128 STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 



CHAPTER YI. 



Every Organism a Colony. What is a Paradox ? An Organ is 

 an independent Individual and a dependent one. A Branch 

 of Coral. A Colony of Polypes. The Siphonophora. Uni- 

 versal Dependence. Youthful Aspirings. Our Interest in the 

 Youth of great Men. Genius and Labor. Cuvier's College 

 Life ; his Appearance in Youth ; his Arrival in Paris. Cuvier 

 and Geoffroy St.Hilaire. Causes of Cuvier's Success. One of 

 his early Ambitions. M. le Baron. Omnia vindt labor. Con- 

 clusion. 



THAT an animal organism is made up of several 

 distinct organs, and these the more numerous in 

 proportion to the rank of the animal in the scale of 

 beings, is one of those familiar facts which have 

 their significance concealed from us by familiarity. 

 But it is only necessary to express this fact in lan- 

 guage slightly altered, and to say that an animal 

 organism is made up of several distinct individuals, 

 and our attention is at once arrested. Doubtless it 

 has a paradoxical air to say so ; but Natural His- 

 tory is full of paradoxes ; and you are aware that a 

 paradox is far from being necessarily an absurdity, 

 as some inaccurate writers would lead us to sup- 

 pose ; the word meaning simply " contrary to what 

 is thought" a meaning by no means equivalent to 

 " contrary to what is the fact." It is paradoxical 

 to call an animal an aggregate of individuals, but it 



