28 ANIMAL INDIVIDUALITY [CH. 



emerges from individual along the line of species, so 

 does species emerge from species along the line of 

 life, and every animal and plant, in spite of its 

 separateness and individuality, is only a part of the 

 single, continuous, advancing flow of protoplasm that 

 is invading and subduing the passive but stubborn 

 stuff of the inorganic. 



From this short survey of the types and tendencies 

 of existing individuality, three things emerge. First 

 comes the minimum conception of an individual; the 

 individual must have heterogeneous parts, whose 

 function only gains full significance when considered 

 in relation to the whole; it must have some inde- 

 pendence of the forces of inorganic nature ; and it 

 must work, and work after such a fashion that it, or 

 a new individual formed from part of its substance, 

 continues able to work in a similar way. 



Then comes the idea of the perfect individual- 

 something unknown to our senses, its characters a 

 mere raising to infinity of those enumerated above. 

 Defining those characters in different form, we may 

 say that such a being would possess perfect internal 

 harmony, and perfect independence (in our particular 

 sense) of matter and of time itself. 



Lastly, and this is perhaps most important for 

 the present quest, there shows the actual line traced 

 by Life in her progress up towards this perfect 

 individuality. She has had to contend with the 



