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subject, and the statement of that which is obviously incorrect. 
It is life that is the real mystery, and the continuation of this 
’ife may be effected in various ways. Some of these in the 
higher parts of creation are wonderful enough, but others so 
simple as to be seen under the microscope as a process of 
cleavage or direct and visible division of the parent body.” 
Now, in the process of cleavage there is really no parent and 
no offspring ; but one life becomes two lives by a process of 
division which goes forward under the eve of the observer; 
as if the entity were divided by the stricture of some invisible 
cincture pressing from without. In other cases the new entities 
are formed within the parental body, and take its place by 
multiplication rather than by division. In the vegetable 
kingdom, as is well known, individuals may be propagated 
to an indefinite extent by cuttings; which are quite analogous 
to the former mode ; or by buds or bulbs, which fall of them- 
selves and produce new plants, which is analogous to the 
second mode. When we come to reproduction by seeds in 
the vegetable tribe, we first meet with anything like the 
“ advance from a simple to a more complex form.” We have, 
in fact, the result of a duality destined to further develop- 
ment in the higher ranks of Creation ; though existing in so 
rudimentary a character in the algae and fungi, as to allow 
Dr. Thomson (strangely enough) to argue for an absence of 
specialization. But if the fusion of two masses of protoplasm 
is needful to the production of a new individual, it must be 
evident that there is a difference, though we may not be able 
to distinguish between the two. 
This duality is, at last, exalted into sexuality, and the union 
of two sexes becomes ordinarily necessary for the continuance 
of the species ; ordinarily but not absolutely, because we meet 
with the phenomenon of 'parthenogenesis, as in the aphides, 
which are capable of reproducing to the extent of many 
generations until the approach of winter renders it expedient 
that males should be formed.* 
Gen. ii. represents not a new creation, but the “ building” 
of the woman out of the man. It is the same nature, but 
moulded into harmony with a different organization — differently 
perfect, and yet perfectly different ; so that the separate place 
of woman in Creation is not that of an inferior Adam, but 
that of Eve, the living one, rejoicing in maternity. 
This difference of organization, and consequently of tastes 
* For further particulars and details see Appendix C. 
