THE PROCESS OF REPRODUCTION. 183 
Every organism, every living individual, owes its exist- 
ence either to an act of unparental or Spontaneous Genera- 
tion (Generatio Spontanea Archigonia), or to an act of 
Parental Generation or Propagation (Generatio Parentalis, 
Tocogonia). In a future chapter we shall have to consider 
Spontaneous Generation, or Archigony. At present we must 
occupy ourselves with Propagation, or Tocogony, a closer 
examination of which is of the utmost importance for under- 
standing transmission by inheritance. Most of my readers 
probably only know those phenomena of Propagation which 
are seen universally in the higher plants and animals, the 
processes of Sexual Propagation, or Amphigony. The pro- 
cesses of Non-sexual Propagation, or Monogony, are much less 
generally known. The latter, however, are far more suited 
to throw light upon the nature of transmission by inherit- 
ance in connection with propagation. 
For this reason, we shall first consider only the phe- 
nomena of non-sexual or monogonic propagation (Mono- 
gonia). This appears in a variety of different forms, as for 
example, self-division, formation of buds, the formation of 
germ-cells or spores (Gen. Morph. ii. 36-58). It will 
be most instructive, first, to examine the propagation of 
the simplest organisms known to us, which we shall have 
to return to later, when considering the question of 
spontaneous generation. These very simplest of all 
organisms yet known, and which, at the same time, are the 
simplest imaginable organisms, are the Monera living in 
water; they are very small living corpuscles, which, strictly 
speaking, do not at all deserve the name of organism. 
For the designation “ organism,” applied to living creatures, 
rests upon the idea that every living natural body is com- 
