6(^ EVOLUTION, SOCIAL AND ORGANIC 



celled) organisms there is no such thing as 

 natural death. Accidental death is wholesale 

 in its proportions, but no Moneron ever dies 

 of old age. Astounding as it may seem to the 

 layman, the race-old, world-wide idea that 

 death is "essential to the very nature of life 

 Itself IS here totally and indisputably over- 

 thrown. 



"I pointed out,'' says Weismann, in the sec- 

 ond lecture and referring to the first "that we 

 could not speak of natural death among uni- 

 cellular animals, for their growth has no term- 

 ination which is comparable with death. The 

 origin of new individuals is not connected 

 with the death of the old; but increase by 

 division takes place in such a way that the 

 two parts into which an organism separates 

 are exactly equivalent to one another, and 

 neither of them is older or younger than the 

 other. In this way countless numbers of in- 

 dividuals arise, each of which is as old as the 

 species itself, while each possesses the capa- 

 bility of living on indefinitely, by means of 

 divisions." 



Among the Metazoa, i. e., multicellular or 

 many celled animals, this immortality of the 

 individual disappears. "Here, also," says Weis- 

 mann, "reproduction takes place by means of 

 cell-division, but every cell does not possess 



