CONFORMITY WITH PLAN 309 



protoplasm with the power of performing a chemical tide- 

 change. 



If we continue to observe the laws that maintain in their 

 mutual dependence the indicators bordering the life-path of 

 an animal, we penetrate deeper into knowledge of the external 

 rhythm that influences the life-course. This law may con- 

 sist in the spatial connection of the indicators, and yet to 

 the animal this must appear as rhythm, because, as it moves 

 along, it comes in contact with these in time only. 



When the funnel-roller beetle cuts its precise mathematical 

 line, the several leaf -veins enter one by one into its surrounding- 

 world. The whole birch-leaf, which to us appears as a de- 

 finitely outlined object, is broken up for the beetle into a 

 number of indicators, which can be connected together in 

 time only according to a certain rhythm. The inner rhythm 

 must correspond to this external rhythm, if it is to control 

 the fixing of the sequence in which the indicators appear as 

 the leaf is cut through. Here, accordingly, the inner rhythm 

 controls the outer, for the path followed by the animal within 

 a group of indicators fixed in space is not given afresh each 

 time by these as they successively surge up ; the reverse is 

 true, for the inner rhythm itself consists entirely of sign-posts, 

 which are obliged to cover themselves with the indicators. 



The rhythm in which the effectors of the beetle work 

 has not been created from one action to another by the 

 sequence of the indicators ; it is- formed by the impulse- 

 sequence itself. The formula for the instinctive action 



f^^ E 

 ^. . R MO AO ^i2-T' 

 expresses this : — t ~ t "" ho ^ 



The presence of a firm external connection, of a spatial 

 or of a temporal kind, between the indicators, forms the pre- 

 liminary condition for every instinctive action. The in- 

 stinctive action can construct itself only on such a connection. 

 If this is present, then (after the first indication has given 



