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124 LIFE AND HABIT. 



We conclude, therefore, that it is within the common 

 scope and meaning of the words " personal identity," 

 not only that one creature can become many as the 

 moth becomes manifold in her eggs, but that each 

 individual may be manifold in the sense of being com- 

 pounded of a vast number of subordinate individualities 

 which have their separate lives within him, with their 

 hopes, and fears, and intrigues, being born and dying 

 within us, many generations, of them during our single 

 lifetime. 



" An organic being," writes Mr. Darwin, " is a micro- 

 cosm, a little universe, formed of a host of self-propa- 

 gating organisms, inconceivably minute, and numerous 

 as the stars in heaven." 



As these myriads of smaller organisms are parts 

 and processes of us, so are we but parts and processes 

 of life at large. 



