Note 84 — III. LIFE AND DEATH.

The problem is very easily solved if we seek assistance from the principle of panmixia developed in the second essay ‘On Heredity.’ As soon as natural selection ceases to operate upon any character, structural or functional, it begins to disappear. As soon, therefore, as the immortality of somatic cells became useless they would begin to lose this attribute. The process would take place more quickly, as the histological differentiation of the somatic cells became more useful and complete, and thus became less compatible with their everlasting duration.—A. W. 1888.