r885 •] 
77 
Death and Individuality. 
same phenomena recur ; but some of the cells have becom 
specially organised, and thereby incapable of assuming th 
sexual state : hence, when the end of the cycle approaches 
only a few cells become sexual, and the animal (or plant) is 
mature. The higher organisms become sexually aCtive only 
after having grown for a considerable period, because they 
still preserve the primitive relation. Senility is the auslosende 
reiz of sexual reproduction. I hope to discuss the matter 
fully in a memoir which I am now preparing for the press. 
It is evident that, according to this hypothesis, sexual 
reproduction depends on the exhaustion of the cells. There 
are many fadts known to confirm this view. Thus among 
men the reproductive period begins sooner when they are ill 
fed. Among many of the lower plants reproduction is in- 
duced by defective nutrition. I believe that nutrition and 
reproduction are indeed opposed to one another, but by no 
means in the sense taken by Carpenter and Spencer. While 
I consider that the. impaired nutrition causes the effort to 
reproduce, they believe that reproduction is opposed to nu- 
trition, constituting a tax which withdraws just so much 
from the parent. Undoubtedly in those cases where the 
parent, in consequence of a secondary addition to the office 
of genesis, has to supply food to its young, reproduction may 
detract from growth, but, even in such cases, only sometimes. 
Carpenter and Spencer’s whole argument rests upon the 
assumption that the power of assimilation is only just equal, 
or about equal, to the demands of the parent. It is, how- 
ever, perfectly well known that the reverse is true, and that 
there is in most organisms a large surplus of assimilation 
possible, which is used whenever the functions demand it ; 
hence in most cases the secondary taxes of reproduction can 
be wholly or mainly paid without calling on the growth 
capital of the parent. Spencer’s d priori argumentation I 
consider superficial : it has led him to an exaggerated idea 
of an opposition which exists in Nature, but is not general. 
Moreover, Spencer has mistaken the cart for the horse : 
animals do not stop growing because they begin to reproduce, 
but they begin to reproduce because they stop growing ; or, 
more strictly speaking, both events are due to one cause, — 
senescence. 
It will be seen, upon reviewing the preceding paragraphs, 
that the views I advocate are opposed to all the other opinions 
upon the nature of death which have been noticed above. 
In a memoir I am now at work upon I hope to array a large 
number of observations to defend the theory outlined in this 
essay. 
