The Message of Science. 79 



ocean, or sound waves in the air, has fallen into the 

 rhythmic, wave mode of life, as a general result of the ter- 

 restrial resistance to life ; and that the cessation of vital 

 energy, seen in aging organisms, is apparent rather than 

 real, marking a transfer of life from one generation to 

 another. 



The transfer of life by means of the reproductive ele- 

 ments, and the subsequent death of the parent organism, 

 is a mode of life into which all animal orders fell far back 

 among the earliest metazoons, if not in unicellular life 

 itself. 



It is manifest, too, that this tendency or life habit of 

 humanity is very deeply rooted in the cellular elements of 

 our being. The cell determinants are cast for growth and 

 decline. Sterilization of the reproductive tissue in the 

 individual, removal of these tissues, or the most rigidly 

 enforced continence have little or no effect as regards the 

 aging and death of the organism. The tendency of the 

 body to follow its inherited cycle of growth and decline 

 is inveterate, and not to be changed by the exercise of the 

 will. Something, indeed, this will-power of the personal 

 life may effect, but not that radical transformation of 

 being which the perpetuation of the individual implies. 

 It is to our science that we must look for prolonged life. 



Procreative desire rapidly slackens in individuals to 

 whom life offers sufficient attractions to live on for life's 

 higher, more refined pleasures ; and in this circumstance 



