UNITIES OF LIFE 



nineteenth century to give a generally satisfactory an- 

 swer to this difficult question of the content and con- 

 notation of the idea of the organic individual. None of 

 these has found general favor. I have compared and 

 criticised them in the third book of my General Mor- 

 phology. I there paid special attention to the views of 

 Goethe, Alexander Braun, and Nageli among the bota- 

 nists, and Johannes MuUer, Leuckart, and Victor Carus 

 among the zoologists. When we consider the striking 

 divergence of the views of such distinguished scientists 

 and thinkers on so important a biological question, we 

 can understand that opinions are still very divided to- 

 day. Hence we must not be too hard on the meta- 

 physical philosophers when — in complete ignorance of 

 the real facts — they rear the most extraordinary 

 theories in their airy speculations on "the principle 

 of individuation " Compare, for instance, the opinions 

 of the school-men and those of recent thinkers such as 

 Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Hartmann. As a 

 rule, the psychological side of the problem — the question 

 of the individual soul — is very prominent, without 

 much attention being paid to its material substratum 

 — the anatomic basis of the organism. Many meta- 

 physicians, who, in their one-sided anthropism, make 

 man here also the measure of all things, would assign 

 personal consciousness as the basis of the idea of in- 

 dividuality. It is obvious that this is not a practicable 

 test even for the higher animals, to say nothing of the 

 lower animals and plants. In these we have a far 

 greater variety of individuality on the one hand, and a 

 far greater simplicity of construction" on the other. I 

 have tried to show, in my essay on " The Individuality of 

 the Animal Body "(1878), the easiest way to answer these 

 complicated tectological questions, and to support it by 

 the science of structure. It suffices to distinguish the 

 three chief stages I have mentioned, and to explain 



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