14 REPRODUCTION 



6. What is Reproduction? The methods whereby 

 animals and plants reproduce are as widely variable as 

 are any other of the facts of life. The remainder of this 

 little book is given to describing some of these methods. 

 We want here to find what, if any thing, is found in all 

 the different kinds of reproduction in the plant and 

 animal kingdoms. We want, in a way, to reduce it to its 

 very lowest terms. Sometimes it is exceedingly simple. 

 Again, it is so covered up and complex that one can 

 scarcely determine the steps. However, reproduction, 

 whether simple or complex, is always this: the division 

 of an organism into two or more. This is the fundamental 

 thing. This is always present in reproduction. This is 

 reproduction. The other facts that we shall find 

 associated with this one are not reproduction. Division 

 of one organism into two or more is the self-sacrificing 

 act that insures that living things shall not disappear 

 from the earth. The product of these divisions we call 

 offspring. 



7. Reproduction and the Life-Cycle. The reader will see 

 at once that it is reproduction which makes the cycle. 

 Birth, growth, maturity, decline, and death do not join ends 

 into a cycle. Reproduction is the connection of the passing 

 individual with a new youth. It is the return part of the 

 curve that restores the species to its starting point in spite 

 of the old age and death that overtake the parent. 



