THE EVOLUTION OF BEAUTY. 



363 



either be equal or only equivalent, one being 

 long and slow, while the other is short and rapid, 

 the varieties of proportion in the latter case being 

 unlimited. 



Note what takes place in the growth of an 

 acorn. While it lies brown and dry upon the 

 earth, apparently lifeless and motionless, atomic 

 and molecular motions are unceasingly at work 

 among its tissues. This is proved by the fact 

 that if left dry too long the living forces will be 

 dissipated, the germ will perish and decay. But 

 the presence of moisture, and the communicated 

 energy of external heat, give rise to a recomposi- 

 tion of forces without dissipation. A wave of 

 high intensity and rapidly-increasing complexity 

 is originated. Surrounding waves of force are 

 absorbed into its vortex, and material molecules 

 are built up in the track of the advancing wave, 

 and of each unit in all its army of subsidiary 

 waves. The normal form of the great inclusive 

 impulse is such as to build up that material struct- 

 ure which we call an oak-tree, and nothing else. 

 The wave originated from a germinating acorn is 

 always of that form, and no other. Its subsidiary 

 waves, although unable to escape from the gen- 

 eral law impressed upon them by the primary 

 impulse, assert their individuality within that 

 limit, and are slightly modified at the same time, 

 as is also the primary itself, by surrounding re- 

 sistances and attractions. Hence the result that 

 no two oak-trees are precisely similar in details, 

 though identical in general plan. 



Of the three leading wave-types, by far the 

 most complex is the centripetal. This type is 

 especially associated with organic life. The pri- 

 mary impulse in every entire organism is of this 

 form ; so also are all the great subsidiary waves. 

 An organic being is a living and active centre, 

 around which force and matter are alternately 

 concentrated and dispersed. The normal life- 

 period of each organism depends upon the char- 

 acter of its primary centripetal force-wave ; and 

 the apex or grand climacteric of its life is the 

 point of greatest concentration, from which point 

 dispersion sets in, ending in partial or in total 

 dissolution. 



The subsidiary waves being also of the cen- 

 tripetal type, but of varied periods and intensities, 

 their climacterics are not synchronous, but suc- 

 cessive, so that nearly always some portions of 

 the organism are at their climax, while some are 

 tending toward decay, and others still developing. 



Among the characteristics of the organic cen- 

 tripetal wave there is one of peculiar significance. 

 It is this — that the necessary result of centripetal 



action is concentration, and concentration implies 

 the bringing into closer relations with each other 

 of elements which had previously been more 

 scattered. There is an important correlation be- 

 tween this process and our human senses. 



Organic development takes place by the pro- 

 cess of assimilation, by continually adding to the 

 original impulse the energy of surrounding mate- 

 rials, by complicating the primary wave with an 

 ever-increasing army of subsidiary waves. The 

 intense attractive power of the organic life-wave 

 has this especial capacity of accumulation and 

 concentration, which is continued until the whole 

 kinetic energy of the primary wave is changed 

 into the potential form. At this point reaction 

 sets in, and the descending phase of the wave 

 commences, accompanied by decay of the organ- 

 ism and redispersion of its constituents. 



During the career of the primary wave many 

 subsidiary waves of all ranks will have run their 

 course. In the life of a deciduous tree, the an- 

 nual wave, accompanied by evolution of foliage 

 and blossom, and leaving part of its energy stored 

 up in the seed, has almost a primary character, 

 though it is in fact a subsidiary of the larger 

 wave which carries the tree through many sea- 

 sons to its normal limit of growth. But it fur- 

 nishes also an analogy suggesting that even the 

 primary life-wave of the individual organism is 

 in truth subsidiary to a still larger and more in- 

 clusive wave controlling the development of the 

 species ; that each specific wave may be part only 

 of a generic wave, which in its turn may be in- 

 cluded in some wav^ of longer period and wider 

 sweep ; and that so all finite waves may, in their 

 ultimate relationships, be but ripples of the one 

 universal impulse. 



Organic growth is, then, always a process of 

 concentration, an accumulation of minute waves 

 of force, each accompanied by some particle of 

 matter. Of these minute waves many probably 

 run together, and form the subsidiary waves of 

 various ranks, while others remain distinct as 

 superficial undulations. The constant tendency 

 is to bring into relationship a vast number of 

 force-waves which were previously scattered. 

 These constituents are arranged, as they arrive, 

 first in a rough outline indicating the tendencies 

 of the primary wave ; and this outline is gradual- 

 ly filled up as force and matter are accumulated, 

 and drawn closer to the point of ultimate concen- 

 tration of the primary wave. 



In all developing organisms the order of 

 growth is from the general to the particular, from 

 the less to the more differentiated, from the scat- 



