460 



LAWS OF MULTIPLICATION. 



tion between decreasing growth and commencing reproduc- 

 tion in individual organisms, we may, I think, consider the 

 alleged antagonism as proved.* 



* When, after having held for some years the general doctrine elaborat 

 in these chapters, I agreed, early in 1852, to prepare an outline of it for the 

 Westminster Review, I consulted, among other works, the just-issued third 

 edition of Dr. Carpenter's Principles of Physiology, General and Compara- 

 tive — seeking in it for facts illustrating the different degrees of fertility of 

 different organisms, I met with a passage, quoted above in § 339, which 

 seemed tacitly to assert that individual aggrandizement is at variance with 

 the propagation of the race ; but nowhere found a distinct enunciation of 

 this truth. I did not then read the Chapter entitled " General View of the 

 Functions," which held out no promise of such evidence as I was looking for. 

 But on since referring to this chapter, I discovered in it the definite state- 

 ment that — " there is a certain degree of antagonism between the Nutritive 

 and Reproductive functions, the one being executed at the expense of the 

 other. The reproductive apparatus derives the materials of its operations 

 through the nutritive system, and is entirely dependent upon it for the con- 

 tinuance of its function. If, therefore, it be in a state of excessive activity, 

 it will necessarily draw off from the individual fabric some portion of the 

 aliment destined for its maintenance. It may be universally observed that, 

 when the nutritive functions are particularly active in supporting the indi- 

 vidual, the reproductive system is in a corresponding degree undeveloped, — 

 and vice versd." P. 592. 



