theme, in fact, of the interplay of Love and Death will run like a thread-motive through this book-not without some illumination, as I would hope, cast by each upon the other, and by both upon our human destiny.

CHAPTER II

THE BEGINNINGS OF LOVE

As I have just suggested, the great human problems of Love and Death are strangely and remarkably illustrated in the most primitive forms of life; and I shall consequently make no apology for detaining the reader for a few moments over modern investigations into the subjects of cellgrowth, reproduction and death. If this chapter is a little technical and complex in places, still it may be worth while delaying over it, and granting it some patient consideration, on account of the curious light the study throws on the rest of the book and the general questions therein discussed.

Love seems to be primarily (and perhaps ultimately) an interchange of essences. The Protozoa-those earliest cells, the progenitors of the whole animal and vegetable kingdomgrow by feeding on the minute particles which they find in the fluid surrounding them. The growth continues, till ultimately, reaching the limit of convenient size, a cell divides into two or more portions; and so reproduces itself. The descendant cells or portions so thrown off are simply continuations, by division, of the life of the

original or parent cell-so that it has not unfrequently been said that, in a sense, these Protozoa are immortal, since their life continues indefinitely (with branching but without break) from generation to generation. This form of reproduction by simple budding or division extends even up into the higher types of life, where it is sometimes found side by side with the later sexual form of reproduction, as in the case of so-called parthenogenesis among insects. It is indeed a kind of virgin-birth; and is well illustrated in the vegetable world by the budding of bulbs, or by the fact that a twig torn from a shrub and placed in the ground will commonly grow and continue the life of the parent plant; or in the lower stages of the animal world, where, among many of the worms, insects, sponges, &c., the life may similarly be continued by division, or by the extrusion of a bud or an egg, without any sex-contact or sex-action whatever.

This seems in fact to be the original and primitive form of generation; and it obviously depends upon growth. Generation is the superfluity, the ẞpis, of growth, and connects itself in the first instance with the satisfaction of hunger. First hunger, then growth, then reproduction by division or budding. And this process may go on apparently for many generations without change-in the case of certain Protozoa even to hundreds of generations. But a time comes when the growth-power and energy

1

decay, and the vitality diminishes at any rate, as a rule.2 But then a variation occurs. Two cells unite, exchange fluids, and part again. It is a new form of nourishment; it is the earliest form of Love. It is a very intimate form of nourishment; for it appears that in general the nuclei themselves of the two cells are shared and in part exchanged. And the vitality so obtained gives the cells a new lease of life. They are in fact regenerated. And each partner grows again actively and reproduces itself by budding and division as before. Sometimes the two uniting cells will remain conjoined; and the joint cell will then generate buds, or in some cases enlarge to bursting point, and so, perishing itself, break up into a numerous progeny.3

1" In November 1885, M. Maupas isolated an infusorian (Stylonichia pustulata), and observed its generations till March 1886. By that time there had been 215 generations produced by ordinary division, and since these lowly organisms do not conjugate with near relatives, there had of course been no sexual union.-What was the result? At the date referred to, the family was observed to have exhausted itself. The members, though not exactly old, were being born old. The sexual division came to a standstill, and the powers of nutrition were also lost" (Evolution of Sex, Geddes and Thomson, 1901, p. 177).

2 See, however, Evolution of Sex, p. 178, where a case is recorded of 458 generations of another infusorian apparently without degeneration. See also The Cell, by Dr. Oscar Hertwig (Sonnenschein, 1909), p. 292.

The exchange of life-elements between two individuals is well illustrated in the case of the infusorian Noctiluca. Two

Noctilucas, A and B, AB coalesce; and then later divide

again along a plane (indicated by dotted line) at right angles to the plane of contact. Two new individuals are thus formed, and each Noctiluca has absorbed half of the other. Their activities are regenerated and they begin a new life.

So far there seems to be but little differentiation between Hunger and Love. Love is only a special hunger which leads cells to obtain nourishment from other cells of the same species; and generation or reproduction in these early stages, being an inevitable accompaniment of growth, follows on the satisfaction of love just as it follows on the satisfaction of hunger. Rolph's words on the relation of these two impulses (quoted by Geddes and Thompson) are very suggestive. He says:-"Conjugation occurs when nutrition is diminished. . . . It is a necessity for satisfaction, a growing hunger, which drives the animal to engulf its neighbor, to 'isophagy.' The process of conjugation is only a special form of nutrition, which occurs on a reduction of the nutritive income, or an increase of the nutritive needs."

And so far there is no distinction of sex. It is true there may be sex in the sense of union or fusion between two individuals; but there is no distinction of sex, in the sense of male and female. In the Protozoa generally there is simple union or conjugation between cells, which, as far as can be observed, are quite similar to each other. It is a union between similars; and it leads to growth and reproduction. But both union and reproduction at this early stage exist quite independently of any distinctive sex-action, or any differentiation of individuals into male and female.

At a later period, however, Sex comes in. It