294 CHAPTERS ON EVOLUTION. 



buds of hydra, the free jelly-fishes of the zoophytes, or the apparently 

 free and independent members of the plant-lice fraternity, the 

 " zooids," which make up the personality of the true " individual," 

 may be scattered far and wide from the parent organism, and be yet 

 tied by firm transcendental bonds to the stock of which they are 

 really intimate parts. 



But a further question still besets us, namely, as to the origin and 

 meaning of the variations which animal individuality thus presents to 

 view. If the true function of philosophy be that of affording a clue to 

 the meaning of this world's phenomena by placing facts in their due 

 relationship to each other, it follows that the higher knowledge of 

 the varying " individuality " of living beings must resolve itself into 

 an explanation of the causes through which such personality has 

 been acquired. Such philosophy is necessarily founded upon that 

 view of the order of nature which regards the universe as an arena of 

 constant modification and progressive change, as opposed to the 

 theory of its originally and inherent stable constitution. It is the 

 theory of evolution, as opposed to that of specially designed ways 

 and means in nature, which presents itself as the exponent of animal 

 " individuality " and its causes. On the former hypothesis alone, is 

 the question of the individuality of living beings debatable ; since 

 the idea of stability in living organisms presents a dead wall to the 

 further discussion of the present as well as most other biological 

 topics. Hence the data of evolution and progressive descent, with 

 modification, must, in the present instance, be used as the pathway 

 along which our explanatory steps are to be pursued. 



That every living being begins life in a simpler guise than that 

 in which it spends its atlult existence, is a kind of home truth in 

 eyery-day life, as it is a dictum of biological science. The practical 

 difference between a low and a high animal lies in the fact that the 

 former does not advance much or anything beyond its primitive 

 condition, whilst the latter in time exhibits an infinite complexity 

 on its early structure. A gregarina or an amoeba are lower than an 

 oyster, because development leaves the two former with bodies but 

 little more complex at the end of life than at their birth. The oyster, 

 on the contrary, beginning as an amoeba-like germ, takes farewell of 

 development as an organism of high complexity, and as one whose 

 frame exhibits a marked differentiation of its organs, parts, and tissues. 

 Now, if the body of a higher animal be analysed out into its con- 

 stituent parts, we may, microscopically, speak of it, with the greatest 

 possible exactness, as a collection of cells and fibres or more simply 

 as a collection of cells, for the fibres arise from and are developed 

 out of cells. So that even the complex frame of humanity, is truly 

 resolvable into groups of cells which, however varied in structure 

 they may be, arise in their turn, at the commencement of develop- 



