Nutrition and Reproduction. 145 



What is true of the lower forms of life in this 

 respect is essentially true of the higher; reproduc- 

 tion does not normally take place during the period 

 of most active growth. 



The higher animal, starting as an egg, makes 

 marvellous gain as it develops from the simple 

 egg-cell to the complex animal built of countless 

 cells; it absorbs nutriment and builds up its body, 

 the gain far exceeding the loss. So active is its 

 life, so full, that it increases in size and complexity 

 at a rate which must appear marvellous when one 

 stops to consider it. But this gain, this phenom- 

 enal growth is not unlimited ; there comes a time 

 when the creature grows less rapidly, there is a 

 diminution of the building-up force ; this diminution 

 in the creature's power to increase in size hints at 

 coming dissolution. There may be a long period 

 of balanced existence, when loss and gain virtually 

 equal each other, when bodily and mental power 

 are at their best, but there is an inherited memory 

 of death, and there is felt the desire for help, — 

 perhaps for nutrition ; there seems to be a fore- 

 cast of inability to continue growing, and the old 

 remedy, the remedy descended from the age of 

 single-celldom, is resorted to. " I must diminish 

 this vast mass of cells which packed so closely to- 

 gether will not always be able to find renewal ; I 

 must resolve again into primal simplicity; I must 

 break up into simple units," it seems to say, and 

 forthwith finds the body too complex to resolve 



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