358 TJIE BIOCOSMOS PARTICULARIZED. 



classification is the Form as determined 

 chiefly by the bony structure. The assimila- 

 tive Process has furnished also a number of 

 criteria forranking the animal, but they have 

 hardly been pivotal. The question arises, 

 whence is to be taken the ultimate test of or- 

 dering all these shapes of Animal-life from 

 Formation, Assimilation or Generation! Of 

 course Form is the most apparent and strik- 

 ing, but the deepest and most essential fact 

 of animal existence is Generation. Already 

 some phases of it have been seized upon for 

 co-ordinating certain shapes of Animal-life, 

 but it has not been universally applied. In 

 this respect Plant-life seems to be better or- 

 ganized than Animal-life. One may be per- 

 mitted to think that there will be a gradual 

 approach in systematic zoology toward the 

 generative Process of Animal-life as the true 

 principle of its order. In that case even the 

 division of the Vertebrates will have to be 

 supplemented, or probably supplanted. 



But, having fairly grasped the generative 

 Process of the living individual, we find that 

 it reaches back to something more ultimate. 

 Necessarily individual Life pre-supposes uni- 

 versal Life as creative of this Life individual- 

 ized. The act of Generation taps the vital 

 reservoir which exists already, and which in- 

 dividuates itself into the separated world of 



