DEVELOPMENT AND GENESIS. 465 



additional differentiations, and constitute wider departures 

 from the primitive type of vegetal tissue. That the con- 

 comitant of this higher organization is a slower gamogenesis, 

 scarcely needs pointing out. While the herbaceous annual 

 is blossoming and ripening seed, the young tree is transform- 

 ing its originally-succulent axis into dense fibrous substance; 

 and year by year the young tree expends in doing the like, 

 nutriment which successive generations of the annual expend 

 in fruit. Here the inverse relation is between sexual repro- 

 duction and complexity, and not between sexual reproduction 

 and bulk, seeing that besides seeding, the annual often grows 

 to a size greater than that reached by the young infertile tree 

 in several years. 



Proof of the antagonism between complexity and gamo- 

 genesis in animals, is still more difficult to disentangle. 

 Perhaps the evidence most to the point is furnished by the 

 contrast between Man and certain other Mammals approach- 

 ing him in mass. To compare him with the domestic 

 Sheep which, though not very unlike in size, is relatively 

 prolific, is objectionable because of the relative inactivity of 

 Sheep ; and this, too, may be alleged as a reason why the Ox, 

 though far more bulky, is also far more fertile, than Man. 

 Further, against a comparison with the Horse which, while 

 both larger and more prolific, is tolerably active, it may be 

 urged that in his case, and the cases of herbivorous creatures 

 generally, the small exertion required to procure food, joined 

 with the great ratio borne by the alimentary organs to the 

 organs they have to build up and repair, vitiates the result. 

 We may, however, fairly draw a parallel between Man and a 

 large carnivore. The Lion, superior in size, and perhaps 

 equal in activity, has a digestive system not proportionately 

 greater; and yet has a higher rate of multiplication than 

 Man. Here the only decided want of parity, besides that of 

 organization, is that of food. Possibly a carnivore gains an 

 advantage in having a surplus nutriment consisting almost 

 wholly of those nitrogenous materials from which the bodies 

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