104 The Bible of Nature 



beginning of death. The wear and tear of daily 

 life is not perfectly compensated for, physiological 

 arrears accumulate, the creature gets into debt, 

 and there is a quick or slow descent to the vita 

 minima of senescence, ending in natural death, if 

 violent death has not previously intervened. We 

 can make curves representative of the various kinds 

 of life-history, some with a very rapid ascent and 

 a slow descent, some with a slow ascent and a very 

 rapid descent, some with a long period of maturity, 

 some, as of the May-flies, with an almost abrupt 

 apex. But always there is the same general phe- 

 nomenon of cyclical development. For the life 

 of the organism is very different from the path of a 

 rocket in the air, returning spent to the level whence 

 it rose, very different from the course of the drops 

 of water in a fountain, which rise to the summit, 

 sparkle a moment in the sunlight, and sink again 

 to earth. The fact of reproduction makes an 

 essential difference. In all but the simplest or- 

 ganisms, part of the growing germ gives rise to the 

 body, but part remains unaltered and forms the 

 germ-cells for another generation. The body 

 perishes, but the germ-cells live on. Individual 

 organisms are pendants that fall off an immortal 

 lineage of germ-cells. Huxley compared the state 

 of affairs to what might occur if a strawberry plant 

 had an endlessly growing ''sucker" or stolon, root- 

 ing here and there, and forming transient straw- 



