The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English: or, Medicine Simplified, 54th ed., One Million, Six Hundred; and Fifty Thousand
John Stuart Mill · en
Something similar to this process of budding, we find taking place in a
low order of animal organization. Divide the fresh water polyp into
several pieces, and each one will grow into an entire animal. Each piece
represents a polyp, and so each parent polyp is really a compound
animal, an organized community of beings. Just as the buds of a tree,
when separated and engrafted upon another tree, grow again, each
preserving its original identity, so do the several parts of this
animal, when divided, become individual polyps, capable of similar
reproduction.
[Illustration: Fig. 97.
An annelid dividing spontaneously, a new head having been formed toward the
hinder part of the body of the parent.]
The revolving volvox likewise increases by growth until it becomes a
society of animals, a multiple system of individuals. There are
apertures from the parent, by which water gains a free access to the
interior of the whole miniature series. This monad was once supposed to
be a single animal, but the microscope shows it to be a group of animals
connected by means of six processes, and each little growing volvox
exhibits his red-eye speck and two long spines, or horns. These animals
also multiply by dividing, and thus liberate another series, which, in
their turn, reproduce other groups.
Generation requires the concurrence of _stimuli_ and _susceptibility_,
and, to perfect the process, two conditions are also necessary. The
first is the sperm, which communicates the principle of action; the
other is the germ, which receives the latent life and provides the
conditions necessary to organic evolution. The vivifying function
belongs to the male, that of nourishing and cherishing is possessed by
the female; and these conditions are sexual distinctions. The former
represents _will_ and _understanding_; the latter, _vitality_ and
_emotion_. The father directs and controls, the mother fosters and
encourages; the former counsels and admonishes, the latter persuades and
caresses; and their union in holy matrimony represents one; that is, the
blending of vitality and energy, of love and wisdom,--the elements
indispensable to the initiation of life under the dual conditions of
male and female,--_one in the functions of reproduction_.
Let us consider the modes of Sexual Reproduction, which are
_hermaphroditic_ and _dioecious_.
HERMAPHRODITIC REPRODUCTION.