280 METAMORPHOSES OF MAN 



been known that the caterpillar proceeds from two 

 pre-existing butterflies ) and we mentioned how 

 recent investigations demonstrated the origin of the 

 Cercarise, Cysticerci, &c. We are now aware that all 

 those neuter individuals which reproduce without the 

 intervention of sexes, and whose multiplication was 

 so long a mystery, are the equivalents of simple buds. 

 We have shown that the bud and unfecundated ovum 

 can only produce individuals, or at the utmost a few 

 generations; and, finally, we have proved that to the 

 fecundated ovum alone belongs the task of perpetuating 

 the species. 



Now, in order to carry out this general law, it is 

 necessary that there be a female to secrete the 

 ovum, and a male to fecundate it. Hence every 

 animal proceeds, mediately or immediately, from a 

 father and mother ; * and what we here assert of 

 animals applies, as we have seen, with equal force to 

 vegetables. Consequently the discoveries, relative to 

 geneagenesis, strike at the very lowest foundations 

 of the spontaneous generation doctrine. 



Every living being originates in a father and 

 mother, that is to say, in a male and female. The 

 existence of sexes, of which, there is not a trace in the 

 inorganic world, is the distinctive character of orga- 

 nized nature, is, in fact, one of those primordial laws 

 instituted in the beginning of all things, and which 

 we must lay aside, at least for the moment, in order 

 to discover the reason of it. With a few exceptions, 

 whicli doubtless are more apparent than real, we may 



* As we stated before, the terms father and mother apply respec- 

 tively to the individual generative apparatus when the two are 

 united in the same being. 



