i] IDEA OF INDIVIDUALITY 21 



These qualifications, universally applicable though 

 they are to all individuals that we know on this earth 

 are still mere qualifications, not essential to the pure 

 idea of individuality : the perfect individual would be 

 eternal, subduer of time as well as of space. Since, 

 through practical difficulties, Life has not been able 

 to reach this perfection, she has had to content her- 

 self with the next best, continuance of the kind of 

 individual instead of the individual itself. 



This, however, is alone enough to rule out of 

 court the pretensions of all inorganic constellations 

 to individuality, those even of crystals and of solar 

 systems. The solar system is a whole most definitely 

 "isolated by Nature," heterogeneous, and composed 

 of parts closely inter-related in their working ; what, 

 besides the objection made above (p. 9), which may 

 only depend on our ignorance, prevents our calling it 

 an individual ? This, that its working is not directed 

 to continuing either itself or other systems like itself. 



The crystal has no parts, but is homogeneous ; 

 were it not, its working would still betray it, though 

 at first sight its growth and its strange powers of 

 regeneration display it as functioning to preserve 

 a special form. Put in a weak instead of a saturated 

 solution, and it will not simply cease to exist, like 

 an animal placed in unfavourable conditions, but 

 will unbuild itself as busily and regularly as just 

 now it built itself up. Such a combination of two 



