OUR SUBORDINATE PERSONALITIES. 107 



others again are essential to our very existence, as the 

 corpuscles of the blood, which the best authorities 

 concur in supposing to be composed of an infinite 

 number of living souls, on whose welfare the healthy- 

 condition of our blood, and hence of our whole bodies, 

 depends. We breathe that they may breathe, not 

 that we may do so ; we only care about oxygen in so 

 far as the infinitely small beings which course up and 

 down in our veins care about it : the whole arrangement 

 and mechanism of our lungs may be our doing, but is 

 for their convenience, and they only serve us because 

 it suits their purpose to do so, as long as we serve 

 them. Who shall draw the line between the parasites 

 which are part of us, and the parasites which are not 

 part of us ? Or again, between the influence of those 

 parasites which are within us, but are yet not us, and 

 the external influence of other sentient beings and our 

 fellow-men ? There is no line possible. Everything 

 melts away into everything else; there are no hard 

 edges ; it is only from a little distance that we see the 

 effect as of individual features and existences. When 

 we go close up, there is nothing but a blur and con- 

 fused mass of apparently meaningless touches, as in a 

 picture by Turner. 



The following passage from Mr. Darwin's provisional 

 theory of Pangenesis, will sufficiently show that the 

 above is no strange and paradoxical view put forward 

 wantonly, but that it follows as a matter of course 

 from the conclusions arrived at by those who are 

 acknowledged leaders in the scientific world. Mr. 

 Darwin writes thus : — 



