430 Eimer on Growth and Inheritance 



organism which is impUed in the word individual/ and ' to 

 prove that the conception of an indivisible entity is unable to 

 withstand a more exact investigation.' 



In support of his proof he begins by affirming that 

 animals have been declared to differ from plants in that no 

 part can be separated without injury to the whole — a belief 

 he affirms to have been connected with, and to be indispens- 

 able to, the doctrine ' that the animal as distinguished from 

 the plant possesses an indivisible soul.' We do not know 

 any one who has ' declared ' this ; certainly no such declara- 

 tion has, so far as we know, been made by any writer of 

 authority or reputation. 



The old doctrine of Aristotle and the schoolmen, to which 

 we suppose Professor Eimer refers, was that every plant, 

 like every animal, has indeed a ' soul ' (by which was meant 

 what we should call a dynamic principle of individuation), 

 but that the divisibility or non-divisibility of such plant or 

 animal depended on the material organism informed by that 

 soul, which is simple common-sense. The experiments of 

 Trembley, Bonnet, and others no doubt excited astonishment 

 in the last century ; but that was because the men of that 

 age had left far behind them and ignorantly despised that 

 Aristotelian teaching Avith which the most recent advances 

 of physiology have so fully concurred. We recollect that, 

 when quite a youth. Sir Eichard Owen once said to us at 

 the College of Surgeons, ' I do not think that, in matters 

 of philosophy, the human mind will ever get much beyond 

 Aristotle.' We have grown to be very much of his opinion. 



Now there is no reason whatever why ordinary men 

 should trouble themselves with the study of philosophy. 

 There are, indeed, wide fields for the intellect to do good 

 work in, without that, especially within the domain of physi- 

 cal science. But when a devotee of physical science, merely 

 on the strength of his physical knowledge, goes on to preach 



