46 ANIMAL INDIVIDUALITY [CH. 



present question, the relation of one individual to 

 another. The essential point lies in the continuity of 

 individual with individual. 



To add the final straw, regeneration comes. Re- 

 generation is usually looked on as something strange, 

 almost abnormal, owing to its not occurring in man 

 or his animal familiars. In reality it is much rather 

 an original property of life, which for special reasons 

 has dropped out of the human scheme of things. 



As we descend the vertebrate scale, it is not until 

 we reach the lower Amphibia, such as the newt and 

 salamander, that regeneration becomes at all marked. 

 Even here it is present in a restricted form, and is 

 confined to the restoring of lost organs. A leg, that 

 is to say, or a tail, even an eye or a jaw may be re- 

 placed, but the central systems and main lines of 

 organization must be left intact. There must remain 

 a certain central residue of the individual if it is to 

 complete itself. 



This in itself points to a vaguer, more fluid notion 

 of individuality than can ever be got from contem- 

 plation of man alone, but what are we to say of such 

 things as happen in many of the lower animals ? Take 

 first one form of regeneration seen in Clavellina, one 

 of those poor relations of Vertebrates, the Ascidians. 

 Cut Clavellina across in the middle, and (in certain 

 defined conditions) a bud will sprout from the front 

 end of the hinder half, and another from the hinder 



