426 LAWS OF MULTIPLICATION. 



Once more, the deduction of materials for the propagation 

 of the species may be postponed long enough to allow of great 

 bulk and complex structure being attained. The procreative 

 subtraction then setting in, while it checks and presently 

 stops growth, may be so moderate as to leave vital capital 

 sufficient to carry on the activities of the parent; may go 

 on as long as parental vigour suffices to furnish, without fatal 

 result, the materials needed to produce young ones ; and may 

 cease when such a surplus cannot be supplied, leaving the 

 parental life to continue. 



326. The opposite side of this antagonism has also 

 several aspects. Progress of organic evolution may be shown 

 in increased bulk, in increased structure, in increased amount 

 or variety of action, or in combinations of these; and under 

 any of its forms this carrying higher of each individuality, 

 implies a correlative retardation in the establishment of new 

 individualities. 



Other things equal, every normal addition to the bulk of 

 an organism is an augmentation of its life.* Besides being an 

 advance in integration, it implies a greater total of activities 

 gone through in the assimilation of materials ; and it implies, 

 thereafter, a greater total of the vital changes taking place 

 from moment to moment in all parts of the enlarged mass. 

 Moreover, while increased size is thus, in so far, the expres- 

 sion of increased life, it is also, where the organism is active, 

 the expression of increased ability to maintain life increased 

 strength. Aggregation of substance is almost the only mode 

 in which self-preserving power is shown among the lowest 

 types; and even among the highest, sustaining the body in 

 its integrity is that in which self-preservation fundamentally 

 consists is the end which the widest intelligence is indi- 



prows to 6 or 7 feet long and a weight of 60 Ibs. and upwards and then 

 ceases to feed for 6 months while the eggs develop, and when the eggs are 

 shed dies." 



* I say " normal " for the purpose of excluding not only morbid growths 

 but excess of fat. 



