Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/516

 500 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

I have refrained from referring to the processes and actions by which the perpetuation of the species is effected in the lower ani- mal world (although it may be said that no phenomenon of either individual or social life can be adequately studied without having due regard to the laws of life at large), for the reason that, in proportion as we descend in the scale of organisms, the details of the same general fact become more and more different from those observed in higher types ; whence arises the necessity of many qualifications and distinctions. It is the overlooking of these qualifications and distinctions that often leads us into illogical conclusions and unwarranted generalizations. Not having much space at my command, I shall offer only a few remarks on this important subject.

In the lowest types of organization reproduction takes place by fission and segmentation, the result of the process being the disappearance of the parent, or, rather, the conversion of the parent organism into the offspring. A little higher in the scale the substance of the parent is consumed in the formation of eggs, the body of the parent being finally' reduced to a lifeless shell wherein the eggs are preserved and protected. Many of the lower creatures live just long enough to have offspring, and die as soon as they have fulfilled this "duty." In cases of this kind it is emphatically said that the individual "is sacrificed in producing" other individuals;' and the corollary naturally derived from this law of "sacrifice" is that the "interests" of the individual are subordinated to the "interests" of the race. Mr. Spencer, however, after reviewing the conditions of reproduction from the lowest to the highest types, con- cludes :

In proportion as organisms become higher in their structures and powers, they are individually less sacrificed to the maintenance of the species ; and the implication is that in the highest type of man the sacrifice is reduced to a minimum.'

Although the truth is here recognized that the welfare of the individual has gradually come to be of as much importance as

■ Spen'CER, Principle of Sociology, Vol. I, § 275. »/*/</.,§§ 275,277.