The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)Spencer, Herbert
Science
The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)
Spencer, Herbert
Biology
regularly recurring form of heterogenesis; and it is interesting to see how
survival of the fittest has established a mixed form. In the spring, as
well as in the autumn, there is in some cases a formation of resting or
winter eggs; and evidently these provide against the killing off of the
whole population by summer drought. Meanwhile, by ordinary males and
females there is a production of summer eggs adapted to meet the incident
of drying up by drought and subsequent re-supply of water. And all along
successive generations of parthenogenetic females effect a rapid
multiplication as long as conditions permit. Since life and growth are
impeded or arrested not by lack of food only, but by other unfavourable
conditions, we may understand how change in one or more of these may set up
one or other form of genesis, and how the mixture of them may cause a mixed
mode of multiplication which, originally initiated by external causes,
becomes by inheritance and selection a trait of the species.[33] And then
in proof that external causes initiate these peculiarities, we have the
fact that in certain _Daphnideæ_ "which live in places where existence and
parthenogenesis are possible throughout the year, the sexual period has
disappeared:" there are no males.
Passing now to animals which multiply by homogenesis--animals in which the
whole product of a fertilized germ aggregates round a single centre or axis
instead of round many centres or axes--we see, as before, that so long as
the conditions allow rapid increase in the mass of this germ-product, the
formation of new individuals by gamogenesis does not take place. Only when
growth is declining in relative rate, do perfect sperm-cells and germ-cells
begin to appear; and the fullest activity of the reproductive function
arises as growth ceases: speaking generally, at least; for though this
relation is tolerably definite in the highest orders of animals which
multiply by gamogenesis, it is less definite in the lower orders. This
admission does not militate against the hypothesis, as it seems to do; for
the indefiniteness of the relation occurs where the limit of growth is
comparatively indefinite. We saw (§ 46) that among active, hot-blooded
creatures, such as mammals and birds, the inevitable balancing of
assimilation by expenditure establishes, for each species, an almost
uniform adult size; and among creatures of these kinds (birds especially,
in which this restrictive effect of expenditure is most conspicuous), the
connexion between cessation of growth and commencement of reproduction is
distinct. But we also saw (§ 46) that where, as in the Crocodile and the
Pike, the conditions and habits of life are such that expenditure does not
overtake assimilation as size increases, there is no precise limit of
growth; and in creatures thus circumstanced we may naturally look for a
comparatively indeterminate relation between declining growth and
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