PREFACE 



I MUST confess that when I made choice of Animal 

 Individuality as my subject, I had no idea of its 

 real importance, its vastness and many ramifications : 

 the teaching of philosophical biology is in England 

 to-day somewhat of a Cinderella. The working out 

 of the concept, full of interest as it was, brought also 

 regret ; a book of the size could have been should 

 have been made from every twig and a stout octavo 

 from the central trunk. This might not be ; and the 

 unavoidable compression must be pardoned. The 

 general reader must imitate the Organic Individual 

 (p. 26) and take unto himself wings of thought and 

 conscious effort to skip across the unbridged gaps 

 that perforce remain ; with them to aid, I think he 

 will find the stepping-stones not too far apart. The 

 professed biologist must not cavil when he finds 

 some merely general truth set dogmatically down 

 as universal; in biology (still so empirical and ten- 

 tative) there are always exceptions to the poor 

 partial "Laws" we can formulate to-day. To have 

 qualified every statement that needed qualification 

 would have added much to the book's bulk without 

 aiding the argument or being really more " scientific." 

 My indebtednesses are great. It will easily be 

 seen how much I owe to M. Bergson, who, whether 

 one agrees or no with his views, has given a stimulus 

 (most valuable gift of all) to Biology and Philosophy 



