CONFORMITY WITH PLAN 323 



that we are then still far from the attainment of a real survey 

 of the whole ; but we are on the way to it. 



Conformity with plan is never given us directly, but is 

 always yielded up to us. That is to say, it is our task to 

 discover it by studying the associations in the single instance. 

 That alone is biology. To deny conformity with plan is 

 certainly convenient, because it relieves us of this heavy 

 task ; but to act in this way is not scientific. 



THE PLANS 



The peculiarity of every plan that lies at the back of an 

 organism consists firstly in this, that it at one time finds 

 expression in influencing the shaping of the organism, and v 

 secondly, that it is manifest in the selection of the indicators 

 and their combination into an indication-tunnel. 



The first half of the plan forms in the animal's body the 

 pegs and sockets that fit into those of the indicators. The 

 second half itself selects and takes over the pegs and sockets 

 already present in the indicators, and, by fitting them in 

 with the sockets and pegs it has formed in the organism, 

 it connects them all into a unity, the indication-tunnel (or 

 surrounding-world) of the animal. 



It often happens that some property of an animal belongs 

 to one plan or to several, according to whether it is merely 

 a member of the organisation of the creature that bears it, 

 or appears as an indication in one or more of the other sur- 

 rounding-worlds . 



Perhaps the presence of the first half of the plan — that 

 which governs the shaping of the animal — will be accepted 

 without contradiction : whereas the second half — which 

 concerns the selecting of the indicators — may excite question. 



So long as we are unable to rid ourselves of the idea that 

 the plan is lodged, spatially, in the germ of the organism, 



