This film explores the theme of life's origins, moving from nature and wildlife to human reproduction and embryonic development. It opens with sweeping nature imagery, sunlight through clouds, waves crashing on rocks, fish and garibaldi swimming underwater, eels, toads on mossy rocks, birds, swans, a wildcat in a tree, and deer on a grassy bank. Human society appears through a marching military unit, a boy raising a flag, children in a tug-of-war, and then the film turns to science. Laboratory scenes show men in lab coats performing surgical procedures, a gloved hand opening a patient's abdomen with forceps, and a man drawing liquid into a syringe and observing cells under a microscope. Text overlays and diagrams explain fertilization, the meeting of egg and sperm and how many eggs different animals release, illustrated by microscopic views of swimming sperm, an oviduct diagram, and needles entering a cell membrane. Detailed animation follows cell division, from one cell splitting into two, three, and four blast cells up through sixteen and beyond, and the growth of a complex embryo. Surgical footage reveals a placenta being pulled apart and a fetus curled upon it, followed by newborn animals, rabbits, spotted dogs, a cow, a horse, and a human baby waving in a crib, before the film ends with a fading logo and The End.