544 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



each polype of a polypidom, each bud or shoot of a 

 flowering plant, whether it detaches itself as a bulbil 

 or remains attached as a branch.' All these are 

 c capable of independently carrying on that continuous 

 adjustment of inner to outer relations which constitutes 

 Life/ and therefore we may look upon them as bio- 

 logical individuals even though some of them do not 

 actually exist as concrete wholes which are entirely 

 separate. Individuals, in fact, are at first single and 

 separate, though they may give origin to others which 

 either remain in a state of aggregation or which may 

 separate from one another, according as their growth 

 is continuous or discontinuous. This mode of viewing 

 the question seems to me to be the one which involves 

 the fewest inconsistencies, though in order to make this 

 position clear to others, we must enter upon certain 

 preliminary discussions. 



The modes by which separate individuals have been 

 seen to arise are so various that they will be best under- 

 stood in relation to one another by throwing them into 

 a tabular form 1 . We shall thus be enabled to bring 

 out the differences and resemblances between the 

 several methods more clearly and briefly than we could 

 otherwise do. 



1 The Homogenetic modes of origin have been already referred to 

 (see vol. i. pp. 232-235); they must now be classified with the Hetero- 

 genetic modes of origin. 



