VI THE ORGANIC WORLD AS A WHOLE 225 



The view I have given of the nature of mental faculties 

 and of their origin, and particularly this view of the nature 

 of instinct, will appear the more probable the more the reader 

 assimilates and understands the consequences of the idea that 

 the organic w^orld is a connected whole, and that in particular 

 the most nearly related forms are clearly to be regarded as 

 differentiated by division of labour, as organs of a larger 

 organisation. " Thus the individual," as I concluded in my 

 address on this subject, " On the Notion of the Individual in 

 the Animal Kingdom," " as the German term for individual 

 justly implies (einzelwesen), is a constituent portion, not 

 merely of its own species, but also of the totality of the 

 animal world. It follows from this conception that the 

 animal world, in connection with the rest of the universe, is 

 a harmonious whole formed of correlated parts, in which no 

 part deserves an absolute superiority over another. If the 

 animal world be considered as such a whole, we reach the 

 idea of our profound philosopher Oken, and regard the 

 individuals as the organs of a co-ordinated whole." 



It is certain that rigidly logical reasoning must necessarily 

 admit the conception that individuals are organs, and species 

 and genera, by virtue of their definite structure adapted to defin- 

 ite ends, are organs of a higher order, of the whole living world. 



Thus — leaving aside anything more comprehensive — in any 

 case, immediately related forms are connected together as 

 members of a whole, within which they have, if we count 

 millions of years as minutes, only " recently " differentiated 

 themselves. We may, leaving aside species and genera, 

 grasp the idea firmly merely with regard to the members of a 

 widely branching family — and this we are surely entitled to 

 do. When we do so, the supposition that mental characters 

 are inherited with the bodily, with the brain cells also the 

 acquired impressions which have produced and developed 

 their infinitely sensitive and complex structure, cannot a 



Q 



