THE GENESIS OF LIVING ORGANISMS 203 



mission of shape from the germ to the body, we find ourselves 

 in the following dilemma. On the one hand, the roundness, 

 which is to arise from the position of the future body-cells, 

 can only be referred to a corresponding hidden framework 

 affecting the rudiments ; on the other, there can be no such 

 framework if roundness itself is an independent factor inter- 

 changeable with angularity. 



We are faced with a very remarkable fact. The coherence 

 of the body framework is not resident in the germ, but arises 

 from a number of independent factors having no firm connec- 

 tion in space but merely set alongside one another. This 

 fact seems no less mysterious, if we realise that every spatial 

 relation of the body is created by a special process (form- 

 process). It is true that the factors in the germ are not to 

 be regarded as direct representatives of the spatial relations 

 of the body, relations such as roundness or angularity, but 

 rather as the agents of these processes which connect together 

 the relations in the body. We may speak of certain substances 

 as releasing the processes determining forms ; but these must 

 take up a definite position in space with relation to one 

 another, if they are to effect the spatial connections, for 

 we know of no substance that can furnish mechanical unions 

 from out of itself. But the factors have the power to impart 

 to the material a mechanical framework by means of a form- 

 process, and there actually are factors for roundness, 

 angularity, jaggedness, and so on. 



The only agency that possesses the same power to release 

 form-processes, without itself being bound to a definite form 

 in space, is the agency of our impulses. They also are non- 

 spatial promoters of spatial, processes. As, in ourselves, 

 separate manipulations unite to form one action, so the 

 formative part-actions arrange themselves with relation to one 

 another until the act of genesis is complete. 



I set out to show that logical analysis of the facts estab- 



