J 



THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



553 



[ 



^ 



NoWj in spite of such facts as are shown in the 

 preceding table. Dr. Carpenter^ and Prof. Huxley have 

 argued that the product of a single fertilized germ 

 should, in all cases, be considered to constitute a single 

 biological ^individuaP — even though such product may 

 in the course of its development, have given rise by 

 fission or gemmation to a whole multitude of separate 

 individuals, in the ordinary sense of the term. They 

 have proposed, moreover, that the separate constituents 

 of this biological individual should be designated by 

 the term ^ phytoid ^ or ^ zooid,^ according as we have to 

 do with a plant or with an animal form. 



The objections to this view of the case now appear to 

 be many and insuperable. Thus, the view seems based 

 upon the supposition that a sexual mode of generation 

 necessarily exists amongst all forms of life. And yet the 

 notion that the earliest living things would begin to mul- 

 tiply by a sexual process of generation is certainly not 

 imphed by the doctrine of Evolution. We can, how- 

 ever, much more easily understand how such a notion 

 arose and was generally accepted whilst the ^ special- 

 creation-hypothesis ' was still unrejected, and when our 

 knowledge concerning the lower forms of life was of 

 a more limited nature. Then older naturalists inva- 

 riably looked about for a sexual method of reproduction, 

 as a process essentially necessary, just as others have 

 been led to seek, and to fancy they have found, even 



/ 



See Dr. Carpenter's ' Comparative Physiology,' p. 528. 



