66 ANIMAL INDIVIDUALITY [OH. 



one of them taken singly) it was the first thing 

 evolved to which individuality could adhere. It was 

 like Benjamin Franklin's kite, bringing lightning 

 down from heaven, but it did more than that, for it 

 provided a permanent resting-place on earth where 

 individuality could stay, could gather strength and 

 develop upwards. For this reason it is right to speak 

 of the cell as the foundation of animal individuality. 

 How in later times the relation of the cell to the 

 individual is modified must be left for the present 

 on one side (see pp. 137, 150): we must now retrace 

 our footsteps and see how others have defined the 

 animal individual. 



CHAPTER III 



SOME OTHER DEFINITIONS OF ANIMAL INDIVIDUALITY 



FROM time to time various definitions of in- 

 dividuality have been given by zoologists. Most 

 oi them are framed with little reference to the 

 philosophical idea of individuality, and the result 

 has often been that the term individual as defined 

 by them, though applicable to some reality of 

 zoology, can no longer be used without absurdities 

 in its more popular but more correct and more 

 original sense. 



