PERSONAL IDENTITY. 103 



have split itself up into so many centres of thought 

 and action, each one of which is wholly, or at any rate 

 nearly, unconscious of its connection with the other 

 members, instead of having grown up into a huge 

 polyp, or as it were coral reef or compound animal 

 over the whole world, which should be conscious but 

 of its own one single existence ; how it is that the 

 daily waste of this creature should be carried on by 

 the conscious death of its individual members, instead 

 of by the unconscious waste of tissue which goes on 

 in the bodies of each individual (if indeed the tissue 

 which we waste daily in our own bodies is so uncon- 

 scious of its birth and death as we suppose) ; how, 

 again, that the daily repair of this huge creature life 

 should have become decentralised, and be carried on 

 by conscious reproduction on the part of its component 

 items, instead of by the unconscious nutrition of the 

 whole from a single centre, as the nutrition of our own 

 bodies would appear (though perhaps falsely) to be 

 carried on ; these are matters upon which I dare not 

 speculate here, but on which some reflections may 

 follow in subsequent chapters. 



