ELEMENTS OF ORIGINALITY 187 



supply of food for the entire organism must meet this 

 disproportionate demand of the human brain and its 

 Z-system (demand determined by the constitution 

 of the Z-system and conveyed by heredity), but also 

 — and this is the significant thing — that the dis- 

 proportionate, prolonged, increased demand of the 

 brain and its Z-system means a repetition of the re- 

 actions that are involved in supplying the demand. 



In the infant organism, a reaction that at any time 

 is proper to the growing brain (and its Z-system) 

 corresponds to a certain set of reactions in the rest 

 of the organism. The exact relations that obtain 

 within the complex organism (a unit), provide that 

 during the period of growth a certain degree of maturity 

 or immaturity of one organ means the same, or a cor- 

 responding, degree of maturity or immaturity for all 

 other organs of the system. It follows that the repetition 

 of one kind of reaction of the growing brain and its 

 Z-system would mean a repetition of the corresponding 

 reactions in the rest of the infant organism. 



The repetition of reactions that necessarily atteiids 

 the repetition of brain {and its Z-system) reactions, in 

 that it multiplies the number of the same kind of re- 

 actions means the retardation of the rate of progression 

 of the total series of reactions that are proper to the 

 organism between birth and maturity. And the re- 

 tardation of the progression of the series of chemical 



