226 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LIFE OF OTHERS. 



The alternatives are obvious. It must divide, or die. 

 If it divides, what has saved its life ! Self-sacrifice. 

 By giving up its life as an individual, it has brought 

 forth two individuals and these will one day repeat 

 the surrender. Here, with differences appropriate to 

 their distinctive spheres, is the first great act of the 

 moral life. All life, in the beginning, is self-con- 

 tained, self-centred, imprisoned in a single cell. The 

 first step to a more abundant life is to get rid of this 

 limitation. And the first act of the prisoner is simply 

 to break the walls of its cell. The plant does this by 

 a mechanical or physiological process; the moral 

 being by a conscious act which means at once the 

 breaking-up of Self-ism and the recovery of a larger 

 self in Altruism. Biologically, Reproduction begins 

 as rupture. It is the release of the cell, full-fed, yet 

 unsatiated, from itself. " Except a corn of wheat fall 

 into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it 

 die, it bringeth forth much fruit." 



These facts are not colored to suit a purpose. 

 There is no other language in which science itself can 

 state them. " Reproduction begins as rupture. Large 

 cells beginning to die, save their lives by sacrifice. 

 Reproduction is literally a life-saving against the 

 approach of death. Whether it be the almost random 

 rupture of one of the more primitive forms such as 

 Schizogenes, or the overflow and separation of multiple 

 buds as in Arcella, or the dissolution of a few of the 

 Infusorians, an organism, which is becoming ex- 

 hausted, saves itself and multiplies in reproducing." * 

 There is no Reproduction in plant, animal, or Man 

 which does not involve self-sacrifice. All that is 

 1 The Evolution of Sex, page 232. 



