260 CREATIVE EVOLUTION [chap. 



theory is open to grave objections: more and more the 

 idea seems to be gaining ground, that polyzoism is an 

 exceptional and abnormal fact. 1 But it is none the less 

 true that things happen as if every higher organism was 

 born of an association of cells that have subdivided the 

 work between them. Very probably it is not the cells 

 that have made the individual by means of association; 

 it is rather the individual that has made the cells by means 

 of dissociation. 2 But this itself reveals to us, in the genesis 

 of the individual, a haunting of the social form, as if the 

 individual could develop only on the condition that its sub- 

 stance should be split up into elements having themselves 

 an appearance of individuality and united among them- 

 selves by an appearance of sociality. There are numerous 

 cases in which nature seems to hesitate between the two 

 forms, and to ask herself if she shall make a society or an 

 individual. The slightest push is enough, then, to make 

 the balance weigh on one side or the other. If we take 

 an infusorian sufficiently large, such as the Stentor, and 

 cut it into two halves each containing a part of the nu- 

 cleus, each of the two halves will generate an independent 

 Stentor; but if we divide it incompletely, so that a pro- 

 toplasmic communication is left between the two halves, 

 we shall see them execute, each from its side, correspond- 

 ing movements: so that in this case it is enough that a 

 thread should be maintained or cut in order that life 

 should affect the social or the individual form. Thus, 

 in rudimentary organisms consisting of a single cell, we 

 already find that the apparent individuality of the whole 



1 Delage, L'H&redit6, 2nd edition, Paris, 1903, p. 97. Cf. by the same 

 author, "La Conception polyzoique des etres" (Revue scientifique, 1896, 

 pp. 641-653). 



2 This is the theory maintained by Kunstler, Delage, Sedgwick, Labb<5, 

 etc. Its development, with bibliographical references, will be found in 

 the work of Busquet, Les etres vivants, Paris, 1899. 



