26 ANIMAL INDIVIDUALITY [CH. 



reproduction by detaching one small part of himself 

 instead of by division of the whole (p. 45), he can 

 even linger on the stage till the next scene is half 

 played through. 



In the actual duration of his life, the individual 

 ranges from the bacterium's hour to the big tree's 

 five thousand years. So far the direct and obvious 

 path can lead. But consciousness once more has 

 found out a way more subtle and more effective. 

 Man in this again stands on the pinnacle of individu- 

 ality not in mere length of days, but in having found 

 a means to perpetuate part of himself in spite of death. 

 By speech first, but far more by writing, and more 

 again by printing, man has been able to put some- 

 thing of himself beyond death. In tradition and in 

 books an integral part of the individual persists, and 

 a part which still works and is active, for it can in- 

 fluence the minds and actions of other individuals in 

 different places and at different times : a row of black 

 marks on a page can move a man to tears, though the 

 bones of him that wrote it are long ago crumbled to 

 dust. In truth, the whole of the progress of civiliza- 

 tion is based on this power. Once more the upward 

 progress of terrestrial life towards individuality has 

 found apparently insurmountable obstacles, gross 

 material difficulties before it, but once more through 

 consciousness it finds wings, and, laughing at matter, 

 flies over lightly where it could not climb. 



