Author’s Preface to First Edition 
HIS book, as I have said in my concluding chapter, 
has turned out very different from the one I had it 
in my mind to write when I began it. It arose out of a con- 
versation with the late Mr. Alfred Tylor soon after his paper 
on the growth of trees and protoplasmic continuity was 
read before the Linnean Society—that is to say, in Decem- 
ber, 1884—and I proposed to make the theory concerning 
the subdivision of organic life into animal and vegetable, 
which I have broached in my concluding 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 I ever saw him, the 
manner in which he received it settled the question. If he 
had lived I should no doubt have kept more closely to my 
original plan, and should probably have been furnished by 
him with much that would have enriched the book and made 
it more worthy of his acceptance ; but this was not to be. 
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