i] IDEA OF INDIVIDUALITY 25 



is often said that our bodies are only " cradles for our 

 germ-cells." 



It must here suffice to say that wherever a re- 

 curring cycle exists (and that is in every form of life) 

 there must be a kind of individuality consisting of 

 diverse but mutually helpful parts succeeding each 

 other in time, as opposed to the kind of individuality 

 whose parts are all co- existent: the first constitutes 

 what I shall call species-individuality, or individuality 

 in time, while the other corresponds to our ordinary 

 notions of individuality and, if a special term is needed, 

 may be called simultaneous or spatial individuality. 

 It is of individuals of this latter class that we have so 

 far been speaking, and to them we must now return. 



Our minimum conception of continuance the 

 continuance of the kind of individual rather than 

 of the single individuals themselves is thus a touch- 

 stone to distinguish between what is and what is not 

 an individual : it now remains to trace the progress 

 of continuance on this earth up towards the un- 

 attainable maximum of the undying. At the start, 

 the individual in such organisms as bacteria has a 

 duration reckoned merely in hours or even in minutes. 

 There is but the hastiest procession of never-returning 

 forms across the stage of the species. As we ascend 

 the scale, the individual learns to stay longer and 

 expound his part more clearly. With the attainment 

 of the multicellular condition and the possibility of 



