CHAPTER VI. 



INDIVIDUALITY. 



§ 72. What is an individual ? is a question wliicU many 

 readei's will think it easy to answer. Yet it is a question 

 that has led to much controversy among Zoologists and 

 Botanists ; and no quite satisfactory reply to it seems possi- 

 ble. As applied to a man, or to any one of the higher 

 animals, which are all sharply-defined and independent, the 

 Avord individual has a clear meaniDg ; though even hero, 

 when we turn from average cases to exceptional cases — 

 as a calf with two heads and two pairs of fore-limbs — we 

 find ourselves in doubt whether to predicate one individuality 

 or two. But when we extend our range of observation to 

 the organic world at large, we find that di£B.culties allied to 

 this exceptional one, meet us everywhere under every variety 

 of form. 



Each uniaxial plant may perhaps fairly be regarded as a 

 distinct individual ; though there are botanists who do not 

 make even this admission. What, however, are we to say of 

 a multiaxial plant ? It is, indeed, usual to speak of a tree 

 with its many branches and shoots, as singular ; but strong 

 reasons may be urged for considering it as plural. Every 

 one of its axes has a more or less independent Hfe, and when 

 cut off and planted, may grow into the likeness of its parent; 

 or by grafting and budding, parts of this tree may be 

 developed upon another tree, and there manifest their 

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