ANIMAL LIFE GENERATION. 333 



reproductions of the Animal. With another 

 set of terms already mentioned we can reflect 

 upon them : individualistic and altruistic. As- 

 similation proper subordinates the outside 

 world to itself it is Nature's selfishness; 

 Generation subordinates the individual to the 

 other it is Nature's altruism, which still fur- 

 ther develops in the Animal as parent. So 

 the Animal is to remain not merely this living 

 individual, but is to make itself genus, the 

 creative type of its kind not only individual 

 but universal. 



The animal individual, from having been 

 the total Process in itself, which it was in 

 Assimilation, is now to become a part of the 

 Process only, one side of it or one-half of 

 it, which is the case in Generation. The dia- 

 lectic of Assimilation demands that it be sub- 

 jected to its own law, that it be assimilated, 

 and also by another individual. But this 

 other individual too has to obey the same law, 

 and be assimilated while it assimilates. From 

 this point of view each animal individual both 

 assimilates and is assimilated by its other, 

 which must be its symmetrical counterpart 

 organically, or of the opposite sex. This mu- 

 tuality of assimilation is characteristic of the 

 generative Process in its very germ, in the 

 two conjugating cells. 



The two sides of bi-lateral symmetry for- 



