i] IDEA OF INDIVIDUALITY 5 



harnessing the indifferent to his will, he is far 

 superior ; take as a concrete instance, for one the 

 stamping out of malaria in the Suez Canal zone, 

 and for the other the invention of the microscope. 



At the other end of the series, even the simplest 

 Protozoan has something of the same power. Al- 

 though in a current against which the savage (let 

 alone the steamboat of the civilised man) could 

 easily swim, the Protozoan is carried utterly away, 

 yet none the less it has some power of independent 

 movement, and is not helpless like the inorganic 

 grain of dust. 



This gradual increase of independence up from 

 the Protozoa to the highest animals is due partly to 

 mere increase of size 1 : the same current that carries 

 the grain of sand in its midst and rolls the pebble on 

 its bed, swirls powerless past the boulder. 



Partly it is due to increased complexity : the 

 actions of the caterpillar who once in his life weaves 

 an elaborate cradle to support his transmuted pupa- 

 self, without either practice or the sight of another to 

 teach him, can only be due to the actual machinery 

 of his brain, working in a way almost as stereotyped 

 as our machines, a long series of ready- wound clock- 

 work which must unwind itself when a certain catch 

 is released. The Protozoan or the Jelly-fish is not 

 capable of such precise and ordered action because it 



1 See pp. 85 8Q for some further treatment of the value of size. 



