Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-08-24
Foa4s OF LIFE THAT ARE MEMORIAL

Whatever lives, we hear IL said, whether
Plant or animal, must sooner or later die.
1t will, therefore, greatly shock many per-
sons to learn that this is not strictly the
case. We wish here to give room for no
misunderstanding, and, if possible, for no
Intentional mlsinterpretation. All animals
may die, but death is not in all depart
ments of the animal kingdom an inherent
absolute necessity. On the contrary, in
one OF the two primary divisions of the
animal world, the PROTOCOL. it is, though
common enough, merely casual-the result
of some accident. A Protozoon may be
swallowed by some larger animal it may
be crushed out of existence, burnt, or
poisoned by disinfectants introduced
into the water or other fluid which it in
habIts But it has no natural term of life,
and, as we shall presently see, cannot be
spoken of as young or DID,
That this may be understood we must
briefly compare the life history, and aspe.
cially the reproduction, of the Metazoa
and the Protozoa. In the former group
which includes all the backboned animals
from man down to the humblest fish, all
the insects, mollusks, as well as lower
forms of life which scarcely attract popu.
lar notice-there ia always distinct diff
ference between parent and offspring. The
latter Is certainly portion separated from
the body of the parent-from the female in
all those forms In which there exist two
sexes-but it is as compared with the pa
rent minute in size, rudimentary in struc.
ture, and it has to increase in bulk, and
still more to undergo a process Of develop
ment, series OF transformations, before it
reaches the normal stature and make of its
species. When this point has been at.
tanned 1t enters upon the task of reproduc-
ton, and gives birth to one brood of young
ones, or in the higher forms to several.
With these it caexists for a longer or
shorter time, and then dies, the matter
which constituted its body passing into de.
composition. Ii we look at these very
familiar facts in the life of Metszoop, be it
a man or an oyster, we find that the ideas
of birth. of growth, of maturity, of parent.
hood, of natural term of life ending in
death, at once suggest themselves. If we
examine such Metazoon we can, In most
cases, at once decide whether it is in the
immature or the aduft rrhase of its being.
But in the Protozod-as Herr Butschli
has not long ago pointed out in the Zooloq,
iScher AR2eiger-this is distinctly differ.
ent.
Let us suppose we are watching through
a microscope one of these minute single. cell
creatures. We see it expanding Ito an
ellipsoidal figure, which becomes for time
longer and longer. Isthen begins to con.
tract about what we may, for the sake of
popular intelligibility, call its equator. 1t
assumes the form OF two nearly globular
bodies, connected, dumb bell like, hy O
narrow neck. This neck becomes narrower
and narrower, and at last the two globes
are set free, and appear as two individuals
in place of one What are the relations
of these two new beings to the antecedent
form and to each other? We examine
them with care; they are equal in size,
alike in complexity, or rather simplicity,
OF structure. We cannot say that either
of them is more mature or more rudiment.
airy than the other. We can find in their
separation from each other no analogy to
the separation of the young animal or the
egg from its mother, or to the liberation of
a seed from plant Neither of them is
parent, and neither offspring Neither of
them is older or younger than the other.
Or shall we try to regard them as
brothers sprung from the same parent? II
so, where is that parent If living, let it
No organic-or indeed any other-matter
was separated out when the two beings
took their rise. All the substance of the
body of the original Protozoon is included,
and equally included, in the bodies of the
two individuals before US. Thus we see
that the essential ideas of tie life of the
higher auimals-birth, growth, maturity,
psrentage, brotherhood, term of life and
IL -
these humble and minute beings, simply no
meaning.
The process of reproduction, or rather
multiplication, must, as far as we can see,
be repeated in the same manner forever.
Accidents excepted, they are immortal !;
and frequent as such accidents must be,
the individuals whom they strike might, or
ather would, like the rest of their COM
munity, have gone on living and splitting
themselves up forever. 1t is strange, when
examining certain infusoria under the
microscope, to consider that these frail and
tiny beings were living, not potentially in
their ancestors, but really in their own per,
sons, perhaps in the Laurentian epoch
This consideration opens up another
question. These beings are not wholly
unconscious, They experience and retain
impressions, however ClfllIy ana IN however
limited sphere. But when the splitting
up of one individual into two distinct per.
sonalities takes place, as We have described
above, we have then the curious phenom.
enon of two distinct and equal beings whose
past life is one, who will remember the same
incidents and the same reactions to which
such incidents have given rise. Here again
is phenomenon which we cannot realize
two contemporary and coequal beings, pos
sessing, up to certain point at least, a
common psychical life. Let us for a mo-
ment suppose that the propagation of the
higher animals took place in similar man
ner. We should see, e. G., the mature man
split up into two equal and similar men.
each remembering, knowing believing and
feeling, up to the day of fission, all that the
other remembered, knew, believed or felt !;
each, too. it might be ccntended by moral.
lists. equally sharing the merits or dement's
of the antecetient form, and each at loss
to say when his own personality took its
rise. Journal of Science.