ANIMAL LIFE GENERATION. 359 



living things. But the individual once being- 

 born, has to go back and re-bear himself; he 

 makes himself the medium for the common 

 fountain of Life to pour into the birth of what 

 lives singly. So we are led to inquire after 

 this common fountain, the universal source 

 of the individual Life of Plant and Animal, 

 which lies in the background of all the va- 

 ried display of living forms on our planet, 

 and is indeed their primal form forming them 

 separately. 



Such total Life welling up into the single 

 lives of the whole Earth, we shall distinctively 

 call Earth-life, which embraces in its com- 

 plete process the sum of terrestrial creatures 

 and their common living substance. In it 

 takes place that as yet hidden transition from 

 the Inorganic to the Organic, from the precel- 

 lular plasm into the cell, where lies the source 

 of primordial individuation, which is broached 

 by the generative Process, and set to flowing 

 anew into individual existence. That which 

 is known in Biology as germinal continuity 

 has its origin in this universal Life of the 

 Earth, though this too originates still further 

 back. But Earth-life is the collective act of 

 Nature's individuation, the totality of vital 

 units from the microscopic cell (and possibly 

 before) to the largest organism. 



