322 DARWINISM AND THE PROBLEMS OF LIFE 



cells.^ Both the ovum and the spermatozoon must pass 

 through a maturing process before union, the essential 

 point of which is that it reduces the basic particles by- 

 one half. In the ovum and spermatozoon before union 

 half of the basic particles are expelled from the cell, so 

 that when the fusion has taken place, there is only the 

 normal number, and this is preserved in the same way 

 at each successive amphimixis. If we suppose that a 

 male cell contains ten basic particles and the corre- 

 sponding female cell the same number, amphimixis 

 would produce twenty, the next fusion forty, and 

 so on, if there were nothing to prevent the in- 

 crease. But as five particles have been eliminated 

 from the spermatozoon and ovum respectively before 

 amphimixis, they remain ten in number after 

 union. The same process has been observed in the 

 protozoa. 



We have now formed some idea of the origin and 

 evolution of life. We have seen that certain biogens 

 in a continuous series have the power of producing 

 other biogens before they break up, so that the 

 continuity of life is maintained. Whether this power 

 is really lifted above time, or whether the living 

 substance, which had a beginning, will also of its 

 own nature have an end, in the sense that in the end 

 — though after an incalculable period — even the 



^ Weismann pointed out the well-known reduction cleavage of the 

 ovum of this character. He postulated the same process for the 

 sperm-cell, because in his opinion the basic particles must be reduced 

 by half in this also before amphimixis. His theory was soon verified, 

 and the reduction cleavage of the spermatozoon was discovered. 



