152 Luck, or Cunning ? 
done this we have only got to settle what a thing is—when 
a thing is a thing pure and simple, and when it is only a 
congeries of things—and we.shall doubtless then live very 
happily and very philosophically ever afterwards. 
But here another difficulty faces us. Common sense 
does indeed know what is meant by a “ thing” or ‘“‘ an 
individual,” but philosophy cannot settle either of these 
two points. Professor Mivart made the question “ What are 
Living Beings?” the subject of an article in one of our 
leading magazines only a very few yearsago. Heasked, but 
he did not answer. And so Professor Moseley was reported 
(Times, January 16, 1885) as having said that it was 
“almost impossible’’ to say what an individual was. 
Surely if it is only ‘‘ almost” impossible for philosophy to 
determine this, Professor Moseley should have at any rate 
tried to do it ; if, however, he had tried and failed, which 
from my own experience I should think most likely, he 
might have spared his ‘‘almost.’’ “‘ Almost”’ is a very 
dangerous word. I once heard a man say that an escape 
he had had from drowning was ‘‘ almost ”’ providential. 
The difficulty about defining an individual arises from the 
fact that we may look at “ almost ”’ everything from two 
different points of view. If we are in a common-sense 
humour for simplifying things, treating them broadly, and 
emphasizing resemblances rather than differences, we can 
find excellent reasons for ignoring recognised lines of 
demarcation, calling everything by a new name, and unify- 
ing up till we have united the two most distant stars in 
heaven as meeting and being linked together in the eyes 
and souls of men; if we are in this humour individuality 
after individuality disappears, and ere long, if we are 
consistent, nothing will remain but one universal whole, 
one true and only atom from which alone nothing can be 
cut off and thrown away on to something else; if, on the 
other hand, we are in a subtle philosophically accurate 
humour for straining at gnats and emphasizing differences 
