PREFACE. 



This book, as I liave said in my concluding ehapter, 

 lias turned out very different from the one I tad it im 

 my mind to write when I began it. It arose out of a 

 conversation with the late Mr. Alfred Tylor soon after 

 his paper on the growth of trees and protoplasmic con- 

 tinuity was read before the Linnean Society — that is 

 to say, in December 1 884- — and I proposed to mafce the 

 Uieory concerning the subdivision of organic life into 

 animal and vegetable, which I have broached in my 

 con<jluding chapter, the main feature of the book. 

 One afternoon, on leaving Mr. Tylor's bedside, much 

 touched at the deep disappointment he evidently felt 

 at being unable to complete the work he had begun so 

 ably, it occurred to me that it might be some pleasure 

 to him if I promised to dedicate my own book to him, 

 and thus, however unworthy it might be, connect it 

 with his name. It occurred to me, of course, also, 

 that the honour to my own book would be greater 

 than any it could confer, but the time was not one 

 for balancing considerations nicely, and when I made 

 my suggestion to Mr. Tylor on the last occasion that 



