viii PREFACE 



alike. The various Oxford philosopher-Mends who 

 have helped to comb out the tangles of a zoologist's 

 mind know how grateful I am to them: I will not 

 name them here for fear my heresies be laid to their 

 charge. 



Certain criticisms have convinced me that some 

 explanation of the scope of this book will here not 

 be out of place. The task I have attempted in the 

 following pages is a two-fold one. First, I have tried 

 to frame a general definition of the Individual, 

 sufficiently objective to permit of its application by 

 the man of science, while at the same time admitted 

 as accurate (though perhaps regarded as incomplete) 

 by the philosopher. Secondly, I have tried to show 

 in what ways Individuality, as thus defined by me, 

 manifests itself in the Animal Kingdom. 



I wish here to point out in general, that the 

 failure of one of these aims does not preclude the 

 success of the other ; and, in particular, this : it is 

 possible that the philosophically-minded will quarrel 

 with my definition of the Individual (p. 28) as a 

 "continuing whole with inter-dependent parts' 1 (to 

 put it at its baldest). But even if he denies that 

 the definition applies to the Individual, he must, I 

 think, admit that it does apply to something, and to 

 something Avhich plays a very important part in the 

 organic world. He will, I believe, after reading the 

 subsequent chapters, be brought to see that every 

 living thing is in some way related to one of these 



