18 Compound Organisms and their Lessons. [January, 
unreasonable supposition that man (should the Struggle for 
Existence in the ages to come be so intense as to reduce him 
to a pigmy) may succeed in training birds to waft him hither 
and thither in any required direction, the advantage to the 
individuals first capable, on account of their lightness, of 
being so transported increasing the tendency towards the 
reduction of the average weight of the species. Such an 
achievement will not appear impossible except to those 
minds which can only run in familiar groves. But far be it 
from the present writer to put forward any idea whatever 
anent the human future with that unquestioning confidence 
with which so many philosophers are in the habit of fore- 
casting it, — as to mind, body, morals, manners, circum- 
stance, and everything else, — and which, indeed, being 
without corresponding support, must be considered as un- 
scientific and indefensible. 
IV. COMPOUND ORGANISMS AND THEIR 
LESSONS.* 
f OME time ago (*‘ journal of Science,” 1882, p. 401) we 
gave a sketch of the characters which mark the 
development and reproduction of the Protozoa as 
compared with the same processes in the higher animals. 
We showed that as regards the former the terms “ birth ” 
and “ death ” have scarcely any meaning, or at least a 
meaning quite other from what may be traced in larger and 
more complex beings. We hinted, too, at startling questions 
touching personality and individual identity which a study 
of the Protozoa cannot fail to suggest. 
We will endeavour to carry the subject a little further, 
at least as far as organic individuality is concerned. Let 
us turn our attention to the opposite extremity of the 
organic scale, — if at least Professors Minot and St. George 
Mivart will pardon us for speaking of man as the highest 
animal. One of the plainest characters in a man — or we 
* Chapters on Evolution. By Andrew Wilson. Chapter XIII, 
