CHAPTER V. 



ANTAGONISM BETWEEN GROWTH AND ASEXUAL GENESIS. 



334. When illustrating, in Part IV., the morphological 

 composition of plants and animals, there were set down in 

 groups, numerous facts which we have here to look at from 

 another point of view. Then we saw how, by union of small 

 simple aggregates, there are produced large compound aggre- 

 gates. Now we have to observe the reactive effect of this 

 process on the relative numbers of the aggregates. Our 

 present subject is the antagonism of Individuation and 

 Genesis as seen under its simplest form, in the self-evident 

 truth that the same quantity of matter may be divided into 

 many small wholes or few large wholes; but that number 

 negatives largeness and largeness negatives number. 



In setting down some examples, we may conveniently 

 adopt the same arrangement as before. We will look at the 

 facts as they are presented by vegetal aggregates of the first 

 order, of the second order, and of the third order ; and then 

 as they are presented by animal aggregates of the same three 

 orders. 



335. The ordinary unicellular plants are at once micro- 

 scopic and enormously prolific. The often cited Protococcus 

 nivalis, which shows its immense powers of multiplication by 

 reddening wide tracts of snow in a single night, does this by 

 developing in its cavity a brood of young cells, which, being 



