CONFORMITY WITH PLAN 285 



THE CONCRETE SCHEMA OF FRAMEWORK-FORMING 



So long as we were dealing with framework-forming in 

 the central nervous system, insufficient knowledge reduced us 

 to conjecture. Fortunately, however, research in other fields 

 has advanced so far that it has surprised Nature in the very 

 act of forming framework. 



The body of animals is not merely a machine performing 

 none but mechanical actions ; it must perform many that 

 cannot be controlled in mechanical ways. Super-mechanical 

 actions of this kind are always required when framework 

 is formed anew ; and the framework already there is quite 

 incapable of this, in spite of all the physical and chemical 

 aids that the body has at its disposal. 



Growth by cell-division, which in all animals proceeds 

 in the same way, offers a super-mechanical problem of the 

 kind. At every cell-division the aim is for the mechanical 

 apparatus of the cell to divide itself into two parts, which 

 are equivalent to the first, since they in their turn must 

 again divide. 



The problem of constructing an apparatus capable of 

 dividing itself into two equivalent apparatuses, is technically 

 impracticable. No framework can be so built that it can 

 duplicate itself. By the function of a framework we always 

 understand its action in an outward direction. A framework 

 that dissolves or divides itself no longer fulfils a function, 

 but loses it altogether. But in cell-division a function is 

 required of the cell-apparatus that shall serve not merely 

 to divide the cell's own apparatus into two halves, but to 

 make these halves duplicate. 



The dividing cell does actually develop an apparatus of its 

 own that effects this duplication. This essentially super- 

 mechanical process has been laid bare down to the finest 

 detail, and appears to us so logical that scientific men as a 



