GENERATIVE PROCESS OF ANIMAL- 

 LIFE. The present stage, as the third in the 

 movement of Animal-life, reveals itself as 

 a return to the Formative Process already 

 set forth. The Form of the Animal was there 

 (in the first stage) taken up as something 

 given or pre-supposed; but now that given or 

 immediate Form is to be seen bringing forth 

 itself in a kind of self -mediation, reproducing 

 itself through organs. So Generation goes 

 back to Formation, ever re-forming the body 

 of the Animal according to its pre-established 

 norm, of course with some variations. The 

 Generative Process, accordingly is a phase of 



