t, is reality itself.

Now, we have considered material objects generally. Are there not some
objects privileged? The bodies we perceive are, so to speak, cut out of
the stuff of nature by our _perception_, and the scissors follow, in
some way, the marking of lines along which _action_ might be taken. But
the body which is to perform this action, the body which marks out upon
matter the design of its eventual actions even before they are actual,
the body that has only to point its sensory organs on the flow of the
real in order to make that flow crystallize into definite forms and thus
to create all the other bodies--in short, the _living_ body--is this a
body as others are?

Doubtless it, also, consists in a portion of extension bound up with the
rest of extension, an intimate part of the Whole, subject to the same
physical and chemical laws that govern any and every portion of matter.
But, while the subdivision of matter into separate bodies is relative to
our perception, while the building up of closed-off systems of material
points is relative to our science, the living body has been separated
and closed off by nature herself. It is composed of unlike parts that
complete each other. It performs diverse functions that involve each
other. It is an _individual_, and of no other object, not even of the
crystal, can this be said, for a crystal has neither difference of parts
nor diversity of functions. No doubt, it is hard to decide, even in the
organized world, what is individual and what is not. The difficulty is
great, even in the animal kingdom; with plants it is almost
insurmountable. This difficulty is, moreover, due to profound causes, on
which we shall dwell later. We shall see that individuality admits of
any number of degrees, and that it is not fully realized anywhere, even
in man. But that is no reason for thinking it is not a characteristic
property of life. The biologist who proceeds as a geometrician is too
ready to take advantage here of our inability to give a precise and
general definition of individuality. A perfect definition applies only
to a _completed_ reality; now, vital properties are never entirely
realized, though always on the way to become so; they are not so much
_states_ as _tendencies_. And a tendency achieves all that it aims at
only if it is not thwarted by another tendency. How, then, could this
occur in the domain of life, where, as we shall show, the interaction of
antagonistic tende