124 METAMORPHOSES OF MAN 



CHAPTER XIII. 



GENEAGENESTS. EIRST PHENOMENA OF GENEAGENESIS 



DISCOVERED IN ANIMALS. AGAMIC* GENERATION ( APHI- 

 DES). REPRODUCTION BY FISSURATION AND BY GEM- 

 MATION (POLYPS, HYDR^E, COMPOUND ascidians). 



In the two earlier portions of this work we saw that 

 the lower animals, and even man himself, spring from 

 germs which are invariably similar at first, and which 

 moreover are genuine ova. I pointed out, also, how, 

 under the influence of vital action, this resemblance 

 disappeared, and there resulted an infinite variety of 

 forms. At the same time I showed that no single 

 species exhibited at the outset its definitive or adult 

 features, — that the embryo is never the miniature of 

 the perfect being. From this the reader has been 

 led to conclude that every animal undergoes metamor- 

 phoses. Nevertheless, this phenomenon, although in 

 all important particulars the same, assumes different 

 features in different groups. In man, and in almost 

 all vertebrates, the transformations take place chiefly 

 within the egg, and on that account are familiar 

 only to scientific men. In insects, on the contrary, 

 the true metamorphoses occurring external to the 

 egg, and modifying the form of an animal as ex- 

 tensively as if a fish were converted into a bird, 



* Without intercourse of the sexes. 



