[1] Biological Memoirs, p. 142.

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that is from necessities which sprang up, not from the general conditions of life, but from those special conditions which dominate the life of multicellular organisms.”

On the inherent immortality of life, Weismann finally states:  “Reproduction is, in truth, an essential attribute of living matter, just as the growth which gives rise to it....  Life is continuous, and not periodically interrupted:  ever since its first appearance upon the Earth in the lowest organism, it has continued without break; the forms in which it is manifest have alone undergone change.  Every individual alive today—­even the highest—­is to be derived in an unbroken line from the first and lowest forms.” [1]

At the present day the view is very prevalent that the soma of higher organisms is, in a sense, but the carrier for a period of the immortal reproductive cells (Ray Lankester)[2]—­an appendage due to adaptation, concerned in their supply, protection, and transmission.  And whether we regard the time-limit of its functions as due to external constraints, recurrently acting till their effects become hereditary, or to variations more directly of internal origin, encouraged by natural selection, we see in old age and death phenomena ultimately brought about in obedience to the action of an environment.  These are not inherent in the properties of living matter.  But, in spite

[1] Loc. cit., p. 159

[2] Geddes and Thomson, The Evolution of Sex, chap. xviii.

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of its mortality, the body remains a striking manifestation of the progressiveness of the organism, for to this it must be ascribed.  To it energy is available which is denied to the protozoon.  Ingenious adaptations to environment are more especially its privilege.  A higher manifestation, however, was possible, and was found in the development of mind.  This, too, is a servant of the cell, as the genii of the lamp.  Through it energy is available which is denied to the body.  This is the masterpiece of the cell.  Its activity dates, as it were, but from yesterday, and today it inherits the most diverse energies of the Earth.

Taking this view of organic succession, we may liken the individual to a particle vibrating for a moment and then coming to rest, but sweeping out in its motion one wave in the continuous organic vibration travelling from the past into the future.  But as this vibration is one spreading with increased energy from each vibrating particle, its propagation involves a continual accelerated inflow of energy from the surrounding medium, a dynamic condition unknown in periodic effects transmitted by inanimate actions, and, indeed, marking the fundamental difference between the dynamic attitudes of the animate and inanimate.

We can trace the periodic succession of individuals on a diagram of activity with some advantage.  Considering, first, the case of the unicellular organism reproducing by subdivision and recalling that conditions, definite and inevitable, oppose a limit to the rate of growth, or, for our