v 7 ; 139 



protoplasm of its sting. Things that originate alike 

 may surely eventuate in others which, chemically and 

 vitally, far from being mere modifications, must be pro- 

 nounced totally different. Such eventuation must be 

 held competent to what can only be named generic or 

 specific difference. The " child " is only "father of the 

 man " it is not the man who, moreover^ in the course 

 of an ordinary life, we are told, has totally changed him- 

 self, not once, but many times, retaining at the last not 

 one single particle of matter with which he set out. 

 Such eventuations, whether called modifications or not, 

 certainly involve essential difference. And so situated 

 are the " ducts, fibres, pollen, and ovules " of the nettle, 

 which, whether compared with the protoplasm of the 

 nettle-sting, or with that in which they originated, must 

 be held to here assumed, by their own actions, indisputa- 

 ble differences, physical, chemical, and vital, or in form, 

 substance, and faculty. 



Much, in fact, depends on definition here ; and, in 

 reference to modification, it may be regarded as arbi- 

 trary when identity shall be admitted to cease and dif- 

 ference to begin. There are the old Greek puzzles of 

 the Bald Head and the Heap, for example. How many 

 grains, or how many hairs, may we remove before a heap 

 of wheat is no heap, or a head of hair bald ? These 

 concern quantity alone ; but, in other cases, bone, mus- 

 cle, brain, fungus, tree, man, there is not only a quantita- 

 tive, but a qualitative difference ; and in regard to such 

 differences, the word modification can be regarded as 

 but a cloak, under which identity is to be shuffled into 

 difference, but remain identity all the same. The brick 

 is but modified clay, Mr. Huxley intimates, bake it and 

 paint it as you may j but is the difference introduced by 



