E. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE 



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be said to constitute a living whole, for the one animal 



may be divided into two, and the two into four, and 



each part will grow into an organism like that of which 



it is a segment — the parts grow into wholes, and in the 



place of the one individual organism we get four others 



similar in kind. By mechanical injury or compression 



we may destroy any single part so compressed, but we 



do not affect the total organism, except for a time : 

 the lost part is reproduced. 



These also are the kinds of phenomena and modes 

 of Life with which we are familiar throughout the 

 Vegetable Kingdom — nowhere do we meet with any- 

 thing like that same amount of integration or indi- 

 viduation which is characteristic of the higher animals. 

 Mere fragments of plants in the form of buds, ^ cut- 

 tings,' or portions of the root, separated from the parent 

 organism, are capable of reproducing plants similar 

 to those from which they have been derived. The 

 ^tendency to individuation^ exists here also, but even 

 in the most perfect plant the accompUshed result is 

 small indeed, when compared with what we encounter 

 amongst animals. The absence of a nervous system 



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longing to the family ThaumantiadcE of Gegenbaiier (Laodkei of Agassiz). 

 In several species of this family I could divide the umbrella into more 

 than a hundred species; and from each, provided it only contained 

 a portion of the margin of the umbrella, grew in a few days (from two 

 to four) a complete small medusa. Merely a loosened shred of the 

 fringe on which the base (the adjoining piece of the edge of the umbrella) 

 remained, formed a medusa in a few days.'—' Monograph of Monera.' 

 Transl. in ' Quart. Journal of Micros. Science,' April, 1869, P- Ii7- 



VOL. I. 



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