CHAPTER VI. 



INDIVIDUALITY. 



72. WHAT is an individual ? is a question which many 

 readers will think it easy to answer. Yet it is a question 

 that has led to much controversy among Zoologists and 

 Botanists ; and no quite satisfactory reply to it seems possi- 

 ble. As applied to a man, or to any one of the higher 

 animals, which are all sharply-defined and independent, the 

 word individual has a clear meaning ; though even here, 

 when we turn from average cases to exceptional cases 

 as a calf with two heads and two pairs of fore-limbs we 

 find ourselves in doubt whether to predicate one individuality 

 or two. But when we extend our range of observation to 

 the organic world at large, we find that difficulties allied to 

 this exceptional one, meet us everywhere under every variety 

 of form. 



Each uniaxial plant may perhaps fairly be regarded as a 

 distinct individual ; though there are botanists who do not 

 make even this admission. TVhat, however, are we to say of 

 a multiaxial plant ? It is, indeed, usual to speak of a tree 

 with its many branches and shoots, as singular ; but strong 

 reasons may be urged for considering it as plural. Every 

 one of its axes has a more or less independent life, and when 

 cut off and planted, may grow into the likeness of its parent ; 

 or by grafting and budding, parts of this tree may be 

 developed upon another tree, and there manifest their 



