148 Life and Love. 



for love is the cry of starvation, the fear of death. 

 This condition, the individual supposes, concerns 

 himself, but instead it concerns the race, he being 

 but a means to an end. The race must live ; the 

 individual, at any cost, must provide for this ; there 

 must be no possibility of failure. So the instinct 

 of race preservation is in some instances greatly 

 overbiilanced, and in individual cases may even 

 operate to the injury of the individual. 



Not all creatures encounter death as the imme- 

 diate successor of love, but be the interval short 

 or long the sequence is the same, and in all crea- 

 tures reproduction is a sign of coming physical 

 dissolution, and is always more or less exhaustive 

 to the parent. 



In the lower forms we see the parent entirely 

 consumed in producing offspring. When the 

 protoplasm of two cells of spirogyra, for instance, 

 has united for purposes of reproduction, the life 

 of that filament of spirogyra is at an end. The 

 beautiful filament with its bands of green is de- 

 prived of all life — it falls to pieces — it dies. 

 Only the united cells of protoplasm or '' spores " 

 remain to produce new filaments another season. 



The parent lives in the oftspring, its own indi- 

 viduality ceases, it dies and disintegrates, — con- 

 tinuing its earthly life only through its power of 

 reproduction. 



Wherever there is special activity in the repro- 

 ductive centres, there is a corresponding brief 



