246 THE INDUCTIONS OF BIOLOGY. 



the normal connexion of the elementary individuals. But 

 we cannot stop here, since Xature herself combines these 

 individuals, under a definite form, into larger associations, 

 whence we draw the third conception of the plant, from a 

 connexion, as it were, of the second power (compound plants 

 — plants of the third order). The simple plant proceeding 

 from the combination of the elementar}^ individuals is then 

 termed a bud {gemma), in the composition of plants of the 

 third order." 



The animal kingdom presents still greater difficulties. 

 When, from sundry points on the body of a common polype, 

 there bud out young polypes which, after acquiring mouths 

 and tentacles and closing up the communications between 

 their stomachs and the stomach of the parent, finally separate 

 from the parent; we may with propriety regard them as 

 distinct individuals. But when in the allied compound 

 Hydrozoa, we find that these young polypes continue per- 

 manently connected with the parent; and when by this 

 continuous budding-out there is presently produced a tree- 

 like aggregation, having a common alimentary canal into 

 which the digestive cavity of each polype opens; it is no 

 longer so clear that these little sacs, furnished with mouths 

 and tentacles, are severally to be regarded as distinct indi- 

 viduals. We cannot deny a certain individuality to the 

 polypedom. And on discovering that some of the buds, 

 instead of unfolding in the same manner as the rest, are 

 transformed into capsules in which eggs are developed — on 

 discovering that certain of the incipient polypes thus become 

 wholly dependent on the aggregate for their nutrition, and 

 discharge functions which have nothing to do with their own 

 maintenance, we have still clearer proof that the individual- 

 ities of the members are partially merged in the individuality 

 of the group. Other organisms belonging to the same order, 

 display still more decidedly this transition from simple indi- 

 vidualities to a complex individuality. In the Diphyes there 



