The immortality of unicellular beings is not at any time absolute, but only potential.  Weismann has recently directed attention to this point.  External occurrences may at any moment cause the death of an individual, and in this way interrupt the immortal series; but in the intimate organization of the living plasma there exist no seeds of death.  The plasma is itself immortal and will in fact live forever, provided only external circumstances are favorable.

Death is always said to be inherent in the nature of protoplasm.  This is not so.  The plasm, as such, is immortal.

But a further complication of great importance affects the reproduction and the rejuvenescence of these unicellular organisms; this is the process of conjugation.  Two separate cells, distinct individuals, fuse together.  Their protoplasmic bodies not only unite but intermingle, and their nuclei do likewise; from two individuals one results.  A single cell is thus produced, and this divides.  As a rule this cell seems stronger than the single individual before the union.  The offspring of a double individual, originated in this way, increase for some time parthenogenetically by simple fission without conjugation, until at length a second conjugation takes place among them.  I cannot consider further the origin of this universally important process of conjugation.  I will only suggest that a kind of conjugation may have existed from the very beginning and may have been determined by the original method of reproduction, if such existed.

At any rate conjugation has been observed in very many plants and animals, and is possibly universally present in the living world.

Conjugation does not affect the theory of immortality.  The double individual produced from the fusion of two individuals, which divides and lives on in its descendants, contains the substance of both.  The conjugating cells have in no way died during the process of conjugation; they have only united.

If we examine a little more closely the history of such a “family” of unicellular beings from one period of conjugation to the next, we see that a great number of single individuals, that is, single cells, have proceeded from the double individual formed by conjugation.  These may all continue to increase by splitting in two, and then the family tree is composed of dichotomously branching lines; or they may resolve themselves into numerous spores, and then the family tree exhibits a number of branches springing from the same point.

The majority of these branches end blindly with the death, caused by external circumstances, of that individual which corresponds with the branch.  Only a few persist till the next period of conjugation, and then unite with other individuals and afford the opportunity for giving rise to a new family tree.

All the single individuals of such a genealogical table belong to one another, even though they be isolated.  Among certain infusoria and other protista, they do, in fact, remain together and build up branching colonies.  At the end of each branch is situated an infusorian (vorticella), and the whole colony represents in itself the genealogical family tree.