12 INDIVIDUALITY IN ORGANISMS 



usual form or structure. As a matter of fact, no two 

 individuals are exactly alike, and there is abundant 

 reason to believe that this is so because no two individ- 

 uals are or have been subjected to exactly the same 

 conditions. 



From whatever standpoint we view the facts we 

 must always return to the conclusion that the unity and 

 order so characteristic of the life of the organic individual 

 are in some way or other an expression of a fundamental 

 ordering and determining capacity of some sort which 

 makes the individual what it is. 



REPRODUCTION AND INDIVIDUATION 



Reproduction, the formation of new individuals 

 from parts of those already existing, occurs in all living 

 forms, and the question of the origin of the new individual 

 and of the process by which the part becomes a new whole 

 individual is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the 

 whole problem of individuality. In the agamic or 

 asexual forms of reproduction, which give rise to new 

 complete organisms in the plants and lower animals, we 

 see the existing individual dividing into two or more, 

 sometimes in a very regular and definite manner, some- 

 times apparently falling apart, as it were, into frag- 

 ments or single cells; or it gives rise, sometimes in a 

 particular region, sometimes in regions manifestly 

 determined by chance factors, to one or more small 

 outgrowths, buds, which increase in size and become new 

 individuals, and these in some cases remain organically 

 connected with the parent, in others become completely 

 separated and independent. In many cases the char- 

 acter of these reproductive processes varies with the 



